If Trump was running as a Democrat, would you still support him? (Vanity)

08/28/2015 | R2

[Responsibility2nd]

I imagine Trump is kicking himself now for sliding into the crowded Republican race instead of the Democratic race. But who knew a few months ago that Hillary would implode leaving the Democratic race with NOBODY as a possible?

Sure Trump is enjoying a double digit percentage lead in the Repub polls, but imagine his ratings (75%? 85%?) if he ran basically unopposed as a Democrat?

[VanDeKoik]

Lol!

The nerd fights are a totally different level of intensity, I suppose. :^]

[Fantasywriter]

Is there any other candidate who has been as articulate re the devastating toll the illegal invaders are taking on both US citizens and on the country as a whole? Is any other viable candidate staking their candidacy on a wall—the only practical way to halt the invasion effectively.

If so, I’d like to read those quotes.

[DoughtyOne]

Which one? We don’t know. From past history, it will be one of these.

Which past history? The only open primaries we have had since Reagan were in 2000, 2008, and 2012. In 2000 there was only one significant RINO, Bush.

Bush, McCain, Romney...  Does this translate to something that looks like a Conservative would likely win the nomination now?

GWB made a horrible mistake in selecting Cheney as VP, not in terms of ideology, but in terms of physical vigor. In the latter two cycles, there were too many conservatives, particularly considering those that fell for the Fred Thompson Fan Dance. We are in that same situation now.

Perhaps you could win me over on Cheney, but I don't think he hurt Bush.  I consider Bush to be a real light-weight.  Cheney was the voice of experience.  I'm not saying Bush was a puppet, but I do think Cheney's advice was crucial.

Early on I tried to get folks to listen to the idea we should support only a very few candidates this year.  Instead of supporting that, I got a number of responses that expressed the impression the more the better.  "We have such a great field of candidates."  Ug.  I agree with you here, but I don't see how it helps ultimately.  You still face the Democrats and the Moderate Republicans both of a mind that Tea Party members are terrorists.

So it really is up to us as to around whom conservatives choose to coalesce. As of now, we should be ignoring completely any candidate with less than 5% Republican support. That would narrow things fast.

Yes, I agree.  My thoughts along these lines would be, pick the top two or three you like.  Support them.  The rest are just a distraction.

Hence, your running scared to a former Democrat with a long history of contrary "positions," while possibly appropriate later on, looks sort of OCD to me at this point.

When I assess someone, I try to do it based on a number of factors.  I try to consider what various times in my life were like.  I went through a few decades where I was busy supporting a family, and didn't tune into politics to the degree I should have.  But then again, am I spending too much time on it now?  You know, these are real considerations.  Yes I understand the issues and the political dynamics more today.  I'm glad of that.  On the other hand, things that others miss loom large to me.  I write people off based on some things that perhaps I shouldn't.  I'm not saying that in relation to Trump, as if to shield him.  I'm actually saying it based on how things have already caused me to lose respect for Cruz and Walker.

Going back to him, did Trump go through a business period that lasted a considerable length of time, and only grasp politics superficially?  What was his driving force?  Politics?  Business?  I think it was business.

You mentioned his thoughts on the Canadian Healthcare System.  You talked about it being a few years back.  It was 1999.  A book was written and published in January of 2000.  That's fifteen years ago.  Have we as a nation been dragged through a health care process, Obamacare being seen for what it is?  Had we seen the negatives accociated with it by 1999?  The one thing I would grant you is that government provided health care is wrong.  We have done it.  We are still doing it.  We are going to be doing it.  Trump now has it a lot more right than he used to.  He advocates for a robust private sector solution to it.  He wants insurance companies to become more competitive, resulting in lower premiums and diversified policies.  Whether you believe him or not, that is what he is pushing, so that is what the public is being educated to support, or at least consider.

This is what I have been trying to explain to folks.  Some folks are focusing on the supposed lying, the supposed fooling of us.  They fail to grasp that Trump is educating people to think in terms of private sector solutions, a stronger military, a return to sanity on immigration, supprot for our veterans... and on and on it goes.  And still the guy is getting trashed by the people who say they want the nation to return to these types of policies.  It's my take that Trumps deserves some serious apologies.  He'll never get it.  People are too focused on what he did fifteen years ago, because that proves who he is.  What he advocates for on our behalf today?  Not so much

At the end of the day, Trump will have sold people on our ideals.  If something happens and he doesn't get the nomination, people who revere those ideals will rejoice.  Very strange.

We have plenty of time to assess, test, and select from among a far more competent set of choices than we have had in recent election cycles, albeit none is perfect.

Agreed.

Trump's negatives are so strong he's very unlikely to win the general election. So in that respect, I think you are throwing your vote away.

