Posted on 08/26/2015 5:40:12 AM PDT by LS
Last night I posted some of this on the thread about Trump's IA speech. I got so many requests to make this its own thread, that I enhanced and developed it a little, but I've said about the same thing for months.
If you look at the latest New Hampshire poll, for example, you find that Trump is leading big---but is leading in almost every single category and subgroup: women, men, younger, older, conservative, liberal, moderate. That is truly Amazing. He's preferred by almost 40% of HISPANICS in the latest Nevada poll. In national polls, he's up 3:1 over his nearest competitor---and that competitor changes from poll to poll. How do you explain this?
First, he is the only non-establishment candidate. Even Cruz, when pressed, reverts to "I introduced this bill or that bill . . ." But nothing ever gets DONE. There's always an excuse. Leaders find a way to lead. I love Cruz, and I love his attempted shutdown. But he got ONE GUY to follow (Lee). He hasn't even managed to put together a coalition with Paul, Ernst, Sessions, and other conservatives.
Please this isn't Cruz bashing---he is far and above the best we have. But it isn't 1996, when he would have been perfect. Times have changed. Today, like it or not, you do need a celebrity, just as in 1828 you needed someone who appealed to the "common man" (Jackson) and in 1904 you needed someone not controlled by Mark Hannah (TR).
Reagan owed some, perhaps much, of his success to the fact that he was an actor and was known by many people who never would have heard of Gerald Ford if he had not been veep for Nixon.
Second, Trump has mastered the 21st century social media as an election tool. Nobody else has. SamAdams76 has done extensive work on Trump's use of Twitter, which just buries all the other GOP candidates put together, and really exceeds Hillary's. He is running an incredibly expensive campaign and has barely spent a dime (Ok, some gas for that big jet). He gets millions of constant, unrelenting, free advertising. No one else comes close. This is truly revolutionary, as different as Van Buren and Jackson appealing to the "common man" in the 1830s and ignoring the "smoke filled rooms" of the caucuses. "King Caucus is dead," Jackson reportedly said. Pretty much. Well, "Traditional campaigning is dead."
Third, I believe we have gone way beyond ideology. This is NOT an ideological election. I think fieldmarshaldj, one of our brightest election historians, might agree with me on this. 2010 and 2014 WERE ideological elections---and it got us nothing. Mark Steyn has been on a great two-day rant about how we impose all these conservative litmus tests on candidates like Trump, but the guys who "pass" don't do a damned thing. They have one excuse after another. They couldn't even eliminate the crappy Import-Export Bank or get a defunding of Planned Murderhood. Really? With a majority in BOTH houses???
We keep hearing about how we need a guy who will "get things done." "I introduced legislation . . ." is NOT getting something done. I have to admit Walker probably has gotten more, of significance, done in the government sector than anyone, but he's sinking like a stone because he hasn't yet grabbed the flag and said "FOLLOW ME! I will reverse illegal immigration, I will get us trade policies that work in our favor, and I will smash ISIS." While Trump is on a different playing field, he negotiates all over the world, and just . . . wins. Like the old Oakland Raiders, the motto here is "Just win, baby." On everything.
This election pure and simple is about one principle, that "We the People" still get to choose our leaders, even when they aren't William F. Buckley, or Ronald Reagan, or 100% ideologically consistent ... because we can. We get to tell the elites, once a generation to piss off. We get to elect "our" guy for no other reason than he's "our guy" and we can tell the other side, "After all, we won the election" and have it MEAN something.
I'll end with this: if Trump only agrees with 5 of my 10 top issues, whatever they are, but once he gets into office THOSE FIVE are the ones he actually acts upon, then I've won 100% of my agenda and moved the ball a helluva long way down the field.
Right now, as Mark Steyn said, we're on our own one yard line squabbling over a "pathetic piece of grass."
Adam Smith was a big time mercantilist actually. Have you ever read his books ?
And the US became the world’s largest economy with high tariffs and no income tax.
Interesting question: if Trump ONLY cut off fed funding for PP, wouldn’t he have done more than any candidate who currently holds a national position? And in sheer effect, wouldn’t he have done more than all the governors who at the state level cut off state funding, combined?
Sure. Are the Kardashians on TV or in the pop culture news every day? Of course.
Reagan hit Japan with high tariffs and that is why there are Japanese car plants throughout the South.
I like Thomas but he has his head up his rear on this one.
Messing with the Free Traitors™, I like it.
Likewise, for better or worse, you can't have Trump "be more humble." Once you start doing that, you've taken away a major weapon of his.
Reagan had a practiced humility that was in part natural---he was just a good guy---but also he learned in the 1940s that his acting career was dying, and he had to either become bitter about it or learn to joke about it and be self-effacing. Some authors think that bitterness is seen in his deprecating humor. I don't. But you can read it that way. Regardless, Reagan would never have Trump's "I did it" bluster. It wasn't in him, and certainly wasn't in W. Bush.
