The intrepid Cornhead reports on Trump in Iowa
We have another report at Powerline from David Begley, the commenter known here as “Cornhead,” this time on his experience attending a Trump appearance on the day before the Iowa caucus.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
So Cornhead, should you check in here, I wonder whether you noticed Trump attacking your Senator Ben Sasse a few days ago? And whether you took offense, or in some measure agreed with Trump about that? And too, incidentally, how you think Nebraskans in general think of Sen. Sasse? Is he on the outs with them for some perceived failure of his responsibilities, or are Nebraskans generally satisfied with Sen. Sasse’s performance in office thus far?
Aha, I just now ran into an article by John Fund published yesterday at NRO concerning Trump’s eventual “response” to Sen. Sasse’s twitter challenges. Still, I wonder what Nebraskans think.
Thank you, sdferr, for the Fund article. A good read. And thank you, neo, for Cornhead’s report.
The message is coming through pretty consistently: Trump is not what the USA needs in a president right now, but his supporters bring new passion and commitment to this year’s campaign. I have seen them at an event here in northern NV, and there is no doubting their passion.
Perhaps if the GOP could narrow the field Trump’s opponent could focus on him and he would not be coasting to nomination. And perhaps that will happen after the events in Iowa and New Hampshire. But for right now he has the most energy of any of the Republican candidates and I for one do not think that bodes well for the party or for the nation.
Sdferr
Generally happy with Ben Sasse even though he beat a friend of mine in the primary. Not really happy with him wearing a Cornhusker jacket as I’m a Creighton alum, but I can forgive him. We own the Corn in basketball.
Sasse is a super sharp guy and a deep thinker. Solid conservative.
He is from Fremont and so is Creighton’s president. Nearly the same age and, of course, they know each other. But CU’s president would NEVER get involved in any political campaign like Liberty University’s president did. He would be fired by the Board.
Not familiar with the details of Trump’s attack on Sasse but it doesn’t surprise me. He goes after all oppenents hard.
One thing I left out was the woman I was in line with was undecided between Trump and Sanders. She also had no idea who Kasich is.
No lie!
How the Left will attack Trump. Just as I predicted but Big Data not mentioned.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-iowa-218510
I met Lewis at the CB event. He nailed the vibe.
http://gu.com/p/4gagp/sbl
The Redstate article linked under the word “challenges” pretty well spells out the Sasse questions and Trump’s responses, such as they were.
One further question perhaps Cornhead? (I apologize for assuming the indulgence.) What, if you know, is the current state of the Midland University Sasse formerly helmed? Does it do well, or middles along, or in the worst case, once again find itself in decline?
No idea who was hired at Midland. Sasse positioned Midland well. He kind of lucked out when nearby Dana College closed. Many students moved to Midland.
Thanks Cornhead. And thanks too, more in particular, for your active reportage.
so trump bashes the media who shills for the state
and the media takes offense and bashes him back
besides, he is wealthy and the marxist media would bash him as long as he wasnt spending his money to change our state to a communist one… if he was, they would love him…
And KELO is a supreme court decision, and unless you want trump to try to change the supreme court, its akin to complaining he is against abortion (i have no idea and doubit it) and against other rulings by them
take it up with supreme court…
its their decision…
and penalizing someone for following the law of the land is ridiculous… your basically penalizing for him not hurting himself over a law that he didnt write, that the supreme court upheld and he never put anyone up as judge.. if hillary puts obama on the supreme court, be ready to hate lots of other people for agreeing with the supreme court, and not opposing them illegally
Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development. In a 5—4 decision, the Court held that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private redevelopment plans as a permissible “public use” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
[edited for length by n-n]
Meanwhile, Cruz just put on this performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-BJMhISR8k
All the Democrat nominee would have to do if running against Cruz is use that clip of his over-the-top evangelical nonsense, and he gets swept badly in every swing state, current “polling” be damned.
Sure, I agree that Trump even claiming he goes to church and is religious is cringe-worthy, but he’s wisely got people with more bona fides with religious rube voters to do the hokey heavy lifting for him, like the buffoons Palin and Falwell.
