Trump Talk™

Ok, I'm totally lost now, are we still talking about the false idol Reagan or the one we pretend was never president Bush? HW was a half decent president, probably the only decent Republican to hold the office since Eisenhower.

I've considered that he's got a hidden agenda, but I'm leaning more toward him wanting the power and just taking the shortest path. The left would never support him, so he's pandering to the right. I don't believe he's conservative on any topic, but he's definitely pro-business, so long as it's him who's seeing the results. Nobody genuine would be so in line on every subject and still be considered an outsider. It's an act, and I'm guessing the establishment republicans are too afraid of alienating the base by calling him out on it. They started to push back and he only got more popular.

Gotta go with on Trump with this one.

Especially Republicans trying to play an -ism / -ist card.

Trump defends 'blood' comment about debate moderator

Not for nothing, but what is he going to gain by putting his billion dollar enterprise on hold to instead run for office? I mean Arnie wasn't making movies when he was the governator, because it would have been a massive conflict of interest.

I mean lets be honest, the shortest path to power is to just buy up all the politicians, not become one yourself.

Q: You've also supported a host of other liberal policies, you've also donated to several Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton included, Nancy Pelosi. You explained away those donations saying you did that to get business related favors. And you said recently, quote, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.

TRUMP: You better believe it... I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. And that's a broken system.

Q: So what did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?

TRUMP: I'll tell you what. With Hillary Clinton, I said, be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why? She had no choice! Because I gave.

Last night's debate was the funniest political program in our nation's history. Nothing really comes close.

There have been moments, obviously. Bush ducking a shoe. Admiral Stockdale saying "Who am I? Why am I here?" Sarah Palin being interviewed while a man in the background beheaded turkeys was a classic.

But for comic staying power and sheer WTF factor last night's debate went beyond 11. By my count there were over a dozen genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Mike Huckabee bringing pimps into a presidential debate for the first time ever was a landmark moment. Jeb Bush's attempt at a one-liner, "They call me Veto Corrleone," made millions of adults cringe at the same time. Then there was Megyn Kelly's brain-busting toss to commercial near the end:

KELLY: We have to stand you by, because after the break, we're going to let the candidates make their closing statements, their final thoughts, and… God.

Is it really possible we made it this far in the television era without reaching this point: We'll be right back – with God!

God was really the only character missing from that debate last night. Almost everyone else was there, in the repartee if not in person: Rosie O'Donnell, LeBron James, Putin, St. Peter, St. Reagan, Siamese twins, pigs, dogs, slobs, a gay friend of John Kasich, etc. The list went on and on. It was a real parade of stars.

Of course the main character was Donald Trump, who dominated the time-of-possession game and spoke nearly 500 words more than the next closest competitor. In thinking about what actually happened last night, i.e. what was meaningful as opposed to merely lurid and entertaining, you have to start with the performance of Trump, who might just have lured the Republican Party into a trap from which it will not escape.

There was clearly an effort last night by Republican party interests to knock Trump off his frontrunner pedestal. We saw ambush tactics from the start.

Bret Baier started the whole thing off by asking the candidates to promise they wouldn't run on a third-party ticket. Trump declined, highlighting his non-Republican-ness. Megyn Kelly followed up by asking Trump to defend his record of calling women "fat pigs" and "disgusting animals" and then made his probable inability to score female votes in a race against Hillary part of her question.

Later questions targeted Trump's heretical views on abortion and health care, and his history of donating money to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.

No other candidate got anything near this kind of treatment in the debate. A more typical question was Baier softballing Mike Huckabee, asking: "Is the government simply too big for any one person, even a Republican, to shrink?"

Then there was the postgame show. Fox had pollster Frank Luntz come on and speak with a "focus group" that expressed concern about the damage Trump will do to the party. One respondent said Trump was "splitting the party," while another said, "If he runs third party, Republicans lose. Period."

The uninspiring showing in the Luntz group contrasted with some other post-debate surveys, including one on the Drudge Report showing Trump as the clear winner of the debate.

That Fox and the other "contestants" onstage were ganging up on Trump was clear enough, but it hasn't stopped there. Trump is now also seeing a wave of punditry pieces flowing in from traditional conservative outlets slamming his campaign. The National Review's Jonah Goldberg wrote a long piece this month, "Trump fans, it's time for an intervention."

Stung by Trump's criticism of him as a guy who "couldn't buy a pair of pants," Goldberg blasted Trump as a grifter and a RINO who is easier to believe as a "stalking horse for his dear friend Hillary" than as a Republican nominee.

Meanwhile, Rich Lowry at the Review called the debate a "fabulously awful" night for Trump. He slobbered over the rest of the field. He said Bush "made no mistakes, " Christie was "forceful," Carson was "winsome," Kasich "more of a presence than I would have thought," and Huckabee was "incapable of having a bad debate."

Meanwhile, Fox contributor Charles Krauthammer gleefully declared the debate to be the "end of Trump," saying that he looked "lost." He's been an ongoing critic of the Donald, along with other Republican stalwarts like George Will, who not long ago asked, "If Trump were a Democratic mole, how would his behavior be any different?"

