Tag Archives: GOP

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Trump having trouble with key GOP bloc

trump mormons

They’re calling it a “Mormon wall.”

The term describes a critically important Republican bloc of voters who normally stand firm behind the party’s presidential nominee … who doesn’t have to share the faith of those voters to win their hearts and minds.

Donald J. Trump is seeking to court Mormon voters in Nevada, which is emerging as one of those battleground states where he and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton will pay careful attention.

Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, isn’t winning them over.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-mormons-nevada-224504

The 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon. He won big in neighboring Utah, which was settled in the 19th century by Mormon missionaries. President Barack Obama, however, captured Nevada in 2008 and 2012.

This is worth noting because of Trump’s claim to be a social conservative who now believes in the Republican Party platform that opposes issues such as abortion and marriage equality.

Mormon voters who comprise such a solid Republican bloc aren’t too keen on the guy who’s about to become the party’s next presidential nominee.

According to Politico: “Usually our people are very involved in being engaged, trying to get other people engaged,” said Cory Christensen, a GOP operative active in the LDS community, who hasn’t decided yet whether to support Trump. “Some very significant, key people that are seen as political leaders—that aren’t elected officials but everybody knows they are involved, and look to them for advice—those people are not making the calls, doing the work, selling people on the fact that they need to be with him. That’s where the big impact would be felt.”

Politico also reports that Mormons comprise only about 4 percent of Nevada’s population, but they do make up a large concentration in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, the rapidly growing largest city in Nevada.

I believe Trump’s difficulty with the Mormon bloc of GOP voters bodes poorly for how he intends to fare with other staunchly conservatives within the Republican Party. Will they cast their votes for Hillary Clinton to “protest” Trump’s bizarre behavior? Hardly. They’re likely to vote for someone else, or not vote at all for president.

This puts the GOP ticket led by Donald J. Trump potentially in some seriously deep doo-doo.

national news, political news

VP choice becomes a problem for GOP

Donald J. Trump stands poised to become the Republican Party’s next nominee for president of the United States.

Is there anyone out there who believes Trump’s nomination will be welcomed with a warm GOP embrace, that the party brass that’s now condemning the candidate will back him without objection?

This brings to mind the question that Politico is asking: Who is willing to become the vice-presidential nominee along with Trump? Who is going to hoist the candidate’s hand in the air from the convention podium in Cleveland? Who’s going to be willing to sing the praises of the candidate who’s insulted just about every voting bloc he’s going to need to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-vice-president-224488

Prominent GOP officeholders have drawn the barbs from Trump.

What about the women of the party? New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez? She’s out. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley? No can do. U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa? Forget about it.

Hispanics? U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida? Hardly. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas? Pfftt!

Anglo males? Trump might have some takers among that group. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey comes to mind. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he’s interested. Some buzz is mentioning former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

This is a half-serious suggestion for why someone might accept a veep nomination from Trump. It has to do with what might occur on the remotest of remote chances that Trump gets elected president in November.

Perhaps the No. 2 man/woman could see a clear path to the presidency in the hope — or perhaps the expectation — that Trump commits an impeachable offense.

Look at it this way: Trump would have few friends and allies in the House of Representatives, which could actually impeach him. He also would have few friends in the Senate, which would actually try him. And the Senate, given the responsibility to consider whatever charges would be brought against Trump, might be inclined to convict him on the promise of getting someone better able to govern.

What might a “President Trump” do to compel an impeachment?

He’s spoken freely and loosely about all the things he would do as president, ignoring the fact that the president shares power with Congress and the federal judiciary. He doesn’t understand how government works.

Might he then to try some kind of end-around on a policy that requires congressional approval?

As we saw during the 1990s, members of Congress need little provocation to file charges and to deliver an impeachment.

I’d be inclined to say the selection would be difficult to make. Then I read this in the Politico piece:

“Ironically, the presumptive nominee’s own toxicity is making the job of finding a vice presidential nominee that much easier, because the short list is so short.”

national news, political news

Speaker: ‘That’s not my plan’ to pull endorsement … yet?

How many times have you heard a politician say he or she has “no intention” to seek higher office? Or that he or she has “no plan” to do this or that, only to change his or her mind and do what was disavowed earlier?