Trump is like the OSU football teams that ran the ball every damn play. You destroy them if you try to just have "a little passing."
Has Cruz said he will build a wall at border?
Have it your way. Vote for your loser candidate---because all the rest are getting creamed.
No, it’s surprising how blinded you are. “Let them who have ears hear.”
Trump tells “We The People” what they have been waiting to hear for eons, the real test is yet to come, can he deliver?
**
Amen.
Look at two polls; NH and NV. In the first, he leads among Republicans in almost EVERY SINGLE SUBGROUP OR CATEGORY. Who ever did this? Men, women, indies, conservatives, liberals, young, and old.
In the NV poll, he has 39% support among GOP Hispanics. Now, someone could extrapolate nationally. If Hispanics are x percent of the voters, and if Rs are y percent of Hispanics and Trump gets 40% of them, what % does he automatically get nationally? Interesting exercise.
There is a fine line between a vanity and an editorial. I am not sure I know what the difference is yet.
You might want to look in the mirror for a "splinter" in your own eye causing temporary blindness.
"Single Issue Crowd" for which in previous years it was abortion, but now, increasingly, it's abortion and/or immigration. I'm sensing a lot of people think immigration is the greatest threat, because if you don't fix that, there won't be a country left to have abortions in.
"Not conservative enough" crowd. Over time, I've observed that no GOP candidate living has ever reached this level. Even Cruz has people turn on him for the NAFTA/fast track vote and a couple of other single votes.
"Lesser of two evils" crowd. I admit, I've been part of this at times---there really seemed no realistic option.
With Trump, you now see these lines blurring badly. I don't know if Rush's claim that 4 million conservatives stayed home in 2012 is right. There is VERY little evidence to support that, especially in key states where GOP #s were pretty much the same in 12 as in 08. So I tend to think that groups 1 & 2 eventually go #3.
Except now Trump adds a fourth category, which is "Not conservative on some issues, but is THE most conservative candidate when it comes to the 'We the People' vote, which is we the people get to choose our leaders. He is more outspokenly patriotic than anyone but Cruz or (sometimes) Rubio, and he is the least waffling of all of them on immigration. We'll see.
IMHO, he's lying. He is, after all, a longtime Democrat, who has admitted "we'll let in the good ones," as if such a filtering process could be done in less than many years. We're set amid that awful choice in which we choose to institute dictatorial and potentially unjust (deporting legal immigrants and their citizen children (however illegally conferred; it's not the kids' fault), confiscating property, etc.) emergency powers to survive (street battles to gather them). Were we to commit to this as a nation as a matter of war powers subsequent to invasion, I'd rather have a real Sulla, calm, quiet, proven, and determined, as opposed to this dishonest huckster.
He hasn't leveled with anybody as to what he would really do and how; he just promises to get it done.
I do not oppose Cruz at all on ideological grounds, but on grounds that only Trump can get anything done. Cruz has to do a lot more to show he can organize an army. For example, why did he not organize opposition to the Import-Export Bank? Not that this was critical as an issue, but it would be ONE THING you could say, "See, this is how I did it, and I actually got government rolled back on this issue." But he couldn't even (as I pointed out in the essay) get Paul, Lee, Sessions, or Ernst behind him. Why not? Does that not trouble you?
Trump can very possibly force Congress to join him just by the power of public opinion. Reagan did, often and had less of a celebrity presence than Trump did. So, no nothing is "underhanded." It's all above board and that's what bothers so many of the opponents.
Horse pucky. Under that law, every single family or individual gets a hearing. How long will that take?
ICE officials (to my surprise) WANT to do their jobs and have been hamstrung. If turned loose, they will quite legally and effectively enforce the law.
Well, it's not to my surprise, so I'm ahead of you.
Nothing happens to children. The families have to go home. If they want their children to go with them, by all means take them.
As of now, many of these children are US citizens enrolled in public schools. I want you to find me all the judges who will order that they be forced to leave with their families.
Go right ahead.
Personally, I'm enjoying watching the new Trump show and speculating about the plot, the characters and potential endings.
Some have said he’s this time’s Reagan, but, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: “I was awake during Reagan. I voted for Reagan. Reagan was a hero of mine. And Trump’s no Ronald Reagan.”
However, that near miss (“near miss”…lol) misses the point about Reagan.
The times needed and called for “The “Right” Person for the Moment.”
That was fate’s casting call and Reagan answered for the role of his, your and my lifetime.
The same was true in England when fate called and Churchill answered.
Both men only had a short, finite time in the light to dance for the stars and both men accomplished what fate sent them to do.
Like before, these interesting times also appear to need the “right person”, but what sort does fate call?
Is Trump of the sort fate calls and who can fulfill its mission of the moment?
Too early to tell and so much in life is a gamble.
I can’t see the deck fate deals its cards from, but, since Trump sat down at the table, at least I’m now watching the game again to see how to bet.
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