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."
How does this make him different from any of the other pasty faced limp-wristed politicians?
With no record to back up what he says other than as a Democrat supporter of single payer, Bubba, and the Hildabeast, not a thing.
Yes I did read Wealth of Nations once . . . and I must confess I skimmed Theory of Moral Sentiments and just pored over the concluding chapter. AFAIK those two books comprise the whole of Adam Smith’s oeuvre.
Standing ovation LS! I wasn’t on the IA thread, so would have missed this. Really like references to other FReepers for further reading (as a noob FReeper)
Trump said he will defund PP because they do abortions. But that is not good enough for you?
Who is going to do anything about same sex marriage? I haven’t heard anyone say they have a plan to reverse SCOTUS?
For all you TDS people who distort what Trump has said. We have heard what Trump has actually said! Distorting Trump’s words and policy objectives may work with low-info voters but it does not work with us who follow what is actually going on.
Trump 2016....bring down the GOPe house....keep the Democrat out of WH....build a wall and close border to illegals....deport illegals and anchor babies.....e-verify and penalize.....change trade dynamics and bring jobs back to America....rebuild military and make Iraq and Saudi Arabia pay.....do right by our vets....crush ISIS and stand with Israel. That is the candidate I support and all the bs spin in the world ain’t changing that!
This is the dynamic in play to Trump's advantage. Every time he is attacked unfairly, his support goes up. If the GOP cheats Trump out of a nomination he fairly won, I will vote 3rd party...not because I support Trump but because I support fairness and democracy.
Servant of the Cross is correct. So many purists on here. They bitch for an entire 24 months every two years, then on Election Day they stay home because nobody is “pure” enough for them. That’s why the DemocRATS have won 4 of the last 6 Presidential Elections.
But nationally Romney got a million more votes than McCain. I'm pretty sure they didn't come from CA and NY.
So our side needs to quit blaming the "conservatives who stayed home." They didn't.
Your point in your Post #69 is well taken. For months, I’ve disputed that 4 million number myself. But, I did not use the number of “4 million”. As closely divided as this nation is today, it doesn’t take 4 million people staying home to turn an Election, 1 million will do it.
As a side bar: I personally know people who did not vote at all because Romney was a Mormon.
Your point in your Post #69 is well taken. For months, I’ve disputed that 4 million number myself. But, I did not use the number of “4 million”. As closely divided as this nation is today, it doesn’t take 4 million people staying home to turn an Election, 1 million will do it.
As a side bar: I personally know people who did not vote at all because Romney was a Mormon.
Excellent article and analysis. Thanks for your efforts in all this - we are indeed living in interesting times.
In FL, Mitt got 117,000 MORE votes than McCain---Zero got 45,000 more than in 08, and won by 74,000 votes. Hard to figure that by increasing your number by 117,000 you STILL would have to explain 74,000 "missing" voters. I don't buy it.
As for other states, they are more or less irrelevant.
In Colorado, Mitt got 11,000 more votes than McCain . . . and lost by 45,000. So, again, pretty hard to argue that anyone stayed home.
I guess you could say that IF U.S. population grew by x amount during those four years and IF the party splits stayed the same as in 08, then, you could expect y number of new voters for the GOP. But you'd also have an even higher number of voters for the Dems to add. So there is no way that even population growth could account for enough people staying home when in 2012, given that Romney increased the totals over McCain in these key states. The remaining states that were close---NV, IA, WI---wouldn't have made an electoral difference.
WOW! Thanks for the analysis. Awesome!
“Trump is like the OSU football teams that ran the ball every damn play.”
Ah, yes, Woody, Patton, Trump...hero’s all!
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