That’s more or less what I’m hearing House Speaker Paul Ryan say as he is peppered with questions about his endorsement of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

“That’s not my plan,” Ryan said to questions about whether he would rescind the endorsement.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to hurtle out of control all along the campaign trail. He recently accused President Obama — and this is utterly outrageous — of seeming to favor the terrorists over the protection of American lives.

Ryan keeps condemning Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country. He said he’d never heard of a presidential candidate pulling press credentials for a major media outlet, which Trump did to the Washington Post.

Now comes Trump’s campaign’s assertion that congressional GOP leaders need to support him all the way or “be quiet.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/paul-ryan-still-endorses-trump-224439

Is there a breaking point? Is there a line that Trump can cross that would cause the speaker to take it all back?

I’m betting it’s out there. It also might not be as far in the distance as the speaker would have us believe.

Plans, after all, do have a way of changing.

local news, political news

Non-endorsements pile up for Trump

Here’s what Mac Thornberry, a dedicated “establishment Republican” member of Congress said about whether he plans to “endorse” GOP nominee-to-be Donald J. Trump.

“If you endorse somebody, it’s like a stamp of approval and embracing them,” Thornberry said earlier this month, according to the (Wichita Falls) Times-Record News. “I’m not comfortable doing that with him based on a number of reasons.” A spokesman clarified to the Tribune that Thornberry would not vote for Clinton but has not committed to voting for Trump.

There you have it.

The Republican congressman whose 13th Congressional District stretches from Dalhart in the farthest northwest corner of Texas all the way to the northern Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, isn’t (yet) going to endorse his party’s presidential nominee.

As the Texas Tribune has reported, the GOP delegation from Texas is far less united in its view of Trump than the Democratic delegation is about their party’s presumed presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/15/texas-congressional-delegation-endorsements/

I am struck by Thornberry’s non-endorsement. It speaks oh, so very loudly to me.

He’s my congressman. I’ve voted for him a few times over the years, depending on the quality of his primary or general election opponents.

He’s generally quite careful and circumspect about political matters when he’s asked to comment publicly.

“Based on a number of reasons,” Thornberry said he is uncomfortable endorsing his party’s presidential nominee. What would they be? Trade policy? Statements that a woman should be punished for getting an abortion? The lengthy string of tasteless insults? His accusing President Bush of deliberate deception in taking us to war in Iraq? Might it be that Trump has no record at all of public service or any commitment to public service through his many business ventures?

You know, it looks for all the world to me as though Mac Thornberry is going to have a hard time even voting for his party’s presidential nominee, let alone endorsing him.

That’s just me talking, of course. Whatever the congressman decides, he’ll act on it in private.

I’ll just add one more point. If Mac Thornberry — who is as loyal a Republican as you’ll find — cannot endorse Trump, then the GOP’s top candidate for 2016 is facing serious trouble down the road.

national news, political news

Can Donald Trump really ‘change’ his ways?

trump

I’m trying to understand an admonition that’s coming from leading Republican officeholders, strategists and assorted loyalist as it pertains to the party’s presumed presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

They want him to “change.” They dislike the name-calling, the insults, the innuendo, the reckless riffs that pour forth whenever he takes the podium as he campaigns for the presidency.

If he changes, they say, they might be able to endorse him. They might actually campaign for him. They’ll support the candidate more than in name only.

I keep wondering: How does a man who’s nearly 70 years of age do that?

What’s more, how do Americans who’ve heard the astonishing things that he’s said ignore them if — and this remains a y-u-u-u-u-g-e stretch — Trump actually becomes a more presentable candidate for president?

It’s like the judge in a trial who tells a jury to “disregard what you’ve just heard” from a criminal defendant or from a prosecuting attorney. Sure thing, Your Honor. We’ll just blot that out of our memory.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has endorsed Trump, but with reservations. He dislikes intensely the candidate’s racist views on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel and his assertion that Curiel’s heritage disqualifies him from presiding over a lawsuit brought against Trump over his defunct “university.”

Ryan has called Trump’s assertions “racist” in nature, but he’s going to support him.

A lot of Americans — millions of them, in fact — aren’t going to forget those comments. They won’t forget the insults Trump has hurled at women, or his mocking of a reporter’s physical disability, or his assertion that Sen. John McCain is a war hero “because he got captured” by the North Vietnamese.

They won’t forget his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, or his claim that illegal immigrants are coming here to commit crimes.

