Barry Soper: Tough choices for US Republicans

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally at JetSmart Aviation Services. AP photo / Mike Groll

Surely Americans are today scratching their heads, or more likely pulling the hair out of them, when they consider who could possibly be leading them for the next four years.

On the left they'll have Hillary Clinton making her bid to get back into the White House, which surely must hold few pleasant memories for her.

In the unlikely event that Donald Trump's left leading the charge on the right, Clinton will be a shoo in because she'll not only have the women's vote, given her opponent's rightly deserved unpopularity with females, but will get a good slice of the male vote as well, given the general disbelief that the Republican vote's come to this.

It can come as no surprise to Trump that he's a turnoff for women and it's got little to do with the spider's web on top of his head.

It seems it's impossible for him to keep his mind above his belt and by the time he engages his brain his tongue has already done the damage.

Take the time he said that if his daughter Ivanka wasn't his daughter he'd be dating her - and,on another occasion, remarks about how beautiful she was and if he wasn't married and her father... and left the rest to our shocked imagination. If that wasn't bad enough, he once said about another baby daughter that she had her mother's legs and only time would tell whether she was as well endowed up top.

And there have been many other examples of why women won't vote for him, not the least his latest outburst that women having abortions should be punished.

The other choice for the Republicans is the evangelic Ted Cruz who as a teenager said he wanted to rule the world and as a Senator turned his colleagues off by reading children's books to them. At least he does have more political cred than a Trump cheque book.

But can you blame the Ohio Governor John Kasich staying in the race with the belief that he's the only grown up on the ticket?

The GOP is obviously ruing the day that the Republican door was ever opened to Trump. It now looks as though there'll be a rare contest at the party's convention in Cleveland in July where they could get to vote for a candidate, and possibly a new one altogether, all over again.

In that event, Trump has warned bad things will happen, saying there would be riots if he was dumped in favour of somebody else.

Perhaps you can now understand why 45 per cent of Americans didn't bother voting last time round.

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