The winnowing is really going strong at the moment. In the past couple of weeks, the Republican nomination race has said goodbye to Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina. I can't remember when George Pataki quit because I'm not sure he was really running in the first place, and don't get me started on Lindsey Graham.
But we're basically down to Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Bush and Kasich. And each candidate is going to try to stand out from the crowd by embracing issues that he feels will appeal to the largest group of voters. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what I did with 9-9-9. Of course, it wasn't just a maybe-this-will-work thing. I believed in the plan and thought it was just what the country needed (and for what it's worth, I still do).