Trump Scoring with Tough Talk

I don’t know about you, but it’s been hard for me to get very excited about any of the presumptive Republican presidential candidates for 2012, most of whom project an air of over-cautiousness bordering on timidity with their “exploratory committees” and unwillingness to forcefully call out the president for the destructive path on which he has the country. Leave it to Mr. Flamboyant, Donald Trump, to step into the void the current version of the “Seven Dwarfs” has created.

Reports last week on the latest straw polls show that Trump has pulled at least even with the leading Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, who also recently announced the formation of an exploratory committee (as if there is any doubt about whether he’s going to run). Seems that Mr. Trump’s no-holds-barred approach to attacking Obama on both policy and personal (i.e., birthplace) matters is resonating with increasing numbers of voters. Granted, it’s very early in the cycle and Trump has not announced anything official yet. He has promised to make some sort of announcement on his Celebrity Apprentice show on May 22nd. Between now and then, there will be many opportunities for gaffes and media disclosures of past sins that could derail his campaign before it even begins.

True enough, Trump is a latecomer to say the least to the conservative cause. Radio host Mark Levin recently provided a litany of very liberal-sounding quotes from the last several years including Trump’s call for George W. Bush to be impeached over the Iraq war. This is certainly something that can be used by his opposition to question his conservative bona fides if he actually does enter the race.

However, Trump is a pretty smart guy, and he has to know something about the damage control game to have gotten as far as he has in life even with the obvious financial stumbles he’s experienced. If he accomplishes nothing else with this perhaps premature surge, it may be that he forces his presumed opponents to “man up” and begin to assert themselves, regardless of the arrows they will take from the lamestream media and other Democrats. That would be a great service to the nation in itself, even if his campaign flames out for some reason. But don’t bet too much against him.