{"id":13379,"date":"2016-07-25T13:08:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-25T19:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=13379"},"modified":"2016-07-25T13:08:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T19:08:58","slug":"montana-viewpoint-again-and-again-advantage-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/07\/montana-viewpoint-again-and-again-advantage-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Viewpoint: Again and again, advantage Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over\u00a0the past months there have been numerous opinions by those in the know about why Donald Trump\u00a0will be not successful in the primaries and, then, not successful in the presidential race.<\/p>\n

If the track\u00a0record of these pundits is anything to go by, Trump has an excellent shot at winning the presidency.<\/p>\n

\"JE\"<\/a>

Jim Elliott<\/p><\/div>\n

Political experts have a comprehensive knowledge of politics, polling and policy, like any insider. What\u00a0they do not have, and continue to demonstrate that they do not have, is an understanding of the day-to-day thinking of day-to-day people who, frankly, admire Trump\u2019s bravado. While I don\u2019t admire it, I am\u00a0fascinated by it.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton has, euphemistically speaking, baggage. (It is worth knowing that the word for baggage in the\u00a0Roman legions of Julius Caesar was \u201cimpediment.\u201d) Whether she has earned the baggage or had it foisted\u00a0upon her by her many enemies is immaterial.<\/p>\n

Whether it is real or not is also immaterial; it is there, it is\u00a0seen and it is believed to exist by the majority of the American public. In fact, much of it is there because it has\u00a0long been a tactic of the right to burden their opponents with both real and fabricated baggage,\u00a0beginning with the presidency of her husband, continuing through Obama\u2019s presidency, and now, her\u00a0campaign.<\/p>\n

The tactic has two facets, to make the\u00a0public doubt the truthfulness of the person and to keep\u00a0the candidate on the defensive to the exclusion of being able to respond effectively with anything\u00a0positive. The desired result of this tactic is to discourage marginal supporters of the candidate from\u00a0voting, and to encourage enemies and detractors to vote against the candidate. In short, vilify the\u00a0opposition and turn out your supporters.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Democrats are doing their best to attack Trump in like manner, but with a significantly lesser effect.<\/p>\n

Why? Well, first of all the people making the attacks are the very people Trump supporters despise, \u201cthe\u00a0Establishment.\u201d The same held true for his Republican primary opponents. Worked well, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Secondly, Clinton has some very real issues with truth and caution which keep her constantly on the\u00a0defensive. That defensive position increases as her arguments countering one claim or another are\u00a0shown or believed to be false. Third, she is a politician, and people are already predisposed to think the\u00a0worst about politicians\u2019 character.<\/p>\n

Trump, contrariwise, is a businessman, a showman and to great extent, a charlatan, none of whom are\u00a0expected to have a great deal of integrity. He is seldom on the defensive, almost always on the attack.<\/p>\n

He shrugs off the most heinous accusations and then makes an even more egregious statement about an\u00a0individual\u00a0or issue. Clinton may or may not be arrogant, but is working too hard so as not be seen that\u00a0way. Trump is arrogant and revels in it.<\/p>\n

The field of debate is ever changing with Trump, it is ever\u00a0constant with Clinton. Clinton is seen as wanting desperately to be president, Trump is seen as wanting\u00a0to be president, but enjoying getting there enormously. For Clinton it is a goal, for Trump, a journey.<\/p>\n

He is also a master of deflecting blame. Take Melania Trump\u2019s Republican convention speech, which\u00a0included a section plagiarized from Michelle Obama\u2019s speech at the 2008 Democratic convention. Two\u00a0days after the incident made news, a longtime Trump speechwriter, Meredith McIver, finally came\u00a0forward to claim responsibility and offered her resignation. She then put out a statement on Trump\u00a0company letterhead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday,” it said, “I offered my resignation to Mr. Trump and the Trump family, but they rejected it. Mr. Trump\u00a0told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would be considered a criminal offense by some is presented by Trump as an innocent mistake\u00a0offering an opportunity for the perp to correct her\u00a0moral compass. And it worked. It\u2019s hard to top a guy\u00a0like that.<\/p>\n

Jim Elliott is a former chairman of the Montana Democratic Party and a former state senator from Trout Creek.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over\u00a0the past months there have been numerous opinions by those in the know about why Donald Trump\u00a0will be not successful in the primaries and, then, not successful in the presidential race. If the track\u00a0record of these pundits is anything to go by, Trump has an excellent shot at winning the presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":13380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[2853,1428,4739],"class_list":["post-13379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-melania-trump","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}