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WATCH THE VIDEO - No mater where you stand on Trump, it is a great analysis of how he's become the front runner. When you think of the 2016 Presidential campaign, one name comes to mind - TRUMP. Every day, news stories come out about his inflammatory comments, his stubborn, unapologetic debate strategy...and that's EXACTLY the way he wants it. Trump is no traditional politician; his tactics come from somewhere else, and that place is REALITY TV. Trump's long history in reality television has given him the perfect strategic edge in the political arena, and so far he's winning the...

I rarely agree with Frank Bruni of the New York Times about much, but he's spot-on today: Over the last few months and even weeks, the question among many flabbergasted Republican traditionalists and incredulous political analysts was when the forces of gravity would catch up with Donald Trump and send him tumbling to earth. It was going to happen. Of course it was going to happen. You just had to be patient. You just had to be strong. But in the wake of his victories in New Hampshire and now South Carolina, the question is no longer "when." It's "if."...

The candidates for president and their big-money allies have spent more than $682 million through the end of January, according to federal disclosures. But money hasn't bought success. There’s one area where Donald Trump is badly trailing the field — spending ― and that makes his resounding wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire all the more frustrating to his Republicans he’s trouncing and worrisome to the party leaders trying to block him from winning the nomination. According to a POLITICO analysis of reports filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission, through the end of January the campaign of the...

LEXINGTON, Va. — A gymnasium full of college students here on Saturday did what a former Republican Party chairman, a former vice president and a former speaker of the House who addressed their mock convention would not: predict the Republican nominee for president. And they did so with bravado, perhaps characteristic of their nominee, predicting that Donald J. Trump, the business tycoon who has never held elected office, would win the Republican nomination with more than twice as many delegates as the runner-up, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. For a political culture awash with polls and punditry, the mock convention...

(CNN)The national spokesman for Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is calling the Donald Trump campaign "the Seinfeld candidacy," because as he puts it, "The whole campaign is about nothing." Rick Tyler told CNN's Erin Burnett that Trump says "nothing about immigration, nothing about job creation, nothing about what's going on in North Korea, nothing about ISIS. I mean this is amazing." Tyler said Cruz is running a campaign about conservative issues and that Trump fails to discuss the issues because he isn't a true conservative. Both Trump and Cruz are eying key primaries in southern states starting with South Carolina, which...

...In real life, expletives are often used as a form of aggression or cruelty. A co-worker who tells you to Trump yourself is usually being unpleasant. A co-worker who does this every day is often creating a hostile or demeaning work environment. Language suitable for decent company is a form of politeness, which is a species of respect, which is an expression of morality. And if I am the last holdout on this issue, so be it. I don't really give a damn. Win or lose, Trump has brought the language and sensibilities of cable TV to presidential politics...

The first Republican presidential debate of the season without front-runner Donald Trump generated smaller viewer interest than all but one of this cycle's prior GOP gatherings, according to preliminary Nielsen estimates — but still drew four times as many viewers as Trump's competing event. In the metered-market overnights, which represent 56 of the nation's largest markets, Fox News Channel's debate from Iowa averaged an 8.4 household rating. This is up vs. the 7.4 overnight rating for the most recent GOP debate, on Fox Business Network earlier this month, but it stands as the second lowest-rated of the six Republican gatherings...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I was almost right. My gut was telling me yesterday that this thing was not over when the show ended yesterday, that the possibility of Trump showing up at the debate was not over. We've learned that the moderators, the moderating crew -- Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly -- even as late 8:45 thought Trump might bop over. There were negotiations going on all during the day. Trump was never serious about it. And I figured it out when I learned that Trump made a demand to Fox News, $5 million donation to his veterans group....

Instead of joining his GOP rivals for the Fox News debate on Thursday, Donald Trump will be hosting his own event in Des Moines that will benefit veterans. Trump announced Tuesday that he will not participate the debate in Des Moines because of a feud with moderator Megyn Kelly, of Fox News. Trump plans to hold his alternative event at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the event starts at 8 p.m.

Trump's standard line when he is about to storm out of a media event because he doesn't like how it covers him is that he is going to go host an event to raise money for veterans. Thus it was no surprise when he announced that he would be skipping the FoxNews event to hold a separate event to raise money for.... well, "veterans," generally. Of course, Trump did not name a specific charity so that his feet might be held to the fire on this, just "veterans," generally. Well, there are two small problems. The main veterans group that...