And then we have the lies, such as when he said he witnessed “thousands upon thousands of Muslims” cheering when the Twin Towers tumbled down on 9/11.

So, he’s supposed to “change” the way he campaigns to make himself more suitable to voters.

How does that happen?

International news, national news, political news

Aussies aren’t laughing at Trump

donald-trump-angry-caricature-flickr-cc

I posted a blog recently about how the world is “laughing at us.”

My thesis is that the world is laughing at the man — Republican Donald J. Trump — who keeps saying it as he runs for president of the United States.

I received this response from an Australian friend of mine. His name his Peter. Here is part of what he wrote:

We stopped laughing a few weeks back, when it became clear Trump was going to roll his way through the primaries with little serious opposition.

He had what? More than a dozen opponents? And no-one laid a glove on him!

Aside from the mantras, a side of Trump emerged this past week which has sent shudders through us over here.

The revelations about Trump University were bad enough. Trump’s attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel was beyond reprehensible.

To come from Donald Trump, hard-done-by-businessman-multiple-bankrupt-reality-TV-show-star, would quite frankly be… expected.

To come as it did from the Republican nominee for President of the United States gave it far more gravitas.

If he had a shred of integrity he would have and should have resigned. He doesn’t so he didn’t. 

It was a personal attack on the judge; it was an attack on the court; and an attack on an institution that defines a civilised society.

He tore the court’s standing up like confetti. You would be threatened with jail for contempt of court in Australia, Britain or Canada for that sort of thing… and rightly so, unless you apologised. Trump probably wouldn’t know how… unless he saw some political advantage in it. And then he’d probably deny apologising the next day anyway.

I’ve got some friends out there in Blogger Land who will ask: Who cares what foreigners think? They’re entitled to think it, even to ask it out loud.

I care what foreigners think about our major-party presidential candidates because — presuming the candidates intend to win the election — they will be required to work closely with nations all around the planet.

Thus, it matters.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/06/yes-the-world-is-laughing-at-us-mr-trump/

 

International news, national news, political news

Yes, the world is laughing at us, Mr. Trump

1 Comment

donald-trump-30

Donald J. Trump keeps repeating a number of mantras as he campaigns for president of the United States.

“I’ll build a wall.”

“I will make America great again.”

“I love Hispanics.”

“I cherish women.”

“The world is laughing at us.”

There’s more of ’em, certainly. But of the five listed here, only one of them has a grain of truth to it. It’s the last one, about how the world is “laughing at us.”

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is right. The world is laughing at us. They’re in stitches over in the Kremlin, at 10 Downing Street, at Los Pinos in Mexico City. In Ottawa, New Delhi, Beijing, Tokyo, Ankara, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Jerusalem, Canberra and Brasilia, they’re all howling, man.

However, the object of their derision — I would venture to speculate — isn’t the current government of the United States. They are laughing at the idea that a once-great American political party would be on the verge of nominating someone as reckless, ill-informed, bombastic and narcissistic as Donald J. Trump.

I am not going to walk you through the interminably long list of absolute foolishness that has poured out of this guy’s mouth. You need to see them all to understand what I’m talking about.

Those other world powers are laughing at us because somehow this clown has persuaded a strong plurality of Republican primary voters to back his candidacy. He’s gathered enough delegates to win the GOP nomination this summer. Then he’s going to campaign against a former secretary of state, a former U.S. senator and a former first lady for the presidency.

And all along the way, he’s going to continue hurling insults and will continue to hang childish labels on his political opponents — many of them from within his own political party.

President Barack Obama has joined the battle against Trump. The president said the other evening that “this isn’t a reality TV show. This is serious business.” He’s talking, of course, about the job of statecraft, of running the massive federal government, of being commander in chief of the most powerful military force in world history.

Is the world laughing at us? You bet it is.

That laughter would stop immediately, though, if hell were to freeze over and Donald J. Trump becomes the next president of the United States.

Aww, what the heck. I found this link:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/Donald-Trump/a/Donald-Trump-Quotes.htm

Take a look for yourself. Then we can all join the rest of the world in the laughter.

national news, political news

Unity usually wins these elections

la-1463522501-snap-photo

It’s almost a lead-pipe cinch that the political party that’s unified going into a presidential election is the one that wins.

The two major parties now have presumptive nominees for the presidency.

