How to Beat Donald Trump

I was interviewed about Donald Trump a few years ago - actually, about ten years ago, time flies when you're having a good time - and then quoted in and asked to blurb this 2007 biography of Trump, No Such Thing as Over-Exposure: Inside the Life and Celebrity of Donald Trump, by Robert Slater.

I admit that I admired something of Trump back then, or at least his success, which is why I was happy to blurb the book.   Slater thought I understood a bit of what made Trump tick.   I thought so, too, and think so today, when what makes Trump tick is vastly more crucial to our nation and indeed the world than it was a decade ago.

I told Slater, and he agreed, that Trump was motivated, to the point of being addicted, to two things. One has become obvious and all too well-known.  Trump is addicted to publicity.  He's the very embodiment of the principle that there's no such thing as bad publicity, aka the worst publicity is no publicity, and everything he's said and done since announcing his candidacy for President last summer proves this.   That was the sense of the title of Slater's biography of Trump.   No Such Thing as Over-Exposure.

But there's a second part to Trump's compulsion: he's addicted to winning. We saw the first major expression of this after his big loss in Wisconsin. He declined to appear on the Sunday talk shows, for the first time since November, the weekend after Wisconsin.

No candidate likes to lose.   But look at what Hillary did after her losses to Bernie - she immediately redoubled her efforts and media appearances.   Indeed, having lost a very difficult primary to Obama in 2008, she came back in 2016.   We've yet to see what Bernie will do in the future if, as now seems likely, he doesn't get the Democratic nomination, but so far he seems unbowed by the victories Hillary has mounted,   On the Republican side, Cruz and Kasich seem largely unfazed by their considerable defeats.

This analysis of Trump is of course now muddied by his big win in New York last night. But I think it will  prove out in the months ahead.  If Trump does not get the Republican nomination, I predict he'll kick and scream but do nothing more (though his supporters may riot), including not launching a third party effort. If he does get the nomination, and loses the general election, I predict we'll never see him run for office again. Trump's addicted to winning, and therefore hates losing with every ounce of his being.  That's why he traded so many of his companies off to bankruptcy - he'd rather leave the field than risk losing even more.

The way to beat Trump is, therefore, to beat him.  And although that might sound like tautological gibberish, I believe it has a deep grain of truth.  Trump has a glass jaw when it comes to losing.   It's why he sulked after losing Wisconsin.   He's probably won too many primaries to leave the political field any time before the GOP Convention.   But if he doesn't get the nomination, or does but loses the general election, we'll likely never see him on the ballot again.   That may be scant comfort, but it's something.

It may not be easy to stop Trump, but once that happens, I bet he won't be coming back soon, or ever again.

Hillary Clinton Sweeps All Five States Tonight: The Best Antidote to Trump

An excellent night indeed for Hillary Clinton, who won primaries in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri - or all five contests, over Bernie Sanders.

As I've said many times and in many places, Bernie Sanders is an excellent candidate, with courageous positions that have a lot to commend them.  But I prefer Hillary, for a variety of reasons - her stronger position on gun control, on stopping police who kill innocent African-Americans, to name just two - and now there is an additional, highly important reason:

Donald Trump did very tonight in the Republican primaries, too.  Kasich won Ohio, but Trump won the rest.  What happened in his campaigns over the weekend makes it more imperative than ever than the Democrats nominate a candidate who can beat Trump in the general election.

It's not even Trump's positions that are so frightening.  Cruz's are even worse.  It's the fascistic tendencies that Trump has displayed at his most recent rallies - inciting his followers to violence. Such incitements are straight out of the Joseph Goebbels handbook.  He was the Nazi minister of Propaganda, and though I know some people dislike comparisons in our current day and age to the Nazis, they can't be ignored.  We're not that far away from angry people taking up arms against innocent, law-abiding Muslim Americans, given Trump's rhetoric.

I know Bernie has done better in many polls against Trump than has Hillary.  But, in the long run, she's the more reliable candidate to beat Trump.  As she aptly says, she has been under GOP attack for decades.   She can better withstand whatever vicious barrage Trump and his ilk might bring against the Democratic candidate for President.

Especially gratifying, then, that Hillary Clinton swept all five of  the Democratic primaries tonight.

Fourth GOP Presidential Debate: Rand Paul Scores

Herewith my assessment of the just-concluded fourth GOP 2016 Presidential debate, as always with the proviso that I've only voted Republican once in my life - for John Lindsay, for Mayor of New York City, in 1969 (because he was against the Vietnam War) - but I do try to call these debates as objectively as possible.

I think Rand Paul made by far the most lucid and logically sound points tonight, on a variety of topics, and contra what some of the other Republicans were saying.  His single best moment was countering Marco Rubio's and just about every other Republican's assertion that we need huge military expenditures - Rand correctly explained that such expenditures are not only contrary to conservative fiscal policy, but unlikely to keep us safe, especially if they undermine our economy at home.   Rand also punctured Donald Trump's posturing about China and the trade bill, observing that trade with the Chinese was not part of the territory covered in the massive bill.   And he made better sense than anyone else about the U.S. carefully considering its military policy in the Middle East and towards Putin, rather than just rushing in.

