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"They have discounted his past behavior..."

Such as what?

Such as being so apolitically business-focused that up until a few years ago, donating equally to Democrat politicians (more, actually) than to Republican politicians.

Whether you like it or not, with his hard-earned money and up until relatively recently, Trump helped advance to power Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Charles Rangel, and John Kerry, to name a few. He did it as the cost of doing business. He did it to increase his personal financial gain and like any good businessman, to increase shares to his stockholders.

A Republican (now politician) spending more to elect Democrats than Republicans advancing the cause of the businessman while denigrating the cause of liberty, is a bad risk.

Pardon, but no one here would ever consider voting for any other Republican politician who for decades had donated almost equally to candidates in both parties, favoring Democrats $54 to $46 "invested."

For Republicans and conservatives to cavalierly disregard such a past in a "real estate magnate" who made himself an American celebrity from his skills as a self-promoting billionaire, is a bad move.

Cruz is a smart move. Business is not Cruz's world; business should always be avoided as a political model -- businessmen exist to take an enterprise they oversee and make it grow and prosper. It's their mindset and reason for being.

A limited government politician operates on a political compass of representing those who elected him on the condition he follow a political compass that always points in the direction of starving government, making it small and limited.

Trump is a bad risk. Cruz is a good risk.

Pardon, but no one here would ever consider voting for any other Republican politician who for decades had donated almost equally to candidates in both parties

True, but Trump didn't officially make himself a politician until June of this year. We should check to see what his donation history has been since. Or better, let's go back to the past couple years as I doubt Trump woke up on a sunny morning in June and said "Gee, I think I'll run for president." This run has probably been in the works at least a year ahead of him announcing. So a full accounting of his 2014 donation history would be prudent.

Here's a chart showing Donald Trump's donation history since 1989.

Interestingly, there are no donations to Democrats since 2010. And donations to Republicans essentially went through the roof when compared to previous years.

Reasonable people will agree that when Trump was a businessman operating primarily in Democrat controlled New York City, donating to Democrats was a "business expense" or if you will, a necessary greasing of palms to get things done. None of us like that and as an ardent Trump supporter, it even leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

However, I am encouraged by the fact that Trump has given no money to the Democrats since about 2010 and has given over $500,000 to Republican since then - more money than he donated to either party during the 1989 to 2010 period (previous 21 years).

Now he's running for president as a Republican and self-funding. Does one believe in redemption? If the Republicans are going to get to be the majority party again, are they going to do it by ex-communicating all people who at one time was a Democrat or contributed to a Democrat? Bear in mind that this mindset would have prevented Ronald Reagan from being able to run as a Republican.

I think most of us forgave Ronald Reagan. We should also forgive Donald Trump.