Tag Archives: GOP

national news, political news

Trump’s big pile of cash … isn’t there

trumpdonald_061516getty2

Donald J. Trump keeps boasting about all the money he has earned.

He keeps saying he will “self-finance” his campaign for the presidency.

Well, this is just in: Trump’s presidential campaign has $1.3 million in the bank.

Sure, that’s a lot of money to folks like me. For a presidential campaign in June? It’s pauper territory, dude.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284214-trump-ends-may-with-just-13-million-in-bank

The presumptive Republican nominee is now facing the possibility of running out of money for a campaign that it plans to wage against a heavily financed, thoroughly staffed and profoundly professional effort on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats’ presumed nominee.

Trump keeps telling adoring audiences that he is worth billions of dollars. He says he won’t ask for money from donors because, well, he doesn’t need it!

Actually, he does.

It is quite true that Trump won many of the primary races while being outspent by his opponents. But that was then. The here and now is quite different.

Trump waged his primary campaign by appealing to the GOP base that comprises primarily the TEA Party wing of the Republican Party. He’s now being forced to appeal to a broader audience. To reach those folks, the man needs money … that he does not have.

It’s time to start pouring some of that vast wealth of his into his bid to become president.

If he has it.

national news, political news

Trump campaign disarray is growing

cory

Campaigning for the U.S. presidency is a complicated and costly endeavor.

That’s just the way it is. These campaigns require cohesive planning, streamlined communications systems, a vast network of field officers running operations in states and congressional districts and it requires leadership from the very top of the pecking order.

Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the presidency is showing signs of, well, coming apart. It’s blowing itself to pieces at just about the worst time possible.

The presumptive Republican nominee canned his campaign manager Cory Lewandowski this week. He fired the guy who engineered his highly unlikely and apparently successful campaign to capture the GOP nomination.

Who takes his place? That’s anyone’s guess.

Moreover, reports suggest that Trump’s children — chiefly daughter Ivanka — had a huge hand in kicking Lewandowski to the curb.

Let me see if this adds up.

Trump is just about a month away from claiming his party’s nomination. He doesn’t have a campaign manager to oversee the state-by-state operations needed. The candidate reportedly has few field offices up and running across the country. He isn’t spending any money — yet — on media advertising in the critical battleground states he’ll need to capture if he has a prayer of winning.

There’s more.

Republicans in Congress are clamming up when media ask them about Trump’s campaign. Some of them are withholding their endorsements; a couple of GOP lawmakers have rescinded their endorsement.

Oh, and then there’s this: The insults keep pouring out of Trump’s mouth, not to mention the egregious innuendo about President Obama and whether he harbors secret sympathies for radical Islamic terrorists.

That’s OK, as Trump would tell his supporters. Not to worry.

He possesses a “good brain.”

national news, political news

Support, yes; endorsement, no

ronjohnson

The political media are starting to ask politicians around the country the question that’s on a lot of our minds: How can you “support” a candidate without “endorsing” him or her?

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican facing a tough fight for re-election this year, might have given us a clue.

It’s a matter of degree, Sen. Johnson told CNN.

“Well to me,” he told Dana Bash, “endorsement is a big embrace. It basically shows that I pretty well agree with an individual on almost everything,” Johnson said. “That’s not necessarily be the case with our nominee, so I’ll certainly be an independent voice where I disagree with a particular nominee. I’ll voice it, whether it’s Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or anybody else.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/ron-johnson-donald-trump-224527#ixzz4C88C246t

It means, in effect, that Sen. Johnson is likely to vote for fellow Republican Donald J. Trump, the party’s presumed presidential nominee, but that’s it.

There won’t be any campaign appearances with him. You likely won’t see Johnson introducing Trump to cheering audiences at campaign rallies. You won’t see him in political ads extolling the virtues of his party’s presidential nominee.

There’ll be a polite handshake or two if they meet somewhere, say, in that battleground state of Wisconsin.

If you’ll pardon the metaphor, there’ll be no political equivalent of a wet kiss exchanged between these two. You get my drift?

This is the kind of tepid “support” Trump is encountering all across the nation, particularly from endangered Republicans such as Johnson, who’s trailing in polls at the moment to the man whose seat he won six years ago, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

Trump has said in recent days he’s able and willing to “go it alone” as he campaigns for president.

My strong hunch is that he’d better get ready for a relatively lonely journey along the campaign trail.

 

national news, political news

As nation grieves, Trump boasts

90

“Temperamentally unfit … ”

We’re likely to hear that a lot during the next few months as Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns for president of the United States against Donald J. Trump.

Examples? We’ve got plenty of them.

The latest example of temperamental unfitness presented itself in the hours after this past weekend’s slaughter of 49 people at the Pulse, an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

The nation went into shock at the most gruesome mass murder in U.S. history. Trump’s response was to send out a tweet that boasted about how he predicted that Islamic terrorists were going to strike.

Trump said he called it. He was right. The president of the United States has been “weak” in the fight against terrorism, he said.

Republican insiders now are saying that Trump blew it badly by bragging during this time of national bereavement. “Only an a**hole says ‘I told you so’ the same day 49 people are killed on American soil by a terrorist,” said a New Hampshire Republican, who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously, according to Politico.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-orlando-response-224479

The massacre in Orlando has been generally categorized as an act of terror. The killer — an American — seems to have been radicalized by his fealty to the Islamic State.

It’s also been called the “worst act of terror on U.S. soil since 9/11.” That’s now a given.

I now shall remind us all of what national security officials said in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Almost to a person they predicted then that we’d get hit again. That the terrorists had smelled our blood and they wanted more of it.

It’s also been a given that we would feel this kind of pain.

Trump’s braggadocio was so profoundly inappropriate that it only feeds the narrative that Hillary Clinton is going to recite time and again as she campaigns for the presidency.

national news, political news, religious news

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/