Pro-war pundit Bill Kristol is disgusted about Donald Trump being the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Indeed, Kristol has even been searching for someone to launch an independent or third-party campaign to counter Trump.
Last weekend Kristol stirred up some interest with a tweet that “an independent candidate–an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance” would emerge. That hasn’t happened yet. But, Mark Halperin and John Hellemann report today at Bloomberg that Republican sources say Kristol is trying to recruit National Review writer David French to launch an independent presidential run and that, while French is open to the idea, French has not yet made up his mind.
David French is not a household name like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Still, French and his take on the presidential race have not escaped the interest of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI).
On May 10, I wrote about French in my RPI article “Anti-Trump Republicans to Hijack Libertarian Party Presidential Nomination?” In the article, I discuss French’s yearning, shared with Kristol, for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to enter the 2016 presidential race as an independent or third-party candidate.
The article also addresses French’s advocacy for the Libertarian Party to nominate a presidential candidate to French’s liking, with French even suggesting that Gary Johnson, who since won the Libertarian presidential nomination on Sunday, may satisfy French. Well, if the Bloomberg report is correct, for some reason Johnson may not to be satisfying enough.
Let’s wait and see what happens. French has not announced a campaign, and Kristol is notorious for making predictions that are off the mark. Ron Paul likely correctly called the situation when he said in a recent Fox Business interview:
I think what the neocons will do — the Bill Kristols of the world — and you hear it already, they are going to go with Hillary. Hillary is a Wall Street person, she’s a neocon, and she wants to spend money on the military, so a lot of them will go there.
