Posted on 09/03/2015 9:25:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
"All I ask is fairness," Donald Trump has told the media. He was the only GOP presidential hopeful to raise his hand and refuse to pledge not to run as a third-party candidate at the Fox News debate. Now he faces a deadline -- Sept. 30 -- to make that pledge or forfeit the opportunity to run in South Carolina's February primary. Unfair, in Trump World, means not completely stacked in Trump's favor.
Maybe he will take the pledge. "I will say that the RNC and the Republican Party -- I think I've been treated very fairly over the last period of time," Trump told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt last month. Trump, you see, is leading in the polls.
Methinks Trump is leading because voters are more interested in sending a message to Washington about their disgust with politics as usual than in actually making the former reality TV star the nation's commander in chief. But also, Trump is a genius at playing the victim card.
Forbes estimates Trump's net worth at $4 billion. Forbes' "self-made score" gives Trump a 5 out of 10; he "inherited (a) small or medium-size business and made it into a ten-digit fortune." He could outspend all of his 16 Republican rivals put together -- yet he's afraid the GOP won't play fair with him.
I should point out that Trump is interested in fairness for others. At a recent news conference, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos interrupted Trump until Trump had Ramos removed from the room. (Later Trump allowed Ramos to return and ask pointed questions.) Trump told Hewitt he had been put off because Ramos was "screaming." He continued: "I thought it was actually very unfair-- not so much to me, which I guess you could say it was, but it was certainly very unfair to all the other reporters, (who) were waiting with their hands up to (ask) questions."
Trump likes to tell people that he used to be a Democrat, just as Ronald Reagan used to be a Democrat. Get it: Don't bring up his donations to Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Clinton Foundation. It's not fair to hold Trump to a higher standard than we hold the Gipper.
Back in the 1990s, when the developer was a Democrat, he and Atlantic City's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority tried to use eminent domain to force small-business owners and homeowners out of their properties. One of his targets was widow Vera Coking, who lived near the Trump Plaza Hotel. Trump offered Coking a reported $1 million for her three-story beach-block home, which he wanted to bulldoze to accommodate casino parking. She refused the offer. The redevelopment agency tried to seize Coking's home for $251,000. With the help of the Institute for Justice, Coking fought back and won in court.
Meanwhile, Trump told The Associated Press, Coking was "a tough, cunning, crafty person" who let her property go to seed so she could "get a higher price." He told ABC's John Stossel: "It's not fair to Atlantic City and the people. ... They're staring at this terrible house instead of staring at beautiful fountains and beautiful other things that would be good." When Stossel called the attempted seizure "bullying," Trump countered that Stossel's use of the word was "very unfair." All Trump asks for is fairness.
There’s a nothing there hit piece if I ever saw one.
I am a glad DT won’t run as an independent.
I am amazed many of DT’s supporters give him a pass on soooooooooo many issues they would never give to Mitt Romney or anyone else for that matter.
Some people are blinded by reality show fame, I guess.
I am as loyal to the GOP as the GOP is to me.
Um, no.
That sure is a relief
Well, yeah. Trump is waking up the nation. Romney put the nation to sleep.
I tend to support the candidate who comes closest to my views with a reliable track record that I can measure. If DT becomes the GOP nominee, I will support him without hesitation, despite his past record of being all over the map on just about every issue imaginable, not to mention his many political contributions to many Democrats including the Clintons.
He can run as third party and be as much a dog in the manger as any of the other third party candidates. They never run from the left, because Dem party discipline is very firm. Sort of like the Communist Party...
But the GOP has been dancing around the issues that distinguish it. Even though Trump has no conservative principles and is just doing this for his ego, which he stokes laughing behind his hand while he is cynically telling the Evangelicals that his favorite book is the Bible (look at his personal and professional life...I don’t think so), people like him because he has capitalized on our hatred of DC.
Most of his supporters, like Obama’s supporters, have no idea of his history, his current positions (which are a little unclear, and change with the surveys) or anything about him except that he is spewing anger, which is what many of us feel. He’s doing it like Chavez, to take advantage of a weak political moment.