It's not a mystery why this is happening. Every indicator shows that if Trump gets the nomination, it will result in a monster wipeout at the hands of a Democrat like Hillary Clinton. Moreover the embarrassment of having to throw their weight behind a deranged narcissist might cripple the party for a generation.

Trump, they surely know, will make Barry Goldwater look like Lloyd Bentsen. The damage he could do with a full general election season behind the wheel of the Republican brand is almost too awesome to contemplate.

What the Goldbergs and the Wills and Krauthammers of the world probably don't get is that by singling Trump out for abuse, they're almost certainly boosting his campaign. First of all, while it might have looked like a damning image to see Trump alone onstage with his hand up and refusing to pledge not to run as an Independent, on another level it was a great Trump moment. As it has been all season, there was Trump, and everyone else. That scene just made the other nine guys onstage look like what they are, stooges beholden to their party and their donors, unable to think for themselves.

The main argument of all of Trump's conservative critics seems to be, "He's not a real Republican! He'll destroy the party establishment!" The people making these criticisms seem to assume that conservative voters will see this as a bad thing.

But there are plenty of Tea Party-type voters out there who hate the Republican Party establishment almost as much as they hate the Democrats. There are also plenty of right-wing voters who think George Will and Charles Krauthammer are smug media weasels only slightly less disgusting than the Rachel Maddows and Keith Olbermanns of the world. A know-it-all is a know-it-all.

Trump's followers are a gang of pissed-off nativists who are tired of being laughed at, belittled, dismissed, and told who to vote for. So it seems incredible that the Republican establishment thinks it's going to get rid of Trump by laughing at, belittling and dismissing him, and telling his voters who they should be picking.

These hysterical critics are making one of the world's most irredeemable bullies look persecuted and like a victim, a difficult feat. The desperation to get rid of him may just feed more and more into the right wing base's crazy victim complex, and in turn get Trump even more support.

The numbers aren't out yet, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the debate last night didn't have exactly the opposite impact that Krauthammer and Frank Luntz and the rest of those clowns thinks it had.

Assuming this doesn't all end in Trump becoming president and the world shortly thereafter ending in nuclear apocalypse, this twist might end up being the funniest thing to come out of the debate and the campaign in general.

The Republican party and its allies at Fox, on afternoon radio and in the blogosphere have spent many years now whipping audiences into zombie-style bloodlusts. When it suited them, party insiders told voters across middle America that foreigners were trying to crawl through their windows to take their wives, and that stuffed suits in Washington and in the media were conspiring to enslave their children in Marxist bondage.

Now all of that paranoia is backing up on them. They created this monster, and it's coming for them now. Trumpenstein lives. He is loose in the town and on his way to the doctor's castle. We may not be laughing two years from now, but for the time being, man, what a show.

Again I find myself saying, even if I *** despise Donald Trump - and that would be a bit much atm; as it is I just think he's a jerk - I still think it will be great if he runs as a third party and throws an entire wrench into the works.

Sanders v. Trump v. Boring GOP-lockstepper.

That would be a hell of a race.

Because even as much as I may dislike him, he'd still probably be better than the rest of the GOP offerings.

And yet every other candidate was able to answer it easily and correctly.

Again I find myself saying, even if I *** despise Donald Trump - and that would be a bit much atm; as it is I just think he's a jerk - I still think it will be great if he runs as a third party and throws an entire wrench into the works.

Sanders v. Trump v. Boring GOP-lockstepper.

That would be a hell of a race.

Because even as much as I may dislike him, he'd still probably be better than the rest of the GOP offerings.

What do you have against John Kasich?

Every candidate did including Trump.

....
After watching the pathetic negotiating skills of the Obama White House in dealing with Iran most recently and Iraq when he wanted to leave at any cost, it would be refreshing and comforting having a competant negotiator with America's best interest in mind in the White House.

I know nothing about John Kasich.

He used to be an investment banker Lehman Brothers' An a commentator on Fox "news."

He lists his stint with Fox as real world experience.

At this point, I'd prefer if politics were more like professional wrestling. Every politician should have his/her own theme song and gimmick.... There should be over-the-top heroes and heels that occasionally switch sides, and everything should be so scripted and cheesy that nobody even questions if it's real anymore -- they just sit back and enjoy the show.

Wrestling would be more honest than current politics.

At this point, I'd prefer if politics were more like professional wrestling. Every politician should have his/her own theme song and gimmick. Surprise challengers should come out of nowhere during debates, with their theme song being blared over the speakers while the other candidates look on in shock. There should be over-the-top heroes and heels that occasionally switch sides, and everything should be so scripted and cheesy that nobody even questions if it's real anymore -- they just sit back and enjoy the show.

He used to be an investment banker Lehman Brothers' And a commentator on Fox "news."

He lists his stint with Fox as real world experience.

At least you can appreciate the awesome acrobatics in wrestling.

What can politicians do?!