Posted on 08/27/2015 11:53:52 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
Remember Howard Dean? He was the left’s “we’re angry and not going to take it anymore” candidate in 2004. He led in many polls, drew huge crowds, had all the energy of the liberal grassroots - and ended up finishing 3rd in Iowa and imploding in his speech that night with the famous “Dean Scream”. No one saw that coming. John Kerry won the nomination, the very candidate the leftist grass roots hated. Maybe with good reason since he went on to lose.
Trump has a lot of good qualities on the stump, but he is not an ideological conservative and without being grounded in true conservative thought he is prone to say some pretty sketchy things that aren’t going to appeal to conservative primary voters. A few of those things he can get away with, but they will pile up over time. Also primary voters start eyeing electability the closer we get to really casting primary ballots. I think most polls will show him losing by sizable margins to whoever the Democrat candidate is by that time, and that is going to give a lot of GOP primary voters pause.
The RNC is the sex toy of Wall St. When Trump said in the debate that he pays for favors when donating to a political campaign, I knew immediately that this guy is capable of revealing “where the monkey sleeps”. He may be a real estate tycoon, but he knows the players and the game board in its hidden aspects and knows that subversives are not always painted red and liberal. Banks, bankers, banking. Watch this video, read this book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bh9d0nnxxU
http://tinyurl.com/nkgnz76
Yeah, I do. I think several of them have a chance if they could get any airtime. Right now it is the Trump realityTV show sucking up all the oxygen. I think Cruz, Walker or Rubio could win against the Dem slate of candidates if they ran a good campaign. I think the longer Trump runs the more intense his support is becoming with the anti establishment part of the GOP, but the weaker it will become with the the general electorate. This, in my view, will become more and more evident as we get closer to actual primary voting.
Trump believes there is the old silent majority. I do as well, unfortunately I think it is now a new silent majority on the Democrat side. By the time you add up all the victim groups, urban voters, massive number of people collecting government benefits, etc, you really do get to the 47%+ Romney was talking about.
In a national general election we are going to need someone that can both energize the white vote for a few more % AND not get completely destroyed with minorities. Trump I think has at least a chance of growing the white vote if he doesn’t do anything really dumb, but he is gonna get killed among every minority group despite the silly claims he makes about winning Hispanic and black votes.
Also there is going to be a persistent strain of discontent among ideological conservatives about Trump due to the fact that well, Trump isn’t actually a conservative. I think it would idiotic for ideological conservatives to sit home or endlessly criticize Trump were he to win the nomination, but I think there will be a lot of unhappiness with a populist protectionist winning the nomination among intellectuals on the right.
Sarah Palin for EPA and/or Interior Secretary
That may be so. Recall that some of the folks in Washington didn't exactly like what Patton was saying (even though it was likely the truth).
Also recall: What happened to Patton?
There has been a lot of talk that he was, in essence, assassinated by those who didn't like what he was saying. Could it be that those high up in the GOPe have similar plans? "If he gets too far ahead and looks like the likely nominee, we'll 'take care of the problem'." Use some backchannels to find some nutjob willing to try it, take him out, and they sit back and say "Ah, how tragic, etc. ad nauseum..."
As corrupt as they are, I could see them viewing this as a viable option.
It’s Trump’s to lose. That’s what I’m afraid of
I think that we cannot have Cruz unless we have Trump first. Nobody else can break through the GOP blockade. Before Trump came onto the scene they had jebbie setup to win and polling over 15%.
-PJ
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
General Patton
Something tells me people perform when Trump ask of them.
HOORAY Trump
he's entertaining, and he's refreshing, but i cannot imagine him actually governing
I watched Dean, trust me at his best, before the scream, he was not relating like Trump appears to be.
I know this is politics and anything can happen, but I watched Trump’s speeches/rallies and I did so as a skeptic, and at the end of both of them, I even as a skeptic did not feel that Trump was being disingenuous in what he was saying.
Trump isn’t coming across as angry, he isn’t coming across as someone just fed up and disappointed because our political class has failed us and sold us out, though he is clearly not happy about it, he truly comes across as though he wants to fix things, not simply “I’m Angry!”
I think the comparison to Dean is inaccurate, there is something there, and its not simply Trump preaching to the converted.. He’s connecting and he’s doing it across the political spectrum. After what I have seen I am very certain that pollsters will start to see Trump garnering support from Democrats and Independents not just Republicans and not trivial support either.
I think you overestimate the desire for idealogical purity, sure there are always the small numbers who say, I want everything or I give nothing... that’s always the case, but those numbers like it or not are small. Is Trump where I am ideologically? Nope, and I bet you if you asked most of his supporters they would tell you nope he doesn’t match up ideologically as well as others who may be running.... but still they are supporting him.
You are missing a key feature when it comes to LEADERSHIP, and that’s something that has been WOEFULLY absent of candidates on both sides of the political isle for close to 30 years now... People follow leaders not because they completely agree with them, and Trump has proven himself to be a competent leader during his life, though not in the political realm, and its clearly evident that he is a natural leader, and the rest of this field has no one who you can call a natural leader... He’s not faking it til he makes it... He’s not just saying what folks want to hear, he’s not worried if he offends someone etc etc.
I hate to say it, as ideologically Cruz is closets to where I am, but from my observations to this point, Trump has the X factor, and who in this field on the right or the left is going to take him down? Not a damned one of the field on either side of the isle is going to get people to naturally gravitate toward them... The next batch of big polling I suspect is going to show major inroads by Trump into the independent and democrats.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.