Coulter: Trump campaign is like an "outlandish business idea"
No, not Trump-groupie Ann Coulter. Please. Mike Coulter is a friend of mine who I've known since we were in grade-school, and today he wrote a very practical piece explaining why Donald Trump would likely lose the general election if he is nominated. Excerpt:
But Trump claims—and Rush Limbaugh affirms—that he’s drawing independents and Democrats. He’s getting some of those voters, but the polling data suggest that it’s going to be very hard for him get enough independents and Democrats to win in the fall. A January poll from Gallup indicated that Trump had the worst favorability ratings among any Republican candidates among independents and Democrats. Trump was net -27 among independents (that is, his unfavorability rating was 27 points higher than his favorability rating) and -70 among Democrats. No other Republican was so far underwater with non-Republicans (Trump’s -97 combined was far worse than Huckabee, Cruz, and Bush, who were around -40). It’s not enough to get some independents and Democrats. For Trump to win, he gets a majority of independents and at least 20 percent of Democrats.
Trump, the businessman, should understand you need a plan for winning. When an entrepreneur seeks support for a new venture, he or she has to show how the business idea will attract enough customers. In presidential politics you need a plan for winning a majority of electoral votes because there’s only one winner. Attracting a dedicated minority of voters wins no prize.
The Trump campaign is like one of those outlandish business ideas, like personal travel to the moon, that has some potential customers, but it doesn’t have a winning business plan.
I think Professor Coulter makes a lot of sense if one disregards actually winning in the present as a precursor step to possibly winning in the future. Of course, Trump's current victories are indeed more heavily padded with those least likely to vote for a traditional Republican and less heavily padded with those most likely to vote for a traditional Republican.
ReplyDeleteAs I've mentioned before, I thought Rubio/Fiorina was a can't-lose ticket against two white septuagenarians based on conventional wisdom and past elections - the same conventional wisdom that had Trump plopping hilariously into the dunk tank sometime around last July 4.
But there's no longer any question that we're now into Black Swan territory with Trump. While Professor Coulter's argument is certainly consoling, there is less and less reason to believe the assumptive base it's built upon still holds this cycle.
I see two predictable outcomes: either the Republican Party actively throws the election to Clinton in order to save something to be understood and defined within/about itself after the fact, or an unpredictable outcome involving Trump. I can't see at this point how anyone could possibly be more certain.
It's not clear to me whether Professor Coulter has taken this factor into account either.
Maybe it depends on what "winning" means for Trump. Sometimes I wonder whether Trump is actually as interested in being president (i.e., governing) as he has been in running for president.
ReplyDeleteThe only downside for Trump would have been to have been laughed out of the race very early on.
DeleteOn another tack entirely, although there are right now conversations out there harrumphing about revisiting and even changing the qualifications to become President, it's always useful to recall that our system was designed by largely self-sufficient people who cured their own bacon and made their own whiskey precisely to entertain an amateur as President.
Like Buckley, they decided they'd prefer to be governed - or at least allow themselves to consider being governed by - someone out of a phone book rather than someone to the manor - even manner - born.
Courtesy of Drudge this insight into the other side. And a look into the sidebar is even more revealing.
Delete