rigorousintuition.ca

Stephen Morgan wrote:So, wait... not Sarah Palin?

(excerpted)

The California-based political action committee best known for sending Howard Dean to victory in the 2004 cycle Democratic primaries – and more recently has worked in support of Barack Obama and the repeal of California’s gay marriage ban – is readying to come out in support of potential 2012 Republican candidate, real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump.

Eugene Hedlund, head of TruthandHope.org and political consulting firm D Media has registered the domains YoureHired2012.com and TrumpForAmerica.com as part of a plan to possible gear up and throw support behind Trump, worth $2.7 billion in the Forbes World Billionaires ranking, released today.

“I am really attracted to the personal story – even though it is at a different level – having built something, lost it and the personal life story of rebuilding it even stronger. Having weaned himself off of credit, I think that is a powerful story,” Hedlund told me by phone last evening. Trump famously suffered in the late 1980s real estate bust, with some properties entering bankruptcy protection. He rebuilt his fortune by, among other deals, buying Manhattan’s 40 Wall Street building for $1 million. Later as real estate rebounded, the deal was a steal, with the building alone estimated to be worth at least $200 million.

Hedlund’s group is, at first blush, an unusual backer of a potential Republican party nominee. It’s best known for its ad campaign that won Howard Dean the Vermont primary in the 2004 cycle despite the fact Dean had dropped out of the race well ahead of the Green Mountain State’s election. With Dean’s blessing it then shifted support to work on behalf of Senator John Kerry’s bid to win the presidency and in the last election cycle, it threw its weight in support of then-Senator Obama. More recently the group has campaigned for the repeal of the California state gay marriage ban.

Hedlund, who says he has never met Trump or has dealings with anyone in his organization, says Trump’s appeal also comes from “The fiscal conservatism mixed with [being] socially more moderate is in line with the majority of the country. Talking about trade issues, the way he does with such fluency is something we don’t hear talked about so much. He is getting to the core of real problems which may not be sexy to talk about.”

Not everyone believes Trump is at all serious about running, as Frederick E. Allen wrote recently in Forbes. Flirting with a presidential run may very well be about blowing the horn for the Trump brand for business. After all, a great deal his business now relies on foreign partners for funding as well as development abroad. Any glint of presidential possibility would further boost his image abroad.

However, Ben Smith at Politico has been following Trump closely and notes that Trump has both sent his attorney to Iowa to gauge interest (in a possible violation of financing rules, he writes). The Trump organization also has registered the domain Trump2012.com. Trump for his part, continues to hint at a run, telling NY1 there will be a “June surprise.”

When asked why he would shift support the PAC’s support from President Obama to Trump, Hedlund, who referred to the President at times as “Barack” said “I have no negative feelings for him. [With Trump] it just feels like right person right time.”

Hedlund’s day job is CEO of DMedia, Inc. a political media and PR company.

NeonLX wrote:

Stephen Morgan wrote:So, wait... not Sarah Palin?

Veep?

Bill Hicks famously said that he had "this feeling" that whoever's elected president,

no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'

82_28 wrote:I don't know what a Trump run at a presidency would portend. He was on Letterman some months ago and was very passionate about making America "respected" again.

For the man who once wrote that "one of the curses of American society is the simple act of shaking hands," running for president poses a unique problem.

But real estate mogul Donald Trump-- an admitted germophobe who once distributed bottles of Purell hand sanitizer to reporters--appeared to casually suggest Thursday that he's going to grin and bear the germ-heavy custom of candidate hand-shaking if he does decide to seek the 2012 presidential nomination.

"I will meet many, many people--maybe all of the people" in Iowa, Trump told the Des Moines Register. "If I decide to run, I will be shaking hands with everybody."

Trump did not specifically address hands belonging to teachers, whom Trump once said he will never touch because they have "17,000 germs per square inch on their desk[s]."

Stephen Morgan wrote:Ah, like Gerald Ford, Bush I, LBJ...

yathrib wrote:As cynical as I am, i still can't believe it. A reality TV star is about to become president, possibly with another reality TV star as veep. He is spreading a thoroughly discredited slander about the sitting president, and the media doesn't have the nerve and/or will to call him on it because he's rich and loud. Idiocracy is NOW, folks.

Luther Blissett wrote:It does not seem that the powers that be are finished with Obama yet. Think about his story arc as we were predicting it to play out from 2004 to 2016. The message we were sent with his presidency is not yet completed; and we've predicted it accurately thus far.