Once Past The Blind Date . . . Are Voters Acting Blind By Sticking With Trump’s Candidacy?
By DEXTER DUGGAN
The thrill of the blind date with the flashy New Yorker is past. You’d seen him a lot on entertainment television, then he came knocking on your door. Why not give him a wink?
But is this a relationship you want to keep going, now that you’re seeing some of his quirks? For many Republican voters on Super Tuesday, the answer definitely was yes to more of the Donald Trump show.
It’d been a long time since the same GOP candidate won the primaries in both Massachusetts and Alabama, said Politico reporter Shane Goldmacher as the results came in.
And in both the liberal Atlantic Ocean state and the conservative Gulf Coast state, Trump’s victorious vote on March 1 Super Tuesday was in the mid to high-40s, percentage-wise. Actually higher in Massachusetts than Alabama.
Trump definitely had found a solid footing in an America feeling on the edge after reeling through more than seven full rocky years under the hectoring reign of radical leftist Barack Obama. And most of the rest of the GOP electorate was further to the right than Trump.
On Super Tuesday Trump won seven of the states voting, Texas’ Ted Cruz won three, and Florida’s Marco Rubio one.
The New York billionaire seemed to know just what he’d tapped into when he proclaimed to the populace on March 1, “It’s not about me. I’m a messenger. It’s really about you.”
Americans were tired of the bipartisan ruling class continuing to make the country weaker and more divided as long as this benefited the globalist crony corporatist-capitalists who laugh at any borders while thinking citizenship can be handed out like Halloween candy. What a fright.
The cronies weren’t merely looking for cheap votes for the Democrats and cheap labor for Wall Street. The Republican elite also was entranced with the idea of diluting the power of conservatives, Tea Partiers, and other traditionalists who kept pushing for smaller government, less statist waste, and spending, and for time-proven values.
The corporatist class didn’t like this constitutionalist fidelity a bit. What better to overwhelm it than an unlimited foreign invasion of new soon-to-be voters with poor grounding in responsible self-government?
But was Trump truly the antidote for the illness? Or was he just more of the Manhattan donor class putting on a costume of convenience until he could bluster his way to victory?
A blind date may be a fine way to start a relationship. But how many divorces begin with the prenuptial notion that “I can reform him after we get married”?
Maybe Trump could do a great job in the White House. But the classic warning against “jumping out of the frying pan into the fire” is a reminder that voter desperation can lead to foolish decisions. Better kick the tires of Trump’s limousine before letting him take you for a ride.
A telling incident occurred during the February 25 GOP debate in Houston when Trump attacked competitor Cruz for pointing out Trump’s previously expressed support for his radically pro-abortion sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal judge.
Not only did Trump misleadingly claim that conservative, pro-life Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito “signed that (same) bill” for abortion as Trump’s sister, but also suggested that Cruz owed him an apology over this.
In fact, Alito explicitly rejected Barry’s position. The incident illustrated Trump’s inclination just to spout words no matter how ill-connected they are to facts.
Moreover, even a liberal politician, not merely a putative conservative like Trump, knows that judges don’t “sign bills” from the bench, but interpret laws presented for their review.
Beltway conservative commentator George Will, guesting on Hugh Hewitt’s February 26 national radio program, cited this incident as evidence of Trump’s ignorance. Will said that “under no circumstances” would he support Trump.
Even more worrisome to pro-lifers was Trump’s angle on Planned Parenthood on February 25. Taking the same stand he has on other occasions, the billionaire not once or twice but three times expressed that PP helps millions of women.
Would Trump take the same indulgent attitude toward, say, a school system that hanged “only” 3 percent of its kindergartners? Or would he say that hanging even one innocent kindergartner means such a school system must be forced to change or else shut down?
Yet not once in these comments did Trump suggest that the existing alternative health-care providers for women are a better answer.
Moreover, although he wasn’t sure PP’s claim is accurate that abortion is only 3 percent of its business, he still hadn’t come up with some other firm figure. A big-time, decision-making successful executive wouldn’t take weeks or months before he found out, nor had an aide find out, a crucial statistic.
Just imagine Trump dawdling about signing a contract that stood to make him a big profit while saying he just wasn’t sure how much tax he’d have to pay. Well, is the contract worth it or not?
Also, Trump should know very well that in sheer numbers, PP does around 330,000 permissive abortions per year, or one million abortions in three years.
If that’s truly only 3 percent of PP’s business, it’s a monstrous business. And in any event, saying “one-third of a million abortions a year” is likelier to make listeners look askance at PP. Which Trump presumably would want to do if he opposes abortion as thoroughly as he says.
No wonder PP president Cecile Richards has thanked Trump for his “kind words.”
Three Pinocchios
Even the liberal Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” concluded the 3 percent figure is bogus, and awarded it “three Pinocchios.” On August 12, 2015, the Fact Checker wrote:
“The 3 percent figure that Planned Parenthood uses is misleading, comparing abortion services to every other service that it provides. The organization treats each service — pregnancy test, STD test, abortion, birth control — equally. Yet there are obvious difference (sic) between a surgical (or even medical) abortion, and offering a urine (or even blood) pregnancy test. These services are not all comparable in how much they cost or how extensive the service or procedure is.”
Alluding to Trump’s shaky position, radio host Mark Davis, filling in on the Bill Bennett national program on February 26, said that if you want a candidate who won’t speak positively about Planned Parenthood, it’s Ted Cruz. Davis said some people were suggesting that Trump already was “moving to the middle” for the general election.
If someone considers PP to be “in the middle” on the abortion issue, they must not have seen the undercover videos from the California-based Center for Medical Progress (CMP) about PP harvesting babies’ organs for profitable sale, including by using illegal partial-birth abortions.
Coincidentally, CMP released the latest of its videos on March 1, with California’s Dr. Jennefer Russo, medical director of PP of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, chatting about harvesting baby specimens, including intact ones if possible.
In another incident, when Trump took offense one day at radio host Hewitt, the billionaire falsely barked that only “very few” people listen to Hewitt’s program. Really? So why had Trump been more than happy to appear on Hewitt’s program as often as possible? So that hardly anyone could listen to him?
Recalling this incident, Beltway commentator Fred Barnes on February 26 said Trump is “so gratuitous in all these insults.”
Maybe voters are happier with a candidate who scatters insults than with a president who craftily lies with every breath like Obama. But might there be a better choice than Mr. Frying Pan or Mr. Fire?