My late friend and colleague Hilton Kramer used to tell the story about how Time magazine (remember Time?) would prep its photographers before sending them off to snap the likeness of someone they were profiling. The magazine didn't just want a portrait. It was always "Good guy" or "Bad guy." This was well known. So when Time sent someone to photograph Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary who had lately shed his left-wing opinions and emerged as a powerful voice on the Right, Norman had the wit to ask "Good guy or bad guy?" The photographer shook his head...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump used a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC to tout the fact that, as president, he would work with Democratic leaders in Congress to get things done. He specifically talked about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and asserted he was "close" to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is expected to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "I've always had a good relationship with Nancy Pelosi. I've never had a problem. Reid will be gone," Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Tuesday. He continued: "I always had a decent relationship with Reid, although lately, obviously,...

- JANUARY 26, 2016 - TRUMP CAMPAIGN STATEMENT ON FOX NEWS DEBATE (New York, NY) January 26th, 2016 - As someone who wrote one of the best-selling business books of all time, The Art of the Deal, who has built an incredible company, including some of the most valuable and iconic assets in the world, and as someone who has a personal net worth of many billions of dollars, Mr. Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one. FOX News is making tens of millions of dollars on debates, and setting ratings records (the highest in history), where as...

"Power," Henry Kissinger once told The New York Times, "is the ultimate aphrodisiac." Kissinger might amend that statement today: Now, fame is power, and thus replaces power as the ultimate aphrodisiac. In fact, fame isn't just an aphrodisiac - it's the ultimate nepenthe, a drug causing forgetfulness. The more famous our politicians are, the more we neglect their positions and character. No wonder the most admired woman in America is criminal Hillary Clinton, the most admired man is criminal Barack Obama, and the second-most admired man is loudmouth Donald Trump. We assume that fame inoculates our politicians for the same...

Since 1988, Donald Trump has been discussed as a potential United States presidential candidate, but when he officially announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015 the mainstream media refused to believe it. Over the next many months, Donald Trump would be attacked and criticized by the media – but were these criticisms legitimate? What is the Untruth About Donald Trump? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8c2Cq-vpg&feature=autoshare

Donald Trump's ability to draw a crowd has flabbergasted even one of left-leaning MSNBC's talk-show hosts, Joe Scarborough, who took to national airwaves to say the billionaire is beating all records - that his ability to pack a room with eager listeners exceeds anything even much-loved Ronald Reagan could do. "I was at George W. Bush's campaign rally in 2004 at the final stages of that unbelievable race in early November," the "Morning Joe" host said, Breitbart reported. "I saw Reagan come to Pensacola twice in 1980. I saw the crowds. I never saw anything like that in my hometown...

TRUMP DOCUMENTED ATTENDANCE AND VIEWS Several Freepers have brought up the issue of how many people have viewed Trump's rallies.  When I looked one up, I was floored to see how many people had either attended his rallies, had seen them on closed circuit, or had viewed the videos on YouTube. Here are some of the numbers. Please note that some events had several YouTube videos available.  When I could found more than one video of an event, I added the totals below. Links are provided for verification of numbers or simply to listen to the events if you...

As the Republican candidates prepare for their next debate Thursday night in North Charleston, South Carolina, Donald Trump will once again be center stage -- as a result of the Fox Business Network's calculations of who has done best in various trial heat polls nationally and in key states. Despite his poll standing, Trump's image among Republicans is certainly not the most positive of the major candidates, and new calculations show that Trump has by far the worst image of any major Republican candidate among Democrats and independents. These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking data collected between Dec....

Fiorina crowd in Council Bluffs, IA: Cruz crowd in Fort Dodge, IA: Hillary crowd in Council Bluffs, IA: Trump crowd in Council Bluffs, IA:

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Sunday he thinks he can persuade supporters of Republican front-runner Donald Trump to back him in the 2016 race. Mr. Sanders, an Independent senator from Vermont, said on CBS that his message about economic inequality can appeal to Trump backers who are angry about lower wages and job losses. "Many of Trump's supporters are working class people and they are angry," Mr. Sanders said. "What Trump has done successfully, I would say, is take that anger, take that anxiety about terrorism and say to a lot of people in this country, look, the reason...