MARK HALPERIN: Republicans are bracing for a wipeout. Here's who they'll blame if it happens

The political strategists I have known in my career are among the smartest, most interesting, most knowledgeable, and most impressive people I have ever met.

They are also capable of more white-hot animus for other people than anyone I have ever met.

And I am not talking about Democrats hating Republicans, or vice versa. That is frequently a manageable relationship. Sometimes they even share a corporate client.

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The disgust to which I refer is intraparty. That is when the hatred becomes unmatched by all other human relationships.

More than Glinda felt pure, unadulterated loathing for Elphaba at the beginning of "Wicked." More than a tenant despises her cruel and unusual landlord. More than the Red Sox detest the Yankees.

These folks are experts at circular firing squads and shooting off bazookas inside the tent.

Most political strategists detest two things: losing campaigns and losing money. The pair is connected. An election defeat can cost you your next client. Being blamed for an election defeat can cost you several.

There is, therefore, a substantial professional incentive to establish that the catastrophe was foreseeable, preventable, and definitely somebody elses doing.

With a few weeks to go before Election Day, Democratic strategists are feeling good or great, while Republicans range from uneasy and determined to absolutely horrible. The latter have begun rehearsing their recriminations with select audiences. Some of those audiences are reporters.

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The Democrats will not need a lengthy warm-up period if the election disappoints.

There are two parallel campaigns underway: the one to win the election and the one to win the argument about why it was lost.

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On the Republican side, the simplest argument is also the hardest to refute. One man controls the party, and his name is Trump.

His advisers can recommend a message, a schedule, a spending plan, or a period of blessed silence. They cannot guarantee delivery.

A Republican wipeout would thus produce a comprehensive Trump indictment: his unpopularity, his indiscipline, his economic decisions, his foreign entanglements, his familys enrichment, and his apparently inexhaustible interest in attaching his name to things. Trumps cheerleading for AI and data centers is hurting Republicans, too, alienating voters who see higher electric bills and threats to their jobs where he sees a glorious future.

The defense of the staff will be that they could not control him. The prosecutions response will be that taking responsibility for the consequences of not managing him properly was rather prominently included in the job description.

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There had been a plausible Republican case for optimism late last year. Democrat