Posted on 01/30/2016 12:38:57 PM PST by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
While there has been a lot of hand-wringing among conservatives about the damage they fear Donald J. Trump is doing to their brand, one centrist leader among congressional Republicans sees a potential silver lining for Mr. Trump: electability.
"The Republicans' presidential nominee must build a winning coalition that extends beyond the Republican base," said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania. "Running a campaign and expanding the coalition is an exercise in addition, not subtraction."
Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who has been chasing Mr. Trump in the polls in early primary states, is popular among religious conservatives and hard-right Republican voters. But Mr. Trump's unusual bloc, such that it is, pulls in registered Democrats and other nontraditional Republican primary voters. Indeed, some polling has shown overlap in views among those who favor Mr. Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
"Ted Cruz is a rigid ideologue," said Mr. Dent, who is not supporting Trump and has yet to endorse anyone. "Donald Trump is ideologically scattered and malleable. In my view, a more rigid ideology would have a much harder time assembling a winning general election coalition than the less doctrinaire candidate."
In some ways, Mr. Dent's views reflect a widespread antipathy toward Mr. Cruz among his Republican colleagues in Congress, one he has worn as an anti-Washington badge of honor, insider though he may well be.
But Mr. Dent, who wants to see his party appeal to independents, has the same fears that have been plaguing the party generally for years, and ones that Mr. Trump's anti-Muslim views may not quell.
"Some Republican presidential candidates are in demographic denial," he said. "Winning a larger percentage of the conservative white vote in 2016 is neither a viable nor realistic general election strategy."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm damned tired of being sold out!
I repeat this from an earlier post. I hope it sheds some light on why I support Trump:
I lived in Chicago once. Once was enough. I lived in the basement apartment under a couple who lived in Chicago for 80 years. They would frequently invite me up to watch TV with them. The news hour was something to experience. You would hear knee slapping and howls as they saw through the BS. The TV news hour would show Chicago politics awash in lies. News of a building fire would be a red flag for “Baksheesh” gone “wrong.” Shootings were a form of obedience training. Through my tours through the city, I saw plenty of burned out buildings. I was stunned at how many mentally deranged hostile people I would encounter. From the man on the street to the shop keeper, there was a Chicago mentality that made me think I was on a different planet. My personal experience gave me a first hand look at the good people—and the bad—of that city. The bad you would want to scrape from the bottom of your shoe. From my elderly friends, I got a background, in the context of history, of that cesspool of a city. It turned me from a flaming liberal to the party of my parents—Republican.
The bottom line: Zer0 lived in that political cesspool and, instead of coming out of it with a resolve to clean up corruption in America’s city governments, he put his focus on leftist ideology. Marxism, Black Liberation Theology, Gay Rights, Wealth Redistribution, etc—what a waste! Ideology won’t fix a thing. It won’t even make a good dog catcher. IDEOLOGY IS ANOTHER EXCUSE TO DO NOTHING. And, ideology allowed Zer0 to be just another corrupt lying politician in the mold of Chicago politics. The DemonRATs have as their legacy another pathetic waste of opportunity. I don’t call him Zer0 for nothing—and the Democrats, DemonRATs, Democraps.
And, this post by RC one sums it up in a more calm, pragmatic way:
While I’m sure he has always kept politics in the back of his mind, I don’t think he has been overly concerned with maintaining any kind of political purity one way or the other. I don’t think he has spent his life as a liberal or a conservative. he’s a businessman. He has spent his life taking care of business. perhaps that is what America wants right now and that is why he is doing as well as he’s doing.
Stay rigid folks...and lose to the Democrats....again
Your are absolutely correct. Atter 8 yers of Obama, I have been telling my friends. What we need in the next president is someone who isn’t boring. /sarc
It’s so weird. And getting weirder.
Sanders is from Brooklyn, too.
He did move to Vermont in his late 20’s.
I don’t believe Cruz “loves” any of his supporters but I do believe he loves our nation and believes in our Constitution.
You “Trumpettes” seem to believe Trump loves you.
Trump is in it for Trump. Trump will do whatever benefits Trump.
You are no different than a Bernie Sanders supporter.
How silly. Many people loves the country and believes in our Constitution. So what? That doesn’t mean he is presidential material. He would cause us a loss of 40 states. You are too blinded by lust to see it.
Stay rigid folks...and lose to the Democrats....again
So you want someone who can reach around/across just like MAVAHRICK MCCAIN! Would you prefer “Severely Conservative” Romney? That’s what we’ve lost with during the last few presidential cycles.
Go pound sand little “Trumpette!”
He'd do the country much good that way.
As president, though, all you'd hear about was how he wasn't doing anything and he and the Republicans would be swept from office.
Presidents have to at least look like they're doing something and getting things done.
If you're wholly negative you won't last long.
Your are absolutely correct. Atter 8 yers of Obama, I have been telling my friends. What we need in the next president is someone who isnât boring. /sarc
Ooohhh, ooohhh! I know of someone who gave huge endowments to “World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)!” Let’s go get lobotomies so we can become “Trumpettes,” too!
In the beginning there was “Right” and “Wrong”, and we’ve been compromising in the “Wrong” direction ever since.
Donald Trump: a candidate the GOP-e can “do business” with...
You know trump is a big leftist when New York slimes is helping him. Probably this see Bill Clinton in him.
Does anyone care if trump opened strip clubs, had affairs with married women while married, married three times, nude pictures of his wife posing nude....ok with with forcing people off their property using eminent domain, 4 bankruptcies.....and this is only part of what we know now. You know the dems will dig up more dirt. It’s ok with you to have someone worse than Bill Clinton in office? If you’re ok with a man like this, God help you on judgement day. When your daughters, granddaughters, nieces ldecide stripping is no big deal remember, neither do you.
Reagan built a winning coalition by mobilizing conservatives and by WINNING OVER Democrats, not by coddling them.
Our "Republican Establishment" guys and gals really are Democrats by ideology, not Republicans. This is unconscionable crap. THROW DENT OUT OF POLITICS ASAP.
Guys like Dent have flunked political math. Many conservatives will stay home if Trump is nominated. Just watch. (And you can bet the Alinskyite Dems will viciously attack Trump if he is nominated. Just watch.)
Id vote for either but tend to agree with this assessment
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