Tag Archives: 2004 DNC

national news

Trump stands as proof that ‘anyone’ can become POTUS

A young U.S. senator from Illinois stood before the 2004 Democratic National Convention and said, “Only in this country is my story even possible.”

His name was Barack Obama, a self-proclaimed “skinny kid with a funny name.” He was an African-American man born in Hawaii to a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya. There he was, delivering the keynote speech to Democrats who would nominate Sen. John Kerry to run against President Bush.

Four years later, that senator would run for president himself. Millions of Americans voted proudly for him. I was one of those Americans. Sen. Obama became President Obama and demonstrated that, indeed, “anyone could be elected president.”

Obama set the standard for political improbability. Eight years after that, though, another man smashed that standard to smithereens.

Donald John Trump Sr. had never sought public office. He had never devoted a minute of his adult life in service to the public. His entire life had been built with one goal: to enrich himself.

He was a huckster supreme. He sold us a bill of goods. He talked about his brilliant business acumen. Trump told us he would do for the country what he did for himself. He would make America great again. All by himself, too!

Well, this charlatan managed to capture enough Electoral College votes to defeat a profoundly more qualified candidate, former U.S. senator/secretary of state/first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now he wants a second term as POTUS. I must ask this question: Is this clown going to fool us yet again?

Trump has managed to denigrate damn near every institution he has touched. He has hurled insults. Trump has tossed out innuendo after innuendo.

Trump has failed time and time again to demonstrate a shred of humanity. He lacks the basic elements of empathy. He cannot tell the truth at any level.

Donald Trump has proven without a doubt that in this country, “Anyone can be elected president.”

If this individual manages to win re-election in 2020, then we all must live with the truism we hear from time to time:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

national news

Obama and Trump: they walk on common ground

Illinois state Sen. Barack Hussein Obama told us during the 2004 Democratic National Convention while he delivered the keynote speech that “only in this country is my story possible.”

He was a self-proclaimed “skinny kid with a funny name.”

Indeed, his story was a remarkable one: a black father who was born in Kenya; a white mother from Kansas; Mom and Dad split when young Barack was a boy; Barack barely knew his father; Mom and her young son moved from Hawaii to Indonesia; Barack got a first-class education, went into public service — as a community organizer, a state senator and a U.S. senator — then got elected president of the United States.

This was not a silver-spoon existence. His election as president was a most unlikely event, given the many circumstances of his early life.

He demonstrated that “anyone” can be elected to the highest office in the nation.

Hmmm. How about that.

Donald Trump, I submit, has some commonality with his immediate predecessor. It’s not that Trump was born into a similar family situation, or that his parents struggled financially.

But think about this: In his way, Trump, too, has shown that “anyone” can be elected president of the United States.

Where’s the symmetry? It’s kind of weird, but consider some aspects of this man’s life.

He grew up the son of wealthy parents. He went to a military high school; he then graduated from an Ivy League university; he went into business when Daddy Trump staked him a few million bucks to get started; he built the business into an empire.

OK, here’s some more strange circumstance. Trump would get married three times; he would cheat on his first two wives and then would brag about it; he was host of a reality TV show; he owned a beauty pageant; he behaved like a boor at times.

Trump never ran for public office. He didn’t serve on a school board, or a city council, or a county commission. He never served in a legislative assembly.

The very first public office he ever sought was the presidency of the United States of America.

Does the president’s history suggest to you that he was well-prepared to become head of state of the greatest nation on Earth?

Me, neither.

Thus, Donald John Trump — just as Barack Hussein Obama before him — demonstrates to me that, by golly, anyone can be elected president of the United States.