Sunday, August 30, 2015

Trump – The New Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart had been a pain in Fox News’ ass lo these many years.  But he quit “The Daily Show” this summer, and the afterglow of his reruns were darkening when Donald Trump rose up to take on his role if not his banner.
He is obviously different from Jon Stewart but the effect appears to be the same.  Megan Kelly had been a frequent target of Stewart, and now here she is in Trump’s crosshairs (crossed hairs?).  Trump is stirring up the GOP way better than Stewart ever hoped to do.  They are at a loss on how to respond.
At least the Fox News gang could run out the old liberal bias meme against Stewart when he criticized their supposedly “fair and balanced” reporting.  But Trump is one of their own – he’s Republican, a successful conservative business tycoon.  And since he is running for President, he’s got a whole new attention gathering stage from which to take pot shots at Fox.
The old truism, which has been floating around the Internet that “Fox News used to work for the GOP, and now the GOP works for Fox News”, may no longer be true.  Not only that, Trump has totally reworked the GOP’s primary run-up status quo.  Jeb! and the rest of the gang are trying to recoup, recover, and re-strategize their campaign.  As much as he would have liked, Stewart was never able to do that.
Seems the overall consensus among pundits is that were Trump to win the GOP primary, he would probably lose the general election.  His nomination is Hillary’s best strategy (hope) of winning.   Or the other pontification is that he will ruin it for the GOP by running as a third party candidate.  Maybe Trump will do to Jeb! what Perot did to his dad in 1992.
However, given current events, tweets, and clickbait, Trump may do to the general election what he is presently doing to the GOP’s method of selecting its next nominee – and the coverage of it by news media as well.
And we still got six months to go before voters start turning hype and spin into facts.
Smart decision by Stewart to get out, now.  Trump’s Tweets and blurbs would have out tongued-in-cheek Stewart’s satirical reporting of the Republican primary and Fox Newspeak coverage of it.

Friday, August 07, 2015

2016 GOP Primary >> Repeat 2012 Primary

It would seem a Monday morning critique on Friday after the GOP primary debate would led one to believe Trump won and will maintain his position in the hearts and minds of those who that take part in polls.
And the crowd goes while!
The news crowd, that is.  Republicans will not go to vote until next February and we will have a feeding frenzy among the press until then.  Fox News will probably fare best, but then it’s preaching to the choir.
In the run up to the 2012 primary, between August 2011 and February 2012, the lead in the polls that had been dominated by Romney up until August, went to Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich.  Rick Santorum would take the top spot during the February primaries, but then Romney held it for the rest of the primary season.  Romney was the candidate most of the pros thought would get the nomination – because he was always the number two when not number one.
With a larger field this time around, it will be interesting if not sickening to watch and see if history repeats itself.  Conservation of habits is at the heart of conservatism.