Trump Hires Rube Goldberg FTW?
by Primo Encarnación y Hachecristo
My cousin, Jesus Hachecristo, and I were fishing up at Lake Sam last weekend. Jesus is a fishing guide up there, under the nom-de-angler of “Caddo Joe.” His clients are convinced he is the last in a long line of Caddo Indian shamans, whose spirit guide is a largemouth bass. Jesus’ spirit guide is actually pulque, but all this is another story.
While drowning our leeches, Jesus was asking me, the former political professional, what was up with Donald Trump. How does it end? It does end, doesn’t it? Surely to god he will not be….
Well, he won’t be President, but he could well be the nominee. So far, the Trump bubble has stayed aloft with equal parts hot air from corporate media and balloon juice from the candidate. For it not to burst, Trump is going to have to build a ground game to supplement the air game he’s already winning. Without the campaign staff and volunteers to identify support, persuade voters and get them to the polls or caucuses, there’s going to be a lot of Trumpers wondering what the hell happened to their lead. Butts are attracted to warm, comfy chairs. Telling a pollster who conveniently called you in that chair that you support the guy from The Apprentice, which you watched from that chair, is one thing.
Getting your butt out of that chair, warming up the truck and driving to the Elks Club to stand for hours on end in a roped-off square labeled “Donald J Trump” in the middle of an Iowa winter? That’s something else entirely.
So what kind of moves has the Donald made to build his organization? Some rather surprising ones, it turns out.
First, in Iowa, he hired Chuck Laudner as State Director. This was a canny move: Laudner engineered Santorum’s win last time, albeit a win so narrow that no one knew about it until weeks later. He also engineered Steve King’s ascent to Congress, where Laudner was his Chief of Staff. Not a bad get.
But he also has some weird talent out there. Consider State Co-Chair Tana Goertz, a former Apprentice contestant who ran an Apprentice-style contest to recruit caucus leaders. Laudner’s Deputy Directors include Ryan Keller, whose only experience at this level was engineering Rick Perry to a 6th-place finish in the last Ames Straw Poll; Brad Nagel, a retired Navy SEAL working for a “values-based” micro-lender; and Chris Hupke, whose 20-year political resume includes batshit-bible-crazy gigs at places like Focus on the Family, and the SD Family Policy Council.
Elsewhere, both his national chair and his New Hampshire chair are refugees from the Koch-fueled dink-tank, Americans for Prosperity, as are his national strategy advisors, Alan Cobb and Associates, whom he hired out of Topeka, KS. Cobb, in fact, was once the public affairs director for Koch Industries. The pollsters, Cole Hargrave, out of OKC, worked for right wing nutjob Gov. Mary Fallin. His team in South Carolina includes prominent Tea Partiers.
Overall, then, the Donald’s organization looks like a crazy quilt of wannabe-Trumpers, bible thumpers, and pump-and-dumpers. This Rube Goldberg contraption looks like it should fly, on paper, but it lacks overall thematic cohesiveness and direction from the top. It is here that I think he is vulnerable in the GOP primary: he can keep this spit-and-baling-wire contraption aloft, for now. But at some point, the Trump Flying Circus and Crop Dusting Company is going to have to bring this sucker in for a landing.
Alert the NTSB: it’s gonna be a helluva crash.
Thanks, Primo.
1Bravo! You get better and better every day!
2Nagel and Hupke are both from my home town of Cherokee,iowa. Hupke’s dad was the high school football and baseball coach and later athletic director at Washington High,where I graduated.
3I think that Trump has peaked, but his descent will be more of a hot-air balloon with a slow leak. I think he’s reached the limit of the possible supporters he can get, and that the ones he has will slowly start looking elsewhere.
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This is not necessarily an unmixed blessing, especially since many of his potential supporters may end up in the camp of Ben Carson, who is crazier in some ways than Trump, without Trump’s bombast.
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When you click through to RWW — and please do so, it should get a daily visit from most of you but this is special — look under “people’ for the 133 entries under “Ben Carson” for more examples. They aren’t all relevant, but enough of them are to show he’s maybe closer to Glenn Beck or Alex Jones than even to Trump.
