What are Republicans thinking? There is no possible reason or logic to explain why Republicans would support the poll-leading candidate. The candidate is rich, but making a lot of money does not qualify someone to run the country. Having zero experience in a public office doesn’t make you a great candidate either. If anything, these things should disqualify the person since it demonstrates a life based on greed, not service. A tax plan that sounds like a television commercial should get the candidate laughed out of the race. But at 27 percent in an NBC/WSJ poll, “rich and simple” rules over “congressional experience and real ideas.” The same poll has Republican congressional candidates in single digits.
So there’s no reason I can think of … barring the simple stupidity of the people being polled … for Herman Cain, the pizza king, to have been the favorite of Republican voters in October of 2011. “Rich” does seem to be a favorite of Republicans. According to the Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman, Cain’s “9-9-9” tax plan would mainly just make the rich richer. But “9-9-9” does have a nice ring to it. I’ll bet it would work wonders as a jingle to sell pizza.
It’s worth remembering why Cain dropped out of the race in December of 2011. Multiple women came forward to accuse him of being a sexual predator. Cain denied it, of course. Just a few weeks ago, we were treated to another appearance by Herman Cain at a rally for Donald Trump. I thought we had seen the last of Cain in December of 2011. I thought it couldn’t get any worse too. But Trump has trumped Cain.
I’ll say this for Trump. He’s clearly tuned in to the qualifications of Republicans. For example, he said this about the 2008 Republican candidate for President, John McCain: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” He also called McCain a “loser” and a “dummy.” Even Rush Limbaugh thinks Trump went too far in the things he said about McCain.
When John McCain was in a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam, according to the Washington Post, “[Trump] avoided the Vietnam War draft on his way to earning an Ivy League degree. He was fond of fancy dinners, beautiful women and outrageous clubs. Most important, he had a job in his father’s real estate company.”
Sarah Palin … McCain’s choice for someone a heartbeat away from the nuclear button … and Trump have a “thing” going for each other. Palin thinks that Trump … or Ted Cruz … would be the best President ever, you betcha. But Palin’s recommendation of Cruz doesn’t carry much weight with Trump. (Have you noticed that Cruz has started wearing plaid shirts and jeans? People were starting to figure out that he’s a Goldman Sachs banker by nature. He needed camouflage.) Trump called Cruz a “maniac.” That’s a bit harsh, I think. Cruz is only greedy, self-centered, and heartless. But he’s not a maniac. Trump should like Cruz! They’re the same in so many ways.
Trump likes Palin so much that he thinks she would be great in a cabinet post. “She’s really somebody who knows what’s happening. She’s a special person. She’s really a special person.” Finally, Trump and I agree on something. I think Palin is “special” too.
You might think that Trump talks trash about everybody, but that isn’t true. He likes Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He told MSNBC, “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader.” When NATO ally Turkey shot down a Russian bomber, Trump sided with Russia. “Putin’s being the tough guy and probably he should be — they shot down his plane.” It’s probably coincidental that Putin has especially nice things to say about Trump too. According to the Russian news agency TASS, Trump is, “the absolute leader of the presidential race.” Republican establishment godfather and former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu told CNN that all you have to do to get Trump to say nice things about you is to stroke his gigantic ego. Trump tried to attack Sununu, but he spelled the name wrong and used the Twitter handle of “a Kurdish woman living in London.” Sununu’s son, former Republican senator from New Hampshire, wondered, “There are only three letters — how hard can it be?”
Photo: Porter Hovey / CC BY 2.5
I can’t even imagine what the Republicans who say they would vote for Trump are thinking, but I have a good idea what Trump is thinking. A year ago, he was thinking that his “celebrity” status was starting to fade. In 2011, Trump managed to stay in the headlines by being the public face of the fake “birther” controversy. Being a “celebrity” is worth piles of cash in book sales, guest appearances, and television shows. (Neither NBC nor Trump will release information about how much he was paid for “The Apprentice,” but the New York Post reported $160 million for two seasons, which would make Trump the highest-paid reality TV star.) Trump decided that he needed a new dodge to get back into the headlines. People ranging from the Times Square Naked Cowboy to Pat Paulsen (“Straight Talking American Government,” the STAG party) were pumping up their numbers by running for president. Trump figured, “Why not me?”
I think Trump was more amazed than anyone when Republicans started to take him seriously.
