The Comic Relief Wins

When Donald Trump entered the Republican race to be the party’s presidential nominee, I did not believe he was a serious candidate.  He was the comic relief out to build his brand.

While he would strongly deny it, Donald Trump did not enter the race to be the nominee. When he announced his candidacy, he lacked a long game. He lacked depth on issues and lacked concern about getting up to speed on issues, because he was not going to be in the campaign long enough to need them. He was slow to hire a staff to help him run a national ground game, a team that would help Trump in the caucus states to track potential delegates, then secure and solidify those delegates. His Iowa ground game was anemic. Why? Was it Trump’s brilliance that saw that none of that was necessary?  While Monday quarterbacking his answer was his plan from the outset, the is highly doubtable. He didn’t have a ground game because he did not think he would win it all.

A master at amassing wealth through image branding, Trump’s goal was to broaden and deep his image, his “brand”. Hence, from the outset, what he did was designed for one purpose, to gain as much media attention possible in the most media intensively covered story that comes around every four years and which he could ride for six to nine months. His outlandish statements and over-simplified controversial solutions did just that, and quickly he was being in more stories than any other candidate.

In the wake a lot of conservative Republican firebrands were left in shock. In Cruz they had a “purist”, a man who was a darling of the Tea Party and who could as president serve as a quasi-evangelist-in-chief in the eyes of the evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians. They had a man who treated compromise as four letter word. As it turns out their ideal champion could not make it out of their own party let alone go on to win a national election. 

So what happened? While many books will be penned and expounded upon for years to come, as an outside observer, and listening to comments by people who voted for Trump, I venture to put forth the following list of what happened.

1.  Rubio, Bush, Cruz, Christy, etc. ran political campaigns. In contrast, Trump ran a brand marketing campaign. Such a campaign is designed to catch media attention, suck up as much attention as possible, create buzz by tapping into the fears of his intended audience, articulate those fears in a stark manner and then give a solution. Not only did Trump define himself he also defined his opponents who were not prepared to fight a branding campaign. As Trump was running a branding campaign, what he said to grab attention and move people may or may not be views he holds.  

2.  For about two decades talk radio and a handful of widely listened to right-wing commentators have increasingly generated anger in their followers. They have spoken of compromise, the basis upon which this nation was founded and the foundation of sound governance, as evil. These commentators sowed the seeds created the ground for dysfunctional government. As such, these stirrers of anger tilled the ground for Trump’s seeds to take hold and bloom. Trump became the standard bearer for their rage. His statements channel their rage and his simplified contentless promise to do something made them feel good.

3.  Coupled with anger is a dysfunctional delegitimized Congress that is accomplishing little helped create an environment for Trump’s success. At the state and national levels our politicians have through their demonizing of those in the opposite party, and an unwillingness to compromise and work together brought into existence dysfunctional government. When proposals by one party are being rejected and opposed by the other, even those proposals that were once one’s espoused by the rejecting party, they were delegitimizing the governing process.

When reasonable proposals are put forth it is not uncommon for the proposal to be framed to contain poison pills knowingly that they are forcing the party opposite to reject the idea. Extreme minorities in both parties through their rigidity have created a deep distrust of politicians across the nation. It is a shame that a nation that prides itself on the process by which it was founded has turned its back upon that founding process and delegitimized government officials, Congress, the Supreme Court and the governing process. Instead of working to make government more responsive to contemporary needs of the citizenry they have been through their bickering destroying government.

In such an environment, why would the general populist line-up behind Bush, Rubio and Cruz when they have Trump as an option serving as the piper with his enchanting song?  As government is delegitimized in the eyes of the average Republican primary voter, when looking at content-challenged Trump they follow him thinking, “Anything is better than one of these idiots. How could Trump do worse.”

4.  Throughout history economic trauma and insecurity gives emergence to voices of protectionism, nativism, xenophobia and outright bigotry. And sometimes major sea changes in a nation’s political life. Trump is tapping into and playing off those fears. He gives voice to those fears and unwashed reactions.

