Because he keeps qualifying them with this "If the GOP treats me fairly" condition, which he refuses to define. Not that I would believe him if he made his claim a declarative statement without equivocation, but that stipulation is fourteen months pregnant with implied perfidious menace:
Donald Trump put it to rest – sort of – Monday night when asked by Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity whether he was planning to run as a third-party candidate if he doesn't get the Republican nomination for president.
"Absolutely not," Trump said.
But when Hannity asked whether Trump had any issues with the Republican National Committee, Trump pointed out that he currently leads in most of the polls.
"I will say so many people want me to run as an independent. I don't want to do that," he said. "Why would I do that? I'm leading by a big margin."... [emphasis added]
....for now. And when he no longer is? That's when his equivocations will activate.
But Trump also sounded like things could change if that respect doesn't continue.
"If I'm treated fairly and I get a good fair shot at this and I'm not, you know, being sabotaged with all sorts of nonsense and a lot of phony ads and they throw a lot of money into it," he said. "If I get a good, fair shot I would have no interest in doing that." [emphasis added]
In other words, if he's treated just like any other candidate, much less the guttertrash way that he's tearing into his competitors. He wants to be able to dish out the vilest insults, slurs, and mendacities with impunity and be immune from any opposition response of any kind, much less in kind. A stacked deck in his favor. And if the GOP doesn't give it to him - in essence, guarantee his victory - then Trump will heed the "will of the people" that he says he "doesn't want to do" (for now, anyway) and bolt and become Hillary Clinton's Ross Perot. I think that process will begin when he's challenged in the first primary debate next month and has the predictable angry meltdown, lashes out at his interlocutors, and his poll numbers start to erode.
That's why I say that the best way to handle Trump is to ignore him when you can and calmly put him in his place without responding to his biliousness in kind when you must: he's a provocateur. And the best way to defeat a provocateur is to not be provoked, and thus create the unfavorable contrast that is the downside of that strategy.
Kind of like starving a fever. Deny it fuel and it will eventually burn itself out.
Governor Walker appears to understand that. Whether the rest of the GOP field and the RNC do remains to be seen.
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