Posted on 11/04/2015 7:08:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Of all the presidential aspirants who are at present scrabbling their way up the White House wall, Donald Trump is by far and away the best, the classiest, and the most handsome. He doesn't pander or kowtow to the special interests. He doesn't back down or apologize. He doesn't sweat, or even drink water. Instead, he makes great deals and knows the smartest people. He writes fabulous books and anchors top--rated TV shows. He makes great gobs of hard cash, sleeps on nothing less than the finest sheets, and imports only the most beautiful women to join him under them. He's richer than Solomon, more elegant than Jackie O, and he has the hair of an exquisite racehorse. (Not Secretariat.) He wins each and every debate with ease and style. Everybody agrees with him, and they tell him so: publicly, privately, and via the most superb online polls. All ethnic groups love him in equal measure, and females up and down the land yearn for his protective hands. He's number one; a winner; the tops.
What's that? Ben Carson is now leading the Republican pack, beating Trump by six points nationally? And Carson is ascendant in more than one poll?
Awkward.
Just how well Trump's triumphant shtick will work when delivered from anything other than the pole position is unclear. There is a good reason that both he and his supporters have elected to rest their case upon a tautology — "He's winning because he's winning!†— and that is that, in a culture that celebrates champions, standing in first place is quite the aphrodisiac. Unsure about the Donald's positions on matters of state? Worry not: He'll make America great again because he is great; he'll choose the best people because he is the best people; and have you noticed how rich he is?
At no point since the man came flying down his glitz--laden escalator has reflection been permitted to intrude upon his deliberations. Any polls that failed to show Trump dominating have been presumed to be biased or flawed, while those that flattered him have been celebrated without regard for methodology. Any evidence that Trump is doing disastrously with groups that Republicans have to win has been casually dismissed, the better to be explained away by aging outliers and good old--fashioned bluster. Any insecurities felt by his supporters, meanwhile, have been melted swiftly into generalities. It is not that they like the man and his agenda, but that all "real Americans†do; it is not that they represent a minority of the Republican electorate, but that they speak for the whole "middle classâ€; it is not that their hero is one contender among many, but that he is the savior of all "normal†people. Time and time again, the imperative is made clear: Whatever happens, Trump must be perceived to be conquering all before him. Number one! Number one! Number one!
Every campaign likes to talk up its guy. Every political ego needs a massage. But there is something especially fragile about the vehemence with which Trump and his team insist upon his primacy. Could it be, perchance, they know somewhere within their souls that bravado and bluster are compelling when exhibited from on high, but rather pathetic when they pour forth from the second spot or beyond? Could it be, perhaps, that "I'm doing pretty well†is understood to be lethal to the proposition, "I'm winning because I'm a winner� Could it be, just maybe, that the word "loser†is a relative one?
This election season has yielded not a return to normalcy, but to a primitive and witless Harlequinade. For almost half a year now, Donald Trump has steadfastly ignored the Right's need for a Coolidgian anti--hero and struck a messianic pose: as a deal--maker without peers, as a rock star atop the world stage, as the architect of a great and glittering empire. He has, in other words, elected to run as a more competent and less nuanced Barack Obama, complete with vacuous promises of hope and change and non--ideological star power that, this time at least, will be made to work properly. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant!
How strange the change from major to minor. And how farcical officious men can be made to look when the pedestals are burned and the crowd's hearts have wandered elsewhere in search of cheap sustenance. Heretofore, this election has been full of surprises; moving forward it will furnish yet more. Not least among them will be the scale and nature of Trump's decline when both he and his acolytes come reluctantly to realize that he is not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
-- Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer for National Review.
What a COS. Pick your poll and you can pick your leader.
National review is a shill for anything to support the old guard elite pubbies. If that means torpedoing the front runner so be it. More suicidal actions by the pubbies.
Pubbies won’t win because they can’t align. The party is split and that is just what the dims would love to see happen. They would orchestrate it if they had to but they don’t have to because the pubbies have their own gun out to blow their own foot off.
I guess we will know when/if it happens.
5.56mm
But not by a blowout amount. 1,323,101 for obie, 1,185,243 for romney
Well, Cooke, genius, it depends on the poll taker. The ones, like you, who hate Trump, have him second. Others, more objective, have him first.
Probably because he knows he isn’t in second place.
Carson is the one constant that the MSM/Dems/RINO’s keep afloat, like an insurance card, while they promote, one by one, each of the other Pub candidates to see if any of them will take. And of course none of them do. Now it’s Rubio’s turn, and he too will be a dud. Probably Chris Christie will be up next for sainthood. They’ll stoop to Cruz only if desperate enough. It’s laughable, really.
Ben Carson is NOT going to be our next President.
****************
I’d go a bit farther and say Ben Carson won’t be the GOP
nominee for president.
Has Been Carson to me. Only a fool would jump on board to have endorsed a no fly zone in Syria the week the russians moved in. He completely lost me on that one.
Him along with his equally foolish compatriots Snarly, Crispy Kreme, Murko Rubio, Yeb! and Kasich who all suggested the same thing. Idiots.
RE: I guess we will know when/if it happens.
So, the trend in these polls are bogus?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ben-carson-vaults-to-lead-in-latest-journal-nbc-poll-1446507001
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/ben-carson-donald-trump-poll/index.html
http://www.wfsb.com/story/30432756/carson-ties-trump-leads-clinton-in-latest-quinnipiac-poll
Trump recognizes cooked polls
He won’t worry unti l 10,,000 people stand line to hear what former democrat and obama voter and totally inexperienced executive leader Ben Carson plans to do when tptb let the true post obama ruined economy emerge and crash into depression and the Russians and Chinese sew up the middle east and Asia
I am a Cruz supporter, but I recognize that Trump is holding back on his considerable resources. Every long campaign has a rhythm, and he has picked up well on this one. Now some in the media and punditry class will start focusing on attacking Carson. Trump still hasn’t come out with an ad campaign, but he says it’s coming. His book is just released. Don’t write the post mortem while the gunslinger has bullets in his gun.
National RINO Review has had it out from Trump, since he announced.
This makes the how many hit pieces this Cooke guy has written on Trump?
RINO Review’s reports of Trump’s losing are greatly exaggerated. ;-)
Rich Lower than Lowry approves this message.
Cooke has been an anti-Trump douchebag for months. Trump isn’t in second, was only in second in IA and now is back in first, and they can only get Trump in second on RCP by eliminating pro-Trump polls.
Agree.
Carson is a paper tiger. The RINOs have realized that Jeb isn’t going to cut it. So they’ve moved to Rubio. They are pumping up Carson because they know his support is going to tank.
New poll out today shows Trump at 31% and Carson at 15%. That’s closer to the truth. Carson will be below 10% in sixty days.
Carly couldn’t save the EGOP so now Ben is the next one in line to pseudo damage The Donald
you oathetic paid Rubio - DC edtablishment troll .
you peddle nothing but anti trump propaganda hourly.
your sorry average is intentionally missing 4 Polls with Trump far ahead.
Who is paying you to post this astroturf
?
FR needs to remove the paid trolls like yourself .
No don’t be a twit. I say don’t dismiss ANY polls. If you look at ALL polls, Carson is losing nationally and getting crushed at the state level-—SC, NC, NH, FL, MN, PA, and now IA. Only state poll he still leads in (older) is WI and newer is TX.
Second place is for YUGE LOSERS!
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