Tag Archives: GOP

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Trump needs to say he’s sorry … if he has a chance

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This isn’t an original thought, but it’s one that I wish I’d have thought of saying out loud long ago.

It comes from Donnie Deutch, an MSNBC commentator, while discussing just how Donald J. Trump turns his floundering presidential campaign around.

Deutch today said the only way the Republican presidential nominee gets back into the game is to say he is sorry for all the hateful things he has said.

It’s not enough, Deutch said, for Trump to simply start sounding more “presidential.” He’ll have to tell America that he was “trying to make some kind of point” during the primary, and that he didn’t really mean it when he called for a ban on Muslims, or denigrated John McCain’s war record, or said women needed to punished if they obtained an abortion, or a Mexican-American judge couldn’t preside over a case involving Trump University.

There’s more. You get the point.

Deutch said Trump has to take “two steps back” before marching forward.

Will it happen? Will the candidate take up Deutch’s advice?

No. He’s likely a goner.

national news, political news

Trump still not listening to advice

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Eighty-seven days to go before Election Day.

Public opinion surveys are showing a clear trend: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is opening up a significant lead over Republican candidate Donald J. Trump.

The so-called “battleground states” are leaning increasingly toward Clinton.

So, where is Trump campaigning today? Is he in one of those battleground states battling Clinton tooth-and-nail?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-connecticut-why-is-he-campaigning-there-226959

No. He’s in Connecticut. The Nutmeg State hasn’t voted GOP since 1988. It won’t vote for Trump this time, either.

And this, I believe, sums up just why Trump is losing this campaign.

He’s got a campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who supposedly is an experienced hand. Is Manafort sending Trump into the belly of the beast? Does he actually believe Trump has a shot of winning Connecticut?

My guess: Probably not. Trump is continuing to march to his own cadence.

For someone who knows nothing about politics and even less about government, this is the “strategy” of a loser.

national news, political news

It may be too late for Trump to ‘turn it around’

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Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lead over Donald J. Trump is large — and it’s getting larger.

The pundit class, though, seems somewhat fixated on how the Republican Party’s presidential nominee can “turn it around” if he has a chance of defeating his Democratic Party opponent.

My own view is that Trump likely is well past the point of no return.

Will a speech do it? Does he need to embarrass Clinton at any of the three joint appearances scheduled? Forget about the VP encounter between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence; that won’t change a thing.

It looks for all the world as though Trump’s interminably long record of insults and his astonishing demonstration of ignorance about anything involving public policy has done him in.

How in the world does this buffoon/clown/carnival barker/con man/narcissist persuade voters now — at this point — that all that prior stuff was just a joke?

He cannot help himself. He cannot resist the urge to veer off into some nonsensical rant whenever he delivers what passes for a “campaign stump speech.”

He vows to “unify” the Republican Party, then he trashes the GOP leadership. Party hot shots are deserting him in droves. I heard last night that Trump was coming to Texas for a fundraiser, but the biggest donors in the state aren’t going to show up.

The only possible way for Clinton to lose this election would be for something truly terrible to come out about her. Or … she would have to drool all over herself or somehow revert to some form of Trump-like campaign stump-speech riff that makes as little sense as the stuff that’s been pouring out of Trump’s mouth for the past year.

Sure, the first thing is entirely possible. We might learn something egregious about Clinton. Then again, the most scrutinized and examined political candidate of the past quarter century has weathered lots of storms already.

I once wrote on this blog that the election figured to be a blowout. Then I thought Trump might make a race of it. I’m back to believing a rout is in the making.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/05/time-to-handicap-the-fall-election/

 

national news, political news

GOP’s ‘unifier’ needs to start, um, unifying the party

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I believe I’ve heard Donald J. Trump say — many times — that he is the great unifier among Republicans.

The GOP presidential nominee is going to bring the party together to rally behind his candidacy as he seeks to trounce the Democrats’ Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Didn’t he say that?

