Where Trump is concerned, we at Daily Kos have split into two camps: Those who didn’t want Dodgy Donald to be the GOP nominee, and those of us who did. I’m in the latter group and even before the Republican Convention officially confirms his nomination, Trump is demonstrating exactly why we wanted him to be their nominee.
The GOP establishment wanted and expected to get their ideal candidate, Jeb Bush. He had everything they wanted: political experience, a family of former presidents (truly awful presidents but presidents all the same), someone who would raise the millions needed to fund his campaign while providing policy support for down-ticket candidates, outreach to women and Latinos and be a unifying force within the party.
Instead they got Donald Trump.
Just as they were endeavoring to come to terms with this horrible reality and trying desperately to make the best of it, in less than a week Trump rocked the GOP with not one but two broadsides.
First up was the news that the Trump campaign is seriously in debt. Hilariously, Politicus reported it like this:
In meeting with Senate Republicans, Trump’s campaign privately admitted that they have no money
Yes, well it’s not so private now, is it—and we’re delighted! In his Daily Kos story about this news, durrati aptly included “Bwawahh ha ha ha” in the title. Perfect!
Turns out Trump has been spending money faster than he can raise it and most of the debts incurred (which include a bill for $700,000 for the use of the Trump jet) are personal loans that The Donald expects will be repaid to him. So much for boasting that he’s self-financing his campaign and doesn’t need donors, or as Kos puts it in his story—Trump’s campaign is broke:
Apparently that was another “suggestion” from a guy who is obviously making it up as he goes along.
It would appear that Trump didn’t expect to win the nomination, so he didn’t plan ahead to fund a longer campaign. As soon as he realized he could win the primary, his Plan B kicked in: Get the RNC to pay for the rest of it. It’s the exact same plan he has for the Great Trump Wall: Get Mexico to pay for it!
It’s a double blow for the RNC because after the convention, they will be expected to shell out for Trump’s ads and other expenses for the four months left before the general election. That means using funds they’d earmarked to aid their various congressional candidates—especially vulnerable senators in re-election bids—all of whom are now additionally handicapped by having Trump at the helm of their party.
Therefore, instead of applying their funds to crisis management, i.e. mitigating the damaging effects of Trump as their nominee, they are now finding themselves in the position of having to turn over those same funds to assist the person who constitutes the greatest threat to the down-ticket candidates they’re so desperate to protect. Such delicious irony!
But I’ve saved the best for last.
In an article for Real Clear Politics, Caitlin Huey-Burns begins by contending that Trump was doing well. And maybe he was … within a very narrow definition of “doing well.” After all, he hadn’t completely alienated the speaker of the House, he had the NRA’s endorsement (for what that’s worth these days), and in blatantly biased polls, looked to be doing better against Clinton than is actually possible for a fourth-rate conman. But then?
Then he went to New Mexico.
At a rally in Albuquerque, he lashed out at Republican Gov. Susana Martinez for the state’s economic troubles and the rising number of residents on food stamps. “It’s your governor’s fault,” Trump told the crowd of thousands. “She’s not doing the job.”
The Albuquerque crowd cheered!
The GOP establishment was shellshocked.
You see, they think very highly of Susana Martinez because:
- she was the first Republican Latina governor
- won twice in a blue state with a large Hispanic population
- chairs the Republican Governors’ Association
- and was favored as a vice presidential pick in order to boost the party’s outreach to Latinos and women.
Martinez’s apparent offense? She had not yet endorsed Trump and declined to attend his rally there on Tuesday night.
You can see how that would upset Trump to the point of denigrating her, a GOP rising star, loudly and publicly and in her own state. The problem for Martinez and the GOP is that Trump’s terse synopsis of her economic ineptitude is spot-on. The Global Dispatch quotes Albuquerque political blogger, Joe Monahan:
“There’s been a bevy of economic problems in this state that have not received a lot of attention, and Trump put it on her lap, front and center.”
Martinez hit back via her press secretary:
The governor will not be bullied into supporting a candidate. Governor Martinez doesn’t care about what Donald Trump says about her.
So much for Republicans coalescing around their presumptive nominee. And the hallucinatory hope of party unity was dealt a further blow when Paul Ryan used a verbal chisel to carve out an even deeper party division:
Susana Martinez is a great governor. She turned deficits into surpluses [she didn’t]; she cut taxes [she did]. She’s a friend of mine and I think she’s a good governor.
There’s been further self-inflicted shrapnel damage in the detonation of this bombshell. Paul Ryan wasn’t alone in popping up to support Martinez—Marco “I-didn’t-mean-it-about-the-small-hands-thing” Rubio rushed to Martinez’s defense on Twitter, where he called her “one of the hardest working and most effective governors in America.” (He’s reduced to using social media because mainstream media don’t call him any more.)
Best of all has been Newt Gingrich who showed every sign of salivating at the mere thought of running as the Republican vice presidential candidate. He nuked his chances of being the running mate by calling Trump’s hit on Martinez “very, very, destructive.” adding that it “sent all the wrong signals.”
But it was Republican strategist Henry Barbour who pinpointed the real issue facing the GOP: As their presumptive nominee, Trump should be focusing 100 percent on attacking Democrats, not minorities and the rising stars of his own party.
If you're going to attack, the only names you use are Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
Finally, former House GOP Leader Tom DeLay had this to say on MSNBC about Trump’s attack on Martinez:
It impacts every Republican, especially incumbents, running for re-election this year. I have no other word for it: it's just stupid politics ... and it just blows my mind. Where is he going to get his coalition to win?
Where, indeed.