Posted on 02/02/2016 8:57:16 AM PST by conservativejoy
Donald Trump does everything in a big way. Even losing. Not only did he lose to Ted Cruz in Iowa, but he came very close to a humiliating third place behind Marco Rubio. As recently as yesterday Donald Trump was saying he wanted to win in Iowa, and if he didn't, that it would all have been a big waste of time.
"Unless I win, I would consider this a big, fat, beautiful-and, by the way, a very expensive-waste of time," Trump said this weekend, speaking to supporters during a whirlwind tour of Iowa.
Well, I guess it was a big waste of time, then. But why exactly did Donald declare political bankruptcy in Iowa?
1) The Shamu-Seaworld effect. Trump had big crowds, the largest, at his rallies. What happened to all these people? Big crowds also used to go see Shamu the Killer Whale at SeaWorld. That didn't mean, however, that most people there wanted to see Shamu elected mayor of Orlando. They went there to be entertained. There was a recent estimate that only 8% of attendees at Trump rallies were planning to caucus for him.
2) Lazyness. Donald Trump was too lazy to campaign the traditional way, avoiding bus tours, small towns, and one on one meetings with voters. Instead he flew in on Trump Force One, spoke for an hour, and then flew home to his bed in New York. He felt he didn't have to follow the traditional rules of campaigning because he was Donald Trump. In a state where personal contact with the candidate is expected, Trump was wrong.
Not only was Trump lazy, but his supporters were lazy, perhaps taking a cue from their idol. On websites they would yell in all caps "TRUMP WILL WIN! TRUMP WILL WIN!" but they were so busy jamming down their caps lock key that many of them didn't even bother to vote. It was said that a record turnout would guarantee a Trump victory. There was a record turnout all right, but it was a record turnout for Ted Cruz.
3) A lack of ground game. Trump and his campaign manager, Corey "The Big Lebowski" Lewandowski never identified supporters. They never set up substantial phone banks. They never followed and tracked their followers. When reporters went to the field offices of all the campaigns, they were only excluded from the Trump offices, because there was nothing for them to see. Had Trump deigned to actually run a ground game, he might have won the caucuses. You have to wonder, if he is so lacking in political acumen to understand this, how lacking in political ability is he going be if he wins the White House?
4) Arrogance. Trump, so buoyed by the polls, wore his arrogance on his sleeve. He said Iowans were stupid if they didn't vote for them. He called Megyn Kelly a bimbo indirectly, and tried to be cute about it by saying "I would never call her a bimbo, but..." It wasn't cute at all, it was disgusting. He even said he could shoot people and not lose support. That's the language of a Kim Jong Un, not the President of the United States. And then Trump showed his disdain for the entire process by skipping the last debate. His arrogance was his undoing.
5) Attacking conservatives. Trump turned off a lot of conservatives (including Mark Levin, Rush, the National Review, and others) by attacking Ted Cruz from the left (for not supporting ethanol) and in vicious, personal terms, calling Ted Cruz a "Canadian anchor baby". There is a way to campaign against Ted Cruz but calling him a "maniac" for standing up to Mitch McConnell is not that way. Once it became clear that Trump was attacking Cruz from the left, he lost a lot of conservative support.
So who, then, are actual Trump supporters? They are a much smaller number of people than originally thought. Like Ron Paul supporters from 2012, they dominate chatrooms and online polls, but like vampires can't be seen in the light of day. They are followers of the cult of personality and turn on a dime as Trump commands: if one day Trump says he wants Megyn Kelly out of the debate, they agree; if the next he says he never demanded it, they engage in immediate 1984 groupthink, and say it never happened, just like Trump's liberal political past never happened or never mattered because he was liberal as a crony capitalist "businessman". Unfortunately, his followers, while devoted, are not large enough in numbers to get him elected President.
The fact that Donald Trump doesn't understand any of his missteps or the effect of his slash and burn rhetoric reflects a political autism that makes him unqualified to be president or even the GOP presidential nominee. (Abridged version originally published in American Thinker)
BUMP
Not really. He shut it down before campaigning.
Trump spent a lot of money on an Iowa ground game, only ignoring it more recently.
