Serious question: if "rapists," McCain's war record, Kelly fiasco and getting hit by Fox/Jeb/other GOPers hasn't put Trump away, what will?
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 11, 2015I'm not sure anything will harm Trump, at least as a GOP primary candidate -- but if anything does, I wonder if it could be this:
After a weekend of controversy and campaign infighting, Trump embarked on an effort to bulk up a depleted staff and to flesh out specific policy proposals....Do you honestly think Trump's policy papers are going to have actual policy in them? I don't -- at least not much.
After the weekend departure of longtime political adviser Roger Stone over the weekend, The Washington Post and POLITICO’s Mike Allen reported that the campaign was ready to launch a hiring spree and release a string of detailed policy papers....
Stone had prepared a series of policy papers for the campaign before his departure....
And the issues on which the campaign has promised to issue policy papers -- immigration, veterans, health care, the Second Amendment and the economy -- are all points covered by Stone in a debate prep memo prepared for Trump and obtained by POLITICO. The Post first published excerpts of the memo.
... A campaign insider said the policy papers were being vetted by outside experts....
But what if they do? What if he soon has definable positions on real issues? What if he talks in some detail about issues, rather than just uttering an endless series of bombastic generalizations?
Wouldn't that break the spell?
As it is, every Trump fan now thinks, I don't know what Trump would do as president, but he'd do things right, because that's the kind of guy he is -- a guy who does things right. Trump is a blank canvas right now -- if you're a right-wing idiot, whatever you want is what you assume he'll do. But if starts staking out specific policy positions, he'll be, y'know, a politician. He'll stop being a fantasy sugar daddy who will just make the country all better without ever telling us how. He'll have a tax plan that boring wonks can pick apart and assess in terms of who'd pay more and who'd pay less. He'll have a budget plan that will either add up or -- I'm nearly 100% certain -- not add up. People's pet programs might be cut! He'll no longer be the magic solver of problems! He'll be a guy monkeying with the tax code and possibly goring your ox!
Or he could just put out a bunch of platitudes with no detail. That's much more likely. Or he might just say these position papers are coming out any day now, but they'll never arrive. (Sort of like the real GOP's Obamacare-replacement vaporware.)
But if he does do detailed policy papers, I really think he'll regret it. It will diminish his aura. He won't be a political John Beresford Tipton anymore. He'll be just another pol.
8 comments:
Policy details doesn't really matter to the 27% of the republican base which is propping up Trump in the polls. The pundits are not on the Trump bandwagon but they cover him because that's how they usually cover politics - the sideshow as the main show. Jeb is going to be the pundit approved candidate before this year is over. And Hillary would be the person that they would tell you to be suspicious about.
So what of Trump? He is going to go as far as his money and arrogance takes him. Will other GOP billionaires step in to talk him out of it? Maybe. But Trump does this mostly for sake of attention.
Roger Stone wrote "policy papers"? Roger Stone is, and has always been, a political ratfckr in the Segretti mold, except less clever or effective, while yet more twisted & sleazy.
It makes more sense to me once we see who reported this: POLITICO's Mike Allen - the star lapdancer of Washington D.C.'s flashiest political media house of ill repute, and the Post, his former digs (meaning Allen himself may well have served to 'source' the truly astounding news of Stone as 'policy dweeb'). Losing Stone, leaving in his usual positive flurry of aromatics amid the distinct aroma of the Trump campaign's unexpectedly being taken more seriously than even Trump would have any right to expect, to me recalls Trump's several press conferences concerning his claim to having flooded the state of Hawaii with private dicks in search of debunking the Obirth Certificate.
So, the first line of defense a.k.a. excuse for not releasing policy material will be, Geez, that was Stone's job, and whatever he did he took with him; following up on that we'll hear reports of various well-known mercenary campaign hacks 'being recruited', then a ramping up of Trump campaign sourced leaks and exclusives to the likes of Lapdancer Mike, then news of the hunting and tendering of premises and computers and other supposedly high tech political campaign gear being sought out, then progress reports on security measures and insider meetings and things being put on paper (except the candidate is so darned busy, it's a real problem getting his attention for approvals), and by the time anything at all gets released, t'will be Christmas and the campaign's deathless tomes sent out to slith gyroscopically amongst the Gimbels and Macys, in hopes no one notices before Super Tuesday.
I don't think Trump can make the transition to political maturity successfully with the support he has because the GOP voters who support him are equally emotionally stunted and won't go there with him. Thing is, until a few primaries shake out the chaff, and shit gets real, he can continue the adolescent side show with what he has. Fun to watch. More fun if he makes it to Super Tuesday with this clown show.
Roger Stone left the campaign to spend more time with his family.
Correction:
Roger Stone left the campaign to spend more time harrassing Eliot Spitzer's family
Unlike Sarah Palin, I think Trump is smart enough to know he needs a product to sell. Bashing others (identifying the problem) is just step one. I suspect his solutions will be similar to Bush's remedy for high gas prices (telling the Saudis to open the spigots). In other words, his charisma and forceful nature will transcend any need to get cooperation from those worthless do-nothings that sit in Washington today or forces of evil that lurk around the globe.
It would be interesting to see the world unite behind one objective. The objective would be, of course, to eliminate the United States as a threat. The Trump Doctrine of "steal all the oil with military force" would ensure that.
I see no possible way President Trump wouldn't be using nuclear weapons before his first term is out. The fucker probably pronounces them 'nuke-ular' as well. Bastard.
The biggest problem for Trump's candidacy could be having reasonable positions that could be seen as weak and liberal. He has championed single payer and vowed to keep Social Security. He also mentioned that he would fund Planned Parenthood or most of it. Not popular with the crazy base.
Trump's just solved his 'policy paper gap problem': sez he's not going that way because it's more important to remain "flexible".
And let's face it: there's nothing more flexible than no position at all.
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