Tag Archives: primary campaign

Let Trump be nominated; let him face the music

donald-trump

I believe in fair fights and I believe those who win those fights fairly deserve to reap the reward … or the consequence.

Thus, it is my hope that Donald J. Trump goes on to Cleveland in two weeks and is nominated by the Republican Party to run for president of the United States.

Do I want him to win the election this fall? Not in a zillion years!

This Dump Trump/Never Trump/Anyone but Trump movement likely won’t succeed. Trump’s delegates should hold firm and fend off any challenge.

This goofball won the GOP primary battle fairly. He defeated 16 primary opponents over the course of a long slog through several dozen states. He won a solid plurality of popular votes and has secured enough pledged delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/donald-trump-cleveland-convention-225056

The amazing thing is that he did all this while insulting just about every voting demographic that isn’t white, Protestant and born in the United States. He’s done so while failing to assemble anything resembling a traditional grassroots political campaign. He has succeeded despite the efforts of the GOP “establishment” to rally behind another candidate.

So, let the guy have the nomination. Let him then march off to do battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her deep-pocketed Democratic operatives.

I’m not going to heap too many kind words on Trump. You know how I feel about him already.

The fact is, though, the guy has earned a major-party presidential nomination. How in the world he did it is beyond me. But he did.

Now, let’s allow him to reap what he has sown.

The culling of the fields is about to begin

Leader

The American presidential nominating process is a grueling exercise.

It’s also a useful one.

The Iowa caucuses are about to begin in three weeks. Right after we’ll witness the New Hampshire primary elections.

The usefulness comes in the form of the culling of the fields that’s about to commence.

The candidates at the back of the Republican and Democratic packs have been able to retain their campaign viability by insisting that “no votes have been cast.” That argument ends in Iowa.

Who’ll pack it in?

Martin O’Malley will exit the Democratic Party race, leaving the field to just Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

On the Republican side, the outcome is a bit murkier.

It has become a battle for third place. The top two spots will go to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Third? It’ll be either Marco Rubio, Chris Christie or maybe Jeb Bush. After that, the rest of ’em ought to bail out.

Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Rand Paul and Jim Gilmore (yes, the former Virginia governor’s still in the hunt) all need to exit the stage.

Of the also-rans, my biggest disappointment would be Ohio Gov. Kasich. He’s got a tremendous substantive argument to make: that he, as House Budget Committee chairman in the late 1990s, helped produce a balanced federal budget by working with President Bill Clinton.

That hasn’t worked with the GOP base, which lusts for the red meat being fed to it by the likes of Trump and Cruz.

The process, though, does produce winners. It’s often not pretty to watch. This year has been ugly, to be sure.

However, the process has worked every four years for as long as most of us can remember.

The serious winnowing of both parties’ fields will commence soon.

Let’s all stay tuned.