# Trump's Republican primary campaign **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 3, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828 "2015-09-03T18:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 74
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1465 "2016-01-20T03:53:57Z")
Sunday’s business section of the New York Times discusses Trump’s [purchase of the Plaza hotel](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/what-donald-trumps-plaza-deal-reveals-about-his-white-house-bid.html), a property he paid too much for and contributed to his shift from property developer to brand manager. [Kevin Drum summarizes](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/donald-trump-mediocre-businessman) the lengthy piece. It was an insightful article. My take is that Trump is a sales guy: he’s good at reading what people want and what sort of pitch they will respond to. This explains his oratorical and campaign successes, despite his apparent lack of policy knowledge. The problem is that CEOs in general and Presidents in particular need a more varied skill set. Otherwise you become [a bad CEO](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003829.php): [INDENT][INDENT] …the world is full to bursting with CEOs who have goals they would dearly love to attain but who lack either the skill or the fortitude to make them happen. They assign tasks to subordinates without making sure the subordinates are capable of doing them — but then consider the job done anyway because they’ve “delegated” it. They insist they want a realistic plan, but they’re unwilling to do the hard work of creating one — all those market research reports are just a bunch of ivory tower nonsense anyway. They work hard — but only on subjects in their comfort zone. If they like dealing with people they can’t bring themselves to read all those tedious analyst’s reports, and if they like numbers they can’t bring themselves to spend time chattering with distributors about their latest prospect. [/INDENT][/INDENT] Donald Trump would focus on a deal about 3 days before it was to be completed. Then his attention would go on to the next thing. Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. The Eastern Air Shuttle. Trump figured he could buy the Plaza for a high price, then somewhat later cash in by chopping it up into condos. It wasn’t a bad concept, but Trump couldn’t execute it. A decade after a consortium of banks took the Plaza and other his properties away from him, another developer with greater focus and business sense would successfully execute Trump’s Plaza plan. Vision and sales sense isn’t enough to stop one from being a mediocre businessman. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1466 "2016-01-20T07:44:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So why doesn’t he act like it? That’s the point isn’t it; the art of politics. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1467 "2016-01-20T11:41:48Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You can see it in places where people aren’t looking closely, though. Have you ever looked at the list of artists, musicians, and poets the Obamas brought to the White House over the past few years? Yep. Didn’t see any particular pattern in it. Admittedly, I’m too busy to cherry-pick until one emerges; maybe you have more free time. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1468 "2016-01-20T14:44:50Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Sarah Palin had credibility to lose? [Speaking](https://youtu.be/DmEE61iVhCA) of Sarah Palin, was she ever convicted of anything? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1469 "2016-01-20T15:13:59Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > [Speaking](https://youtu.be/DmEE61iVhCA) of Sarah Palin, was she ever convicted of anything? When the Quitinator Quit it made many Ethics proves and complaints that were coming her way to go away. > **[Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews -...](https://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1908800-2,00.html)** > > Palin's unhappiness in the job came as no surprise in Alaska. The bigger surprise was that no one saw her announcement coming In any case it was the court of public opinion the one that convicted her, that there is a sizable but still a minority group that still thinks she is the beesneez is not good enough. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1470 "2016-01-20T15:56:21Z")
If you can say Obama believes what his preacher said because he was in the same room, does that mean anyone on this board believes everything that is said here? (shudders in fear) ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1471 "2016-01-20T16:07:18Z")
[Trump polling at nearly 50% in Florida.](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/poll-florida-trump-gop-218015) Cruz far back in second place at 16%. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1472 "2016-01-20T17:06:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Because if he had acted like it before he became president, he would not have gotten to become president. And if he suddenly flipped while in office, people would have rightly pointed to his having been dishonest to get into office, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to get any traction and would risk his “paragraph” that he talks about in the history books saying something about the “stealth black radicall” who stole his way into the presidency. He also knows that would hurt the Democratic party for decades to come. So, we’ll probably see it once he’s out of office, eh? But that could be too soon. Maybe when his Presidential library opens? Nah, could hurt the current office holders. Memoir? Too damaging to the Democratic brand. Deathbed confession? No, wouldn’t want to hurt his legacy. That Radical Obama is just so damn crafty. I mean, what more proof does one need! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1473 "2016-01-20T17:40:37Z")
We know Obama must be a radical because he hides the evidence of it so well! Much in the same way that we know Trump is a nice guy because he hides it behind a thin veneer of assholery and bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1474 "2016-01-20T18:03:18Z")
Here’s the whole thing with Trump, IMHO. In his business world, it only takes a relatively small percentage of devoted loyalists out of a large population to create profitable ventures and a valuable brand. Even if one disputes, as I do, that his business successes were due to any particular skills on his part, there are still things like his popular books and TV shows. He’s managed to leverage this into an early polling lead, but in the end national politics isn’t like that. Once you get beyond a bunch of diehard extremists carried along by momentum in the early stages of an election cycle, you need a lot more than just an enthusiastic minority. And here Trump is faced with a widespread view of him as a self-serving narcissistic buffoon. The Republican establishment knows this, and unless he’s delusional Trump knows it, too. And Trump is far too set in his ways to build that kind of broad national coalition. On the contrary, he’s just enthusiastically accepted the screeching endorsement of the Horror from Wasilla. So I still say it’s not a matter of “if”, but a matter of “when”, this whole thing implodes. I could even be persuaded that Trump – as surprised as anyone that these morons actually put him in first place – is actively working to make it happen. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1475 "2016-01-20T18:19:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The whole of the ACLU would. (Yes, it still exists.) I’m aware. I’m friends with one of the ACLU lawyers who was involved in the Kim Davis/gay marriage case. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1476 "2016-01-20T18:26:41Z")
