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How Do You Solve a Problem Like The Donald?
If you’re in the market for a Republican presidential candidate who wants to start a trade war with China, thinks there’s a causal link between vaccines and autism, believes there’s no need for entitlement reform, and led the charge on the birther movement, today’s your lucky day: As Johnny Dubya notes below, Donald Trump — probably the only candidate in this field who spent his announcement speech noodling on the state of America’s ‘brand’ — is now officially in the race.
Now, it’s easy enough to dismiss Trump as a sideshow. As Reid Epstein and Heather Haddon note in their report on the announcement in the Wall Street Journal, NBC is still going forward on the assumption that Trump will tape the new season of Celebrity Apprentice in the fall — something he can’t do if he’s an active candidate — which may mean that he’s just taking his quadrennial exercise in publicity-seeking to new lengths. Either way, Republicans are still going to have to deal with the fact that every asinine utterance that comes out of the bloated gourd atop his shoulders will be gleefully seized upon by the Left and the media as evidence of the fundamental unseriousness of the GOP. They’ll also have to reckon with this:
Mr. Trump is likely to qualify for the Republican National Committee-sanctioned presidential debates, which Fox News and CNN have limited to candidates who place in the top 10 in national polling.
With his broad name recognition, he has received between 3% and 5% support in recent national polls, enough to qualify for the Aug. 6 Fox News debate. Candidates such as former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) may not make the cut. Also in jeopardy of exclusion is Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive and the only prominent woman in the GOP contest.
Could there be a more depressing thought for the GOP than Carly Fiorina — a woman who’s recently become the pacesetter for how Republicans should handle themselves with the media — sitting at home while Trump uses a presidential forum to pimp a 30-year-old book?
Here’s the question: what, if anything, does the GOP do? Leave it alone and count on Trump to expose himself as a buffoon in the debates? Try to find a way to keep him out? Does an enterprising candidate try to put points on the board by sticking it to The Donald onstage (paging Chris Christie)?
What would you do?
Published in General
The RNC ought to have the authority to exclude candidates during the primary process. I know that this would present some danger of abuse, but I doubt that the RNC would be willing to alienate any substantial segment of GOP voters. The benefit of not having to deal with truly marginal candidates, like The Donald, would outweigh this risk.
Yes, really. Jeb is just the next Establican stooge of the year, who cares nothing about the concerns of real conservatives (or for that matter, ordinary Americans) on the matters of amnesty/border control, education, and trade policy. People like him are why I left the Republican Party three years ago.
You become a professional politician the moment you announce your
candidacy“exploratory committee.” From that moment on, you are subject to all the temptations and pressures common to politicians.Some people handle these honorably for decades; some become corrupt in weeks.
I’ll actually have more confidence in the judgment of a person who has managed to keep his head in politics for years than in someone who is jumping into this very heady business right at the top.
AP,
You’ve just jogged my thought process. What we could do is a RNC CoC for primary candidates. Allow the RNC to take disciplinary action against candidates who:
1) Are participating for their own self-promotion and are not seriously interested in winning the general election.
2) Attack their fellow Republican candidates more than they attack the opposition.
Both are judgement calls but this would allow the RNC to send warnings to the campaigns before taking action. First warning could be done privately. Second warning publicly. Third warning impose a fine…etc.
Make any sense?
Regards,
Jim
If he ignores the rules in the first debate, he’ll give Reince Priebus a very good excuse to exclude him from the rest of them. So it might be a one-debate problem.
If he more or less stays within the rules, will it be that much worse than Ron Paul Trutherism on stage?
I don’t know about candidate but a waaaaaay worse president
Marginalize him. Treat him like the drunk uncle at the holiday party.
I completely get the Jeb criticism. I’m with you on immigration and Common Core, if not on trade.
I just don’t understand how a guy like Trump — let us not forget, a paragon of real-life crony capitalism — is supposed to be a superior alternative.
Nothing to add here except to say that, having worked around an abundance of these people, this strikes me as precisely right.
That would be a more intelligible standard for me if I wasn’t usually the drunk uncle at the holiday party.
It’s easy to see how these kinds of standards could spin out of control. Are Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee purely engaged in self-promotion? Were Herman Cain or Rick Santorum in 2012? It’s just too slippery a standard to work with.
