- May 10, 2015 -

Taking Donald Trump Seriously

Read more at Washington Examiner

In a new Bloomberg-St. Anselm poll of New Hampshire, Donald Trump is running in fifth place in the 2016 Republican presidential field. The real estate developer and reality TV personality is behind only Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio — and is ahead of Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum.

The bottom line is, by the various measurements journalists use to evaluate campaigns — crowds, staff, money, candidate time on the ground — if the Trump campaign were being conducted by anyone else, journalists would take it quite seriously.

But virtually no one does. It's probably fair to say that not a single national political reporter or analyst in Washington, New York, or anywhere else thinks Trump is a serious candidate. 

For Trump, the key was at the very beginning of his South Carolina speech. "Sadly, politicians are all talk and no action," Trump told the crowd. "They're not going to get you to the promised land, that I can tell you." Although Trump is appearing at Republican events, and pursuing, after a fashion, the GOP nomination, he's really running against the politics, and the politicians, of both parties. He's presenting himself as the man who gets things done, party be damned — and the man who is so rich he won't be beholden to any party boss or fat cat donor.

And that is pretty much the answer: Donald Trump is the third party candidate running for the Republican nomination. It's been clear for quite a while that some conservative voters are so disgusted with the GOP that they would entertain the notion of a third party. If he pursues a race seriously, Trump could win the support of those I've-had-it-up-to-my-eyeballs voters. Their concerns aren't a joke. If Trump doesn't address them, somebody else will.