Serious candidate or sideshow? That’s the question Republicans are asking themselves as they assess the booming presidential bid of billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump.
By many standard measures, his candidacy is doomed. He is willing to offend key constituencies that could hurt his long-term political standing, such as Latinos and those who favor comprehensive immigration reform rather than Trump’s harsh approach.
He turns off centrist voters with his extreme statements, his angry demeanor and his massive ego. His business background may present a ripe target for opposition researchers seeking examples of an all-consuming desire to make money for himself rather than help the public. This is the same critique that damaged 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a wealthy investor who lost the general election to Democratic President Barack Obama.
Trump is more of a lightning rod than ever. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., another presidential candidate, attacked Trump Sunday as a “wrecking ball” who could badly damage the GOP with the Hispanic community.
“To all the candidates who think that Donald Trump is telling the truth, I think you have lost your way,” Graham told CNN. “As to the Republican party, if we do not reject this way of thinking clearly, without any ambiguity, we will have lost our way. We will have lost the moral authority, in my view, to govern this great nation.”
But former business executive Carly Fiorina, another GOP presidential candidate, told ABC News that Trump “taps into an anger that I hear every day. People are angry that a common-sense thing like securing the border or ending sanctuary cities is somehow considered extreme. It’s not extreme. It’s common sense.”
So far Trump is doing relatively well in the polls. The latest Reuters-Ipsos survey finds that Trump is in a virtual first-place tie with former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, with 16.1 percent of self-identified Republicans supporting Bush for the GOP nomination and 15.8 percent backing Trump.
What his critics often overlook is that Trump is exploiting an anti-status quo sentiment that regularly manifests itself in national politics. He is willing to say things that other candidates won’t – a straight-talking quality that many Americans admire. He is at war with the Obama administration, which many Republicans like. And he is willing to take on members of the GOP establishment, such as Bush, a tactic which many conservatives and tea party activists support. He refuses to back off from his characterization of illegal immigrants from Mexico as “rapists” and other sorts of criminals, which pleases hard-liners on the immigration issue.
All this was on display last weekend as Trump gave a fiery speech in Phoenix in which he called for a get-tough policy not only on immigration but in negotiations on trade and on other issues. He said he was seeking to mobilize the “silent majority” – a phrase popularized by President Richard Nixon in 1969 – to “take back” the country.
Trump is playing a clever political game, at least for now. He is getting huge amounts of media coverage and his name identification is through the roof. This means he is almost guaranteed a place in the first GOP presidential debate, sponsored by Fox News next month. Fox officials say they will limit the main event to the top 10 candidates in public opinion polls conducted just before the encounter, and Trump is very likely to qualify. This will get him even more publicity.
As I have written in this space before, Trump is one of a series of anti-status quo figures over the years who developed strong followings with attention-getting comments even though none was elected president. They included businessman Ross Perot in 1992; consumer advocate and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in 2000; segregationist George Wallace in the 1960s and 1970s; segregationist and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in 1948, and Huey Long in the 1930s. A precursor group was the “Know Nothings,” also known as the American Party, a movement that opposed Catholics and immigrants and gained a strong following in the 1850s.
But Trump mania is not likely to last when GOP voters begin to really focus on the race early next year. Trump “is dominating news coverage, rising in polls (which are relevant at this stage only as the entrance ticket to the early debates), and fascinates Democrats and worries Republicans,” writes long-time GOP strategist Ed Rollins on Facebook.
“….My counsel is relax, take a deep breath and watch what happens as the real campaign begins in the months ahead….As the most widely known candidate in the [Republican] field and probably the best salesman, he will be a force. But the customers are the voters and in the end they will make a choice of someone they respect, and they will choose who they want to carry the Republican banner into battle. I don’t think Trump survives the process, so let’s not get hysterical about what he says or does….It’s a long game. And frontrunners often falter and crash. When they fall and crash they often don’t stop till they hit cement! Again relax. One man is not the Republican party.”
Having covered presidential campaigns since 1984, I think Rollins is correct. Trump is very likely to crash and burn as a GOP candidate. He may then run as an independent or third-party candidate in 2016 if he is willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money. But given his extreme rhetoric, his tendency to further polarize people, and the fact that a third-party or independent presidential candidate faces nearly insurmountable obstacles to winning the White House, it is likely to be a losing cause.
