Republican presidential candidate George Pataki is hoping to grab some of the spotlight fellow candidate Donald Trump is occupying, by pressuring the rest of the field to denounce Trump's inflammatory comments on immigration.Let's see -- how would that work out for the other candidates? Let's take a look at the response to Pataki's own denunciation of Trump:
Pataki, the former Republican governor of New York, sent a letter to the more than a dozen other GOP candidates asking them to join him in calling out Trump for calling illegal immigrants to the U.S. "rapists" and "killers."
"The last week of news coverage over the language used by Donald Trump to describe Mexicans has left me and a lot of other sensible people wondering what century we are living in," Pataki said in his open letter....
Join me. Stand up now. Denounce Donald Trump's comments today. http://t.co/5XTULJxtVl @JohnKasich @GrahamBlog @GovChristie #FITN
— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) July 1, 2015How'd that go over with Pataki's followers?
@GovernorPataki The sad part is, that you were one that I thought was uniquely qualified: for me, censoring Trump disqualifies you!#PC
— Mike Datlof (@mike_datlof) July 1, 2015@GovernorPataki @JohnKasich @GrahamBlog @GovChristie Absolutely not. He's telling the truth. The man has balls.
— Josephine (@notmyname02) July 1, 2015@GovernorPataki @JohnKasich @GrahamBlog @GovChristie TRUMP IS AGAINST ILLEGALS, NOT LEGALS !!
— tom nichols (@mrtom2360) July 1, 2015@GovernorPataki @JohnKasich @GrahamBlog @GovChristie .I support Trump, because I support the truth. Have you ever heard of it? I doubt it.
— Aut Grind (@autgrind) July 1, 2015@GovernorPataki That's big talk from a has-been politician who won't even make it to the debate stage. We're supporting @realDonaldTrump
— Gary Forbes (@gqforbes) July 1, 2015@GovernorPataki @JohnKasich @GrahamBlog @GovChristie LOVE TRUMP. His statement is based on FACTS. FBI FACTS....
— Jimmy Freedom (@FreedomHaawk) July 1, 2015@GovernorPataki My ancestors were immigrants 2 they assimilated & learned English Didn't turn USA upside down Soon we'll press 9 for English
— Rosemarie McNerney (@RosemarieMcNern) July 3, 2015@GovernorPataki @JohnKasich @GrahamBlog @GovChristie Only someone who fears what Trump says would tweet such things. Thanks for your help
— Marion Talley (@Shadowboxer50) July 1, 2015So yeah, good luck with this, George.
Ted Cruz, of course, has Trump's back. A few other Republican candidates -- Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, and, surprisingly, Rick Perry -- have actually criticized Trump:
Last weekend, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose wife is Mexican-American, was asked in Spanish about Trump at an event in Nevada. In Spanish, he said that Trump doesn't represent the values of the Republican Party, according to Bloomberg News.Hmmm ... three guys who are struggling in the polls, plus Jeb. Not a word of criticism from Walker, Rubio, Paul, Carson, Fiorina. But look at the tweets above. Do you blame them?
Asked again in English, Bush said, "I don't agree with him. I think he's wrong. It's pretty simple."
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry had a similar response during an appearance at the National Press Club on Thursday: "Let me say, I do not think Donald Trump's remarks reflect the Republican Party. I think the Republican Party is reflected in people like me." Several hours later his campaign sent a press release touting an even stronger Perry response to Trump during a Fox News interview.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, campaigning in New Hampshire this week, said Trump's comments were "inappropriate and have no place in this race." Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said in response to a question at a campaign event in Iowa, "I don't need a letter from Gov. Pataki. I said from day one, when you label a group of people as rapists and drug dealers, says more about you then it says about them.”
9 comments:
I'm actually surprised that the spelling isn't all messed-up!
Why is Pataki even running?
Does he have a book coming out?
And if he does, who's going to read it?
He's not big on the WRONGnut Welfare circuit, so there won't be any mass purchases of books to hand out when he speaks.
I deleted the duplicate.
