Inside the Ludicrous Donald Trump Primary

Inside the Ludicrous Donald Trump Primary | Swampland | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion SEARCH TIME.COM Full Archive Covers Videos 2012 ElectionDebatesDemocratic PartyPollsRepublican PartyMichele BachmannMitt RomneyRick PerryWhite HouseBarack ObamaJoe BidenCongressBudgetsHouseSenateLobbyingJohn BoehnerMitch McConnellNancy PelosiHarry ReidDomestic PolicyAbortionAgricultureDebtEconomyEducationHealth CareHousingForeign PolicyAfghanistanChinaDiplomacyHillary ClintonIranIraqPhotosSpecialsVideos Republican PartyInside the Ludicrous Donald Trump PrimaryBy Alex Altman | @aaltman82 | October 18, 2011 | View CommentsTweet

With her poll numbers sagging, her political organization dwindling and prognosticators declaring her moment to have passed, Michele Bachmann called in a big gun Monday night: Donald Trump.

In a bid to bask in the reflected glow of Trump’s spotlight, Bachmann held a tele-town hall billed as an exclusive opportunity for fans to hear a real-estate mogul turned reality-TV star — whose signature phrase is “You’re fired” — hold forth on how to create jobs.

“We’re extremely excited to have Mr. Trump,” Bachmann said, during an effusive introduction in which she thanked him no fewer than four times. “He’s on the call because he’s admired, he’s respected, he’s known all over the world as a man who knows the economy.”

Never mind that the forum was news to Trump. (“I didn’t even know I was doing it until you just told me,” Trump told Fox & Friends a few hours before the conference call.) The invitation, extended by Bachmann during a breakfast meeting last week, underscores the degree to which a confab with the Donald has become an obligatory pit stop on the path to the Republican nomination. Since abandoning the successful publicity gambit of pretending to seek the presidency, Trump has gobbled pizza with Sarah Palin, talked shop at tony Jean-Georges with Rick Perry, and hosted Mitt Romney and Herman Cain on the 25th floor of Trump Tower. Neither Trump’s slim political resume nor his regrettable fling with the birther movement has dissuaded these presidential aspirants from seeking his counsel.

“He’s the godfather of politics. Everybody comes to kiss the ring,” boasts Michael Cohen, a Trump executive and confidante who has steered the mogul’s quest for political clout. “Right now in the GOP there are four recognized kingmakers. Number one, there’s Donald Trump. Number two, there’s Chris Christie. Mike Huckabee. And the fourth – is it Senator or Governor DeMint?”

Beyond the bluster, there’s a kernel of truth to this. Trump’s political platform consists mostly of gassy pronouncements about America’s declining might and the need to assert its dominance over its rivals, but it has struck a chord with a fearful electorate. “I have to give you very high marks,” Barry from Pennsylvania told Trump on the call, “because you were the first and a very profound voice to call out OPEC.”

“They suck the blood out of you every time the economy starts getting good,” Trump agreed.

While Trump’s call for tightening the screws on China may be gaining currency — the Senate passed a bill last week that would punish the Chinese for manipulating theirs — that isn’t why the Republican field is taking turns making the pilgrimage to his Fifth Avenue skyscraper. Trump has a pair of assets far more valuable than any scraps of policy wisdom he might dispense: a thick Rolodex and a significant soapbox.

For candidates struggling to fill their coffers, Trump’s connections could be a valuable ticket into Manhattan’s moneyed elite. “Trump can deliver anything to whoever the GOP nominee would be,” Cohen says. “Many of Trump’s closest friends are the titans of Wall Street, the largest developers in the world. He can raise an inordinate amount of money.”

Maybe so. But what Trump is really selling is his own ubiquity. There are few people with his bold-face cachet, which makes Trump’s endorsement — splashed across his TV show, social media platforms and the headlines he generates — a coveted one. By the same token, his megaphone is loud enough that it’s worth paying obeisance to avoid having it turned against you. Public courtship has its benefits for suitors, each of whom has been the recipient of praise for their efforts. “I have a lot of respect for Michele Bachmann,” Trump announced at the tele-town hall. “We had a wonderful breakfast the other day.”