What’s going on with that?

Fifty senior Republican foreign-policy experts have signed a letter saying that Trump is a danger to the country. They say he’s unstable, and oh yes, “unfit” to become president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/us/politics/national-security-gop-donald-trump.html?_r=3&referer=

How does a unifying presidential candidate bring the party together when former GOP Cabinet members, advisers, senior counsels and various top guns among the GOP foreign-policy intelligentsia all say the candidate doesn’t know what he’s doing?

The letter is a scathing indictment of the nominee. It speaks quite directly and forcefully to his lack of understanding — of anything!

Trump’s answer? The signatories all got us into the trouble we’re in, he said. Think about that for a moment. The man who insists he can unify the party responds to the criticism by telling Republicans that these wise men and women are partly responsible for creating the dangers that Trump says threaten the United States.

From my perch, it looks as though the Republican Party’s rupture is widening, not closing.

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Memo to GOP: Let your nominee finish his race

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More and more Republicans are saying it: get rid of our presidential nominee.

Dump Trump. Ditch Donald.

The latest Republican to speak out is talk-show host — and former GOP congressman — Joe Scarborough. He says Donald J. Trump has disqualified himself as a presidential candidate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/08/09/the-gop-must-dump-trump/?utm_term=.e3ce0dbe3fe2

I believe I must remind Scarborough of the following: Republican Party primary voters had the opportunity all along the way to look to someone else when given the chance.

They chose to go with Donald Trump.

He won the GOP nomination fair and square. He scored a first-ballot win at the Cleveland convention.

Sure, Trump has made a hash of his campaign. His statements have boggled our minds. He is demonstrating time and time again his total unfitness for the job.

How, though, does the party ditch a nominee now?

My own sense is that the party ought to let the man finish what he’s begun. Let him complete the race. Let him continue to embarrass himself.

The party can recover. Political parties have ways to do it. The Republicans rebuilt their conservative coalition after the 1964 disaster when Barry Goldwater got trampled by Lyndon Johnson. Democrats did the same thing after getting battered by Richard Nixon’s landslide win over George McGovern in 1972.

It’s a bit late in the game for the Republican Party to change nominees now.

What’s more, as someone who has no intention of voting for Donald Trump — and who cannot stand the idea of his ever getting anywhere near the Oval Office — I plan to enjoy this supreme narcissist getting his noggin thumped.

national news, political news

Another GOP leader abandons Trump

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I’m trying to remember the last time a major party presidential nominee suffered the embarrassments that have fallen all over Donald J. Trump.

They’re coming in the form of leaders within his own party who are saying the same thing: They cannot support his presidential candidacy.

I guess you have to go back to, say, 1972, when Democrats abandoned the candidacy of anti-Vietnam War insurgent Sen. George McGovern.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has joined the growing ranks of Republicans who are tossing Trump aside.

She writes of her opposition to Trump in a Washington Post essay:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gop-senator-why-i-cannot-support-trump/2016/08/08/821095be-5d7e-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html

Collins writes: “My conclusion about Mr. Trump’s unsuitability for office is based on his disregard for the precept of treating others with respect, an idea that should transcend politics. Instead, he opts to mock the vulnerable and inflame prejudices by attacking ethnic and religious minorities. Three incidents in particular have led me to the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Trump lacks the temperament, self-discipline and judgment required to be president. ”

The incidents were Trump’s mocking of a New York Times reporter’s physical disability, his suggestion that a judge couldn’t preside over a case involving Trump University because of his ethnic heritage and his ridiculous feud with the parents of a slain U.S. Army soldier.

Collins has concluded, along with others within the party, that Trump is not fit for the office he seeks.

Will she support Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton? Collins calls herself a “lifelong Republican,” which makes me believe she won’t cast her ballot for Clinton.

Still, she is denying her own party’s nominee her ultimate endorsement.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet we’ll see more of the same in the weeks to come.