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He, not Trump is repeatedly using the Obama=Nazi comparison, is saying he wouldn’t be surprised if Obama cancels the election, has called Obama a traitor and said he has deliberately opened up the country to terrorists and may have been responsible for the ebola epidemic, calls for drone strikes to protect the border, calls gay rights a ‘communist plot to bring down America’ and calls for the federal government [to] “monitor institutions of higher education for political bias and withhold federal funding if it exists.”
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The point is that Trump’s bluster and swagger makes news, but it limits his potential appeal to pretty much those people he has now. (And even for them, his ‘one-trick pony’ act must be getting tiring, like a commercial you think is funny, cute, or beautiful the first ten times you hear it, but by the hundredth sends you out of the room. Give a two month general election campaign and he’d lose to Lincoln Chaffee or even Bernie — and only Jindal could share that honor.
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But Ben Carson is a ‘nice man’ who never insults anyone at a well-covered event, and is a brain surgeon — which shows he has to be smart, doesn’t it? (Well, about brain surgery, but ‘smartness’ doesn’t carry over.) He might actually make a solid run, if he’s developed enough of a following who just won’t bother to listen when they are told what he really thinks and has said.
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And unlike Trump, who always makes you wonder if he’s serious or playing a gigantic prank, there’s no doubt that Carson means what he says.
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Of course, some of Trump’s following might go to Ted the Slimy or Nehemiah Scudder Huckabee. Also not an improvement.
Excellent………now why was trump silent on the G.D birther thingie last night at the town meeting………in my old age……..do I remember if you are born of an American citizen, no matter where………you are an American, true and true? I have heard no doubts about Obama’s mother being Kansas born and raised……all this crap is making me more tired than normal.
5The bubble that tRump has floated is lightweight, fragile and gently held together with bailing wire and duct tape. Like a balloon, it will slowly return to terra firma, and will eventually find itself snagged up in some barbwire fence, or branch, flipping and flopping in the wind, useless, like a piece of garbage lying along the highway, waiting to be collected and tossed into a garbage can where it really belonged in the first place.
6Following on my last comment, it would have been nice, when everyone on stage was ranting about 9/11, if someone (Christie?) had called out the Bad Doctor about his claim that Obamacare is worse than 9/11. Even haters of the ACA should have gagged at that.
7I just saw on MSNBC this morning, that tRump cancelled out of a SC townhall or whatever meeting of some sort! Hmmm … even Ms. Lindsey is jumping on tRump about his lack of refuting the crap being said at his gathering last night. tRump scurried out of that particular get-together like a rat leaving a sinking ship … that may be why he all of a sudden got some “important business things to deal with” today rather then showing up for his SC deal.
I was actually saying “OK” to Ms. Lindsey until he starting putting the badmouth on the Prez … they’ll never ever acknowledge the fact that Barack is a good and decent president!!
843% of wingnuts polled recently believe Obama is a Muslim.
9fran, you are right… no matter where, if at least one parent is an American citizen. Also, no matter to whom, so long as you are born in the US.
Which is why Ted Cruz (Canada, one American parent) John McCain (Panama, two American parents) and George Romney (Mexico, two American émigré parents) and Marco Rubio (Florida, no American parents) are all able to run for President.
Compare to Barack Obama (Hawaii, one American parent) who qualifies no matter which way you slice it.
10http://www.mediaite.com/online/another-trump-adviser-caught-sharing-racist-memes-on-facebook/
11Fluff and bluff only go so far. Then it all becomes a stale aphorism like flop flop fix fix oh what a relief it is. Heard any new Alka Seltzer commercials lately? Nah! I thought not.
12To Marcia in CO: I’m sorry, but I find it, if possible, more offensive for a Progressive to ‘let their inner homophobe — or misogynist out’ if the target is a Conservative. I’ve seen blog comments about ‘Fox Bimbos who probably screwed their way into their jobs’ get no complaint — and the instance was in a comment thread with over 350 replies. And the number of anti-gay taunts that are thrown at a closeted or outed Republican could fill a fifty-page article. (Sometimes with the classic “I’m not criticizing gayness, just hypocrisy” excuse.)