Donald J. Trump reached that milestone first in the Republican Party primary. It’s been, shall we say, a rocky ride ever since. Republicans in Congress are offering all kinds of qualifiers in suggesting that they’ll vote for Trump, but they cannot yet “endorse” him.

Hillary Rodham Clinton then clinched the Democratic Party nomination. The chatter all across the nation has been that the party is now ready to rally behind her. Bernie Sanders says he’ll keep fighting, but bet on this: He won’t take the fight all the way to the finish line. Not only that, the president of the United States today endorsed Clinton, as did progressive champion U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Ladies and gents, we have a serious fight on our hands.

We keep hearing things about the disarray within the Trump campaign team. Clinton delivered that blistering foreign policy critique of Trump the other day, but Trump didn’t respond in any significant way.

Today, Warren delivered an equally ferocious attack on Trump’s fitness for the job. The GOP candidate’s response once again was muted.

It’s a political truism that unity wins elections. Republicans and Democrats both have learned that lesson the hard way. Democrats in 1968 and again in 1972 were split between hawks and doves; Republicans united behind their ticket and won both times, with the 1972 election being a 49-state blowout. Republicans in 1976 found themselves split at their convention, while Democrats rallied behind Jimmy Carter; Democrats won that campaign.

We’ve still got 150-some days before the 2016 election. The dynamics might change. Then again, the unified party — the Democrats — might ratchet up the pressure beyond Republicans’ ability to withstand it.

I’m betting, though, that everyone’s other prediction about this campaign will stand.

It’s going to be negative … in the extreme.

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Obama endorses ‘most qualified’ candidate for POTUS

barack-obama-and-hillary-clinton-2012

I admire President Barack Obama.

His two terms as president of the United States will be judged ultimately as a success, no matter what his critics keep harping at today with statements of his alleged “failed presidency.”

Thus, I accept his endorsement today of Hillary Rodham Clinton as a potentially decisive event in the upcoming election.

He called his fellow Democrat Clinton the “most qualified” person ever to seek the presidency.

Right there, Mr. President, I will beg to differ.

The most qualified individual ever to seek — and hold — the office is a Republican … in my humble view.

That would be George H.W. Bush, the 41st president.

I’ve taken note before about President Bush’s sparkling pre-presidency credentials: Navy combat aviator during World War II; successful businessman; member of Congress; special envoy to China; CIA director; Republican Party chairman; U.N. ambassador; vice president of the United States.

I don’t want to quibble too much with the president over this. Indeed, Hillary Clinton is supremely qualified to be president and commander in chief. Her resume includes first lady of the United States, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

“Most qualified,” though, is a stretch. Her record is stellar, but not as stellar as the one compiled by President Bush.

Partisan politics being what it is, though, a Democratic president isn’t going to offer credit to someone from the other party while endorsing a member of his own party to become the next president.

The credit that extends across the aisle is left to be handed out by those of us out here in the proverbial peanut gallery.

Thus, I am doing so here.

national news, political news

Anti-Trump movement gains more ‘talk’

Donald Trump speaks during the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee April 10, 2015. REUTERS/Harrison McClary - RTR4WVBQ

It’s all talk at the moment.

That talk, though, is getting a bit louder … apparently.

Some Republican kingmakers are floating the idea that the GOP is going to seek a replacement nominee to push Donald J. Trump aside at the party’s presidential nominating convention this summer.

They’re scared that Trump leading the Republican ticket this fall is going to steer the party into a meat-grinder in the form of Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/talk-grows-replacing-trump-convention-000000790.html

What I’m not hearing or seeing is precisely how this coup would occur in Cleveland.

Honestly — and it pains me to say this about Trump — the party needs to swallow hard and accept that Trump is its nominee. He’s the guy who won more votes than anyone else. He won them fairly and squarely. He has enough delegates now to secure the nomination on the first ballot.

I don’t know where the anti-Trump forces think they’re going to collect enough convention delegate votes to overturn the primary election process.

If the nominee keeps enraging constituent groups with continued insults, then the GOP is doomed to be handed its head at the ballot box this November.

Then it well could be time for the Republican Party to begin a long-term restructuring aimed at returning it to the mainstream of political debate. They did it after the 1964 debacle with Barry Goldwater’s crushing defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. Democrats did as well after George McGovern got steamrolled in 1972 as Richard Nixon cruised to re-election.

Trump has won his party’s nomination on the up and up.

Let him now lead the party to whatever fate awaits it.