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Character takes center stage in campaign

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Michael Dukakis once declared during the 1988 presidential campaign that the issue that year was about “competence.”

Pure and simple, the Democratic nominee said. The voters would judge whether he or Vice President George H.W. Bush was competent enough to run the country.

Voters went for Bush.

This year, according to a Politico report, the issue is “character.”

It’s also about trustworthiness, which is an element of character.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton are busy trading barrages over who between them is fit — or unfit — to become commander in chief.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/does-anyone-care-about-issues-anymore-or-only-whether-trump-is-crazy-214150

So far it’s clear to me that the GOP nominee’s fitness poses the greater concern.

He fluffs a response to a question about the “nuclear triad.” He says he won’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons. He gives his tacit blessing for other nations to acquire nukes.

Then we have his litany of insults, put-downs and mocking of others. A reporter with a physical disability. His various nicknames and childish rejoinders. His statements about women, a distinguished U.S. senator/war hero. His assertion that a judge cannot adjudicate a case involving Trump University simply because of his ethnic heritage. His ridiculous and gratuitous attack against a Gold Star family.

Character? Does this suggest a candidate with character?

Sure, Hillary Clinton is hardly the paragon of virtue. She has her own character issues with which to deal. Again, though, to my eyes they pale in comparison to the astonishing demonstrations that Trump has put forth.

Character will become the signature issue of this campaign.

As Politico reports: “To be clear: The candidates’ brands of invective are not equivalent. Nothing can quite compare with Trump’s endless—and seemingly spontaneous—flow of crude characterizations of anyone who would cross him. For better or worse, Clinton’s attacks are much subtler, and probably more strategic, since her own high negative poll ratings make it imperative that she portray Trump as so unpredictable, and even unstable, as to be an unacceptable choice for president.”

This campaign is getting uglier by the day.

national news, political news

Ex-Klansman polls better than Trump among blacks? Wow!

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David Duke is polling better among African-Americans than Donald J. Trump.

That’s the lead of a Washington Post story about the U.S. Senate candidacy of a former Ku Klux Klansman.

Uh, that would be Duke.

Part of me should be shocked — shocked, I tell ya! — to know that a certifiable hater would do better than the Republican presidential nominee among black Americans.

Here’s the Washington Post story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/05/david-dukes-getting-more-support-from-black-voters-in-his-race-than-donald-trump-is-in-his/

Duke is running as a Republican for the Senate seat in Louisiana, where he’s been a fixture for years on the fringes of the political mainstream. He has served in the Louisiana Legislature. I’ve never met the guy, although I did venture once across the state line to cover his unsuccessful bid to become governor. That was in 1991.

That’s where another part of me finds this report not quite so surprising. Dismaying, yes. Surprising? I’ll tell you a quick story.

I was working in Beaumont, Texas, at the Enterprise in the early 1990s. Duke was running for governor against the colorful incumbent “Cajun Edwin” Edwards. I thought I’d drive a few miles across the Sabine River into Louisiana to take an up-close look at the political climate there.

I went to Vinton, La., got out of my car and started visiting with plain ol’ folks about the campaign.

I met an African-American woman who told me — and I am not making this up — that she was going to vote for Duke. I was stunned to hear it. I recall today that she recognized the disbelief in my face and explained herself.

Duke, she said, sought to rid the welfare rolls of slackers. She was tired of those who were living off the government dole while doing nothing to improve themselves or their condition in life.

It did not matter to her that Duke once was a grand wizard of the KKK, an organization with a long, sordid and bloody history of violence against African-Americans, Jews and Third World immigrants.

This woman was living in the here and now and, by golly, David Duke was her man!

Does David Duke deserve a place in the U.S. Senate, where he would be voting on laws intended to govern all Americans? In my view, absolutely not! It’s not my call to make.

Still, the idea that this guy — of all guys running for Congress — would poll better among African-Americans than a major-party presidential nominee simply makes my head spin.

national news, political news

‘Widespread chatter’ that Trump should drop out?