Trump is hardly the only potential rainmaker on presidential hopefuls’ agendas; he just brags about it more. And his months roaming the fringe questioning Obama’s citizenship have made him a target for political opponents. On the day Romney slipped into Trump’s office a few weeks ago, the DNC released a video linking the two. Jon Huntsman hasn’t participated in what his spokesman has derisively dubbed “Presidential Apprentice,” and taken pains to highlight the fact that Romney has. Establishment Republicans are not going to ask how high when Donald Trump tells them to jump.

Bachmann, on the other hand, is appealing to a segment of the electorate for whom Trump’s dalliance with birtherism or boilerplate about President Obama’s weak leadership is hugely appealing. But in the end, she may be wasting her time. Trump has said he may not endorse until next summer, and that if Republican voters don’t tap a candidate he deems capable enough, he’ll consider an independent bid for the presidency.

This isn’t a credible threat. (Why would a guy who claims he’s committing to ousting Obama make that task tougher by vulturing conservative votes?) But by cracking the door a tad, Trump ensures that he’ll be able to siphon off the political spotlight a while longer. It’s a fitting plot point for a presidential campaign that has become the most sordid reality show of all.

Related Topics: donald trump, herman cain, jon huntsman, Michele Bachmann, mitt romney, rick perry, Republican Party
emailprintshareLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggMixxDel.i.ciousWriteView Comments@TIMEPoliticsLatest on SwamplandUncategorized | October 17, 2011The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

It’s sort of fun to watch as the right-wing press attempts to handle the phenomenally unprepared and unworthy Herman Cain with kid gloves. Here, for example, is the neoconservative Weekly Standard, explaining Cain’s cluelessness about neoconservatism on Meet the Press:

 ”Would you describe yourself as a neoconservative then?” [David] Gregory asked.

Like any good Socratic neoconservative, Cain answered the question with a question: ”I’m not sure what you mean by neoconservative?  I am a conservative, yes.  Neoconservative?–labels sometimes will put you in a box. I’m very conservative, but…”

“But you’re familiar with the neoconservative movement?” Gregory asked.

“I’m not familiar with the neoconservative movement,” Cain replied. “I’m familiar with the conservative movement.” Cain was able subtly to indicate that he knows, unlike Gregory, that neoconservatism is apersuasion or tendency, not a movement.

Are you kidding me? A subtle Socratic? Actually, Cain has a tendency to be unsubtly unpersuasive on a cornucopia of issues.

From our PartnersJimmy Carter: 'I'm Optimistic' Obama Will Win 2012Huffington PostFive Questions for President ObamaPoliticoMichele Bachmann: Rick Perry Rewarded Donors With State MoneyHuffington PostBarack Obama | October 17, 2011Obama’s ‘Campaign’ for the Jobs Bill

Arizona Senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain took to the Senate floor Monday to lambast the President’s listening tour this week on jobs. From his remarks:

The president is now on his listening, quote, listening tour, at taxpayers’ expense the president made these remarks on a taxpayer-paid-for, riding in a Canadian bus, visit for the next three days… White house officials insist the trip is about jobs, not votes. So much so, in fact, they a conference call to reiterate that point several times pointing out that the trip is fully on the taxpayers’ dime, not the republicans’ re-election campaign. So the president has taken to the road and, I mean, he spent a number of minutes attacking our plan, and I understand that. I think he has the — certainly in a political venue — the right and privilege to do that. I think the question might be, though, is that appropriate on the taxpayers’ dime, since it is clearly campaigning. And, I must say again, I’ve never seen an uglier bus than the Canadian one. He’s traveling around on a Canadian bus touting American jobs. So — and one of the reasons why Americans and I and my colleagues are a bit skeptical, because we’ve seen this movie before. We saw this movie before. It feels a little bit like something we’ve heard before.

Setting aside the fact that, as White House Communication director Dan Pfeiffer pointed out to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus was made by the same company, there are two interesting points here.

