Tuesday, February 16, 2016

SHOULD WE REALLY BE TREATING TRUMP AS A SERIOUS CANDIDATE???


I’ll admit that when he first declared his candidacy, and actually for more than a few months after, I was actually considering Trump as a serious candidate, and one worthy of my vote.  But as time has gone by, how shall I say it, the novelty of a Trump presidency has begun to wear off.  Because as we have progressed through this campaign season he continues to comes across as being less and less of a serious candidate.  I guess the straw that broke the camel’s back, at least for me, was his blaming Bush for 9/11.  Because that’s something that I feel can be laid, at rightly so, right at the feet of ‘Slick Willie’ Clinton. 

And now once again he’s begun loudly threatening to launch a third-party run which, to me, makes all the more plain that he’s less concerned about making America great again, than he is about Donald Trump.  You see, it was again just this past Monday that he said that will not only might he launch a third-party run for the White House but would also file a birther lawsuit against Ted Cruz if the Texas senator doesn't remove what Trump called his "false ads and retract his lies."  To me that just sounds a lot like whining, and isn’t that what he’s constantly ridiculing Jeb for doing?  Anyway, I’m just not able to take him seriously. 

But it isn’t only Cruz who has been the recipient of Trump’s latest tantrum.  He also called on the Republican National Committee (RNC) to intervene and force Cruz to revise his campaign antics. And he accused the RNC of giving too many GOP debate tickets to donors.  You see, ‘The Donald’ isn’t partial to being booed. Trump also said that the pledge he signed to support the GOP nominee was "a double-edged pledge," and the RNC isn't honoring its end.  It was at a news conference Monday in Charleston, South Carolina that he said, "The RNC is in default."  He added, "The RNC is controlled by the establishment, and the special interests and the donors."

That particular threat came the same day which he warned he'd file a birther lawsuit against Cruz after he released an attack ad targeting Trump's past liberal positions on hot-button issues. It was in a news release posted on his website, as well as also being posted on Facebook, that Trump said, "Ted Cruz is a totally unstable individual."   Trump added, "He is the single biggest liar I’ve ever come across, in politics or otherwise…Cruz says I am pro-choice, when in fact I am staunchly pro-life and have been for a long time. Like Ronald Reagan, on many issues, I have evolved."  But where we felt we could trust Reagan, that same sentiment doesn’t exist for Trump.

In Cruz's "Supreme Trust" ad, a narrator claims "Life, marriage, religious liberty, the Second Amendment. We're just one Supreme Court justice away from losing them all."  This apparently prompted Trump to respond via a news release on his website by saying, "One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President."  Trump added, "If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately.”  And he said, "Additionally, the [Republican National Committee] should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me."

And look, this is not the first time Trump has raised the spectra of legal action over Cruz's eligibility to run for president. At a campaign rally in New Hampshire earlier this month, Trump warned if Cruz wins the nomination, Democrats would "sue his ass off."  Meanwhile, Trump is also, once again, floating a potential third-party run, accusing the RNC of giving too many GOP debates tickets to donors, saying the pledge he signed to support the GOP nominee was "a double-edged pledge," and the RNC didn’t seem to be honoring its end.  The truth is that Trump kinda expects that everybody is going to kiss his ass, and the reality is that everybody isn’t going to.

Cruz blasted out a Twitter response to Trump's charges, saying "You cannot simply scream 'liar' when someone points out your actual positions.”  And I would tend to agree with that.  But as a disclaimer, of sorts, I freely admit that at this point in the campaign my candidate in the race remains Ted Cruz.  However, if Trump does turn out to be our candidate, I will vote for him because, no matter what, even a President Trump, on his worst day in office, would be better, than a President Hitlery Clinton on her best day.  But, having said that, when it comes to my state’s primary I will be voting for Cruz.  Trump needs to put his big-boy pants on.

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