I'd rate Jeb as second best tonight.   He spoke truth to Donald Trump and his inhumane and unworkable deportation policy.  John Kasich spoke well on this point, too.

The rest, I thought, were unremarkable.   Obviously, a lot of people currently support Donald Trump or Ben Carson, but it's hard - at least for a progressive like me - to see how either of them will go on to win the nomination.   Trump continues to have a good sense of humor - though little of it came through in the debate tonight.  And Carson is a complete enigma to me - or, at least, why anyone would support him.

The best point I saw about Carson tonight came from my Fordham public relations colleague Gina Vergel, who observed on Twitter -

Third GOP Presidential Debate: Participants and Bystanders

Back with a review of the third GOP Presidential debate tonight, as always with the proviso that I've only voted for a Republican once in my life - for John Lindsay for Mayor of New York City decades ago - and no doubt won't be voting for any of the Republicans up on the stage in Colorado this evening.

But, that said, who did the best and the worst?

I think Chris Christie had the single best moment, when he said he did not deny climate change - as do many Republicans - and would do what he could to improve our climate by supporting private alternate energy enterprise.  That's an enlightened anti-government position on this issue.

The best exchange was between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who both came across well in Bush's attack on and Rubio's defense of his poor attendance record in the Senate.   In general, both Bush and Rubio had a good night, with Rubio somewhat better.

Cruz had a strong moment with the perennial Republican chestnut of attacking the media in general and the questions being asked of him and his colleagues in the debate.  But that was about Cruz's only moment.

Kasich started strong then all but disappeared.  Rand Paul gave some good answers but looked tired and bored.   Huckabee was unmemorable - except for his proud admission about wearing a Trump tie - and Fiorina was the dullest I recall seeing her in any of the debates so far.

Carson and Trump, the two front runners, were both ok, sometimes pretty good, but they often seemed more like bystanders than full-fledged participants in this economic debate.   Someone tweeted - I think it was Farhad Manjoo - that if "if you knew nothing about the polls and watched this you wouldn’t believe Trump and Carson were leading."  I've got to agree.

And so it goes.   Trump will have a chance to rekindle some of his fire on Saturday Night Live this weekend.   He'll need that, because he certainly didn't have all that much tonight.

PS: I thought Lindsey Graham was far and away the best in the junior GOP debate tonight, and was better than at least half the contenders in the main debate tonight.

First 2016 GOP Presidential Debate: My Ranking of the Performances

Continuing my tradition of reviewing the Republican Presidential Debates (and Democratic Debates), which goes back to 2007,  here's my take on what happened on Fox News in Cleveland tonight.

First, as a preamble, I thought the 5pm appetizer debate, consisting of the seven contenders whose polling numbers didn't qualify them (by Fox's standards) for the main event, was one of the most boring political debates I've ever seen.   Sad to say, that debate made pretty clear why those seven candidates polled so poorly.

But on to the debate of 10, which took place from 9 to 11 tonight, I'll appraise this by ranking the performances from worst to best, on all the issues:

10. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon was amiable enough, but clearly out of his depth.  I'll be amazed if his polling numbers don't dip below one percent in the weeks ahead.

9.  Gov. Scott Walker, who was seen in reaction shots agreeing enthusiastically with whatever Carson was saying, didn't do very well himself.   I can't think if a single surprising or memorable point he made.

8. Sen.  Rand Paul came on strong with an attack on Trump at the beginning, and had a few good moments, but let Gov. Christie get the better of him in an exchange about hugs - Paul slammed Christie for hugging Obama, Christie responded that the hugs he most remembered were those of 9/11 victims.  This reprised, in effect, the exchange about national security between Ron Paul (Rand's father) and Giuliani in 2007, except tonight Christie did much better than Giuliani.

7. Gov. Huckabee had some strong moments - his best his joke at the end, in which he talked scathingly about someone leading in the polls with no valid ideas, whom we expected to be Trump, but turned out to be Hillary - but for the most part Huckabee looked and sounded tired.

6. Sen. Ted Cruz was clear and dynamic, but I can't think of an original or commanding idea expressed by him.

5. Christie had a surprisingly good debate, getting the best of Paul, as I said above, but also making powerful points about his success as Governor of New Jersey (and, fortunately for him, no one brought up Bridgegate).

4. Gov. Jeb Bush, as second in the polls after Trump, had more than anyone other than Trump to lose. He accounted well for himself  - spoke well, and came across as the compassionate conservative, especially on immigration, which is where he wants to be.

3. Sen. Marco Rubio came across as the man of the future - showing an understanding of the digital age - as well as compassionate and savvy on a variety of issues.   He was well-spoken, genial, and incisive.

2, Donald Trump held his own, including even in his answer to Megyn Kelly's question about the vicious and demeaning things he's said about women, and later defending his declared bankruptcies in response to a question from Chris Wallace.   For someone with zero experience debating and running in elections, Trump, whatever you may think of his views, stood strong up on that stage.

1. Gov. Kasich was the biggest surprise of the night.  He was powerful without being belligerent, and like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio displayed what seemed like a real compassion for humanity.

So there you have it - an honest appraisal, without reference to my own political views, which are mostly in disagreement with everyone on the stage (I voted twice for Obama).