Dead Tree Alert: The Trump Primary

Time Magazine ^ | December 8, 2011 | James Poniewozik

[2ndDivisionVet]

To the list of absolutely crucial wedge issues distinguishing the Republican primary candidates, this week added a new one: What is your position on Donald Trump? In my latest TIME column (subscription required), I look at the latest step in the reality-TV-ification of the Republican primary—Trump’s plan to moderate a GOP debate later this month—and how it reflects the bifurcated race between (for now anyway) “frontrunner” Newt Gingrich and “favorite” Mitt Romney.

Gingrich and Romney’s responses to the debate offer showed the difference between their style and their political positioning. Gingrich accepted almost instantly, seeming to relish what a hoot appearing on “Apprentice President” would be. This underscored, first, that Newt Gingrich loves to argue. He owes his rise in the polls not just to the collapse of all the other anti-Romney candidates but to a string of widely well-reviewed debate performances, appealing to Republicans who really want someone to tear the hide off Obama on a debate stage. Gingrich is the debate candidate. He will debate anyone, anywhere about anything. He is to debating what Sesame Street’s Count is to counting. You meet him in line at Starbucks, and he will challenge you to a three-hour Lincoln-Douglas-style debate over half-and-half vs. 2% milk.

Moreover, Gingrich’s acceptance seemed to be a nod to the segment of the Republican base that loves Trump, or, at least, hates the pundits and political establishment figures who hate Trump. Gingrich’s other calling card has been as the debate candidate most willing to attack the traditional-media moderators, so it figures that he would jump to attend a debate with this very non-traditional moderator. Does it risk making him look like a joke, by association with a guy who’s spent most of the year making politics into a joke?

[2ndDivisionVet]

If the elites and presstitutes are against something, we should naturally be for it.

[Realness]

nonsensical divisiveness.

[TrueKnightGalahad]

TIME MAGAZINE: Dead brain alert.

[Dr. Sivana]

I’ll take him on if I can defend half-and-half.

[Dr. Sivana]

I am not a big fan of Time, but this was well put:

Romney, meanwhile, turned down the debate this week in a very Mitt-Romney fashion. He made a bold statement of personal principle, after a four-day pause so that he and his advisers could carefully determine what his personal principle was.