I was spending time watching TV with the family last night when the Trump Campaign ended. I’m just sorry I missed it, and had to read about it afterwards.
And it was just as Stu Whitney’s Argus Leader wordprocessor spit out a column pretending to be about politics. As you can see – it was trying to portray Trump as catching the wind:
Clarence Kooistra of Sioux Falls, a former state senator and Vietnam veteran who advocates for veterans and their families, told me Thursday that Trump is his choice for president.
“I’m going to strongly support him, because I like what he’s saying,” said Kooistra. “He speaks his mind and he’s an outsider, which is what Washington needs right now. I’m for him 100 percent.”
and..
But Trump’s refusal to submit to the standard cycle of outrage and conciliation only enhanced his appeal, even after a less-than-polished performance in Thursday’s first GOP debate. Similarly, his dismissal of “political correctness” when confronted with claims of past misogynistic comments endeared him to potential voters who prize fearlessness over feelings.
Trump is Clarence Kooistra’s choice? I didn’t realize he switched back to being a Republican again, after abandoning the GOP, and wanting to run as a Democrat after losing the primary in 2006.
But getting back to Trump catching the wind – I’d be curious to see if all of these Trump loving people clamoring to tell Whitney why they want to put their name on the line for him still “like what he’s saying” after his comments Friday night.
Because instead of catching the wind, he’s catching a whole lot of other stuff. From Yahoo Politics this morning:
Trump’s jaw-dropping comment Friday night that Fox News’ Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” has sparked a backlash that will only build in the coming days.
Already, Trump has been disinvited from a prominent speaking gig at the main Republican event this weekend, the RedState Gathering in Atlanta.
“There are bounds of what’s acceptable in our discourse and they’re not different for you, or me, or someone else. I’m not going to have a guy on stage with my wife and daughter in the crowd who thinks a tough question from a woman is because of hormones,” RedState organizer Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative voice, told the Washington Post.
and…
“This is just another example of weakness through being politically correct. For all of the people who were looking forward to Mr. Trump coming, we will miss you. Blame Erick Erickson, your weak and pathetic leader,” according to a campaign statement.
I think my immediate reaction was “Oh My God.” And I’m wondering how former Senator Kooistra and other Trump followers are reconciling that comment and their support for the presidential candidate to their spouses, and explaining that it’s just another example of “political correctness” when they object to Trump’s derision of Megyn Kelly by saying she had “blood coming out of her wherever.”
The reality is that it’s not political correctness. It’s profane.
But it’s nice to see that Trump will likely be forced from the race sooner than later, so we can get down to the serious business of electing a Republican to the presidency.
I certainly do not like Trump on any level, but I don’t think he should be forced from the primary race, either. The fact that Trump was in the debate drew in 25 million viewers to the debate. A lot of people who find Trump appealing or entertaining are low information voters exactly the type of people who never watch debates. Thursday’s debate was nearly three times larger in audience size compared to any primary debate before. Additionally, Trump is useful on border and women’s issues. His brash style makes it evident that anyone who thinks these are easily answered problems are as dumb as he is. He makes the rest of the GOP look remarkably good on these topics and is a great person to contrast against on a stage. Also, the most damaging line against Hillary the entire night, and quite possibly the primary season so far, came from Trump in his attempt to defend himself by admitting to buying out Hillary to force her to attend his wedding. Just think of how useful that quote is going to be in the general. The earlier he is forced out, the more likely he runs third party. Let him be stupid, and leave him alone. He is actually doing all Republicans a great service.
I thought it was very interesting after the debate that my teenage daughters who viewed bits and pieces of the debate stated that the FOX “moderators” were “mean and aggressive with Trump.” It appears to me that they were attempting to manufacture a controversy for Trump. Trump is not my guy, but I am disappointed with FOX news for the first time.
I felt the same way as your daughters did. I liked Trump for the fact that he spoke his mind and was not a politician. I am not sure he would be the best candidate for the presidency, however, simply for the same reasons as Trump can take them to the extreme. However, I firmly feel that the moderators started out the evening attempting to bait Trump and that the question Megyn Kelly asked was out of place in this debate. She did it IMO in an attempt to bury him, but I don’t think it quite worked out that way. Moderators should be unbiased in their questioning and moderating, but I guess that pigs will fly before that happens on either side of the political aisle.
FNC really did go after him. I watched the debate opening and I felt like Megan Kelly thought it was her show and not the 10 candidates on the debate stage. I was turned off by her look at me act.
They introduced the candidates twice in 3 minutes. And why did they make them stand on stage together to be introduced and then have them go behind the podiums and introduced again.
