Who's in charge? Party leaders or voters?

With Super Tuesday in the rearview mirror, Currents political analysts Alan Novak and T.J. Rooney discuss whether the nomination die is now cast for both parties.

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Novak: It's pretty obvious that Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee. Bernie Sanders is a leader of a movement, a thought-provoker, but at this point, I don't think he is going to come after her hard. On the Republican side, Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. I think too many things have to happen with too many people still in the field. After Tuesday, Ted Cruz thinks he's the legitimate number two, but he may have had his best run of states. Marco Rubio could still win in states that are coming up, but the conversation is starting to shift into this strategy of a brokered convention.

Rooney: For Clinton, the feel is much different from 2008. The challenge from Sanders has been good and will continue to be good. At times we talk about whether primaries are a good thing or a bad thing. In this case, I think it is absolutely a good thing for our party. Sanders continues to play an important role in shaping the dialogue and making Clinton a stronger candidate with a more finely honed message. On the other side, it remains different and fascinating. Trump is certainly on the path to the nomination, but we will continue to see Republicans of all stripes, from the statehouse on up, express concerns about a candidate who is so fatally flawed.

Novak: He is, but I am concerned about the brokered-convention scenario. Part of me says that, even if you don't like the guy, if he wins under the rules of the process you don't change the rules at the end. The Republican political class has demonstrated that they are way out of touch with what's going on out there. If what's really going on is a political realignment, and if Trump has tapped into new Republican Party voters — the folks that feel like the donors, leaders, and elected officials don't represent them well — then where do those folks go if you take Trump away from them? I am hesitant to disenfranchise voters that came out in larger numbers. All that strategy does is feed into the notion that the political class only cares about themselves.

Rooney: The ramifications of Trump being the nominee have a whole lot of folks concerned and with good reason. If you are seeking any office in any state, Trump is going to have a profound impact on your race. I know we are not living in conventional times, but when you take just a fraction of what Trump has said during the course of this campaign, there is enough fodder to run three campaigns against him.

You can take it to the bank that those shortcomings are not going to be glossed over by the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or any state legislative campaign committee. If you are a Republican running for the state house, even in a safe district, you can absolutely expect to see your photograph and Trump's photograph on the same piece of literature. That is what has people wondering if, for the sake of the party, there should be a plan to make sure Donald Trump is not the nominee.

Novak: If the rules as we knew them, and the voting behavior that we knew in the past, were actually playing out right now, I would buy into what T.J. just said. What I am suggesting is that the rules aren't the same. When the right-track, wrong-track numbers are so demonstratively wrong track; when people come out in the thousands to see Trump and Sanders at events; and when voters are showing up in primaries that they don't typically turn out for — there's something going on.

If there is anything pundits, pollsters, party leaders, and elected officials have miscalculated, it's how people feel. The risk of knocking Trump out of the nomination, which all these voters will think he won fair and square, is to lose those people forever.

I have always liked the idea of bringing new people into the party. The people that I know who are supporting Trump are people I respect. They are hardworking, small-business people who are engaged now because they don't like what the political parties have given them over the last several years — Republican or Democrat. The difficult choice that the Republicans will have to make is to try to unify around Trump — or try to deny him the nomination. Either way, there are tough consequences.

Last week I said the party is now the people. This is the test. Is the party the "leaders" or is the party the people who vote?

Rooney: The idea of Trump today is one thing for a lot of Republicans. The idea of Trump three months from now is another thing.

Let's say that Trump becomes the Republican nominee. He's not going to be able to say he had earwax to dial back the fact that he didn't disavow David Duke. He is going to be portrayed in real light. He is going to be described differently. He's going to be viewed by the American people in a few months differently than he is viewed today.

Republicans rarely lose double-digit percentages of their base after the nomination, but I would bet the ranch that Trump as the Republican standard-bearer will lose such a huge share of Republicans that mathematically there is no other place to go. He is certainly not going to make it up with African Americans, Latinos, Asians, or women.

When he owns the Republican Party — and the nominee owns the party — members of that party who are seeking other offices end up owning everything he has said. That is the calculation that has some Republican friends of mine wondering if it's worth blowing up the train to save the party or do we let this person go and drive it into the ground on his own.

It's not like Trump is going to ratchet back the crazy. As he will tell you, what you see is what you get.

Alan Novak (alan@rooneynovak.com) is a former chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania. T.J. Rooney (tjrooney@rooneynovak.com) is a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. They are principals of RooneyNovak Group Bipartisan Solutions and appear together regularly to discuss political issues and debate policy.