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I see no reason to doubt the rumors about Graham (though I can’t conform them, never having cruised in either Washington or SC) but if someone, writing about Barney Frank, said “Ms. Frank” we’d be all over him, and ‘bigoted troll is the least we’d call him.
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We wear the white hats, right? All that means is that we follow the rules we try to enforce on others. We don’t get a right to break them, no matter how much we hate the person.
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Sorry to make such a big thing, but this has been a long-standing ‘sore toe’ and crusade of mine.
Marcia can speak for herself, but I have something to say:
Nobody would ever call Barney “Ms Frank,” nor would indisputable proof of Graham’s orientation as 100% straight lay to rest the well-established meme of Lindsey as a Southern belle prone to the vapors, and never too far from the fainting couch. Nor, in my opinion, would his being gay exempt him from being lampooned as such.
It’s not like we’re running around town randomly calling effeminate men “honey” or “sugar,” unless, like my TG goddaughter, they’d prefer it. (True story: she lit up on Facebook when she got her first cat-call! It was a sweet victory on her journey, despite the universal disapprobation towards the sexism of cat-calls.)
This site, and all the regulars on it, have been uniformly respectful to, supporting of, and loving to the LGBT community. I understand, and even support, your crusade. But “Ms Lindsey” is not remotely the slur that you seem to think it is. It’s an expedient memetic engineering shorthand that encompasses ALL aspects of Graham’s personality, not just his putative sexuality or sexual identity. It lampoons not his nature, but his ridiculous overcompensation to enforce gender norms.
Let us not be pedantic, for all love.
Peace out!
14daChipster…..thanks. I thought I had lost what mind I have left…….so why aren’t people more informed…..yeah, I know……depressing…….and you ought to hang out in IN to see the GOP messes here…..scary how ignorance seems to be spreading.
15@Prup: I’m glad to read your reply because I’ve felt the same, but usually on other websites. I’ve at times felt pride in reading comment threads from news sources with both “sides” commenting that the Left leaners could write complete sentences, didn’t use words in ALL CAPS, and gave reasoned responses without stooping to the level of discourse we all profess to deplore. When I see the same sorts of trashing talk come from both sides I am disappointed and sad.
16I come to this site everyday because there are some really good people (judging by their comments) that frequent the beauty shop. I’ve learned a lot and been able to develop some informed opinions, as well as benefited from others’ better understanding of issues. I am seldom disappointed. Your comment has reminded me that I should pay close attention to what I say, too. I really don’t want to disappoint the good people here.
As to Donald Trump, he scares me. As do all the others. An old saying I heard somewhere, sometime, is that nothing is foolproof, because fools are ingenious. Fools are good at being fools. And there’s a whole lot of them out there!
Once again, daChipster, you say things so much better than I do. And that’s another reason I come here so often.
17But also, it’s because I do see a lot of “love” coming through the words.
I think I’m getting to maudlin. I should get back to grading.
Love to all!
daChipster, you do have a way with words.
18“…a crazy quilt of wannabe-Trumpers, bible thumpers, hump and dumpers…” Would make great lyrics for a song.
In WorldNetDaily, Nugent wrote that Trump alone “is counterpunching effectively” against “the life-threatening dynamic of the Democrat communist battle cry” then accuses Democratic leaders of “quoting Marx, Mao, Lenin, Castro and all the the other monsters behind tyranny, dictatorships, slavery and the resultant historic ruination of every society this evil scourge has touched.”
Nugent urges readers to pray for Trump to get on with it and reveal his gory details on how he’ll multi task slaughtering immigrants while dining on pinko Dems.
19@Stephen- so glad brave souls like you visit unmitigated garbage on sites like WND and report back so I don’t have to…;)
20Whoa! I entirely agree with the comments about the love and friendliness I feel here, stronger than any since I was a regular on COGITAMUS. I still feel my complaint was warranted, what wasn’t was the heaviness of the tone I used. Unfortunately, this is, as I said, a ‘sore toe’ for me, and I responded with my standard rant about it, one suitable for a place like CROOKS & LIARS — the scene of the story I mention about misogyny — but hardly for here.