Oh my, how shocking that an avowed Christian actually believes in the doctrines of his faith. But stand off America, we can’t have that — except forgiveably maybe in those benighted old dead founders like Washington, Madison and Adams.
IOWA GOP LEADER: THOUSANDS of Democrats, Independents have CHANGED PARTY to Vote in GOP Caucus (VIDEO)
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/02/iowa-gop-leader-thousands-of-democrats-independents-have-changed-party-to-vote-in-gop-caucus-video/
bysyzme@11:35am complains about Cruz’s “over-the-top evangelical nonsense”, to which I respond, long live the Secular State, the State of abortion and homosexual marriage, the redistributionist State, the State That Will Be Totalitarian.
I guess that is the State bysyzme would support. It already exists, and some of us would like to see a return to the Original.
Nonsense, my ass.
neo, are you going to let ArtfldgrsGhost use your website to filibuster with copy and paste posts?
Hm, I was expecting to read about the event, but 2/3 of the ‘story’ was the writer’s opinion of Trump. Disappointing.
Artfldgr:
See my reply here. As you can see, this post is not about Kelo, because that case had nothing to do with it in the legal sense, having been decided many years after. Trump did not use Kelo; his approval and “love” of it is a separate and yet related issue.
What’s more, it is a very strange notion that if a candidate agrees with a terrible SCOTUS decision, one shouldn’t criticize the candidate for it but should only stick with SCOTUS criticism. For example, had the Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment only applied to official militias and regular citizens therefore had no right to bear arms, and a candidate agreed 100% and said he or she “loved” that decision, I would think we’d all be criticizing it and that candidate as well.
One other thing—you are off topic for this thread.
Things, they are getting most interesting now.
Macbeth:
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Sounds about right to me for a description of the Iowa 2016 Caucus. This would be funny but it’s really not.
We knew that Neo would not let it pass without challenge; but, was it not predictable that a Trump apologist would jump in and try to drown out all other voices with meaningless drivel?
There is the “law of the land” which permits any number of questionable practices; particularly for those with the means to hire the most expensive lawyers. Not to be confused with decency.
I know I dwell on this, but it resonates so strongly with me, having been, myself, one of the little folks caught up when a company goes bankrupt; in addition to observing countless others in the airline industry who were damaged. Four bankruptcies are legal according to the law of the land (if your lawyers can convince a Judge to go along)–it is not ethical to use that provision as a habitual business practice.
Bysyzme says, “but he’s wisely got people with more bona fides with religious rube voters to do the hokey heavy lifting for him, like the buffoons Palin and Falwell.”
Stay classy. Seems like you belong on the coasts of you aren’t already there.
*if
Cornhead,
The critical comments under your article raise a cogent point. You undermine your own argument when you refer to the success of Left activism against McCain’s 2008 and Romney’s 2012 campaigns.
It’s difficult to identify a better candidate than Governor Romney by the traditional measure. By that standard, Romney shouldn’t have lost to Obama in 2012.
In that regard, your critics are right: by sticking to the same standard, you are effectively arguing for the GOP to repeat the same error for the 2016 campaign.
Trump supporters, correctly, are applying a different kind of “electability” than you’re using. They’re judging which campaign has shown the most activism – ie, which campaign has shown at least a basic ability to compete head-on against the repeatedly proven Left activism driving the Democrats.
Meanwhile, you (and Neo) have been arguing for the “electability” of other GOP candidates according to the traditional measure. But the last 2 presidential elections – as you point out – show that Left activism has rendered your preferred standard outdated.
As alarming as Trump and his alt-Right supporters are, they at least have shown a commitment to activism, which is the minimum requirement to compete versus Left activists in the arena. Your preferred standard is still meaningful, but in the competitive evaluation, it’s secondary to activism.
I agree in part with you that the Trump campaign would face a stiffer challenge in the general election than the GOP primaries.
It’s easier to appear formidable in a field that stands out for its competitive deficiency of activism. But I doubt the Left-mimicking, JV-level alt-Right activism is ready yet to defeat varsity-level Left activism in a head-on competition. Still, the alt-Right is at least pointed in the necessary direction to compete in the arena, which is more than can be said about the mainstream conservatives of the Right.