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Primary Politics: The Great GOP Nevada Pander

The Grand Nevada Pander | Swampland | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion SEARCH TIME.COM Full Archive Covers Videos 2012 ElectionDebatesDemocratic PartyPollsRepublican PartyMichele BachmannMitt RomneyRick PerryWhite HouseBarack ObamaJoe BidenCongressBudgetsHouseSenateLobbyingJohn BoehnerMitch McConnellNancy PelosiHarry ReidDomestic PolicyAbortionAgricultureDebtEconomyEducationHealth CareHousingForeign PolicyAfghanistanChinaDiplomacyHillary ClintonIranIraqPhotosSpecialsVideos PrimariesThe Grand Nevada PanderBy Alex Altman | @aaltman82 | October 14, 2011 | View CommentsTweetRobert Laberge / Getty ImagesLights illuminate Las Vegas Boulevard on Oct. 13, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Four second-tier Republican presidential hopefuls — Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum — are threatening to bypass the Nevada caucuses if they take place Jan. 14, as presently planned. This is not, as you might surmise, because they’re sticklers for following RNC guidelines (which the Silver State skirted by bumping up its date in response to similar maneuvers by Florida and South Carolina) or deeply invested in preserving the sanctity of the GOP’s primary calendar. It’s a simple pander.

None of the four candidates are real contenders in Nevada, where Mitt Romney coasted four years ago and is favored to repeat. Each wants to showcase their fealty to the voters and kingmakers of New Hampshire, whose critical first-in-the-nation primary could choke off their presidential aspirations.

This is particularly true of Huntsman, the first to make noise about a Nevada boycott. The former Utah governor doubled down on his call Friday morning by bowing out of next week’s GOP debate in Las Vegas. Huntsman called the move “an effort to preserve New Hampshire’s historic first-in-the-nation primary status.” But that status isn’t in doubt. New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who has the power to set the date of the primary, has said it will take place sometime in December or early January. The only question is whether New Hampshire will have the same week-long buffer before the next contest that it has enjoyed in the past. “Your primary is critically important,” Huntsman told a New Hampshire Rotary Club on Thursday. That is doubly true for the candidate, who has staked his presidential hopes on a strong showing in the state and therefore has every reason to kowtow to its residents.

The calculus isn’t much more complicated for the likes of Bachmann and Santorum, who have made Iowa the centerpiece of their primary calendars. If public displays of solidarity with New Hampshire tradition can boost their lowly poll numbers, great. If not, a mass boycott partially illegitimizes Nevada, allowing them to skip the state and zip straight to South Carolina, where their brand on conservatism will find greater favor with the state’s legions of Evangelical voters. Gingrich, meanwhile, has been gaining ground in the Granite State and may opt to concentrate his campaign’s early-state resources there if the trend continues.

And what of the candidates who are resisting the boycott cry? Romney is the Nevada frontrunner. Rick Perry has the resources to compete and received a key early endorsement from Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval. Ron Paul plans to make a play for the state, whose libertarian bent matches his own. “Dr. Paul is in this to win, and our campaign will compete for delegates everywhere we think we can win them,” said Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign chairman. And the never-conventional Herman Cain has adopted an inscrutable early state-strategy that today took his surging campaign to Tennessee, of all places. (Update: According to New Hampshire’s WMUR, Cain’s camp said Friday afternoon that he will join the boycott.)

It takes courage to boycott a state you might win. This is naked self-interest.

Updated, 4:10 PM

Related Topics: Bill Gardner, boycott, caucuses, herman cain, iowa, jon huntsman, Michele Bachmann, mitt romney, Nevada, newt gingrich, rick perry, rick santorum, ron paul, Primaries
emailprintshareLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggMixxDel.i.ciousWriteView Comments@TIMEPoliticsLatest on SwamplandMitt Romney | October 14, 2011Lessons of ’08: Romney’s Rivals Could Collude

As my colleague Michael Crowley notes, the anti-Mitt Romney vote is still a lot bigger than the pro-Romney vote. I agree with Michael that Romney doesn’t have this thing as sewn up as the inside the Beltway pundits are saying. That said, he’s smartly playing his rivals off of one another to ensure that that anti-Romney vote is never consolidated.

Looking back at the 2007/08 campaign, Romney in many ways was the man to beat. He won the Ames Straw poll, he spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money, he was the first candidate up with TV ads and by January 2, 2008, he was the front-runner in most polls. So, how did he lose the nomination? The rest of the field ganged up on him.

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