just days after donald trump showed faint interest in building broad-based republican support and house speaker paul ryan seemed averse to his party<u+2019>s nominee-in-waiting, the two have met and now there<u+2019>s talk of gop <u+201c>unity.<u+201d>









why this about face after a<u+00a0>couple of hours of face time in the nation<u+2019>s capital? because trump and ryan are numbers guys (one with real estate, the other with federal budgets).









and these numbers stand out: 93, 32 and 5.









in 2012, mitt romney reaped 93 percent of the gop vote. however, republicans constituted only 32 percent of the national electorate.<u+00a0>trump doesn<u+2019>t win in november without a better quantitative showing. and ryan could be back in the minority should trump lose by more than 5 percent in states with vulnerable republican congressman.









simply put, it<u+2019>s in both trump's and ryan<u+2019>s short-term interests to be cordial at a minimum, even while maintaining serious policy differences that aren<u+2019>t going away anytime soon despite this first attempt a little d<u+00e9>tente (you<u+2019>ll know it<u+2019>s a bromance if the hard-exercising ryan agrees to a round of golf; or trump goes bow-hunting in wisconsin).









despite the hoopla surrounding this meeting, it doesn<u+2019>t ensure republican <u+201c>peace in our time,<u+201d> as a failed british prime minister famously said. though trump has on occasion shown signs of a willingness to alter stances (most notably, the mass deportation of illegal immigrants), publicly acceding to a congressional agenda undermines trump<u+2019>s brand of anti-establishment and anti-status-quo thinking that warned him the party<u+2019>s nomination. just as ryan won<u+2019>t publicly give up on his conservative principles <u+2013> most notably: entitlement reform (which i<u+2019>d guess is the closed-door promise he<u+2019>s seeking from trump in exchange<u+00a0>for a public endorsement).









then again, would you rather be donald trump, trying to strike a deal with a practical fellow like paul ryan, or hillary clinton trying to come to terms with an irascible 74-year-old socialist?









the more primaries he wins, the more vermont sen. bernie sanders buys into the notion that he<u+2019>s on a mission. such self-deluded candidates don<u+2019>t retire from the field gracefully. good luck finding unity there. and good luck getting it<u+00a0><u+2014> without having to<u+00a0>further to socialist vision that work only in those<u+00a0>parts of america where whole foods and marijuana dispensaries are plentiful.









w.c. fields had it wrong: i<u+2019>d rather not be in philadelphia, where the democrats will convene for their national convention and try to settle their differences.<u+00a0>



















bill whalen is a research fellow at stanford university's hoover institution, where he analyzes california and national politics. he also blogs daily on the 2016 election at www.adayattheracesblog.com. follow him on twitter @hooverwhalen.
donald trump, paul ryan and gop 'unity.' it's all about the numbers, america
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