It was about the candidates not Megyn Kelly.
i have written a lot in defense of, if not trump, the importance of having a guy like trump in the process.
trump is his own worst enemy in terms of effective communication skills, because his great wealth insulates him from his gaffes in the private sector. he is getting the kind of education publicly that he can avoid privately, and it’s good for him. he will have to make an accommodation to what he calls “political correctness” but what others would call “manners,” in terms of how he laces his pushback to females with an over-aggressive dollop of sexism.
is he “over?” i think it’s bad news for the party’s primary excitement level if he is. like it or not, he appeals to a certain type of fiscal conservative / social liberal who will feel abandoned or underserved if he is OUT.
trump is now in the drivers seat, in a way that he must hate. he has to APOLOGIZE and CHANGE. he has to do it for 1. his supporters, 2. the republican party, 3. women all over the world, and 4. his legacy.
this is actually a good thing, and will tell us if trump truly wants to be in this arena or not.
but hey i’m a guy who still wishes mike rounds was running for president too. he’d be great.
I don’t think he is done. yet. However, an apology would go a long way in his campaign.
When does ‘manners’ cross the line into ‘political correctness?’ We no longer can say ‘Merry Christmas’ instead we say ‘Happy Holidays’ We no longer can say ‘Mail Man’ they are now ‘Letter Carriers’ we can no longer use the term American Indians’ they are now ‘Native Americans’
I get where he was going with this political correctness BS. We don’t have time for it, we have work that needs to get done. With that said, His best option is to let the comments and attacks roll off, and focus on the issues.
Sometimes you just have to step up to the biggest bully in the place and punch him right in the mouth. A rare score for FoxNews. Politically correct is a term used by bigots to shield themselves from valid criticism. Correct is correct, no matter what qualifier a bully want’s to put in front of it; to hide behind.
his appropriation of the term “political correctness” instead of admitting to crudeness was a misstep. he has to correct what he is doing, but he has a weird balancing act to do as he corrects.
he has to knock off his egregious and most politically-costly rough edges, but leave the essential trump with its bluster and lack of care for others feeeeeelings intact. this is what draws people to him and he knows it. no other candidate has this problem because in the minds of trump’s supporters, the system has already ‘neutered’ the rest of them. trump remains fully equipped so to speak.
the megyn kelly thing is a perfect opportunity for trump to build his support AND for the republican party to develop its relationship with him in a good way, if they both work it right.
make no mistake, trump will have to do a big MEA CULPA, but do it his way and make it stick. he should never have this over-aggressive sexism with female adversaries ever again.
if he can’t apologize for this in public, then he has no sense of retail politics in him, and should get out of the race.
Most of what Trump said in the past can taken as heat of the moment insults and his tiff with Kelly as giving it back.
However, when we are incensed our President compared those who oppose his Iran deal as making common cause with the Iranian extremists, this has now become wholly unacceptable for someone who wants to be President.
Further, this last statement especially in context of his other statements against woman is wholly mysogonistic making him wholly unacceptable to most women in America.
Finally as a father of three daughters, because we wanted them to pursue and be successful in any walk in life, after a few years as they learned to deal with their periods, we never allowed that to be an excuse for unacceptable behavior. Concurrent with that, we never mentioned it or treated them different during this period. A man who did what he did to Kelly is a big fat pig and will deserve every bit of fallout he gets and more.
We will see how his over-stated net worth is when people avoid his businesses.
By the way, in my opinion, a father of daughter who would tolerate this said about his daughter or would vote for such a man to be President has wholly misplaced priorities. The right order of priority is God, family, and then country.
there are women in my family. they know that trump is trump, they know that they want to vote for someone with (as liam neeson said in a recent film) “a particular set of skills,” and not let emotion railroad them into seeking a candidate who is a comforting variation of their own dad or something. in a different movie, sean connery told kevin costner “they bring a knife, you bring a gun. they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue.”
politics is tough. john thune bought the “be nice” headfake and was edged out by tim johnson. he totally rejected it two years later and unseated tom daschle. i’m not comparing thune to trump so don’t get mad over that please. thune has daughters, yada yada. i know.
trump brings attitude, ruthless negotiation skills and brass balls to the table. it’s ok to hate trump. i personally think mike huckabee’s kneejerk descents into social decay via shamnesty and the dream act and whatnot, coupled with his i’m-a-tattletale smirk is awful too. he wastes so much in terms of time and resources every time that false voice of god in his ear tells him to run. i’d rather trump run the country than that man any day of the week.
trump is problematic. ultimately, he’s going to bring his crude directness and killer instinct to the table, and force the party to BEAT HIM with a less crude and more deadly candidate. i hope that happens.
