Maybe, but candidates have always run to the base in primaries, to the center in general elections.
That might be fairly easy, for a candidate who hasn’t based his entire campaign thus far on being a blowhard racist. I mean, seriously, if you take that out, Trump has nothing.
Agree it actually would decrease his one path to winning. His chance is predicated upon driving turn out of the less educated White vote far above historic norms in addition to getting an overwhelming share of that vote. If he does not deliver on that then he really has no chance. If he does that and only loses a moderate amount of the White educated vote, and the Hispanic vote mostly continues to sit on its collective ass, then he has a path. Try to sell the story that he is actually fairly liberal? Not the way to do that.
You’re assuming that the electorate has no memory. The downside of dominating the news for a year is that a ton of people remember what you said. A move to the center would have no credibility with the center and only piss off the right.
Hasn’t history shown that though a ton of people may remember, there are also plenty that have no memory?
Sadly, it appears that this is manifestly true. Trump entered this election cycle with two items on his record that should have been front and center in people’s memories: one, that he was an attention-seeking self-aggrandizing blowhard who pretended to run in every presidential election but was never serious about it, and two, his crackpot venture into birtherism. He was the guy who claimed to have sent private detectives to Hawaii because he “didn’t know” where Obama was born, and informed everyone that they “wouldn’t believe” what these detectives were discovering. Then Obama produced his long form birth certificate and Trump got out of the birther business. What should have been two great big red flags announcing a dilettante blowhard with no real ideas didn’t prevent Trump from attracting a base of idiots large enough to propel him to first place.
What this tells me is the Trump would probably not have much difficulty moving to the center and broadening his platform for the general election. Whether this would win over Sanders is a different question. I don’t see how it could. Centrist or not, Trump is still an idiot blowhard.
People have memory, but a common defense of partisans everywhere is “That’s old news”. And it often works. Remember all the bad things Clinton said about Obama? The Republicans tried to use some of that, and Clinton just said, “I do not endorse that message” and it was good enough. Clinton’s supporting Obama NOW, and that’s all that matters. Donald Trump is moderate NOW, so that’s all that matters.
Not particularly. Got any examples?
A fascinating aspect of a Sanders - Trump matchup that no one has noticed yet, is that it would pit 2 candidates neither of whom is a practicing Christian. Sanders is Jewish-agnostic, and Trump says he’s a Presbyterian but he’s lying.
Actually, acting like only some people matter, while it might not be very Christian, does sound pretty Calvinist.
:dubious: If Trump’s not a Christian, what is he then?
If we’re policing how often the candidates go to church, well, I don’t think Obama & McCain were in church every Sunday, either.
Why bother? The same people who said that her campaign was hurting her future viability and that she should drop out for the good of the party forgave and forgot.
Mostly forgot.
Funny line from a New Yorker piece:
Yes, how dare they not be WASPs from somewhere not Long Island? e_e
Agreed that Obama doesn’t seem particularly devout. But at least he has the ability to fake it, and knows the right words to say at the right time. Trump has zero interest and doesn’t care if it shows.
(Ironically, Obama took flak in 2008 for attending the wrong church (Jeremiah Wright’s). Trump would probably be happy if somebody spotted him in any church.)
“He claims to be religious but isn’t really” is a charge that can be and has been laid against every candidate in history, and pretty often, it’s probably even true.
A Trumpist, obviously. Trump is God and God is HYUUUUUGE!!!
Trump on Holy Communion