"And on the fourth day after Trump completed his work which he had done, he rested so that he could start the work which he had done all over again before his court date".
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Late this week, reports surfaced (on Trump News Channel, natch) that Florida Senator and former GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio was quietly lobbying TrumpWorld to become the millionaire slumlord's running mate.
Here's what the presumptive GOP nominee told a very solicitious Bret Baier:
We’ve had really nice conversations, not necessarily about that, just that we had — you know, we always had a very good relationship, Bret, Marco and I. And then it got a little bit nasty for a period of time and then we had the election. And, you know, that was a tough period of time for Marco. Marco is a good guy, a really nice guy. And I like him. But, uh, not necessarily with respect to any position. But it could happen.
I didn't post about it in this space because (1) I'm not especially interested in speculating who Trump will pick to be his caddy, (2) veepstakes are a quadrennial soap opera that is always vastly overrated, and is only indulged in by the media because the time between the end of the primaries and the conventions is the proverbial "dog days" of the campaign anyway, so they need something to fill airtime, (3) I'll be far more interested in the topic AFTER his pick is announced, and (4) I didn't take the report seriously and decided to wait, as I always do with any claim of The Donald, for the other shoe to drop.
Today it did:
Despite recent media reports characterizing Senator Marco Rubio as “warming” to Donald Trump, sources close to the Florida Senator were adamant that he was not interested in being Trump’s running mate.
On Friday, Heat Street spoke to multiple senior advisers, members of Rubio’s inner circle who have been in direct contact with him.
“Absolutely false,” said one Rubio adviser. “He absolutely will not be Trump’s vice president.”
That sentiment was echoed by two other sources close to Rubio, who confirmed to Heat Street that Rubio was not considering joining Trump’s ticket. “That’s never happening,” said one. Another referenced the likelihood of snowballs in hell, and expressed frustration at the inaccurate stories, referencing how Rubio’s comments in late April about a contested convention had been taken out of context. “He was just speaking analytically then,” and not saying he opposed a contested convention, “and he’s not joining with Trump.”
There are two possibilities: (1) Trump was MSUing, or (2) Rubio was trying to lobby his way onto Trump's ticket, Trump laughed in his sweaty face, and now he's trying to cover his ass.
Of the two, of course, #1 is the far more credible explanation. It's difficult to conceive of a charter #NeverTrumper turning a somersault of that difficulty level that quickly. You can counter argue with Rick Perry's not-so-quiet veep lobbying campaign, which brings us to the other rather gaping objection: Does anybody seriously believe that even if Rubio was amenable to riding shotgun on TrumpTrain, he would be unaware of the YUUUUGE likelihood of Trump....well, laughing in his sweaty face? Or let me put it this way: What do you think the chances are of Trump approaching Rubio with the job? Exactly. Rubio knows this, and he already lost to the New York liberal conman. Why would he deliberately and knowingly put himself through that pointless humiliation?
So Trump made it all up. The next question is....why? Rubio dropped out of the race two months ago. He's a defeated rival. A "loser" in Trumpspeak. Irrelevant. So why make up demeaning lies about him? Boredom? His quite evident natural, reflexive instinct for farting on actual Republicans? I don't see what that gets him, especially if he's actually serious about unifying the GOP, as opposed to driving out anybody who doesn't swill down his "vintage" Kool-Aid.
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Even Barack Obama and his bleeping Greek columns didn't tilt the narcissism meter this badly:
“I think when it comes to the program a lot of us feel that we could juice up the [Republican National Convention] format just a little,” Bennett told Masters in Politics. “More entertaining, more interesting. I don’t know why the candidate only speaks on acceptance night, why shouldn’t he speak every night from a different city? How come we are not doing broadcasts on Facebook or Google, why are we just relying on forty-five minutes of network television time?” [emphases added]
"More entertaining"? How so, Barry? I'm genuinely curious. A Jell-O wrestling match between Trump "divas" Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter? A steel cage match between Eric Bolling and Sean Hannity? With Rush Limbaugh in the Jim "J.R." Ross role? (All Susan Wright's whimsical suggestions) I get it that national political conventions are not barn-burners in the pop culture sense. It's kind of C-SPAN with spectacle, which isn't saying much
The thing is, they're not supposed to be.
Entertainment is not, in and of itself, a serious endeavor. It matters for investors, movie studios, record companies, and the like. Marvel Studios was about to go bankrupt in 2008 when they bet everything they had left on the first Ironman installment. But Marvel's fortunes didn't hinge on whether Tony Stark defeated Obadiah Stane and his plot to seize his miniaturized arc reactor to make a new line of deadly weapons with it, but on whether the movie was sufficiently entertaining to become a box office blockbuster (which, needless to say, it did).
Political conventions are not entertainment, they are the stages from which the parties introduce to the voting public their policy platforms and their personification in their presidential tickets. "This is who we are and this is what we stand for and will do if you elect us, and here's our standard-bearer". Ideas and philosophy and their policy application are their point, which the nominee will carry forward. Basically, national conventions are week-long infomercials. Not week long "reality TV" pay-per-views.
