No Donald in 2012
 

Donald Trump has announced he will not run for President in 2012. I guess he figured he couldn't win when the best slogan his people could come up with was "What's wrong with putting a fucking moron in the Whitehouse?".

Or even, "What's wrong with putting another fucking moron in the Whitehouse?".

Good for them. Maybe we'll see an intelligent republican candidate this time around. Lord knows there's been a shortage lately.

I'll say it here again - He was never running. It was a media fueled frenzy during sweeps week... That's over and now this charade is as well.
I wonder how much money/popularity... he made off of this?

Any thoughts Pete? I can't think of anyone so far. It seems as though the R's are resigned to wait until '16.

Saw that Huckabee has demurred.

I think the R's are doing what the D's did in '04. For all of their noises about how horrible the current occupant is and the damage he's doing they realize he will be very very difficult to beat. The people who could most likely do it are just not ready and a poor run would snuff out their future. The R's will run their version of Kerry and pretend that he's their guy. All the while they'll really be prepping someone for 2016.

To this day I really think Hilary didn't think she could take GWB but was confident of her chances in '08. I think the Clinton machine was surprised at how quickly the D's were able to turn a community organizer into a president.

No. I generally don't start paying too much attention until primaries.

I think it's a mistake for the republicans to pass on 2012. The economy is in the dumper. A republican who had a good story on the economy would have a good chance.

re: Lookout - Tsongas ... Dole ... ;)

zing!


I (mis)used the word in the sense of "coyly declined". If you choose "quit" (no spoiler) then don't you need to be doing/running in order to do so?

Thank God that fool Trump quit. What tool. I think it was all a stunt to boost his tv ratings.

The book Primary Colors demonstrates how campaigning can turn an irrelevant candidate into a best one. Important is for the politician to catch onto and remain attached to a political attitude and principle. In Clinton's case, he discovered this concept. We have a problem. Our competitors are getting better while we are not. We must get educated. Upgrade ourselves to meet the problem. Work smarter; not harder. We are losing because we are the problem. Strangely, that worked superbly. In part because so many facts had been saying it for a long time. It just needed a public spokesmen to tap into a reality that most politicians feared or could not grasp.

Devil is in the details. McCain won his party's nomination because he promoted moderate concepts that were contrary to spin promoted by that party leadership. Most Americans are moderates. Unfortunately for McCain, Party leadership took revenge on McCain because he did not promote their extremist agenda.

A second factor that can make or break a politician. Party powers must be appeased because they - not America - are more important. A problem for better Americans - moderate Republicans - who would seek the party's nomination. Educated and informed Americans want moderates. Not a wacko extremist who would so stupidly intervene in Terry Schiavo's death for a political purpose. Or would subvert stem cell research.

But one thing the public routinely forgets. Our massive debts are directly traceable to events that occurred much longer than two years ago. Cheney said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter". Party extremist even advocated welfare for the rich. But Cheney said it when debts were being created. Most Americans forget who created this mess. Most Americans forget that spread sheets are a summary of things that happened four or ten years ago. So many politicians will successfully tap into a missing long term memory. Memory that even forgets that the 10th Mountain Division sat nearby waiting to be deployed to Tora Bora. To get bin Laden. And was never permitted due to a political agenda.

Extremely difficult for a moderate (more intelligent) politician to get necessary support in the Republican party. A dark horse candidate will be one who finally discovers and remains attached to a deep seated and little reported public opinion. And then can promote that concept without losing a Party's top management support.

That candidate would have to come out of New Hampshire. The news today had the NH people are already taking potshots at Iowa for their habit of getting religious when they should get serious.