Special to WorldTribune.com

It began as whispers in hushed corners: Could it ever happen? And now, just three months from the Iowa caucuses, members of the Republican establishment are starting to give voice to an increasingly common belief that Donald Trump, once dismissed as joke, a carnival barker, and a circus freak, might very well win the nomination.

“Trump is a serious player for the nomination at this time,” says Ed Rollins, who served as the national campaign director for Reagan’s 1984 reelection and as campaign chairman for Mike Huckabee in 2008. Rollins is not alone in his views. “Trump has sustained a lead for longer than there are days left” before voting begins in Iowa, says Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “For a long time,” Schmidt says, “you were talking to people in Washington, and there was a belief that there was an expiration date to this, as if there’s some secret group of people who have the ability to control the process.”

“I know all of us dismissed Trump, early on, all of the so-called experts,” Fox News’s Chris Wallace said Sunday. “‘Summer fling,’ ‘momentary amusement.’” But Wallace, who interviewed Trump late last week and aired portions of the interview on his show Sunday, said he finds himself feeling differently now. “As I watched that interview and I heard what he had to say . . . I am beginning to believe he could be elected president of the United States,” he said.

Wallace was struck by the sheer force of Trump’s personality, but there are other reasons to think he has a real shot at the nomination. Poll after poll this election cycle has registered the distaste of Republican voters for political experience; they prefer an outsider with a fresh approach to a battle-tested veteran. For instance, the latest survey from the Pew Research Center, published in early October, shows that by more than a two-to-one margin, Republican and Republican-leaning voters prefer a candidate with new ideas to one with a proven record. That’s a change: Republicans have traditionally preferred governors to senators, for example, because they prized their executive experience. And Pew notes that this is a shift in attitude that coincided with Trump’s ascension. “Just five months ago,” the polling company writes, “GOP voters valued experience and a proven record over new ideas, 57 percent to 36 percent.”

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  Horrors! GOP establishment realize Trump may actually win nomination, LIFE, WorldTribune.com