Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The State of the Race: Trump, Trump!, TRUMP!

Did you know Donald Trump is running for president?

In fact he’s the lead in most polls.

Not of course that you would be able to find that out because there is like no coverage on his campaign at all. No wait that's everyone else’s campaign isn’t getting any coverage.

All the pundits feel Trumps campaign cannot last and yet he is still barreling forward. It was going to end after his comment about John McCain. That didn’t happen. It was going to end with his comments about Fox newscaster Megyn Kelly. That’s done some damage but not sure if that ends the campaign. It would have ended any other campaign but Trump is not like any other candidate.

Here’s my take on some of the issues and factors swirling around the Donald’s campaign.

Trump is tapping into the rage of people who feel completely disenfranchised from politics. They put their faith in the Republican Party and the party has produced John McCain and Mitt Romney as the last two presidential candidates. Candidates these people really couldn’t stand.

These voters want a candidate to stand up to politicians and politics as usual. Trump is their guy for that. The more the establishment attacks Trump, the more the media attacks Trump, the more his supporters seem to rally to his side. (It will be interesting to see how the Megyn Kelly issue plays out on this. It’s still a little too early to tell if this hurts Trump or not). And the media, the “liberal media” which is going after Trump well Fox News is part of that “liberal media” (I know who would ever have thought Fox would be considered liberal.)

It’s difficult for the other Republican candidates to criticize Trump’s stance on issues because they’re not much different from the others. Trump might go completely bombastic on immigration and building the wall and making Mexico pay for it. But essentially that’s what all the other candidates want to do. They wan to secure the border and make it as hard as humanly possible for those here in this country illegally to become legal. No amnesty is their mantra.

The most important reason the other candidates are not going after Trump is the other candidates don’t want to alienate his voters. Because the rest of the field doesn't believe Trump can last, when he finally crashes and burns, the other candidates want his supporters.

I don't think this is like Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain. Two flash in the pans last time. Trump can continue because of the amount of money that he has. Also because the media is fixated on everything and anything that Trump does. He will continue to get press both good and bad until he decides to drop out of the race.

In the long run, I don't think that's very good for the Republican Party.

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