Posted on 09/05/2015 9:05:23 AM PDT by SamAdams76
The Donald is trumping his GOP competitors.
The billionaire real estate mogul has taken a rather shocking nine-point lead in a national poll of the hypothetical Republican presidential field, according to a new survey by Public Policy Polling.
Trump leads with 26 percent, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (17 percent), former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (15 percent) and ex-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (11 percent).
Rounding out the bottom of the list were former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (8 percent), Texas Rep. Ron Paul (5 percent), Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann (4 percent) and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (4 percent).
Trump, whose potential candidacy has for weeks had many pundits snickering, has ridden his loud but debunked concern that President Obama wasn't born in America to the top of the GOP heap.
Some believe that Trump fares so well simply because he enjoys much better name recognition than the other candidates.
Other critics speculate he is using his presidential bid for publicity, which the 64-year-old television host denies.
"The fact is a lot of people in the polls don't vote for me because they think I'm just having a good time," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday. "They think that I'm promoting 'Celebrity Apprentice,' which I'm absolutely not."
Trump said he'd make a decision about a White House bid by the summer, when his show wraps.
Public Policy pollster Tom Jensen doubts Trump will really make a go at the presidency.
"But if he doesn't, someone who taps into the same sort of hard, hard right sentiment he's appealing to right now will get their votes - it's hard to imagine these folks voting for a more centrist candidate like Romney or Pawlenty," said Jensen.
"And that means there's a very serious contingent within the Republican Party that's less concerned with beating Barack Obama than having a nominee who gets them fired up," he added.
Granted, it was in April 2011, before people really started talking about the election. But a bit of a shocker and shows that even four years ago, people might have been ready for a Trump presidency.
How quickly we forget!
Trump surge then was when he went birther, and Obama was forced for (I think) the first time to produce a purported birth certificate, at which point Trump got bored and moved on.
LOL . . when I finally realized this article was old and yet somewhat new . . had me shaking my head. lol
In order to insure further instability within the Republican ranks the “smarter than we are” geniuses at RNC are now looking to resurrect an certified loser in the person of Mitt Romney. Can there be any further expression of the party’s death wish or commitment to one world socialism?
At first I thought this was some sort of parody, then I realized there was nothing comical about it. Until this run, Trump was notorious for ‘making noises’ about running for the presidency. This is but one reason it’s taking a long time for folks to take him seriously. Donald is so good at bluster, but this time, I think he means it. I think even he is surprised at the density of his popularity.
Put it this way: If candidates were minerals; Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal would be Helium, Carly and Rubio would be Gold, Scotty Walker would be Mercury, Ted Cruz would be either Uranium or Lead, while The Donald would be Plutonium in it’s base form.
April 15, 20111?
Actually a future artice written some 18 centuries from now.
I think Trump was smart enough to figure out he couldn’t beat Obama. He’s shrewd.
I mean you have to be in a horrible position when Mitt Romney is seen as the candidate who will "save the day" for the establishment GOPe.
I remember Ronald Reagan's famous words "I never left the Democrat Party, the Democrat party left me."
Well I can honestly say that I'm in the same position with regard to the Republican Party.
Up until a few months ago, I always thought of Donald Trump as a joke. An overblown larger-than-life celebrity with a penchant for getting himself into the news or on TV. I never could have pictured myself supporting a Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, actually viewing him as a conservative, and wishing for the establishment Republican party to go into a death spiral so that something new can emerge from the party that will restore it to what it once was.
Yet here I am doing so. The world has definitely taken an interesting twist.
We also thought Obama was a one-term president and we were pretty confident that the GOP would nominate somebody that would beat him. It did not look like at that time that Mitt Romney was going to be the nominee. I think Mitt was back in the polls and not doing very well and we weren't that worried about him - at least not on Labor Day weekend 2011.
Mitt's nomination strategy turned out to be a good one. He sort of hung out in the back of the pack, posing as the responsible adult, while the rest of the Republicans fought each other circular firing squad style. Around January, he emerged from the dust cloud and waltzed to an easy nomination.
This appears to be the same strategy Jebbie Bush is taking. He's probably figuring on today's front runners running out of gas or otherwise destroying each other so that he can end up being the last man standing.
This is why Trump is being wise in attacking Jebbie and defining him as a "low energy candidate" without the passion or the fire in the belly required to effectively lead this nation. This is very effective and the reason that the GOPe are panicking and even considering bringing Mitt Romney to the rescue.
I was hoping Trump would run in 2012. I would have voted for him then. I’m certainly voting for him next year.
A very good synopsis. I always thought Mitt would have won with Palin running with him. Will never understand why he passed her by. Isn’t it strange how politics can just suck all the life out of us sometimes . . though not many of us can nurse our disappointments on an Hawaiian Island.
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