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I remain extremely dubious of a notion that’s being kicked around about Republican Party presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

It’s that Republican “insiders” are telling Trump to drop out of the race and give the nomination to someone who at least can help the GOP retain control of at least the Senate, if not the House of Representatives as well.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/insiders-to-trump-drop-out-226689

Let me be as clear as a mountain spring on this: It will not happen …. not like that.

Trump won’t drop out because someone is telling him to do so. If he were to drop out of the race, I am beginning to believe it would be because he had planned to do so all along.

Trump’s fans — the numbers of whom seem to be shrinking — have been fond of telling us how “unconventional” his campaign has been.

You want unconventional? Not a single thing would surprise me about what this guy might do. He’s already said things about political foes that in a normal election year would have gotten him tossed to the side of the campaign trail. It’s almost as though he has wanted to lose the GOP primary fight.

Now, do I believe that Trump has calculated an exit from the campaign? Do I believe he’s already made that decision?

No. I do not believe such thing.

Neither do I believe that Trump is going to do what others want him to do.

Politico reports that key Republican “insiders” took a survey about Trump’s candidacy. According to Politico: “The effect Trump is having on down-ballot races has the potential to be devastating in November,” added a Florida Republican. “His negative image among Hispanics, women and independents is something that could be devastating to Republicans. Trump’s divisive rhetoric to the Hispanic community at large has the potential to be devastating for years to come.”

Politico reports that Trump has made zero indication that he’s going to drop out.

What the heck? He won the GOP nomination fair and square. He knocked 16 other opponents out of the ring. He rolled up big vote totals. I give him credit for that. Honestly.

Still, there’s something amazingly unpredictable about this guy. He’s violated every political norm there is to violate. He’s still standing. But in the wake of his party convention and the convention that nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton, he has managed to make an unbelievable array of unforced errors.

He has invited Russia to hack into Clinton’s e-mails to see what she discarded; he has said Russia hasn’t occupied Crimea, when it has. He has decided to attack two Gold Star parents because they were critical of him at the Democratic National Convention.

And yes, his once-vaunted poll standing has plummeted.

Does anyone really expect this individual to do what other party leaders want him to do, such as quit the race?

No. If he does, it’ll be part of some grand plan he cooked up long ago.

But I don’t actually expect that to happen, either.

Unless …

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Now it’s ‘legal immigrants’ who pose a potential threat

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Donald J. Trump is doubling, tripling, maybe even quadrupling down on his anti-immigrant theme as he runs for president of the United States.

Holy cow, man!

He told a rally in Portland, Maine this week that “legal immigrants” pose a potential threat to national security.

The Republican presidential nominee wasn’t satisfied just in calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country. He expanded it to include those who come from countries where terrorists are lurking (which is just about everywhere on Earth). Now he says even those who are here legally can pose a threat and, by golly, he wants to stop them before they kill somebody.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-now-says-even-legal-immigrants-are-a-security-threat/ar-BBvjdqc?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

OK. Where does he stop?

He might consider going after, oh, every single American. That’s more than 300 million of us. Sure, the immigrant population has grown significantly in this country; it’s up to about 13 million immigrants now compared to 5 million in 1970, according to the Washington Post article attached to this post.

Do they pose the so-called existential threat to our national security? Are they more likely to commit terrorist acts than, say, your run-of-the-mill home-grown, corn-fed, good ol’ red-blooded American-born terrorists, such as, say, Timothy McVeigh? Do you remember Eric Rudolph? Hey, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed all those folks at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009? His name is Nidal Hasan, but he’s an American-born fellow, too.

Trump went bonkers about a year ago when his presidential campaign started. Now, though, he’s talking about folks like my own grandparents. They’re all gone now.

But you know, come to think of it, two of them — my mother’s parents — came here from Turkey, where most people are practicing Muslims. If they were alive today, they might be on Donald Trump’s watch list.