I’ve never seen a lede buried by putting the entire text of the story inside of it. But this reunited nut is precisely why Trump resonates and the rest of the GOP’s favored class can’t lay a hand on him:

The scenario Karl Rove outlined was bleak.

Addressing a luncheon of Republican governors and donors in Washington on Feb. 19, he warned that Donald J. Trump’s increasingly likely nomination would be catastrophic, dooming the party in November. But Mr. Rove, the master strategist of George W. Bush’s campaigns, insisted it was not too late for them to stop Mr. Trump, according to three people present.

At a meeting of Republican governors the next morning, Paul R. LePage of Maine called for action. Seated at a long boardroom table at the Willard Hotel, he erupted in frustration over the state of the 2016 race, saying Mr. Trump’s nomination would deeply wound the Republican Party. Mr. LePage urged the governors to draft an open letter “to the people,” disavowing Mr. Trump and his divisive brand of politics. The suggestion was not taken up. Since then, Mr. Trump has only gotten stronger, winning two more state contests […entire rest of story…]

On Friday, a few hours after Mr. Christie endorsed him, Mr. Trump collected support from a second governor, who in a radio interview said Mr. Trump could be “one of the greatest presidents.”

That governor was Paul LePage.

The jig is up, fellas. Literally everyone, even your studiously misled base that you’ve cultivated for decades, is intimitely familiar with your game, knows it on sight, and unless and until you set it aside, Trump will continue to rule your world.

Inside the Republican Party’s Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump