GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump may have irritated the Republican elite by questioning geriatric Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s war hero status, but Trump’s take-no-prisoners political attitude has yet to hurt his image among likely conservative voters.
The GOP establishment went apoplectic on Trump very shortly after he declared, with reference to McCain, that he likes war heroes “that weren’t captured, OK?”
CNN summarized the establishment freak-out thusly:
While the GOP was shy in responding to Trump’s tirade against Mexico, it became clear on Monday that the party’s hierachy was not going to be bitten by the Donald again.
“Right now what you are seeing is the party taking a dramatic shift this weekend — taking Donald Trump head on,” Mitt Romney’s former senior political advisor and CNN contributor Kevin Madden told Wolf Blitzer. “This is their chance to really draw some stark contrasts about the direction of the party. This is an opportunity for a lot of these candidates.”
One after another, Trump’s fellow GOP presidential candidates were quick to go after the former host of the reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”
“Enough with the slanderous attacks,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tweeted. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain’s, said Trump had “crossed a line today that will offend most everyone that I know,” and predicted that American voters would only have this message to Trump: “You’re fired.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that Trump’s shot against a man who refused to take early release from the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison because his comrades could not come too disqualified the billionaire as a potential commander in chief.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Air Force veteran — who is languishing in the polls and needs every headline he can get — upped the ante — calling on Trump to “immediately withdraw” from the 2016 race altogether.
Trump, for his part, has remained unfazed by the controversy he seems to have stirred up. The Donald even doubled down on his GOP detractors this week by publicly distributing Sen. Lyndsey Graham’s phone number after the South Carolina Republican called the business mogul and political aspirant a “jackass.”
And American voters appear to be siding with Trump.
Rasmussen noted Wednesday that Trump polls slightly better in terms of favorability among GOP voters than McCain, the “war hero” and “maverick” he’s accused of insulting.
From the polling agency:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of Likely Republican Voters view Trump at least somewhat favorably, and 51% feel that way about McCain. That’s a statistical tie, but included in those numbers are 26% with a Very Favorable opinion of the billionaire developer and just 14% with a Very Favorable view of the Arizona senator who was the party’s presidential nominee in 2008.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Republicans view Trump unfavorably, with 22% who share a Very Unfavorable view of him. McCain is seen unfavorably by 44%, including 16% with a Very Unfavorable opinion.
And there’s a reason those Republicans are so willing to look past Trump’s blasphemy against McCain’s hero status.
Conservative columnist Charles Hurt explains in a recent Washington Times write-up:
Ironically, Mr. Trump is truly the maverick that John McCain has always dreamed of being as he’s stumbled through his long, long political career.
When it comes to mannerly decorum, Donald Trump is untrainable. He always has said and will continue to say things that are wildly impolitic. And that is precisely why people like him so much and trust him.
Trump’s outsider qualities, in addition to his legendary business acumen, make him exactly the type of candidate the average GOP voter has longed for in recent elections past. The man, even with — or perhaps because of — his long list of failures to accent a successful career, epitomizes the American dream.
McCain, meanwhile, became a “hero” by crashing a bunch of really expensive planes before launching a taxpayer-funded, lifelong career in politics. Graham’s leeching — largely enabled by his fear-pedaling on behalf of defense contractors — on the taxpayer’s back is equally indisputable.
Trump’s just a business guy. And one, unlike nice guy Mitt Romney, who has the gravitas to inspire voters by pissing off everyone who has been talking at them from the right for far too long.
In other words, he’s treating politics like business. And that’s a signal that he’d treat government like a business if elected. It’s no wonder the political establishment is terrified of the guy.
The post The GOP establishment hates Donald Trump because he might actually win appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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