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If I may say this about someone who may be older than my 69, for all I know, it was meant almost parentally, as a simple ‘hey, listen to yourself. Did you mean to say what you did?’ If I’d wanted to lecture, I should have used my own past failings — I won’t mention the ‘family term’ for Brazil nut, but when I realized what I’d been saying I have rarely felt as guilty as I did then. (And my mothers, while they had stereotypes and would make racial and ethnic jokes we might not find so funny, were the ones above all who taught me never to be prejudiced, never to group-think.)
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So, I do not accept chipster’s ‘explanation’ but never felt — even if I inadvertently implied — that there was any malice involved, just a slip.
Back to Trump. My prediction of a slow leak rather than a crash was made because I forgot the ‘Veterans for a Strong America’ story. Rachel has been all over the group that got Trump to speak at a fundraiser and gave him the endorsement of ‘hundreds of thousands of veterans. Trouble is, the group apparently consists of one person, and had he done a simple Google, he would have discovered the number of suits against him for other political activities/cons. Of course one of his victims was a Texas oil man.
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(Even checking out the site of the group was a tip off, since there was no way shown for a veteran to actually join the group.)
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And I don’t know what this says about America 2015, but that sort of blunder is likely to cost him more votes than all his bigotry, insults, and ignorance about minor things like everything a President has to know.
Hug it out, man! We can disagree on this instance but still fight the good fight side by side.
23Cory Heidelberger, the man who runs this South Dakota political blog, does great investigative work on a shoestring budget. He broke the Fake Veterans Group before Maddow did, and he’s done some excellent follow up work too. Turns out Arends, the grifter of the fake group, is being investigated in other states, including AZ and Texas, for similar election frauds. His last client was in SD. Annette Bosworth ran for Congress as a Republican. Since losing very badly in the primary, she’s been convicted of 12 election fraud counts and lost her medical license.
Here’s the website for Dakota Free Press. The link is for Cory Heidelberger’s first article, and there are 2-3 followups:
http://dakotafreepress.com/2015/09/16/joel-arends-uses-vets-banner-to-work-trump-for-cash/
24Trump should be the last person to fall for a fake group since he, himself promoted a fake university and scammed thousands of people. Hopefully, the lawsuits and federal charges will be brought up and promulgated endlessly.
25And I would dearly like to see recurrent showings of him boasting that he had sent investigators to Hawaii and Kenya and had proof that President Obama was not an American. That never panned out either. Time to get serious with this guy.
He’s gotten away with too much lying and grandstanding.
Pedantry again, I know (so what do I say, it’s my hobby) but even the article you link to lists Rachel as a source, so the website isn’t the original source. But thanks anyway, I needed a good SD website and this is already in my favorites — a laaarge group, admittedly.
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I think the horse laugh this gets — or donkey laugh — may finally end the Trumpery.
The most dangerous thing Dems can do is mess with the republi-can’ts nomination protocol. Having trump at the top of the national ticket is likely to be the best possible outcome the Dems might wish to face in the general.
27We [Pennsyltuckianans] dithered in the repub primary in 2010 and unleased randpaul & is fuzzy merkin on the innocent and unsuspecting electorate.
Allowing the republi-can’ts to self destruct is the most frugal and efficacious way to eliminate them.
I keep imagining what actually goes on in those “smoke filled” rooms where strategy is discussed and then impressed on the candidate: “What’s the ugliest thing you can think of?” (derp derp herp aderp “Ho boy! That’s uglee …let’s go with it, it will slide right down the throats of the unevolved out there!”
28Yeah, but Trump’s going to stare down all our opponents, and bring them around to his way of thinking. Because he’s such a master negotiator, and can read people so well. I don’t think it even occurred to him to have one of his minions spend ten minutes Googling this guy. A really inspiring performance by the Presumptive Future Leader of the Free World.
He’s even more delusional than the mobs that cheer for him.
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