It’s incumbent (belatedly) on the campaigns of the other GOP front-runners to commit fully to activism.
More accurately, the critical decision to be activist does not fall on the GOP directly anymore than that choice fell on the Democrats. The activism driving the Democrats is from the Left. Similarly, the Right needs to fully commit to activism, which falls squarely on you – ie, mainstream conservatives – to sufficiently arm (and hold accountable) your favorite GOP candidates and compete in the only social cultural/political game there is.
Eric:
McCain lost mostly because of the financial crisis and its timing, and his reaction to it. Yes, of course there was activism against him, but I haven’t seen many people say that’s why he lost, and my personal observation is that he lost because he wasn’t a very good candidate.
Romney was a bit different, in that a lot of the attacks against him—and the broad outlines of the later Democratic attacks against him—were set by the Republican candidates during the 2012 primary campaign. The left didn’t really have to do that much.
The other thing that sunk Romney (and many other GOP candidates) was the bias of the MSM. I’m assuming you don’t consider them “activists” (although perhaps they are), but whatever you call them, they were a big part of it.
One “activist” that did help sink Romney was Carter’s grandson, who was at that fundraiser and taped that 47% speech. That was a big big deal.
In addition, hurricane Sandy, which was not due to activists, had the effect of raising Obama’s stature in the eyes of many, and was timed so that it helped him.
For as long as I’ve been writing this blog, and earlier, I’ve read the constant plea of people on the right that what they want is a principled conservative who can articulate conservative principles, Reagan-like, to the American people. That is the opposite of Trump. Maybe Trump supporters were never conservatives in the first place, or maybe they were lying, or maybe they changed their minds. I think it was the first, and/or the third: this is a different group, for the most part. If they’ve changed, they’ve pretty much done a 180, to become pro-statist and pro-tyrant.
Eric
Big Data and social media can easily be used to defeat HRC. if that’s is your definition of alt-R or activist GOP, then I agree with you.
There is 30 years of material on HRC. She will get 40% even if she is indicted, but the trick is to get enough of the popular vote in the right states to win the Electoral Collage. Winning NE by a huge margin means little for the GOP.
That’s where Trump is vulnerable. There is so much dirt on him that he will lose. Imagine a liberal Super PAC running Facebook videos sent to pro-life voters highlighting Trump’s former pro-choice views. Rinse and repeat on other issues. That’s how Hillary beats Trump. Tougher to pull off with the other candidates.
ArtfldgrsGhost Says:
IOWA GOP LEADER: THOUSANDS of Democrats, Independents have CHANGED PARTY to Vote in GOP Caucus
Some of them are probably voting for Trump because they want him to win the presidency. I wonder how many of them want Trump to beat Cruz and Rubio because they believe Trump will be easiest for the leftwing attack monster to crush.
goekstr:
Yes, that’s one of the ways to sabotage a party’s primary.
It’s one of the huge faults with primaries.
And we have no way of knowing their motivation. Was it to vote for a GOP candidate because they actually would vote GOP in the general? Or was it to throw a monkey wrench into the works? This problem has dogged primaries since the primary system began. It was not a problem with the “smoke-filled room” system, which had other problems.
By the way, for what it’s worth, I was talking to a liberal friend yesterday who said she was thinking of changing her affiliation to Republican for the first time ever, in order to vote in the primary in her state. Her reason was that she can’t stand Hillary and won’t vote for Bernie, and is very seriously considering voting Republican in the general. However, she detests Trump. She is not sure who she would vote for in the primary, but it will not be him, and I very much doubt it would be Cruz.
That’s just one person, of course. But I’ve spoke to other Democrats who are very dissatisfied with their choices this year.
Trump is certainly not the best person to beat Biden — all of his insults will only go to increase Uncle Joe’s sympathy vote. Nor Cruz — too strident. I’ll have to see Rubio on the campaign trail more, but my gut reaction right now is, too young. I’m not sure who the right candidate is yet, but I think it’s someone who can say, very gently, “Now, Joe, I’ve known you for a long time, and you know that [fill in issue here] is just not right.”
