Trump’s Pottery Barn GOP Even as he wins, GOP resistance to his nomination builds.

Posted By on March 3rd, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-pottery-barn-gop-1456965435

Donald Trump claims to have opposed the Iraq war before opposition was fashionable. So perhaps he won’t mind if we apply Colin Powell’s adaptation of the Pottery Barn rule to Mr. Trump’s attempted takeover of the Republican Party: If you break it, you bought it.

The rule comes to mind after examining the paradox of Super Tuesday’s primary results: Mr. Trump was the clear winner and his support is solidifying, but Republican resistance to his candidacy is mounting at the same time. A front-runner at this stage of the primaries would normally be expanding and consolidating his party support, as Hillary Clinton is among Democrats. This is what happened in every other recent GOP presidential race.

Mr. Trump is winning, but his Super Tuesday performance was less than commanding. He generally underperformed his percentages in the pre-election polls, and he cracked the 40% mark in only two states—Massachusetts and Alabama. Overall he averaged about 35% of the vote, lower than his totals in Nevada and about what he received in New Hampshire. Yet the same media sages who said he could never win now say the race is over.

One possible explanation is that the attacks on Mr. Trump that began in earnest only late last week have begun to break through to voters. In two of Mr. Trump’s weakest states, Oklahoma (28% and second place) and Arkansas (33% and a narrow first), the Club for Growth ran ads against him.CONTINUE AT SITE

 

Categorized under: ANTI-SEMITISM, POLITICS.
Tagged with: no tags.

Comments are closed.