This was obvious when he washed out on several earlier campaigns in NYC when he was challenged to put up or shut up and really come up with a plan. He can never answer questions and just attacks the questioner.
But the more rational voters want a clear statement of principles. Trump doesn’t have any, but I think if the GOP had somebody who would come forward and state them forcefully, this could get a lot of votes. But do they have anybody who could do this?
I certainly think that if Donald Trump is required to take a loyalty pledge to the GOP, then all of the candidates should, and all should pledge to each other that each one of them will do all he (she) can do to help that eventual candidate win. This is an insult to Donald Trump, the front runner who I suspect will stay the front runner. If the will of the people (who did not want Romney) is again thwarted by the elites, and they are denied the candidate the majority has have chosen, that really is a kind of treason!
many of DT’s supporters give him a pass on soooooooooo many issues they would never give to Mitt Romney or anyone else for that matter.Such as?
No candidate should be forced to support the eventual nominee but promising they won’t run a 3rd party candidacy if they don’t win the nomination doesn’t seem unfair to me.
Yes, same.
However, none of the GOP candidates has a reliable record that I can track and be satisfied with.
Even Ted Cruz, who has a record, has some votes that are real head scratchers. I like him and could vote for him, but I am not going to lie ad say I agree with everything he’s done.
But the rest of them... no way, no on FioRINO, and unfortunately Carson is pro-amnesty so he’s out too.
As far as Trump goes, despite his being a democrat up to some point in his life, and his changing stances over the years, and his contributions to those democrats, I am considering very hard voting for him in the primaries and the general.
If he is serious about ending the illegal invasion, and I think he is, then he is the one I want.
The illegal invasion is the most important issue of this election, because it will change our country forever and quickly.
If Willard had been given every pass he needed, he still would have wimped out in the debates, and still would have been MIA in the month of October 2012. Willard never took a stand for us. Trump is fighting for us every day.
Hate to break it to you (no, I don't) but what those of us who support Trump are tired of being blinded by is the mainstream politicians who continually lull us into complacency with their meaningless platitudes without ever saying the things that actually bother us.
Trump is the only candidate in my memory (and I'm 60) who speaks his mind with no politically-aspirated filter.
That fortune is in land, not cash. He'd have to sell off those assets at fire-sale prices to raise the money to run seriously. Without all the mass media he's generated, he'd be hurting.
I remember the 1960s, and what I fear is that if there are shenanigans to steal the election for Jeb or a Clone of Jeb, it could get worse than it did in 1968, when people first felt we had no control over the process.
But not even close to the second coming of Ronald Reagan.
Liberty is endangered, and the "establishment" politicians on both sides are playing games with trivialities.
Candidates and Party leaders of the Party which claims "conservatism" as its mantle meet to discuss "pledges." To what?
Do they meet to pledge their "lives, liberties, and sacred honor"? No, they meet to bind themselves to "Party."
They would do well to read President George Washington's "Farewell," in which he clearly articulated the reasons why what they're doing now is dangerous to "the People's" liberty. Here are excerpts from that warning:
George Washington’s Farewell Address
September 19, 1796
“... One of the expedients of Party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions & aims of other Districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies & heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render Alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal Affection.
...
“All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and Associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, controul counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the Constituted authorities are distructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to Organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force — to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprizing minority of the Community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public Administration the Mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the Organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modefied by mutual interests. However combinations or Associations of the above description may now & then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, & to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.“... in a country so extensive as ours, a Government of as much vigour as is consistent with the perfect security of Liberty is indispensable — Liberty itself will find in such a Government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest Guardian. It is indeed little else than a name, where the Government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction ...
“I have already intimated to you the danger of Parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on Geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, & warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.
“This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseperable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human Mind. It exists under different shapes in all Governments, more or less stifled, controuled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common & continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it.
“It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill founded Jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot & insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence & corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another.
“There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the Administration of the Government and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true--and in Governments of a Monarchical cast Patriotism may look with endulgence, if not with favour, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate & assuage it. A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume."
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