Headline: Cruz and Kasich devise strategy to keep Trump from clinching three primary states

The campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich released written statements within minutes of each other Sunday night calling for Kasich to effectively stop competing in Indiana and for Cruz to clear the way for Kasich in New Mexico and Oregon. They called on allied third-party groups to do the same.

Guys, this shows you can’t even run political campaigns sensibly. Once you recognized Trump as the biggest loudmouth and threat in the field, you should have gotten moving. As it is,

Trump currently leads the Republican race with 845 delegates, according to the latest Associated Press count. Cruz has 559, and Kasich is much further back, with 148. To win the nomination outright, a candidate must clinch 1,237 delegates.

If you keep him from getting to 1,237 but he’s within 100 or so, do you really think he’s going to quietly go away? The man doesn’t do quiet.

If the party tries to prevent his nomination on spurious grounds, it’s going to destroy itself entirely. Trump’s supporters are furious with the Republican elites as it is; that’s why they’re voting for him. He represents something other than the usual “cut taxes, spend on the military, pay lip service to the social and cultural wars” candidate the party has been putting forward for years. If the party deprives him of the nomination by twisting the rules around, it’s going to lose those voters forever, and the inside of the hall in Cleveland where the convention is to be held will turn into a figurative bloodbath.

Please do that.