Posted on 04/26/2011 9:28:40 AM PDT by jmaroneps37
The boomlet for Donald Trump as a Republican nominee for president of the United States ought to be a wake-up call for Republican candidates and Republican party leaders alike.
Why has Trump surged ahead of other Republican candidates and potential candidates in the polls? It is not likely that his resurrection of the issue of Barack Obama’s birth certificate has aroused all this support.
The birth-certificate issue does more political damage to Obama’s critics than to the president himself, because it enables the media to paint those critics as kooks. Nor are Donald Trump’s political positions such as to create a stampede to his cause.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Radio-talk-show host Mark Levin has rebroadcast Trump’s varied and mutually contradictory statements on political issues and personalities over the years. It was a devastating revelation of Trump’s “versatility of convictions,” to use a phrase coined long ago by Thorstein Veblen.
So then what is Donald Trump’s appeal? And why should it concern Republican leaders in general?
Trump has what so many other Republicans are so painfully lacking: the ability and the willingness to articulate arguments clearly, forcefully, and in plain English. Too many Republicans talk like the actor of whom a critic once said, “he played the king like he was afraid that someone else was going to play the ace.”
What electrified so many Republicans about Sarah Palin in the 2008 election campaign was that her speeches offered such a contrast to the usual mealy-mouthed talk common among other Republican candidates, including Sen. John McCain. Whether you agreed or disagreed with her position on the issues, you didn’t have to wave your hand in front of her eyes to see if she was awake.
Donald Trump is dangerous in at least two senses. If, by some tragic miracle, he should become the Republicans’ candidate for president in 2012, that would be the closest thing to an iron-clad guarantee of a second term in the White House for Barack Obama.
That would be a huge setback for the Republicans — and, far more important — a historic catastrophe for this country.
What seems more likely is that Donald Trump as a candidate for the Republican nomination would use his superior articulation skills — not to mention brash irresponsibility — to trash all the other Republican candidates for that nomination, leaving them damaged goods in the eyes of the public, and therefore less able to gather the votes needed to prevent the reelection of Obama.
Why Republicans seem not to understand the crucial importance of putting the same time and attention into articulating their positions as the Democrats do is one of the enduring mysteries of American politics.
It was obvious that the Democrats coordinated their talking points and catch-phrases — “social justice,” “tax cuts for the rich,” etc. — even before the overheard and recorded statements of Sen. Chuck Schumer about Democrats’ plans to repeatedly use the word “extreme” to characterize Republicans.
But how many Republican catch phrases can you remember? Republican rhetoric tends to range from low key to no key.
Nor is there much evidence that Republicans have asked themselves how the left wing of the Democratic party gained such ascendancy in recent years, in a country where millions more people identify themselves as conservative than as liberals.
In short, there is little or no evidence that most Republicans see any need to fundamentally change their approach to the public. But if they think that they can rely on Obama’s declining popularity to win the 2012 election, they may be in for a rude shock. Worse yet, the whole future of this country and of Western civilization will be in jeopardy — in a world where the likes of Iran and North Korea become nuclear powers while we engage in empty talk at the U.N.
Barack Obama’s declining support in public-opinion polls makes some conservatives feel that his reelection hopes are doomed. But Donald Trump can be Barack Obama’s secret weapon in his fight to remain in the White House. The Donald can be his Trump card.
Look I KNOW I'm supposed to bow and bless myself at the name of Thomas Sowell, because Rush has him on once in a while, but that's not happening anytime soon. This guy Levin and Tokyo Rove and Michael Steels are the ones who are wrong here. I don't like have people derailing my county and my family's future. Trump is the only Republican with a pulse and I'm with him. Sowell's just another NR online hack. Since no one else has I'll say it; by the time Trump gets finished with Obama we'll be able to pick a name from the phone book and beat him. That's a given. If he raises a BILLION dollars unless he goes door to door giving it to his mouth breathing followers it won't do him any good. The question now is who will do the job in the White House and so far NO ONE is near Trump on that one.
the usual mealy-mouthed talk common among other Republican candidates
Says it all. A dead party lead by Rove.
This article and others...as well as CNN, Comedy Central...and all the other state run media...are revealing who they truly are afraid of.
This guy must be one of the 38% who think Obama was definately born in the USA.
Have any of you Trumpsters actually listened to what Trump has had to say over the years? Do you no longer care anything at all about nominating a *conservative* candidate?
Sowell is exactly right here that what Trump has that most others are missing is (in my words) *balls*. That’s his one (two?) big advantage. But he’s just not a conservative.
We need a conservative candidate with Trump’s balls. But first and foremost, we need a conservative candidate.
