{"id":13194,"date":"2016-02-26T21:45:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T21:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13194"},"modified":"2016-02-26T21:45:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T21:45:02","slug":"gop-frontrunner-getting-softened-up-for-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13194","title":{"rendered":"GOP frontrunner getting softened up for Democrats?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/republican-elephant-668x501.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12609\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12609\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/republican-elephant-668x501-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"republican-elephant-668x501\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/republican-elephant-668x501-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/republican-elephant-668x501.jpg 668w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Donald J. Trump is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll concede that much.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s interesting, though, to listen to other Republicans tear into him. It makes me wonder &#8212; not that I&#8217;m predicting it, given the wackiness of this campaign &#8212; whether the intraparty opponents will soften him up for the Democratic candidate who might face him this fall.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marco Rubio<\/strong> blasts Trump for hiring illegal immigrants to build his hotels. He calls Trump a &#8220;con man.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ted Cruz<\/strong> accuses Trump of hiring foreign workers over American workers to work in his &#8220;world-class companies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Former GOP presidential nominee <strong>Mitt Romney<\/strong> challenges Trump to release his tax returns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lindsey Graham<\/strong> says his party has gone &#8220;bats*** crazy&#8221; by backing Trump.<\/p>\n<p>It reminds me a bit of the 1988 Democratic primary campaign when Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee introduced the &#8220;Willie Horton&#8221; issue to voters, reminding them of how Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis signed off on a furlough for a prison inmate who then went on a crime rampage. Republicans seized on that theme and beat Dukakis senseless with it during the fall campaign that year.<\/p>\n<p>And so it goes.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing about this campaign makes conventional sense.<\/p>\n<p>It might be that all this piling on only will strengthen the Republican frontrunner.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s making me crazy, y&#8217;all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald J. Trump is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. I&#8217;ll concede that much. It&#8217;s interesting, though, to listen to other Republicans tear into him. It makes me wonder &#8212; not that I&#8217;m predicting it, given the wackiness of this campaign &#8212; whether the intraparty opponents will soften him up for the Democratic &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13194\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">GOP frontrunner getting softened up for Democrats?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[217,1424,1944,2798,2892,3022,4537,5267],"class_list":["post-13194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-al-gore","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop-campaign","tag-lindsey-graham","tag-marco-rubio","tag-michael-dukakis","tag-ted-cruz","tag-willie-horton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13194"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13197,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194\/revisions\/13197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}