Trump Tower isn’t anything special.
Advertisement
Donald Trump has made a habit of giving his primary night speeches here, and it’s easy to see why-the skyscraper is to Trump what Chicago is to Barack Obama, and what that ranch in Crawford, Texas was to George W. Bush, the piece of land that serves as the locus of accepted mythology surrounding his presidential campaign. Ryan wants a nominee Republicans can be proud of, and is asking the profanity-prone, Twitter-abusing, equal opportunity offender to rise to the occasion and become more presidential. “What would make him get to a yes on Trump?” And in an interview during the 1988 Republican National Convention, Trump agreed with a characterization of him as a Rockefeller Republican, a mid-20th century nickname for members of the GOP who were more sympathetic to liberal views on social and domestic issues. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich withdrew from the race.
“Together, we left it all on the field in Indiana”.
“Reporters keep asking if IN changes anything for me”, he tweeted Tuesday night. But he appeared to acknowledge that his goal was to draw attention to the article, an attack he made about 12 hours before Mr. Cruz chose to suspend his campaign.
As Cruz’s speech played across the lobby in NY, a small crowd of Trump’s inner-circle supporters let out a quick “Trump!” “They think they’re going to win this thing”. Reporters whipped out their phones and cameras, vining and tweeting what I guess has to be called a historic moment.
That’s why even if, in the end, few Republican politicians will actively oppose Trump, many won’t actively support him either. What remained was Trump-an enigma swaddled in anger wrapped in reality-TV-bred populism, walking through the crowd to strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”, a song about a man getting an erection. “While I am flattered to be mentioned and proud of what that says about the great things going on in SC, my plate is full and I am not interested in serving as vice president”. The theme, as usual, was Trump victories, past, present, and future. When he pointed out that a recent Rasmussen poll found him two points ahead of the Democratic frontrunner nationally, cheers broke out across the room.
“After 33 years in Washington John McCain has changed, and Donald Trump proves that he has changed”, Kirkpatrick said in an interview, comments reflecting the Democratic approach in key Senate races across the country. “She will not be a great president, she will not be a good president, she will be a poor president”.
Ryan’s non-endorsement stands out from other current Beltway figures, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who said he’d back Trump.
While Clinton has well-established outside help, Trump’s allies are just beginning to organize.
But Trump was in a forgiving mood, and even had kind words for Reince Priebus, informing the audience that he had just gotten off the phone wiht the beleaguered Republican National Committee chair. “Now I guess he’s down to one”, Trump added, grinning. “There may be some people that don’t vote, but I think there will be a lot of people that will come out and vote that might not have voted in the past”. This year, strategists in both parties expect those trends to be magnified given Trump’s unpopularity with women, Clinton’s historic candidacy (though she herself faces high negative ratings), and the large number of women running for Senate.
What else was there to be said?
Ryan previously condemned Trump’s remarks about the potential for riots at the convention if it was going to be a contested event.
Freshman Republican Sen. Ben Sasse says America should draft an alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, someone who would be an “honest leader” and “an adult”.
But don’t worry, because he’s a benevolent deity.
Advertisement
“There’s a lot of scuttlebutt and fear that the Kochs and people like that, who’ve always been focused on the states will cut their losses presidentially and put more money on the state, so I made the case to our donor weeks ago that that’s all the more reason to be focused on the states”, LaMarche said. “We saw in this election that the grassroots had a mind of their own”.