Such voices tend to point to particular groups for the cause of the nation’s woes, and warn that these people will destroy the nation unless they are strongly addressed. They create the ground in which a person of a different ethnicity is viewed by their neighbor with high suspicion. Such voices imply that if the nation stands against “those people” that the woe’s experienced by the citizenry will be reversed.  Trump is channeling and giving legitimacy to such discontent with his “believe me, I will make it so much better” statements.

5.  In the first months, neither the party nor the other candidates directly challenged Trump’s attention catching statements. They did not repudiate them firmly and state how they are clearly unrealistic and/or contrary to the values upon which the nation was founded.

Instead they remained silent or gave an empty and soft objection. It seems they didn’t do so for three reasons. For some they could not challenge him because either they lacked a position and wouldn’t venture forth onto foreign ground.  For others, such as Ted Cruz, they wanted to play nice with the hope to ingratiate themselves to his supporters so as to attract his supporters when he dropped out of the race.    For a few it may well be possible that they remained silent because they had a similar but softer position that Trump stated more starkly. Hence for this third group, Trump turned their right flank them and routed them into a retreat.

6.  A significant portion of the Republican primary voters are older than 55 and white, a demographic that is highly concerned that the government not destroy or tamper with their retirement benefits. Though many of the people drawn to Trump may state that they want small government and have concerns about religious liberty, for these older voters, those issues are secondary to their concern about hawks drawing the nation in additional foreign wars, and protecting their Medicare and Social Security. A hawkish Cruz was likely to tamper with their retirement benefits, and send their grandchildren off to die on foreign soil.   

7.  Trump captured as many evangelical voters as Ted Cruz which indicates that that group is not a monolith. While evangelical voters, and who are primarily 40+ and white, have concerns about religious liberty and various other morality issues, this group are more concerned about a host of other issues. One of those concerns is the coloring of the nation.

Cruz’s pushing his evangelical credentials worked against him with some evangelicals. Recently two evangelicals noted to me that the sincerity of Cruz’s faith was put into doubt in their minds when word came out that he had not been tithing to his church. As tithing is viewed as a mark of spirituality, Cruz not even coming close to doing so for many years raised questions. For these two people, the tithing issue opened them up to voting for Trump.

8.  Cruz tried to portray himself as an outsider and a Tea Party politician, yet as the campaign heated up the outsider image became hollow. Compared to Trump, Cruz was the insider who used insider tactics and techniques like other insider candidates. His effort to get “Trump delegates” to switch to him at a contested convention reinforced the impression that Cruz was a typical politician. 

His ethics and truthfulness came into question. When compared to Trump’s populist unwashed statements, Cruz’s obfuscating statements further demonstrated that he was a typical politician. Cruz’s Trusted signs in the eyes of many resonated as Trust Ted??  His effort to stack state delegates Naming his VP choice was viewed as a sign of desperation, the shooting off the fireworks as the ship flounders.  Trump came across as the true outsider, not carrying what people thought and saying what he was thinking.

9.   Populism triumphs over ideological purity, which differs from the assumption Cruz and his funders hold about the common Republican voter. Cruz and the ideological driven Republican purists advocate that if the party rallied around an ideological stalwart that Republicans would win the White House as well as increase their majority in the Senate and House. It is on this basis that the Freedom Caucus have been conducting themselves as if they represented the majority of the party and the general population (Cruz likely will hold that this is true for he argued recently that the majority of the party supports him. In doing so he is implying that a good portion of those who considered themselves Republicans and voted in the primaries are Rinos and therefore not truly Republicans.) 

Ideological purity does not to give you a victory and if ideological purity does not give you victory within the party, then it is correct to question what would be the results in a general election. 

