Pence is the wild card here...he can't "go the distance" if the distance is in the rear view mirror
This all hinges on two things...if Pence convinces himself that he's "in it to win it," and if the RNC successfully medicates Trump prior to the debate tonight. There are two major flaws in both of those scenarios.
Pence may represent the worst of what we expect from the Republican party, but I don't believe for a minute that he is stupid. Even a guy like Ted Cruz isn't stupid...he's just thoroughly blinded by ambition. I don't think Pence has "Cruz Disease," I think he is smart enough to have witnessed the fallout from Cruz's "vote your conscience" stunt, followed by his endorsement of Trump, followed by "You-can-even-grab-them-by-the-p*ssy-Gate."
But Pence can't stay in the race for the "greater good" of the Republican party, he can't be "in it to win it," because Trump's not going to win it. We are at the point where Hillary Clinton would have to...in Trump jargon...walk up to someone on the street and shoot them in order to not win in a landslide.
Pence CAN'T "take one for the team" because there IS NO TEAM...there's just a snake pit of guys like Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus standing around trying to pretend that none of this happened, and that they can throw some kind of inconceivable Hail Mary Pass in the 11th hour.
If Pence were to walk away now, he could potentially salvage whatever is left of his political career. He could sit around the table with Reince and Paul and dream dreams of the shining city on the hill. If he stays in until November 8th, he's a disgraced footnote in political history.
Then there's Trump...what the hell will we be seeing tonight? In the first debate, he lasted ten minutes before coming off the rails. Tonight, he's not going to be in a stadium filled with white supremacists chanting his name and cheering his every word. He's going to be in a room filled with people that he probably loathes, for the most part, and they are going to have the sheer gall and audacity to actually ask him questions, and unless the moderators wimp out, they have the authority to challenge him on any unanswered questions or his attempts to duck them.
And that Bill Clinton thing? It is now a "non-starter," because no matter what happened in his past, there is not an Access Hollywood tape of Bill giggling over how he can grab women by the p*ssy and get away with it because he's Bill Clinton. Trump can't even tip-toe around the subject of sexual indiscretions and infidelity because he's a guy who "allegedly" attempted an act of rape in his own daughter's bedroom.
In the opening moments of the first debate, I wasn't sure of what was going on with Hillary. She smiled...no, beamed would be a more accurate description...through much of the early moments. I thought "What the hell is so amusing?" And in short order I realized that she knew Trump was going to step into the bear trap that he set himself. She did her debate prep, but she knew that no amount of prep in the world would be superior to letting "Trump be Trump," and ten minutes in, the big ugly emerged.
So tonight, she'll show up armed with that knowledge and experience, she will have done her own preparation, she'll be fully prepared to present herself as Presidential. And whatever she may think of the people in attendance, she will engage with them, answer their questions, treat them with respect, show a genuine interest in their concerns, while Trump's major success will be the degree to which he can hide his sheer loathing of anyone who is not Donald Trump.
If Pence watches this debate tonight and gets out of bed tomorrow morning and still considers himself to be the Vice Presidential candidate, I'll be surprised. Not shocked, because anything is possible, but he issued a statement against Trump's words, he bailed on the Wisconsin "event" (unless he was "uninvited" as well, I've seen no confirmation of that), and we are less than one month away from the single most embarrassing moment in the history of the Republican party.
Jeff Greenfield wrote the following on Politico about tonight's debate:
"The upside for Trump is that if—in this challenging arena—he can be a calm, reasonable advocate for new policies at home and abroad; if he can be gracious, even self-deprecating in the face of critical scrutiny; if he can display a sense of humor and a sense that he has ideas to meet the grievances that he has mined, he can erase the damage of that first debate, and begin to turn his campaign around.
And if my forehand was a bit crisper, I could be at Wimbledon next summer."
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/2016-election-debate-donald-trump-town-hall-214328
So yeah, if Trump could do all of that, he could pull what's left of the con from the fire, but it would still be too little, too late. This will be interesting, to say the least.
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