go ahead and be outraged then. but i tell you, outrage didn’t do megyn kelly any good when she put an obvious personal rage behind the “female reference” question she asked trump. she soooo fell down on the job of being impartial, but then that was the downfall of the night for each of the hosts.
we have trump. as ned beatty told peter finch in NETWORK, “you have offended the natural order, and you will ATONE!” so trump will atone however he needs to or he will pay the price. that’s all i was saying. i won’t be shoved off my interest in a trump by someone else’s hurt feelings, it will be by whether trump himself saves himself. he might not, so you have that going for you mr jones.
those of us who entertain the notion of a candidate trump did it with eyes wide open and fully understanding that this kind of thing was possible. trump is a big boy, he will struggle and prevail or he won’t but i suspect he doesn’t quit anything easily. he has earned being disinvited from some forums for now, in the fresh aftermath of his remark.
again, many of us knew this could happen. what happens next is what i want to see play out. sooo many people want trump gone instantly. for better or worse, they don’t want people calling things by their names, they don’t want clear and plain descriptions of our national problems, they just want voters to calm down, and they just want the best ten grocery clerks to get back to arguing whether black beans are better than green beans. yawn.
and let me say one more thing about this: the ultimate blame should go to none other than GLENN BECK. beck has had trump as a frequent guest on his radio show over the last fifteen years or so. every single day his show is on, beck in his own words declares that that day’s newest outrage “MAKES BLOOD SHOOT FROM MY EYES.” beck has used that exact wording with trump in every interview, or most of them i’ve heard; and beck is probably the so-called “conservative” show that trump has spent the most time on. it’s much easier to believe that trump was engaging in what seemed to be a normal political descriptive term in his contact with beck. even with the “she’s a pig” remarks and whatnot, it’s nearly impossible for me to believe that trump intentionally intended, for the first time in his public life, to make a crude direct reference to a woman’s menstrual flow. i won’t believe it. he has never needed to do that, and i blame beck for all of this. now i’m done.
HEY, REPUBLICANS …. It’s your circus and Trump is YOUR monkey. He’s only saying what a majority of your political party needs to hear; that Conservative bigotry is justified. He shields himself by claiming our liberal “political correctness” is disrespecting his God-given right to discriminate. You have that right, Mr. Trump. AND, we liberals have the right to call out a bully when and where we find them. I’m afraid the Republican party is split like your ticket will be.
we’ll deal with our own, you just make sure to harvest that hemp on time.
Ironic that the man who brags that he is the only one to take on Russia, China, and Mexico whines about how he is treated by Megyn Kelly.
If Trump’s skin is that thin, I’m surprised he made it out of elementary school in one piece.
Megyn Kelly doesn’t work for the GOP. Neither does anyone else who will be questioning our candidates. If Trump is such a weakling that he needs “nice” questions, he’s not worth wasting time on.
A girl made him cry… Sissy!”
trump was obviously ambushed at that debate. he has a right to discuss the effect of that, and his perception of what happened. people obviously saw two different debates, and which debate you saw is closely linked to how infallable you think the republican establishment is. the fox hosts will wake to the shame they should carry over this someday. not today though, their sunday shows were still full of the victory laps they were running over the super high ratings that trump brought to them. let’s see what happens now.
Kelly’s question was entirely out of place in a debate on the issues. It was designed to get Trump. And it did for some voters, and it backfired for a lot of voters. Now, I’m not defending some of Trump’s outbursts, but I still like that he is not the GOP establishment. I like that he isn’t politically correct. And apparently Trump wasn’t taken out by Fox on the debate, however, as he is still in the lead; and apparently Bush went down. Score one for the non-establishment this time around!.
After looking at the history of his campaign, social media and some of the main stream media, he might be his own worst enemy.
He is not running for the GOP nod, he is running for the office of the President of the United States. And he understands to get there he needs to win the hearts and minds of the people. So he telling them what they want or what they need to hear. He by passing party politics, the main stream media mumbo-jumbo and taking his message directly to the people. He is what one might call a rouge player. One of his methods is to attack anyone who might oppose him.
There is another rouge player in the party. The DNC should be afraid, very afraid, if Donald Trump and Sarah Palin team up. These two together will rip, tear and shred any Democrat, Republican or any other candidate.
While his technique might be considered brash, his message is crystal clear.
Yes he might be our monkey, however I will choose our monkey over anything the Demorats have to offer.
Obama has made the presidency a celebrity reality show. A rude, crude Trump simply continues that. Seems conservatives would want to bring some class back to the oval office, not continue to denigrate it.
And Whitney should stick to what he knows: Mike Miller and marijuana.