Free Republic

... [I]s it actually the case that people who proclaim themselves so loudly and so often to be winners actually succeed the most? My research into business leaders suggests they don’t. On the contrary, it suggests that such bombast is one of a slew of behaviors embraced by spectacularly unsuccessful business executives. Unfortunately, many of these habits are part and parcel of the Trump leadership playbook. For my book "Why Smart Executives Fail," I interviewed some 200 people at 50 companies to learn why some people in business don't merely lose, but lose big. I discovered an interesting pattern: Spectacularly...

There's a reason why Donald Trump is taking his loss in Iowa so hard - it's been devastating to his national standing. His standing in the polls might already be falling like a rock, and now it appears that the rolling concert tour that was his national campaign might be coming to an end. Now comes pretty convincing evidence that his crowds are shrinking, and he's trying to hide it (poorly). Trump was in Little Rock last night, and he tweeted a picture that seemed to show a typical Trump full house, and that specifically claimed that the crowd was...

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says Sen. Ted Cruz is a "total liar" for labeling him an advocate of expanded Obamacare or universal national health care along the lines being touted by democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential contest. During an appearance on ABC's This Week on Sunday Trump insisted he would dismantle the Affordable Care Act if he is elected president and stressed that he doesn't favor a "single payer" universal government program that essentially would provide Medicare coverage for all. Yet despite the blustery real estate tycoon's protests about Cruz's characterizations, Trump espoused a form...

There's a truism amongst fighter pilots: you can't fake it at 500 knots and enemy fire all around. One's real character emerges. That's what's happening as the presidential race has begun. Real results - not polls - are now being felt, and Donald Trump, who beat his chest as the inevitable victor in the polls, is revealing his true character - as is Ted Cruz, who surprisingly bested him in the first live battle, the Iowa caucuses. As the caucuses commenced, Cruz was accused of maliciously reporting that candidate Ben Carson was dropping out of the race. That would help...

As far as I can tell, Donald Trump's grieving process works more or less completely in the reverse order from what you would expect from a rational human being. Immediately after the event, Trump was more or less in acceptance mode, saying he was proud of finishing second, he loved the people of Iowa, he was going to come back and buy a farm there. Then he went into depression, secluding himself for an uncharacteristically long time from twitter and the media. Working backwards, he skipped over bargaining and went straight to anger, blaming the media and their unfair treatment...

I've knocked around Rand Paul quite a lot over the last year-plus, and I think most or all if it was well-deserved (I've also, it should be noted, praised him a few times as well, when he deserved it). But Paul's decision to drop out of the race today (before New Hampshire) in order to help unify the party to defeat Trump, shows that he, like Scott Walker, is a true Republican who believes in conservative principles, and for that he should be commended. See, there are two types of people who call themselves Republicans. The first are those who...