TRUMPED – AT 11:12 A.M. ET:  As readers know, I have expressed severe skepticism over the campaign waged by Donald Trump.  We know him well here in New York.  He is not regarded, to put it mildly, as a statesman.   He is kind of the P.T. Barnum of real estate.  He has had his business successes, but a number of failures as well. 

His campaign is a distraction from more serious and far better qualified candidates.  And yet, Trump gets plenty of attention.  Tom Sowell, one of the best political and economic observers writing today, explains why, in the form of a warning to the Republican Party, a warning I endorse heartily: 

The boomlet for Donald Trump as a Republican nominee for president of the United States ought to be a wake-up call for Republican candidates and Republican party leaders alike.

Why has Trump surged ahead of other Republican candidates and potential candidates in the polls? It is not likely that his resurrection of the issue of Barack Obama’s birth certificate has aroused all this support...

...Trump has what so many other Republicans are so painfully lacking: the ability and the willingness to articulate arguments clearly, forcefully, and in plain English. Too many Republicans talk like the actor of whom a critic once said, “he played the king like he was afraid that someone else was going to play the ace.”

Right on the button.  Absolutely correct.  Once again the Republicans are playing country-club politics.

What electrified so many Republicans about Sarah Palin in the 2008 election campaign was that her speeches offered such a contrast to the usual mealy-mouthed talk common among other Republican candidates, including Sen. John McCain. Whether you agreed or disagreed with her position on the issues, you didn’t have to wave your hand in front of her eyes to see if she was awake.

Wonderfully stated.

Why Republicans seem not to understand the crucial importance of putting the same time and attention into articulating their positions as the Democrats do is one of the enduring mysteries of American politics.

And...

...how many Republican catch phrases can you remember?  Republican rhetoric tends to range from low key to no key.

Nor is there much evidence that Republicans have asked themselves how the left wing of the Democratic party gained such ascendancy in recent years, in a country where millions more people identify themselves as conservative than as liberals.

I hope they're reading this at Republican national headquarters. 

Sowell believes, properly so, that Trump is dangerous for Republicans.   He will eventually be seen as the contradictory blowhard that he is, but he will, in the interim, use his vast fortune to attack other Republican candidates, diminishing or possibly destroying them.

Barack Obama’s declining support in public-opinion polls makes some conservatives feel that his reelection hopes are doomed. But Donald Trump can be Barack Obama’s secret weapon in his fight to remain in the White House. The Donald can be his Trump card.

True.  And more true if Trump runs as an independent, where he'd take votes away from the GOP, dooming its chances. 

We have written here before that the Republicans should skip a generation, throw the long ball, and look to its young candidates, like Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan.  It's not just a matter of finding someone qualified to be president, it's a matter of finding someone who could be elected president.  I don't see that guy among the "frontrunners."

April 26, 2011