Like the ill-fated odd couple in "Thelma and Louise," Ted Cruz and John Kasich are poised to drive off a cliff in a GOP convertible, star columnist John Kass writes in Wednesday's
Chicago Tribune.
"By becoming Kasich's twin, Cruz hardly comes across as a brash Republican reformer," Kass says of the second- and third-place GOP presidential candidates who've formed an alliance in a bid to crush Donald Trump in three primary states.
"All the Cruz-Kasich alliance really does is make Trump appear stronger. And the wreckage at the bottom of this canyon is the Republican Party."
In "Thelma and Louise," the smash 1991 road movie starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, two desperate women on the run decide to end it all by holding hands and driving their convertible off a steep cliff.
"Cruz and Kasich are holding hands now, too, and driving off their own cliff in their awkward noncompetitive alliance …" Kass says.
"But it is clear that this Cruz-Kasich alliance isn't about defeating Trump at the polls, but stopping him at the convention, where party insiders will make their moves from the flanks, off camera.
"So what comes out of 2016? A new party, perhaps unrecognizable to the Republican establishment …"