Donald Trump, he of the endlessly mockable combover and ad-nauseum-repeated tag line “You’re Fired!,” has confounded pundits left and right (and spawned numerous conspiracy theories) by leading the pack of GOP presidential candidates in the polls. Not only leading, but leading by a lot. RealClearPolitics, in a composite of six major polling organization results, shows Trump ahead of the #2 candidate, Jeb Bush, by nearly 10 percentage points. At 22.7%, Trump’s numbers are nearly double Bush’s 12.5%.
What to make of this? Is The Donald a legitimate candidate? Will he actually run all the way through the primary? Many, myself included, don’t believe that this polling popularity will prove out. Apart from the notorious unreliability of polls this early in a presidential campaign, there are the questions of Trump’s seriousness in this endeavor and what his agenda truly is.
Some have attributed his popularity to the media frenzy over his outrageous statements – statements that many find refreshing. Many are lauding him for speaking “the truth” and being a non-politician who says things in non-politician ways. Lest we forget, though, Trump is a masterful marketer who has had a lifetime of figuring out how to press all the right buttons. He’s tapped into the Right’s frustration over immigration, talked tough talk regarding ISIS, trumpeted his business savvy as the “solution” to jobs outsourcing, and self-promoted as overtly as Macho Man Randy Savage during a Wrestlemania pay-per-view.
People have called this honesty. I call it pandering. Trump has the luxury of not having to worry about what comes out of his mouth because his career isn’t politics. He took the temperature of the disgruntled Right, look at the chum swirling around and figure out which pieces look juiciest, and started chewing away. In doing so, he offered and offers something the others cannot: the appearance of candor via the vehicle of crassness. In a time when pro wrestling, Real Housewives, the Kardashians and, yes, The Apprentice draw big ratings and swarm popular culture, exhibiting arrogance and crassness in politics is good marketing.
This makes for great theater, but amidst all the polls showing him leading the pack are polls showing that a large majority of Republicans won’t vote for him in the general election if he gets the nomination. Besides, 22.7% isn’t anywhere close to a majority, and that figure certainly benefits from the fact that there are 16 others running for the nomination and splitting the polls.
I try and ignore flavor of the moment hot topics. I’ve skipped every Cecil the Lion story and discussion because it’s a wildly overblown distraction. Trump is just that, a wildly overblown distraction, but he’s a distraction that is having an effect on the presidential race. I predict that he will fade in the polls, especially as some of the low-polling candidates drop out, and that he’ll be out of the picture before the convention. However, his candidacy will have an effect. Dialogues will be altered, positions will evolve and coverage will change. If his true goal in all this is to shift the national conversation, he will succeed. If he truly wants to be President (a distinct possibility), I expect he’ll fail. If his real goal is self-promotion in support of future success in his endeavors, well, he’s already won that fight.
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