Now that the smoke-filled room has become a thing of the past, there no longer is a venue where party bosses can hash out which policies and which candidates the party will support. If Republicans had had a smoke-filled room in 2016, in the camaraderie of whiskey and cigars, after haggling over cabinet posts, tweaking this plank of the party platform to the right and that plank to the left, and summoning into the fog pollsters and pundits, they would have made sure there was only one other Republican opposing Trump in the Primary.
And what other reason could there be, except for the lack of a smoke-filled room, for the Democratic leadership failing to reign in an over-populated Primary that Barry Obama recently characterized as “a circular firing squad?”
But, after all, why should we expect our political leaders to expose themselves to the toxins of smoke-filled rooms, to risk their lives for the sake of their party, when they are too fearful of risking their political careers for the sake of their country by fulfilling their constitutional obligation to rid the White House of a serial committer of misdemeanors?