STATE OF THE PARTY – AT 9:56 A.M. ET:  Parts of the Republican Party are panicking over the possible nomination of Donald Trump.  But is their panic too late?  Or even put on?  From CNN:

Washington (CNN) The Republican Party is waking up -- but it might already be too late.

Donald Trump's stroll toward the GOP presidential nomination is starting to turn the denial evident for months among key party power brokers to desperation. The mood of some in the party was aptly summed up Thursday by Republican lobbyist and former congressman Vin Weber on CNN's "The Lead" with Jake Tapper.

"All of a sudden, everybody is saying 'Oh My God — the house is burning down we should have done something before it got this far,'" said Weber, who is supporting John Kasich in the presidential race and is calling on the party to unite behind the Ohio Governor.

Sen. Marco Rubio, who pulled out of the presidential race on Tuesday after failing to take down Trump, had a grim assessment of the Republican Party's state of play on his first day back at work in the Senate on Thursday.

"Hopefully there's time to still prevent a Trump nomination, which I think would fracture the party and be damaging to the conservative movement," Rubio told reporters.

Anti-Trump forces are getting a sense of the backlash they'd face if they deny him the nomination. Trump warned earlier this week on CNN's "New Day" that the convention could deteriorate into a "riot" if he is blocked from power.

And on Friday, a top Trump aide threatened to give up his credentials as a convention delegate and leave the Republican Party in a stark warning to the GOP about the "consequences" if Trump is blocked from the nomination.

COMMENT:  I think the party has finally realized that Trump plays hardball even if he's negotiating the purchase of a candy bar.  He is all hardball.  He is unlike the gentlemanly types who have often dominated the Republican Party – people who accept defeat graciously.  In that he is both an asset and a liability.  He fights hard, but he can be obnoxious.

The party will have to deal with it.  There are many meetings reported, but it's unlikely that a stop-Trump movement can be organized successfully around a single alternative candidate.  The obvious alternative is Ted Cruz, who is also disliked, intensely, by the party establishment.

March 18,  2016