This would not be the first time the Clintons used a straw man to win an election.
Remember Ross Perot who ran as a third party candidate against George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton?
Yes, and Trump wins either way. That is, if he causes Hillary to win, he wins. He will be the reason she won because he is a fake conservative duping those who think it’s just a pose that a clownish poseur like him can pull off. The only way we win is if the real conservatives stop compromising.
Yes. I certainly do remember.
Trump jumped onto Perot’s Reform Party for awhile too.
Some history for everyone about this:
“Reform Party”
“...............2000 presidential election
The Reform Party’s presidential candidate for the 2000 election was due federal matching funds of $12.5 million, based on Perot’s 8% showing in 1996. Early on, there was a failed effort to draft Ron Paul.
Donald Trump entered the race briefly, giving television interviews outlining his platform. Trump was progressive on social issues, and supported allowing openly gay soldiers in the military, saying: “it would not disturb me.” Trump considered himself a conservative, but criticized Pat Buchanan, saying: “I’m on the conservative side, but Buchanan is Attila the Hun.” He withdrew from the race citing the party’s infighting, as did Jesse Ventura and the Minnesota Reform Party.
Pat Buchanan decided to leave the Republican Party because: “The Republican Party at the national level has ceased to be my party. This divorce began around the end of the Cold War when President (George) Bush declared it to be a New World-order party and began intervening all over the world. While he and I were allies and friends during the Cold War, I just felt that once the Cold War was over the United States should return to a more traditional non-intervention foreign policy.”
It was suggested that John McCain seek the party’s endorsement.
After a bitter fight, Pat Buchanan secured the Reform Party nomination over John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party. Hagelin and an anti-Buchanan faction walked out and held a separate convention across the street, where they nominated Hagelin as the party’s candidate. The dispute went to the courts and the FEC decided that Buchanan was the legitimate nominee and awarded him $12.6 million in campaign funds.[11] Buchanan’s running mate was Ezola B. Foster. Buchanan got 449,225 votes, 0.4% of those voting,[clarification needed] and the party lost its matching funds for 2004.
In 2002, Buchanan returned to the Republican Party. Many of his campaign supporters also left the Reform Party to form the America First Party.
2004 presidential election
By the October 2003 National Convention, the Reform Party had only begun rebuilding, but several former state organizations had elected to rejoin now that the interference from the Freedom Parties was gone.They increased their ranks from 24 to 30 states, and managed to retrieve ballot access for seven of them. (Buchanan’s poor showing in 2000 had lost ballot access for almost the entire party.)
Because of organizational and financial problems in the party, it opted to support the independent campaign of Ralph Nader as the best option for an independent of any stripe that year. While the endorsement generated publicity for Nader and the Reform Party, the party was only able to provide Nader with seven ballot lines down from the 49 of 51 guaranteed ballot lines the party had going into the 2000 election....”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_the_United_States_of_America
If the Clintons were REALLY using Trump as the straw man, I think they miscalculated, big time. I can see the Perot angle - he appealed to just enough of those on the right to put billyjeff in office, but he did not have a WIDE appeal. Trump, OTOH, has very wide appeal from a large spectrum of voters, from right to left. While I don't think that appeal is big enough to give him an edge as a 3rd party candidate, I think that his appeal would be wide enough that it could hurt Hitlery, too, if Trump were to run 3rd party. His popularity cuts a swath from right to left, from Conservative to Liberal, and I think that if he were to run as a 3rd party, it could tip the scales to the favor of either the dummycrat OR the RINO. This is probably one of the biggest issues I have with Trump. Otherwise, he's spot on, and I love that he is destroying the establishment.