Pataki is a pion for the Bush family...did the same thing in 2000 when they were doing the recount in Florida…Again I’ll restate…JEB is worst then Mitt Romney when it comes to stagecraft…awful body language…If Trump can get financing from Adelson and/or the Koch brothers…he has a populist message that resonates well with the nativism base of republicans…the key for him is EGO restraint with taking criticism with humor…and not play the religious angle cause evangelicals can smell a phony but will respect his economic message..btw love the GOP civil war
Marcus,
But if evangelicals can smell a phony, how come they don't bolt from the church from the stench coming off the guy at the front?
I do get your point, though.
The simple explanation for Pataki's presence in this race is that he's just plain clueless. Doubtless he's been told the truth by close friends and associates to no avail. He will deflate after the first debate when what little money he has dries up. He'll go quietly because it won't be news. And that will be the end of Pataki unless he gets a job selling reverse mortgages between Gunsmoke re-runs.
Donald Trump doesn't need a billionaire sugar-daddy. He is his own sugar-daddy, the classiest, most luxurious, finest quality sugar-daddy there is. And while I figure it pains him to spend his own money, I think someone with his ego would find it impossible to actually do things like "meet donors" and "ask for money". And this is what makes him the wild-card. Unlike Newt Gingrich, there will be no Adelson to tell him he's not getting any more money and it's time to pull the plug. He will keep going until his ego allows him to stop, and that could plausibly be never.
Suppose Jeb! is strong enough in Iowa and New Hampshire to start whittling the field, just like Rmoney in 2012 and then loses in South Carolina and ignites a "anybody but Bush" movement. Trump probably wouldn't be able to win in that scenario, but unlike Santorum, he could stay in and be the anti-Bush up through the convention and actually cause some drama there. And if he thinks he's not respected enough during the primary and/or convention, Donald Trump is exactly the kind of delusional megalomaniac who could self-fund a vicious independent campaign in the general election. He wouldn't have to pull Ross Perot or even Nader numbers to make it a Democratic landslide. (Heck, it doesn't seem impossible that with Columba Bush being a Mexican-American and Jeb!'s positions on immigration, Trump wouldn't even have to run in the general to potentially generate a bitter, small, but big enough write-in movement from the people who put illegal immigration at the very top of America's problems, with the Democrat and Bush both being "pro-amnesty".)
Now, I have doubts that Donald Trump is competent enough and committed enough to go that far (although I never thought he would actually get off his ass and file the paperwork to actually run, so I've misjudged his commitment before). But he has the three ingredients that make it all possible:
1). As Steve says in this post, there is at least a small, but energized constituency in the Republican primary electorate for just the kind of bullying and nastiness that Trump brings to the table, and he's not a career politician, which always has some appeal.
2). He's self-funding and can fund a massive campaign for however long he wants to.
3). He's an absolutely delusional megalomaniac, so the usual pressures like "you're making a fool of yourself" or "you will never, ever get even close to winning" or "you are actively damaging your own stated interests" don't necessarily apply.
I despise Donald Trump, but I'm hopeful he can do some constructive damage where it is most needed.
There is some dispute as to how much Trump is really worth. I'm skeptical that he has more than maybe 50 million in non leveraged assets to spread around on anything, much less a campaign. Could you imagine him actually cutting million dollar media buy checks of his own money to NBC who just dumped him?
I just can't imagine it being in his DNA to spend his own money on this campaign. No, he won't self fund. He's all talk.
At any rate, he has less than 30 days to file his personal financial disclosure statements with the FEC.
The problem for the GOP elite is that the Donald is very much in line with the Palin side of politics…but he has much better communication skills then Mitt Romney when it comes to economic messages which resonates well with the GOP elite .The two combined can be very potent…He is a little like a Silvio Berlusconi. If he stays discipline (BIG IF) He will hurt JEB…that’s the only one he is after. The rest are just grifting books or looking for Government jobs after the election…BTW he would never use his own money for running he is not stupid that way…he always builds and uses consortium to raise capital
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png
I think this needs to be passed around to some of the people who confuse "disagreement" with "censorship".
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