The Republican National Convention that Barry Bennett is describing would be Donald Trump's ego run amok. Given Trump's already toweringly high polling negatives, the phrase "less is more" has never been more applicable to any scenario than this one. And that's the purpose of saving the nominee's reveal until the final night. Create a growing level of anticipation; whet the delegates', and the country's, appetites for that moment when his music starts and then he appears on stage for the crowd to go wild. Hell, even World Wrestling Entertainment does that; that's why the final match of the card is called "the MAIN event". Smearing Trump's Cheeto-faced visage all over every last moment of the entire week (why just four days? Why not four WEEKS?) will just reinforce to the vast majority of the general electorate every reason why they're dead set against voting for him, prove yet again that he's not capable of "changing" or becoming the remotest bit "presidential," and the fact that Donald Trump absolutely could not care less about advancing the Republican Party, but ONLY himself at its expense.
Politics, national leadership, government, are supposed to be serious endeavors, because people's lives literally can hang in the balance of a POTUS's words and actions. It is not supposed to be just another form of entertainment.
But that ship sailed with the rise of Bill Clinton a generation ago, and only somewhat abated for a few short years after 9/11. And now that diseased mentality has taken over the Republican Party as well.
In other words, Trump gotta be Trump. Everywhere.
Calvin "Silent Cal" Coolidge wept.
~ ~ ~
This is the only sort of "attack" you're ever likely to get from Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton, Trumplicans: Little policy or ideological substance, but mainly tabloid trash from decades ago that the vast majority of the electorate didn't care about even back then:
“Nobody in this country was worse than Bill Clinton with women. He was a disaster,” Trump said at a rally in Eugene, Oregon.
Really? I got the firm, hard, erect impression that Sick Willie did rather spectacularly well with them, actually. Or was this just a not-very-well-concealed rhetorical exercise in poontang envy?
“I mean there’s never been anybody like this and she was a total enabler. She would go after these women and destroy their lives. I mean have you ever read what Hillary Clinton did to the women that Bill Clinton had affairs with? And they’re going after me with women. Give me a break, folks.” …
Yep, DEFINITELY poontang envy.
“Bill Clinton was the worst in history and I have to listen to her talking about it?” Trump said. “And just remember this, she was unbelievably nasty, mean enabler and what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful. So put that in her bonnet and let’s see what happens, OK?”
Sure, I guess. But as I recall, we ACTUAL conservatives and Republicans made many of those same arguments back in the Monica Lewinski saga, even impeached Mr. Bill for the crimes related to the coverup of one gherkin-slurping out of thousands, and not only was the effort pyrrhic, but his popularity grew, much like his groin ferret, with each such "stimulation". Yeah, Hillary was an enabler back in Arkansas and in the early years of the Clinton detour, but that didn't prevent President Pecker Tracks from losing his load on Monicagate, and it helped, not harmed him, so you'd have to say that the Empress's enabling was kind of overrated.
Somebody needs to tell Captain Combover that the primaries are over. This stuff will be thrill-a-second red meat to the tenth of the electorate that scullies him, shrug-fodder for the portion of the other 90% over the age of thirty-five, and a gibberish non-sequitur to the rest.
And if anybody does so inform him, he'll fire their ass for their insubordinate presumption. Because "nobody controls Trump".
~ ~ ~
You see that graph? That's a very big reason why Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee. What it represents is the usual ratings chase, but mainly the fact that the media always attempts to impose their choice for GOP presidential nominee on the party, and this cycle they have succeeded beyond their wildest imaginable dreams.
And now that they have Trump right where they want him, that gravy train is going to end. Abruptly:
[I]n the general, it’s going to change. It’ll be equal time: half [Mrs.] Clinton, half Trump. But those halves won’t be the same: “Here’s Hillary Clinton with a puppy condemning Donald Trump’s ties with the Ku Klux Klan. Next, here’s Donald Trump disavowing ties with the Ku Klux Klan.”
Well, if he did, it would be the first time in this campaign.
At any rate, you know how Trump reacts when he isn't treated "unfairly" but is simply challenged on anything: he comes unglued. Picture that writ YUUUUUGE, on a daily basis, for months on end. Hillary won't have to screech or hector (not with the weak-ass material he's deploying right now); she can just let Il Douche's vile counter-punches in-kind pile up, play the "kindly little grandma" card, and bank a windfall of public sympathy chits. Because he WILL be perceived as the bully in this equation. The press will see to that.
Trump can dish it out but he absolutely cannot take it. He's got the "glassiest" of jaws. And since he has no policy chops and no inclination to obtain any, he lacks the ability to change the subject. Think La Clinton Nostra doesn't know this?
Oh, yeah, that's right, it's all part of HIS supersecret, "all-rules-changing master plan". Sorry, I keep forgetting.
~ ~ ~
The good news for Trumplicans: Trump is leading Hillary Clinton by one percentage point.
The bad news? He's leading her by one percentage point in what is supposed to be deep "red" Georgia.
Admitted Republican strategist and Governor Nathan Deal's former chief of staff Brian Robinson:
“We should be winning this election in Georgia and across the country. Trump gives us the least best shot of winning this November, I will acknowledge that.” [emphasis added]
Hey, Trumpkins, he said it, I didn't.
Of course, I almost don't have to, it's so blindingly obvious.
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