The check pants, elitist Republicans (McCain, Rove, etc) in the GOP have never really been conservatives. This is why they attack anyone outside their Klan (think Palin, Trump and Bachmann) that are not afraid to ask tough questions, and want to change the current Internationalist establishment back to what made our Republic great.
This proves, yet again, that birthers aren't conservative.
A conservative accepts reality for what it is, something birthers seem incapable of doing.
I would vote for Donald Trump over Obama. Shoot, I would vote for PeeWee Herman, or Joe The Wino who lives in a cardboard box, over Obama. But here’s my question.
If Trump is our nominee, the Dems are sure to bring up his previous financial donations to liberal Democrats, his advocating of a government-run health care system, his calling GW Bush, the “worst president” in American history (before he gave this title to Obama). So how is Trump going to respond? Is he going to say, “Well, I’ve had a change of heart”, or “My positions have changed since I made those statements”? Imagine the ads the Dems are going to run against him.
R-i-i-i-i-i-i-g-h-t!
Spending a couple of million$ to keep my actual record secret is totally normal!
The Lamestream media has been so credible the last 3 years that we are actually buying the "up is down," "it's not Obama's fault," "left is right," "there is a definite recovery","gas prices are not so bad," "Home sales have recovered," "we have created 20,000,000 new federal jobs in the last three months!" "Obama has saved 7,500, 000 jobs in Venezuela," and "the CPI has increased by only 0.0016% in the last 6 monts," "What inflation?" "Food prices have actually dropped, if you account for the framistan redirection," and "Donald Trump is the best thing that ever happened to the 'Rats!"
Whew!
And here I was wondering what I was going to cut next to be able to afford food, gas and local, state and Federal tax increases.
When our Cobra premiums increased by 120%, we praised Hussein and promptly canceled it.
Things couldn't be better!
LOL. Some yokle crackpot is calling Thomas Sowell a "country club blue blood." Now I've seen everything.
Isn't that better?
Sowell's right about Trump and that 'Republican rhetoric tends to range from low key to no key'. We can do better than the Donald.
I call it Triangulating the GOP. Trump has changed the debate for the next 6-12 months, then back down as a Republican Candidate will come to the fore. In the mean time, everyone's talking about Trump's issues re Obama, leaving the eventual nominee "clean."
BRILLIANT!
No, it would not be normal if Obama were in fact doing it. The problem is, he's not. Amazing how you birthers just blindly accept whatever you hear without bothering to check facts.
Robert DeNero
Jerry Seinfeld.
CNN comes out with lies
Lowly Shep Smith
He attacks them, I love it.
“We need a conservative candidate with Trump’s balls. But first and foremost, we need a conservative candidate.”
Great! Duncan Hunter was who I supported last time, and he got less than 1% of the vote in the primaries. So look who we’re stuck with for POTUS!
Find us this “conservative with Trump’s balls”, and we’ll support him. Meanwhile, Trump is the best we’ve got.
LMAO...
Okay Obama spends millions of dollars to HIDE his long form birth certificate, school records, employment records and medical records. All he has to do is spend $10 or so and release it to the public to end all his court battles. It does not add up! Why would spend millions of dollars when it can be resolved with $10 or so dollars.
Most employers would put up with this during a security background check. I KNOW you already know this. They are not going to take you just for your word. They have to see it. Call trust but verify.
I think you change your name to “Status Quo” since you have no “Cuiosity” in the truth..... LOL!
Donald Trump is dangerous in at least two senses. If, by some tragic miracle, he should become the Republicans’ candidate for president in 2012, that would be the closest thing to an iron-clad guarantee of a second term in the White House for Barack Obama.
That would be a huge setback for the Republicans — and, far more important — a historic catastrophe for this country.
What seems more likely is that Donald Trump as a candidate for the Republican nomination would use his superior articulation skills — not to mention brash irresponsibility — to trash all the other Republican candidates for that nomination, leaving them damaged goods in the eyes of the public, and therefore less able to gather the votes needed to prevent the reelection of Obama.
On the first point, I'm not so sure he wouldn't beat Obama. The Donald has an uncanny ability to draw in the listener and sell them whatever he is selling (for better or worse), and he's one of those guys that you try hard not to like, but in the end, find yourself nodding and smiling as he talks. He could win over independents, I think.
On the second point, I share his concern, but if the other candidates learn from him and approach their campaigns the same way Donald is approaching his, it could work in their favor instead of as a detriment. Plus, so far, Trump has been relatively complimentary at least to Palin and Huckabee, Romney, well, not so much, but anything that knocks Romney out of first place is OK by me.
$12 and Obama would have settled the issue...
You are the crackpot if you don’t see that there is something fishy here...
No college records, no school records, no work records, no info on why he is NO LONGER A LAWYER (lost his law license, so did moochelle)
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