Neo:
You overlook Benghazi in your recitative on the 2012 election.
You are entirely and frighteningly correct about the new Democrats and their Party Uber Alles.
Whatever happens, Hillary must not be POTUS. Her ascendancy will be the final nail in the coffin. Trump carrying a lapdog Pekingese and advocating bankruptcy on demand will be preferable. Not by much, but still….
An argument can be made that no matter who is the next President, the division, self-interest and ideology are too deeply embedded for a saving societal consensus to emerge.
If Hillary or any democrat; a continuance on the path to the collective is certain. Any of them will remake America into the E.U.
If Trump, his ‘deals’ will be those agreeable to Reid, Pelosi, McConnell and Ryan.
If Rubio, the legislation passed will be those agreeable to McConnell, Ryan, Reid and Pelosi. As will his executive orders and, Rubio will NOT enforce the illegal immigration laws already on the books.
If Cruz, (will the GOP support such a candidacy or would they rather have Biden?) becomes President, what effective legislation will he be able to pass? Ironically, it’s entirely possible that just like Obama, Cruz will also be reduced to executive orders. As, why would a Congress that hates what he stands for, cooperate?
There came a point where the Civil War was unavoidable. Some saw the approach of the Civil War and even warned of it but because that prospect was too terrible to contemplate, their Cassandras were ignored.
Arguably, we are already at that point, all of us desperately hoping that not to be our fate. And as long as the bullets are not flying over our heads, we will continue to cling to that hope.
I pray that I am simply letting my fears get the better of me but my intuition laughs at my wish that any other fate than war can exist… between those who would eviscerate liberty in service of an ideology at war with reality and, those who see that life without liberty is simply slavery by another name.
Find it odd that it was not pointed out in your comments, Neo, that McCain and Romney both failed at something: to attack Obama head on. Neither of them did it. The worst one was Romney, who could have used all sorts of stuff against Obama, but wouldn’t b/c I guess he was too much of a nice guy?
Trump, as much as you may despise the guy, will give the low blows necessary to blow up Hillary/Biden/Bernie. He’s already shown that. He shut down the ‘war on women’ thing that Hillary was going for with a few crude shots at her husband…that stuck. Suddenly, Bill is hardly seen, losing traction and not the powerhouse he used to be. Crude and dirty works. And Hillary has a PILE of trash that anyone can use against her, if they would just go there. No more nice guy. I want dirty. It works.
Neo:
“…the broad outlines of the later Democratic attacks against him–were set by the Republican candidates during the 2012 primary campaign. The left didn’t really have to do that much.
As you’ve demonstrated with your eminent domain posts, which by the way are just a tiny portion of what the left can throw at him, all straight out of his own big mouth, he will be subjected to a withering onslaught in the general. Note that these were not dug up by his Republican opponents, they were already in the public domain. David Brock is working feverishly to get the rest of them stockpiled.
Now look at all the dirt and sleaze Trump and the other Republicans have dug up on Cruz – he’s Canadian, or Cuban, he got low interest loans against his own brokerage account that he paid back in full, his wife is an executive on Hillary’s biggest donor, he talked about running for POTUS as a teenager, he made a couple of votes that could be construed in negative ways – my god, the man is evil incarnate.
Same for Rubio – another Cuban, bought a fishing boat, mixed up some charges on his personal and party charge accounts, and did you know this man took a drink of water during his SOTU response? His biggest negative oppo to us is amnesty. Would Hillary attack him with that?
And all those major scandals about the rest, you know, the one who hugged Obama and had people working for him that closed a bridge for a couple hours w/o his knowledge, or the doctor whose father is an isolationist, the other one who plays bass guitar, et al, ad nauseum.
Outside of Trump’s gratuitous insults, this is what they’ve dug up to attack each other with.
My point is that the Republican Party this year has an embarrassment of boy scouts, yet the only one easily vulnerable to the left’s scandal assaults is the one in the lead, who could just as easily have run as a democrat.
Just one of fate’s cruel jokes, I guess.