The bright lights of the Las Vegas strip was an apt place for the Donald Trump carnival roadshow to end up last week. Amid the garish neon of the gigantic Treasure Island Casino, the business mogul-turned-reality TV star-turned-potential Republican presidential candidate made his latest stop.
Speaking at an event called “The Reagan Revolution: From Ronald to Donald,” Trump made his pitch to an audience of Nevada Republican bigwigs and curious onlookers in one of the key early-voting states in the nomination process.
In the casino’s ballroom, Trump gave a virtuoso performance that was full of braggadocio and littered with expletives.
“Our leaders are stupid, they are stupid people,” he said, before referring to the Chinese government as “motherf*****s” against whom he’d raise trade tariffs.
Despite such a performance — and perhaps because of it — there is no doubt that Trump has injected a shot of adrenalin into the stilted Republican search for a nominee willing to take on US President Barack Obama next year. One perhaps should have expected no less from the flamboyant figure who is a household name in the US, not for his politics, but his TV show The Apprentice and his catchphrase: “You’re fired!”
However, as Trump’s “will he, won’t he” campaign rolls on, the Republican party may be waking up to the fact that they have bitten off more than they can chew.
Trump’s decision to make “birtherism” his first big issue and fan the conspiracy theories about Obama’s citizenship last week led to one of the more spectacular political bunfights of recent memories.
Trump’s claims to have sent investigators to Hawaii who had uncovered evidence to support him were dismissed in stunning fashion by the Oval Office.
As Trump touched down on Wednesday in New Hampshire — another key early-voting state — the White House revealed the president’s long-form birth certificate, which birthers had said did not exist. Trump became a national media joke.
Obama referred to him as a “carnival barker.” A New York Times editorial called the Trump-inspired situation “a profoundly low and debasing moment.”
CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer reacted to his questioning Obama’s college credentials, saying: “That’s just code for saying he got into law school because he’s black. This is an ugly strain of racism.”
Such a media kicking would have sent any other potential candidate running for the hills, but not The Donald. He seemed overjoyed at the slew of headlines.
“Today, I am very proud of myself,” he told the press in New Hampshire, before hinting that he would continue to explore the idea of a run.
His poll numbers among Republicans certainly put him among the leaders, with a Rasmussen survey showing him on top with 19 percent.
“Trump obviously has a slice of the vote. The question is: How big a slice is it?” said Steve Mitchell, chairman of political consulting firm Mitchell Research.
That prospect has most Democrats sharing Trump’s delight at all the attention. Many had assumed he was in it just for the fame or to boost his TV show, but, increasingly, it seems he is serious.
Conversely, senior Republicans are nervous. Asked last week on CNN about his plans, Trump said he would make an announcement before June.
“I think a lot of people will be happy,” he said.
Many suspect those happy people would be his Democratic opponents, not supporters of the party he hopes to lead.
Whatever his decision, and no matter how well he does in any nomination race, Trump himself cannot really lose. With the bouffant hairdo that is more instantly recognizable than any policy position, the billionaire has long been a master of the fame game. Despite scandals about his private life and business bankruptcies, he has always emerged from the headlines with his ego fully intact.
As he traipsed around New Hampshire in a black limo, he was swarmed by fans and endured only a few heckles on the street. He participated in the usual footwork of New Hampshire campaigning by pressing the flesh in a diner in Portsmouth and then later in Newick’s Lobster House in the village of Dover.
However, looking like a campaign does not mean that one can pull one off. Trump must know that if he does run, he will face press scrutiny of his lavish lifestyle and sprawling business dealings. He already faces demands to release his tax returns and the Huffington Post last week ran a story about suspected organized crime ties to some former business associates.
His personal life will put off social conservatives, who are a key segment of the Republican base: Trump is on his third marriage. There are inconvenient truths, like the fact that he has donated more campaign money to Democrats than Republicans, including Obama right-hand man Rahm Emanuel. Or that Trump has not bothered to vote in many elections in the past 20 years.
Then there is his “foot-in-mouth” syndrome. Last week, he claimed a CNN poll showed him neck-and-neck with Obama. When CNN correctly denied it had ever conducted such a survey, Trump insisted he was right and it was wrong.
Yet all this is just the tip of the iceberg, with far more likely to come. That has many top Republican strategists terrified.
“When Donald Trump not only dominates the airwaves, but also the Republican polls, then you know that they are a party in trouble,” said Bruce Gronbeck, a political expert at the University of Iowa.
It is a general rule of US presidential politics that the middle ground “independents” hold the key to national victory. Yet Trump, by so aggressively advocating birtherism, has seen his support there dry up.
In New Hampshire only 23 percent of independents have a positive view of him; in South Carolina it is 28 percent and Iowa 29 percent. Trump’s brand is becoming toxic to moderates and many Republicans fear the poison will start to infect their party, even if he does not win the nomination.
Yet Trump is striking a chord in part of the US psyche. There are elements of his message that resonate. His strident talk against China, which he has accused of “raping” the US economy, is powerful stuff in a country struggling with the mass outsourcing of its manufacturing industry and high unemployment.
He is filling a huge void in a Republican party that has struggled to build on its victory in last year’s mid term elections. The party appears deeply split between its Tea Party anti-government wing, social conservatives and a sliver of moderates.
“Unifying a group like that looks next to impossible,” said Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside.
No wonder then that the field of Republican candidates alongside Trump has failed to inspire. It contains semi-famous names such as Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, who have run and failed before. It includes Representative Michele Bachmann, from the far right. There is Newt Gingrich, whose private life is even more colorful than Trump’s. The few well-known names — former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee — are still on the fence.
The field is so barren that in the first TV debate of the contest, planned for this week, only four potential candidates have agreed to turn up.
“Republicans are run ragged at the moment trying to find anyone. It’s like the Keystone Cops driving around in a clown car,” Bowler said.
No wonder Trump was still smiling.
Donald Trump’s key dates
1946: Born in Queens, New York, the son of Fred Trump, a wealthy property developer and founder of the Trump Organization, and Mary Anne McLeod.
1968: Joins his father’s real estate firm.
1977: Marries Ivana Zelnickova, with whom he has three children. They divorce in 1992 and in 1993 he weds Marla Maples and they have one child.
2001: Celebrates the completion of the 72-story Trump Towers in New York.
2004: Becomes executive producer and host of The Apprentice on NBC.
2005: Weds third wife Melania Knauss and their son is born a year later.
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