Donald Trump folds; won't run for president
By: Cahir O'Doherty | Published Sunday, June 19, 2011, 9:05 AM | Updated Friday, September 9, 2011, 10:15 PM
The press is announcing this morning what most people have known for weeks: Donald Trump will not run for president.
Perhaps Barack Obama did have something to teach Trump after all: if you've auditioning for the most difficult job in the world it helps if you can bring something to the table other than a grudge about taxes.
When the president schooled Trump on what the heat of public office can feel like at the annual Washington Correspondents dinner last month, a clearly agitated Trump looked thin-skinned and tight lipped throughout his drubbing. It was the tipping point for the American public, and even Trump himself had the sense to know he would never recover from it.
Reacting to this morning's news critics weighed in immediately: "Trump must have debated running long and hard, but in the end he fired himself." "Perhaps he wasn't born here, who knows?" "That thing on his head today appears to be omelette," they crowed.
Barbs aside, it was a most instructive non-run: Trump's campaign seemed to begin so well, or at any rate it seemed to begin like all modern Republican campaigns do these days - by bashing minorities, including immigrants, gays, Muslims, etc before announcing your intention to run for office.
By denying the rights to others you take for granted yourself you can make some handy headlines in the press, and early on Trump did. But it all went sour so quickly. For one thing, more and more, those same unfavored minorities are fighting back, hard, these days. And gambits like questioning the presidents birth certificate - the better to question his fitness, indeed his appropriateness for office, with all that implied - backfired spectacularly.
Trump may have won himself some cheap international publicity, but you have to wonder at what cost to his brand: himself.
4 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.bonjouryall | May 27, 2011, 10:38 AM EDT
His PR people told him that his slogan for the campaign just wasn't working - we shall overcomb!
jamieLM | May 16, 2011, 06:30 PM EDT
I was just so-o-o surprised to hear this - NOT!
McNamara31 | May 16, 2011, 05:40 PM EDT
Donald Trump announced he would not run for president. Is anyone surprised? The announcement did not come before this opportunist had ridden the train of presidential vilification until the train literally ran off the tracks when Obama released for the second time, his American birth certificate. Donald Trump had chosen that his latest “deal” would be to build a case that America’s president, wasn’t American, wasn’t one of us, and was making America appear weak to the world. Did Trump care of the impact or the cost? And when did Trump make this the announced; at a meeting called to renew his TV show “The Apprentice” for another year. All the character assassination and political damage done was to raise ratings and renew a reality TV show. When is enough, enough? When do the actions of rabid opportunists, like Trump or Limbaugh cross the line of being pathetically un American, and become treasonous? How far do we have to go down this road with the latest opportunist ready to make millions exploiting and denigrating not only the sitting president, but the democratic process that put him there? Recently Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates who has served six presidents, said of Obama’s dealing with Bin Laden "I worked for a lot of these guys. And this is one of the most courageous calls – decisions — that I think I’ve ever seen a president make.” Sadly, comments like Mr. Gates don’t get out to the audiences of Limbaugh and Trump, but the sponsors of these "edjits" are just a call or email way.
hancock | May 16, 2011, 03:31 PM EDT
Did you realy think he was running?