And somebody spent millions advertising for Trump in Iowa. Who was it?
Trump’s style of campaigning is fine for normal states, but not for Iowa where people expect to be wooed, cuddled and coddled for months. He tried to change that, and it didn’t work. Skipping the debate probably cost him some votes, as did his incessant attacks on Cruz. But, for all of his mistakes, he still came in 2nd.
Hopefully, he’ll learn from his mistakes, and go on to victory elsewhere.
“Trump needs to curtail the post-Iowa grousing.”
He can’t.
His supporters will become bored unless he constantly ratchets up his rhetoric.
His campaign is a one issue campaign based strictly on emotions.
Build the wall nothing else matters, pure emotion.
“I don’t worry about it. It is the equivalent of watching an almost 70 year old man have a two year old’s fit. :)”
Yeah, that is about how I look at it, too! ;-)
Well that’s just Trump. I have not seen any tweets out of bounds.
Let’s hope he learns what he needs to learn and moves on.
I wasn't aware that anybody but Trump spent any money on his Campaign. Since you implied they exist, who are they?
Cruz had the best ground game and his Campaign spent a year setting it up from what I've read here. His calculation obviously paid off in Iowa big time. Great Campaign tactics.
BEST Campaign Season ever. To be frank, I find the Democrat situation much more compelling at this stage of the game.
Operation Chaos part two, Bolsheviks for Bernie!
I’m not real worried about it. Trump is a smart guy. He did well in Iowa and he knows it. I don’t think he really thought he was going to win the most evangelical state in the Union.
Trump got the second highest Iowa votes ever. Many of those people were self identified Evangelicals and conservatives. Many good FReepers support him too as do many fine Americans everywhere.
But yeah puff out your chest over a one delegate victory and call everyone idiots in the process.
i bet you’re one who claims to be so put off by Trump’s insults but you have no problem crapping on many good people of which you know nothing of their motives and intellect.
Two out of the last four picks. Cruz will take those odds.
In the past few weeks, “outsider” Trump started to get chummy with the establishment, and people realized that Trump was all about Trump. He looked like just another part of the corrupt oligarchy. He also got soft on abortion. Cruz, meanwhile, proved that a principled stance on ethanol defeats King Corn.
Somebody spent at least $3.2 million in Iowa advertising for Trump. (The final spending totals won’t actually be reported for a while. If it wasn’t Trump (I’m asking YOU), who spent that money?
Who hired Chuck Laudner and his staff, and what did they do?
"Lazy" is probably not the right word. Unconventional, maybe, perhaps even radical, but not lazy.
-PJ
No. Cruz beat Trump in and around Des Moines.
Those citing that Trump is only one delegate behind are missing the point: Trump underperformed expectations and lost the impression of inevitability. The NH polls will tighten dramatically this week. Don’t focus on the raw numbers, the trend will forecast the result next Tue. It’s still competitive but the winners need to build on their success and the others need to adjust. Trump will be making a mistake if he thinks last weeks polls are relevant. It’s like holding a stock - it’s value is only on paper until you sell...
I’ve always considered Trump a 2 bit blowhard.
Someone gives him talking points on a subject and he tries to BS his way through acting like he knows what he’s talking about.
I have no idea. Never heard it before you asked the question.
I’m not here to prove your accusations. You said it, you prove it, not that I really care.
Did you read my disclaimer? Too bad it seems to be a necessity around here. Maybe you need to get the Vaccine.
Luckily, I am Immune to BOTH the dreaded CDS and TDS Virus Strains. That being said, I may have to get the RDS Shot, don’t trust that guy as far as I can throw him.
Heading to work. I’ll leave it to you to sort it out. #;^)
Yet the issues that Trump stuck his neck out and raised since last summer are still the biggest ones driving this election season.
He put immigration at the top of the American consciousness.
He went more hardline than anyone on our Muslim invasion which is literally destroying Europe.
He has called our trade deals into account when even Senators like Cruz were going along with Obama.
He has preemptively ended the Democrat War on Woman meme by boldly calling Bill Clinton out and thus neutering that issue for whoever wins the GOP nomination.
So yeah sure Trump is all BS. Thank god for his BS then I say.
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