Years ago, I was having problems with the cable and for the fourth or fifth time in a month I found myself on the phone with the cable company. The customer service woman had me push some buttons, reboot the box and report back the results. We did this a few times without success.

After the the fourth or fifth time I finally asked her why she thought another reboot would have a different result than the previous reboots. To her credit, she said she had no idea, but it was the only option she had to help me. I wondered at the time how long we would have gone on rebooting if I had not broken the loop.

I decided to cancel the cable at that point. She may not have had choices, but I had options. That event came to mind reading this story about the GOP in the Tidewater trying to run the same old scam on Trump that Fox tried during the debate.

Republican leaders in two states reportedly are plotting to make presidential candidate Donald Trump’s quest for the GOP nomination a lot harder.

Party leaders in Virginia and North Carolina told Politico.com that they are considering a push to require candidates entering their respective Republican primaries to pledge their support for the eventual nominee and not run a third-party candidacy — a pledge Trump, the current frontrunner, would not make when asked to during the Fox News debate earlier this month in Cleveland.

“Anybody who wants to seek the Republican nomination should have to commit to supporting the ultimate Republican nominee,” Virginia’s former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli told Politico. “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Republican party officials in North Carolina announced a similar proposal, and told Politico they already are in talks with lawyers to draft language for a provision that asks each candidate to support the GOP nominee.

“Everything is on the table,” an official told Politico.

Party leaders in North Carolina and Virginia say they hope their ballot proposals will help convince the billionaire businessman to fully commit to the Republican Party.

The primary requirements must be submitted to the Republican National Committee by Oct. 1, Politico reports.

“Ballot access usually is regarded as a party function,” former RNC Chief Counsel Tom Josefiak told the website. “It definitely would be left up to the state party to decide how it’s going to operate.”

This is just the party pushing the same button and hoping this time they get a better result. Fox News and the GOP schemed for a month about how to box in Trump on this issue and they came up with the very lame hand raising business to start the debate. That was a flop with the voters and failed to accomplish anything. I guess we can expect state party dimwits to push the same button over and over now, thinking this time is the charm.

What we are seeing here is something you hear in sports all the time. Pressure reveals character. It’s easy to be a principled man when there is nothing at risk. Sticking to your guns when you are at great personal risk is a different matter altogether. More than a few “honorable” men have been revealed as something less when faced with real risk.

The Republican Party and its media wing are being squeezed by their donors on the one side and their voters on the other. This is not unusual as rich people try hard to buy politicians from all parties. A fundamentally sound party can rely on its organizing principles to strike a balance. Right now the party and its media arm are lurching about from one crackpot scheme to the next, unmoored from anything resembling principles.

Similarly, the media wing of the party is struggling to mount an affirmative argument in favor of their team. Instead we have been treated to childish rants that resemble a baby banging his rattle on the high chair. I used to enjoy reading some of them. Now, I’m embarrassed for them. I get the sense, reading the comments in these rants about Trump, that I’m not alone. A lot of people are learning the meaning of myötähäpeä.