Posted on 03/30/2011 7:58:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Out political Quote of the Day comes from The Daily Beast columnist and CNN analyist John Avlon who notes that Donald Trump had a real change to run as a kind of CEO politician but has blown it in favor of assuming a birther identity — and now resembles someone famous for being a showman and a hype:
"There is a place for a CEO presidential candidate in 2012. So far, Donald Trump isn’t filling it.
Instead of focusing on his executive abilities and job-creating experience, The Donald has been busy going the full Birther.
It’s hard to tell whether he’s freelancing or just very badly advised, but one thing is clear—Donald Trump is trying to apply New York City tabloid rules to a prospective national presidential campaign. This ain’t going to end well.
Relentless self-promotion and shock-jock soundbites might get you headlines, but it won’t get you taken seriously. That helps when you want to be trusted with your finger on the button.
And pandering to the lowest common denominator of the electorate isn’t going to get this self-styled symbol of America’s super-rich confused with a conservative populist.
They’re still going to know that you live in New York City in a gleaming gold office tower and fly in a private plane with your name on the side. Parading common conspiracy theories isn’t the same as sharing values. And even a cursory glance at the Trump biography would show that he doesn’t have any business going after the values vote. This is pandering for no purpose.
The irony is that there is a tradition of CEO political candidates that Trump could semi-credibly try to fill. It is a path that Wendell Wilkie walked to win the GOP presidential nomination in 1940. It is the appeal that led to “Draft Lee Iacocca” efforts in 1988 and the independent candidacy of Ross Perot in 1992. Its most successful modern practitioner is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg."
He details what a CEO political candidate means and all the skills this kind of candidate brings that could appeal to the electorate. Then he writes:
Because Trump enjoys high-name ID courtesy of reality TV, his prospective presidential candidacy registered 10 percent in a recent CNN poll. When asked about the Libyan intervention, Trump couldn’t resist bragging about how he’d “screwed the guy”—in a business sense, of course. Enough about questions of war and peace, let’s talk about me.
This has all the heraldry of a publicity stunt. But political consultants, smelling a multimillion-dollar payday, are circling, encouraging a presidential run. In the process, an office that Trump might actually have a shot at winning—like running for mayor of New York in 2013—gets more distant by the minute.
Trump’s presence as the most prominent Birther in the GOP consideration set only highlights the clownishness that pervades today’s presidential campaigns. For too many, it’s not seen as serious civic service but a self-aggrandizing, headline-grabbing career move. In this sense, Trump’s real political forebear isn’t Ross Perot or Mike Bloomberg—it’s a one-time mayor of Bridgeport named P.T. Barnum.
Avlon is correct: it’s a lost moment in history, lost forever, just as Ross Perot lost his moment where he looked like a credible candidate by quitting and then babbling about how George H.W. Bush partisans were going to disrupt his daughter’s wedding….lost just as Democrat Mario Cuomo lost has chance decades ago to get the Democratic Presidential nomination by pondering and pondering and pondering and agonizing so much analysts compared him to Hamlet.
Trump is no Hamlet. Just a ham.
Once an image is destroyed, it’s hard to repair it. Richard Nixon was able to do it in the 1960s by going on Laugh In, smiling and playing the piano on late night shows.
But when Trump not just dipped his toe into birtherism but dove into it headfirst he destroyed his image — except among the birthers. Goodbye forever independent voters.
But, most likely, hello more big bucks on his TV shows, books, speaches and lots of ink, bandwith (like this post) and TV face time.
BONUS: As usual, we will include a song that seems fitting for the birthers. This sounds like birthers thinking about trying to find evidence that Obama was born in Kenya. Listen to the lyrics:
(VIDEO AT LINK)
The Left is now officially afraid of Trump. They still fear Palin more, but Trump is making in-roads on Obama’s flimsy personal history. The Left is sweating.
Where's the MF'n BC BeeHatch?
The rule of law is not a side-show curiosity like the big fat lady or something, and anybody too stupid to realize that should not be writing articles.
I see drivel like this and it makes me all the more determined to fight until we win.
Thanks, media lackeys, for being so motivational. lol
Birther = one who is Pro Constitution.
Birtherism? Is that really supposed to be a word?
Funny how the liberal, elitist weenies don’t seem to understand the simple concept of, “put up or shut up”, or what calling someone’s bluff is.
Too bad for them, the American people understand it all too well.
Trump is going to have to do better than he did on O’Reilly’s show.
He needs to do the research and back up his claim.
“Too bad for them, the American people understand it all too well”
Yep and the birther thing is getting him all the free TV exposure he can handle.
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