> [@Pashnish\_Ewing](#): > > So, we’ll probably see it once he’s out of office, eh? But that could be too soon. Maybe when his Presidential library opens? Nah, could hurt the current office holders. Memoir? Too damaging to the Democratic brand. Deathbed confession? No, wouldn’t want to hurt his legacy. > > That Radical Obama is just so damn crafty. I mean, what more proof does one need! My favorite was when people said he concealed his real agenda during his first four years in office so he could pursue his real agenda during his second four years in office. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1477 "2016-01-20T18:36:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You can see it in places where people aren’t looking closely, though. Have you ever looked at the list of artists, musicians, and poets the Obamas brought to the White House over the past few years? Seriously intense list there. Who would you point to specifically? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1478 "2016-01-20T18:37:34Z")
Once the President for Life Amendment passes, he will reveal his true nature. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1479 "2016-01-20T18:48:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Because if he had acted like it before he became president, he would not have gotten to become president. And if he suddenly flipped while in office, people would have rightly pointed to his having been dishonest to get into office . . . But, why did Obama instead, after taking office, flip around the **other** way and govern as a damned center-right DLC-DINO Clinton-clone bearing no resemblance to his left-progressive campaign-trail persona and posing no conceivable threat to the PTB?! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1480 "2016-01-20T19:07:01Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Once the President for Life Amendment passes, he will reveal his true nature. It already happened two years ago, just as Rick Santorum warned us last time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAes5wnEoaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAes5wnEoaI) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1481 "2016-01-20T19:12:04Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > We know Obama must be a radical because he hides the evidence of it so well! Much in the same way that we know Trump is a nice guy because he hides it behind a thin veneer of assholery and bigotry. Trump’s veneer of assholery and bigotry stops approximately forty percent of neutrinos. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1482 "2016-01-20T20:40:26Z")
> [@Pashnish\_Ewing](#): > > So, we’ll probably see it once he’s out of office, eh? But that could be too soon. Maybe when his Presidential library opens? Nah, could hurt the current office holders. Memoir? Too damaging to the Democratic brand. Deathbed confession? No, wouldn’t want to hurt his legacy. > > That Radical Obama is just so damn crafty. I mean, what more proof does one need! You are snarking at me like I’m a Republican conspiracy theorist trying to tear down the president’s reputation. I repeat: I voted for Obama, in the '08 primaries and in the general election in '08 and '12. I donated to his campaign in '08 and '12. I phone banked and canvassed for him. I have spent seven years defending him from attacks from the left and right. I \*love \*that he’s a stealth radical. I guess your smugly self-assured opinion is that he was raised by a [radical left](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/obamas-mother-known-here-as-uncommon/) mother (whom Barack himself has repeatedly [described](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/06/23/heres-what-obama-revealed-about-his-mostly-nonreligious-upbringing-during-the-wtf-podcast/) as “the last of the great secular humanists”) and leftist grandparents, attended a radical church in Chicago, hung out with a former Weather Underground bomber, and then just \*happened \*to become a moderate around the time he went into national politics. Right, that’s much more plausible and logical. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1483 "2016-01-20T20:45:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, why did Obama instead, after taking office, flip around the **other** way and govern as a damned center-right DLC-DINO Clinton-clone bearing no resemblance to his left-progressive campaign-trail persona and posing no conceivable threat to the PTB?! He didn’t. That’s a pile of bullshit invented by assholes at truthdig et al. There are countless examples of his taking on the PTB, and I’m not going to write an encyclopedia article on the topic. So I’ll just provide as illustration something from the WaPo [today](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/14/obama-administration-set-to-announce-moratorium-on-some-new-federal-coal-leases/): > [@](#): > > The decision was cheered by environmentalists but denounced by industry groups and politicians from Western states, where federal coal leases provide thousands of jobs as well as revenue for state and local government coffers. Obama administration officials have been debating such a change for years, saying current practices contribute to a glaring contradiction in U.S. energy policy, which simultaneously promotes the sale of federally owned coal even as it seeks to limit greenhouse-gas pollution from coal burning. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/1484 "2016-01-20T20:52:28Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > He didn’t. That’s a pile of bullshit invented by assholes at truthdig et al. > > There are countless examples of his taking on the PTB, and I’m not going to write an encyclopedia article on the topic. So I’ll just provide as illustration something from the WaPo [today](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/14/obama-administration-set-to-announce-moratorium-on-some-new-federal-coal-leases/): No, no, no; we’re still waiting for you to back up that “list of artists, musicians, and poets” talking point. We’ve taken the liberty of tying up your horse and putting up some barricades on the Gish Gallop Trail. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828.md?page=73) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828.md?page=75)