Trump is now polling above Hillary Clinton.  I'm not sure what you're basing this thought on.  A guy with very high negatives isn't going to pull down 35% in a field of 17.  He's not going to outpoll one of the opposition's top contenders.

[DoughtyOne]

Wouldn’t doubt it...

I would think it would be him or Cristie, but I believer Cristie has too high of negatives.
Didn’t stop some of the others who had massive negatives.

[Hawthorn]

>> Does Trump support the constitution? Do you agree that Pam Geller is an obnoxious blowhard? How do you feel about the bailouts, stimulus, eminent domain? <<

Trump can do no wrong. Get over it.

[South40]

I believe we need a wall at the border and for years have been assailed by Perry supporters positing that position. But I do not trust liberal Donald Trump to make it happen.

You are free to believe every campaign promise Trump makes. I choose not to.

[RitaOK]

Yikes, I can’t really think Bush support is somewhere in there with Trump. Maybe so.

And, you’re right, at 7% Cruz is going no where on that, right now, but a Trump exit would surely take care of that.

[RitaOK]

Poetry. I like the message, too.

[itsahoot]

Trump can do no wrong. Get over it.

Read Peggy Noonan's column today, Rush just went over it. It might explain the phenomenon for you in a way you can understand what is happening.

[Hawthorn]

>> I can’t see him siding with those who wish to tear up and vandalize the country <<

Well, just try gazing back a few years. Then you’ll be able to “see him siding” with Queen Hilary, Princess Nancy, Prince Harry, etc. etc.

(You can look it up.)

But of course it doesn’t matter because nowadays, Trump can do no wrong.

[MUDDOG]

Singer-songwriter Aspiring rap artist.

[HamiltonJay]

I don’t think it would matter what party Trump was running as, he’d still be leading the polls... I was hugely skeptical of trump, and I am still no fan politically, but it is beyond obvious to anyone with 2 working eyes why he is destroying the rest of the republican field right now.

I have no doubt general election polling will show him garnering large support among both the independent and democratic voters shortly.

Trump is the only person who can beat Trump at this point. Democrats have a shrill unpopular candidate and a horrible guy waiting in the wings, and republicans don’t have a single candidate with persona who can break out of the preaching to the converted subgroup.

There is a lot of time left, but I really don’t see any candidate on either side of the aisle that is going to catch him. Time will tell, but with Hillary, Jeb et al playing the old school political game while Trump is out there writing his own rules, he makes them all look like the tired cookie cutter same old same old they all are that got us into the mess.

[itsahoot]

right now, but a Trump exit would surely take care of that.

We would like to think so but I predict it won't happen. I have avoided commenting on Cruz until Trump came out of nowhere, but I have never felt he could generate the excitement in the general public that he has garnered here. Even if he could the GOPe would go into unprecedented attack mode against him.

Trump seems to be immune to their blather. We shall see I guess.

[Responsibility2nd]

Who says I had a point?

Certainly the 2-3 Trumpees who just showed up believe I was out to bash Trump.

But they feel that any rational discussion about Trump is bashing him, so there’s that.

My point was successful. To have a reasoned discussion about Trump and if he ran as a democrat.

[RitaOK]

I know what you mean and agree. It isn’t fair, but we have felt that way about our conservative candidates forever and it is getting tiresome to spend two years with our teeth gritted that they even will make it to the nomination. They never do.

Trump comes along looking like the Terminator, and I’m all in. No one else comes close. I have no real confidence anyone else can do this anymore. Republicans are basically finished except for borrowing their apparatus during a primary.

[RinaseaofDs]

You bring up a point: Why no polls of D and I voters on Trump yet?

My entire white, middle class, D, union member family in CA is ALL TRUMP. All of them. I never said a word to them.

Traditional white middle class libs have had it too.

[Personal Responsibility]

“Disagree. There ain’t no leftist political stage to laugh Trump off of. Hillary? Biden? Nope.”

When I say “laugh off the stage” I mean more like “they’d bash him all day, every day, in every newspaper, media outlet, and online forum until he left the political arena”

If you don’t think a democrat running on a “build the wall / deport the illegals” platform would get excoriated every minute of every day, you’re wrong.

[RitaOK]

I thought you question was a decent, thoughtful one. These are strange times and we all have strange questions to ask ourselves. This was one of those.

[Fantasywriter]

Is there a candidate that you trust, who has articulated the full magnitude of the devastation the illegal horde is wreaking on the US people and the country as a whole? Has that candidate made an irrevocable commitment to build a wall?

If so, I’d like to read those quotes.

[Robert DeLong]

Perhaps this will ease your mind Donald & Ted have big announcement next week

You may not think that your opinion that he is a liberal, is not trashing, however, it is to those who support him 110%. You just drive them to 120% support.