By DEXTER DUGGAN
The idea that a successful businessman would make a good politician had put down some roots over the years among Republicans, but it wasn’t necessarily true.
The thinking was that such a person knew how to meet a budget, was an able administrator, could get results in the boardroom. All were presumed assets to carry into the political world. What better model could you have for an election campaign than wealthy “moderate” Mitt Romney, a business success and former Massachusetts governor?
Yet even with media-favorite Sen. John McCain’s early support, Republican Romney still managed to lose the 2012 presidential race to chronically lying, divisive, radically pro-abortion and deeply left-wing incumbent Democrat Barack Obama.
It helped Obama, of course, that dominant media were, as usual, in the tank for a Dem such as him. Given that difficulty, Romney’s big-business caution and deference failed to provide the juice for a winning race.
Big businessman Donald Trump, on the other hand, not only was an experienced negotiator but also a high-stakes player willing to push ahead with what he believed is right, not cautious and circumspect.
Think of his accomplishments as a first-term president piling up. Yes, do think of them, because the fanatically anti-Trump dominant media don’t want you to.
Who else among the early big field in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries could have done all this if he’d won his way into the White House? Certainly not cautious Jeb Bush, “moderate” John Kasich, or young Marco Rubio, to take a few names favored by the GOP establishment.
From honoring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to pinioning North Korea to banqueting with pro-lifers to pardoning boxer Jack Johnson to achieving major tax reform, Trump did them all in less than his first 18 months in the White House, even though one top politician after another over the years said at least some of these were good ideas, but completely failed to carry through.
The president took strong positions on other neglected issues, too, like international trade unfairness and border security against unvetted invaders. And Trump had never even held political office before being elected to the top one in the nation — after deciding he could do a good job at it.
On May 24 Trump granted a posthumous pardon to Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion of a century ago, who briefly served prison time for a racially charged conviction. It wasn’t the most pressing issue of 2018, and had been avoided by other presidents, but Trump saw this as correcting an injustice.
Given the dominant media’s false narrative that Manhattanite Trump is a racial bigot, the pardon seemed hard to report for some. Although active-voice headlines generally are preferred in newsrooms, a passive-voice USA Today headline on May 25 managed to shove Trump’s name down to the seventeenth word in an eighteen-word headline.
It said: “Boxing great Jack Johnson is pardoned; Stallone’s plea on behalf of first black heavyweight champ spurs Trump’s move.” The accompanying AP photo didn’t even show Trump’s face in the Oval Office but, instead, the back of his head as he looked toward actor Sylvester Stallone. However, Trump’s name did appear at the very start of the news story text.
Pro-lifers traditionally had been kept at a bit of a distance by Republican presidents — and of course abhorred by pro-abortion Democrat chief executives.
But Trump surrounded himself with pro-lifers for a live-screen salute carried to throngs at the January 2018 March for Life, then he gave the keynote speech at the Susan B. Anthony List’s May 22 D.C. pro-life gala, while his administration has pursued various avenues to cut away abortionist Planned Parenthood’s tax funding.
But perhaps most notably, in international relations, Trump had outmaneuvered and outfoxed a potentially deadly North Korean Communist regime that only months earlier had dominant media quivering in fear that creepy dictator Kim Jong Un would launch nuclear missiles against other nations.
Rather than pleading for Kim to be nice or rushing over some bribes, Trump warned the creep that the White House had a bigger nuclear button. Before you knew it, suitably admonished Kim was pondering the possible denuclearization of the Koreas during an unprecedented summit meeting with Trump set for June 12.
However, being more experienced in hostility than conciliation, North Korea reverted to some tough talk again, but Trump was having none of it. He promptly canceled the summit and said in a May 24 letter that it was just too bad Pyongyang lost such “a great opportunity” for peace and prosperity, but he still was more than ready to sit down when it made sense.
It was a masterful approach, with Trump playing both the good cop and the bad cop to the Asian bully.
Thanking Kim for having cooperated earlier with summit plans, Trump mourned: “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”
Having smacked down North Korean belligerence as firmly as possible, Trump switched roles to that of a hospitable innkeeper who hopes his potential guest still would like to have a room reservation.
Said the president: “l felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Someday, I look very much forward to meeting you. . . .
“If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write,” Trump added.
What do you know, Kim didn’t want to let this opportunity slip away after all. Planning for the summit resumed.
The anti-Trump media saw Trump as erratic and inconstant, but the deal-maker seemed to know how to get water even from a dry well. And columnist Benny Avni posted at the conservative New York Post on May 29:
“Enter Trump’s deal artistry. Trump didn’t bother studying the nuances of Juche — the weird North Korean blend of Communist, fascist, tyrannical, and isolationist governing philosophy. Instead, he employed his idiosyncratic one-size-fits-all approach to negotiations: Keep the other guy off-balance.”
Meanwhile, Trump has been pointing out to audiences at his rallies the importance of keeping Republican congressional control in the November elections. However, that might become a bit more difficult in practice if the Senate’s current slight majority of 51 Republicans doesn’t change much in November.
Cindy McCain
One of those Republicans, of course, is Arizona’s Never-Trumper Sen. John McCain, who hasn’t been back to work in Washington, D.C., since December because of treatment in the Grand Canyon State for aggressive brain cancer.
Speculation was simmering that McCain would like to have his own wife, the liberally inclined millionairess Cindy McCain, to replace him if and when his seat becomes vacant. The appointment would be made by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a moderately conservative Republican friend of McCain who, however, is up for re-election himself in 2018.
Moreover, Ducey has a challenger in the August 28 GOP primary, former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett. If Ducey were to name an even more liberal McCain to fill the “maverick’s” seat until a 2020 election, Bennett would seem sure to make this an issue.
During a Phoenix radio talk-show interview on May 29, conservative GOP political consultant Constantin Querard said the message from “Team McCain” to Ducey is to appoint Cindy, who’s to the left of her husband.
Querard frequently provides political observations to The Wanderer, but in this instance he was on the James T. Harris “Conservative Circus” talk program on KFYI (550 AM).
Outlining other possibilities for the potential vacancy, Querard named some proven conservative congressmen from safe districts whom Ducey might choose from. However, advancing the careers of conservatives hardly had been the maverick’s focus.
The Hill national political news site reported on May 30 that another name being tossed around as a replacement in McCain circles is liberal Republican and former McCain aide Grant Woods, who had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 while attacking Trump. Woods reportedly described Clinton as one of the most qualified nominees ever to run for president, while Trump was the least qualified ever.
The story in The Hill concluded by quoting “one Arizona Republican source” about the weight that McCain’s word carries with Ducey: “I can imagine the governor would entertain that this is a man, a hero, a patriot who deserves every consideration for a recommended appointment, whether that is Cindy McCain, Grant Woods or somebody else.”
A Hillary supporter and Trump foe to fill McCain’s seat? Welcome to the wonderfully corrupt world of Arizona establishment politics.
By the way, whom did Mitt Romney vote for for president in 2016? His own wife, Ann, he said on May 30.
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