10. Cruz's team were in error in thinking that as other candidates dropped out that they would get most of the supporters for those candidates. Instead, Trump gaining the lion share of those Republicans showed how limited Cruz's support was in the party, how flawed he was, and that the party would rather go with the comic relief who lacked policy that vote for Cruz.   

11.   Rubio gained no traction. He came off as a man who planned four years ago to run for President but who ran four to eight years too soon. Rubio was too unrefined and poorly articulated his positions. Also Rubio lacked a fire and passion that could have helped off-set his immaturity. Where was his heart?

12.  Jeb Bush was listless, and lacked passion. He gave people no vision and cause to vote for him. He was not prepared to give people a reason to vote for a third Bush to be president.

13.  Kasich lacked a vision around which people who were lukewarm to cold on Trump could rally. He seemed to have no burning fire to move people and stir them to support his run. His greatest argument was that he was a second term governor of Ohio. A major shortcoming was that he was a second term governor of Ohio, a state that economically under her leadership has at best been average.

14.  Bridgegate undermined Christy's run.   

Will Trump win the national election?  The chances are high that he will but will only be a one term president.

TRUSTed??

Senator Ted Cruz in his run to be the Republican presidential candidate has positioned himself as a sincere Washington outsider who wears his Christian faith not only on his sleeve, but across his chest too. He proclaims that he is a dedicated evangelical Christian by deep conviction and lives by its primary principals. His TRUSTed signs help him push his brand that as a practicing evangelical Christian he is trustworthy and upright. His approached served him well in Iowa, and likely play well in South Carolina.
In light of recent actions will his branding and his claims to be a committed evangelical Christian become the ground of his undoing? Evangelical Christians hold that professed faith is evidenced through one’s conduct and actions. While no one is expected to be flawless, Evangelicals hold one’s profession can be questioned if conduct consistently does not match faith statements.   

One of those primary Evangelical values is the that a person of faith must support one’s church financially. That financial support should be more than a token sum. Most Evangelicals expect that support to be a tithe, 10%, of all one’s income. It is commonly held that if one does not tithe then one’s faith is rightly to be questioned by the church’s leadership. A friend of mine says that he is now favoring another candidate because now Cruz's character has come into question in his mind.

The public has been learning that Cruz has not been financially supporting his church. His statement that he had not been financially supporting his church ring hallow amongst those of who have evangelical roots. Saying that he was building his family’s cash reserves and establishing a family trust is problematic for the vast majority of households in the church have income below Cruz’s and if they did the same as Cruz over 95% of churches would be closed for lack of funds.

Will the news that Cruz has not been financially supporting his church create tensions in the eyes of evangelical voters and cause them to question his profession of faith?  Or will Evangelicals rationalize it, giving him a pass on his lack of tithing even though such a pass would not normally be given to others in their church who seek to be viewed as leaders?

Then just as the Iowa caucus were starting the Cruz campaign spread a rumor that Ben Carson was withdrawing. The same messages instructed their caucus precinct chairs to inform caucus attendees, particularly Carson supporters, that if they supported Cruz attendees would be wasting their votes. Anecdotal reports from caucus Evangelical attendees indicates that that numerous people changed their votes on the news and enlarged Cruz’s win.

Carson had no such plans to withdraw. On Tuesday, the day after the Iowa caucus, Cruz stated it was an accidental error and not something intentionally constructed and pushed by his team. We are all aware that rumors on the lips of one or two can take flight, sometimes creating havoc and destroying lives. Cruz offered an apology to Carson, an apology that was accepted.

Unfortunately, subsequent evidence contradicts Cruz’s Tuesday statement. Copies and the breath of the voice mails, text messages and emails indicate that the messages were not only intentional but were spreading downright falsehoods. The inner circle of Cruz’s team was involved. While Carson accepted Cruz’s apology, he is rightly put out if the apology was offered on false ground. Will Evangelicals now see Cruz as a typical obfuscating calculating Washington insider doing whatever he needs to say and do to win, a scheming chameleon changing to fit the terrain?

