09-20-2016, 05:58 PM
Quote:Many Republicans have lamented some aspect of Donald Trump’s campaign. The party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, doesn’t like that Trump is a “fraud.” House Speaker Paul Ryan has objected to Trump’s “textbook” racism. Less exalted members of the party have cringed at his bigotry or flimflam or utter lack of principle.An Ex-Republican in Iowa Tells All - Bloomberg View
But almost no Republican office holder or leader has done what veteran Iowa State Senator David Johnson has. In June, he quit the party. No groundswell followed him. Trump’s emergence, Johnson said, “required somebody in elected office as a Republican to reject the party. He’s now the standard-bearer of the party. I can’t be a member of a party where the man who leads the party has this abysmal record in this campaign.”
Johnson is hardly alone in finding Trump “a cancer on conservatism,” as former Texas Governor Rick Perry memorably called him before deciding that maybe cancer wasn't so bad after all and endorsing him.
But no GOP member of Congress has quit the party of Trump, and state office holders are staying put, as well. Johnson’s experience won’t encourage followers. “I’ve been so roughed up by the Republican establishment,” he said. “I’m going to find it very difficult to change my registration back to Republican. Which to me is really a difficult choice.”