Political outsiders Donald Trump. Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are topping the GOP polls because their veteran Republican challengers are waging subpar campaigns, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, tells
Newsmax TV.
"They are the top three — three who never been elected to anything, two of them who have never run for anything," Kristol said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"It is kind of stunning the three … so far, at least have been better candidates than the actual elected senators and governors.
"The senators and governors, I’ve got to say, have underperformed — or maybe in the case of [Marco] Rubio performed adequately, [Ted] Cruz maybe, too — but they just haven't really stepped up their game."
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Kristol said the experienced candidates' lackluster performances have chugged along — and nobody has moved things up a notch.
"Everyone said, 'OK, it’s spring training, now they’re really going to come [on],' 'it’s the regular season, now they’re really going to take it up a notch' — and they haven’t. [That’s] one thing that’s contributed to the success of all three," he said.
Kristol is not sure he’d vote for Trump if the billionaire developer won the GOP nomination and ran against Hillary Clinton, although he emphasized he wouldn’t vote for the former secretary of state either. He said he wouldn’t rule out
voting for a third-party candidate.
Of Trump, Kristol said, "Bulls in the china shop are useful when you want to break the china, [but] at some point you do need to sort of sell the China, to use that metaphor....
"He can grow, he can change. I don’t mean to rule it out, but I’m dubious that he’s the best the Republican Party can do."