As for number two, the whole point of a primary debate is to differentiate yourself from other candidates. I’d be against any effort to restrict that. When candidates go over the line on that front, they’re generally sanctioned by the voters anyway.
But isn’t that the whole point? To keep a crazy person from being elected president? That’s why we have this horrible system. It tends to filter out the guys who are too wild-eyed crazy to moderate their tone. I’m all for letting the filter do its thing.
As far as a “circus” … The flip side to a circus is that it’s at least entertaining. Sure, Ross Perot didn’t win, but at least he made things more interesting. And James Stockdale made things awesome.
I just can’t even begin to discuss an actual Trump candidacy, he is such a jerk.
[Edited for CoC]
Yes, something along those lines, if you want it to be more structured. I’m inclined to leave more discretion in the hands of the RNC.
How clever to compare $8 billion to $85 million.
By the way, great title, Troy. Here’s my expansion, to the tune from Sound of Music:
How do you solve a problem like The Donald?
How do you drive the man right out of town?
How do you find a way to describe The Donald?
A shameless promoter, a dilettante huckster, a clown?
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell him
Many a thing he ought to understand
But how do you find a way
To get him to go away
How do you get this goofball to pound sand?
Oh how do you solve a problem like The Donald?
How do you stop him ruining your brand?
I’m thinking Lindsey Graham could take care of the entertainment side of things, while maintaining a modicum of senatorial dignity and limiting the damage to the “brand.”
You’re correct. As far as I am aware, Kim Kardashian has never declared bankruptcy, where as Trump has 4 times. My mistake.
Indeed, but never mistake Trump for a lightweight. Read: How Does Trump Repeatedly File for Bankruptcy …
To give credit where it’s due, it was pointed out to me that Newsweek used a similar headline for Sarah Palin several years ago, which may have been in the back of mind.
To give credit where it’s more rightly due, mine actually had the right number of syllables.
I never mistook him for a light weight, I merely recognize a buffoon when I see one. The idea that one cannot be a buffoon and rich is silly.
A few years ago when Trump was contemplating running, a reporter asked him why – if he is a Republican – he has given far more campaign contributions to Democrats than Republicans. Trump said those elections were in cities or states where the Democrat was going to win anyway, so he wanted to be on record as a contributor so that those politicians would be inclined to help Trump if he needed something from the government. Some people will call that just being a smart businessman. I am not one of those people.
He’s worth $8 billion with a hit TV series and people might actually vote for him to run in 2016. He lives a most marvelous and interesting life in the most competitive city in the world despite a bad haircut.
I could only aspire to be such a buffoon!
If you had a millionaire father who acquired 27,000 properties which you then inherited, you’d find it easier than you might think.
Frank,
Yes I can see that. However, the question is where did he get the hair? It doesn’t appear to be of terrestrial origin.
Regards,
Jim
I don’t buy into that tired ‘silver spoon’ theory. His father owned properties worth bupkis compared to the empire the son created.
That’s the argument they all made against Mitt Romney as well who is worth $250 million dollars more than his late affluent CEO father George.
Trump graduated first in his class at the Wharton School. He understands the real estate business requires the talents of a used car salesman in a plaid sports coat and pork pie hat. He’s in this to be the Howard Stern of the debates, and I don’t think that is going to be good for us in the long run
I think Trump’s entry to the race will help Republicans. People are now talking about the Republican race, and the ratings for the first debate will be huge, which gives lesser known candidates a chance to be seen and heard.
And I wouldn’t worry about how it may make the Republicans look silly; the Democrats so far have fielded an elderly elite woman who has not driven a car in two decades, a socialist, and a guy whose top priority is bringing back the metric system.
I think we’ll be alright.
Oh for Pete’s sake. When the media tries to shame the GOP on Trump, just grin and say
“Oh that Donald, he speaks from his heart. I may not agree with everything he says but he sure cares about the working folk.
You media and democrats have your crazy millionaire in Hillary and we have Donald.”
Then flash your best aw shucks smile and move on….
He is not ‘rich’. Rich starts at a few millions. He is worth 8,000 millions. It’s a whole other category. And no, absolutely not, you can’t make $8 billion and be a buffoon.