Will the TRUSTed brand be start some to wonder if it is not a sign that Cruz is the opposite of the sign?

Surveyed About Republican Presidential Candidates

Last week I was surveyed by the National Republican Party. I found the survey interesting for asking for demographic information and party affiliation (independent) I was asked two questions about Hilary Clinton. No question was asked about other Democrat candidates. Both questions on Clinton related to my views as to her trustworthiness which suggests that they expect her to be the nominee and the the current planned primary focus for their attack ads.  

The survey than asked me to rank various current and anticipated Republican candidates on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "most definitely would support" and 10 being "most definitely would not support".

  

The following were all given a 10, most definitely would not support score…Cruz, Christie, Trump, Carson,  Fiorino, Graham, Huckabee, Jindal, Perry, Santorum, Walker. Interestingly I was not asked about Bush, but then again he has not yet to declare.

I also found it interesting that I was then asked why I ranked each of the above so poorly. Below was my response:

Jindal....a ideologue who has governed his own state poorly leaving his state in economic shambles. If he has brought harm to his state how can I trust him with a national office. May well be one of the first out.

Trump....I seem him as a self-promoting egotist who is serving as the comic relief, and who is exposing the depth of the ugly side of the Republican base. Whether he says outlandish things because that is what he believes or it is designed to draw attention to himself by garnering the attention of the press and thereby create public buzz makes little difference. The one is mean ugliness and the other suggests manipulation with little thoughtful policy substance. How much traction he will gain depends upon attention and the depth of the ugly side of the Republican base. He is the wild card who will either be gone quickly after the first primaries or be a long term player if he is willing to commit his own resources and keeps getting media attention.

Walker....his ethics are of the level Tricky Dick. A golden tongued divider who says whatever needs to be said to appeal to the crowd of the moment which has resulted in a plethora of statements on different sides of an issue. He has a history of discrepancies between what he says in campaigns to win votes and how he governs. His state which has often outperformed in the region has underperformed in the region. I do not trust him. Like Trump, he will be out early or be a major player...it all depends upon media buzz and financing.

Cruz....he is an aggressive divisive candidate who reminds me in many ways of Senator Joe McCathy. I don't trust him. He postures himself as the outsider but he is an insider who postures himself as an outsider. He will use dirty tricks much like Nixon. Many of his ideas and statements suggests that he is a Christian equivalent of a Khomeini-like character who with enough like-minded people in Congress would turn a secular religiously neutral nation into a evangelical Christian nation. 

Christie....he comes across as belligerent, demeaning and dismissive...not characteristics needed for a major leader on the national level. He has a history of signing agreements but soon after breaking them while claiming circumstances have now changed. For me he is not trustworthy. I don't think he will last long...possibly gone before or shortly after Iowa.

Carson and Fiorino...neither has experience in governing and working around government. It seems that they are in the race to promote their way into a higher profile position (cabinet or ambassador) or as an entry onto the lucrative conservative speaker circuit.

Huckabee....a talented speaker with well crafted soundbites that lack balanced thoughtful policy content. I disagree with his rewriting/interpretation of history.

Perry....repackaging and years posturing does not cover a deeply flawed and shallow candidate of yesteryear. He is likely to be one of the first to go.  

Santorum....too far out of the mainstream of the nation to have great traction in a national election. He rightly lost to Romney....he is even in a poorer position 4 yrs later. He has been out of the spotlight for years and out of influence. He may be in the race more out of ego and/or to posture himself for a cabinet or ambassador position. I don't think he will go much beyond Iowa if his finances get him that far.  

Graham...too narrow focused with highly hawkish views regarding gunboat diplomacy. He has a good head but narrow appeal.

If I was asked about Bush I would have said, he has to overcome the baggage of family and an exterior that seems to suggest a lack of passion. He has been out of the spotlight too long. Money will carry him deep, but will the country want a Bush III? I don't think it does. Will the party?