Can we agree that all political candidates are flawed? Can we admit that
there is no such thing as the perfect candidate except, maybe, the Manchurian Candidate?
But we don’t really have a Manchurian Candidate in this election cycle. Instead
we have a field of highly flawed individuals.
On the left, Hilliary is an out-and-out un-convicted criminal. That, I hope,
is just a matter of time before it’s resolved. Bernie is plain clueless about
how to pay for all the freebies.
Despite a decent background and good experience, I just cannot get behind a
floppy waffle like John Kasich. He comes across as micron thin in character,
and I don’t trust him.
‘TrusTed’ Cruz lies. Pure and simple, he plays fast and loose with the truth
while declaring that he’s honest as the day. Besides that, he always comes
across the screen as slimy – just the unctuous tone of voice puts my nerves on
edge. When I saw him at the Town Hall in Wisconsin yesterday, he started
talking about women’s issues and the tone of his voice changed. He lowered the volume,
slowed it down – he was talking down to those women and they fell for it. It
was a disgusting moment that turned
my stomach.
Unfortunately, Trump has a bad tendency to speak too quickly – without preparation
or a hint of forethought - and then he has to walk backward while covering the
blush of humiliation. That hard and fast ‘do not shoot from the lip’ lesson is something that politicians learn
pretty quickly and the fact that Trump is not a politician is, at times,
painfully obvious. Take the comments on abortion yesterday during the MSNBC
Town Hall.
There is no doubt, regardless of which side of the issue you're on, that was
a gigantic flub by The Donald. Was it
devastating? That remains to be seen, but it does show that he has got to spend
more time thinking about possible responses to the hot button issues,
developing clear and rational answers, and less time Tweeting. He has also got
to get back ahead of things, get back on his message and keep it there.
If he had developed a solid position on the issue before yesterday, he
wouldn't have been caught as he was. The worst thing he did was open his mouth
and try to answer Chris Matthews's question. I really hate to say it, but the
old saw ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove
all doubt’ was proved true by my candidate yesterday.
This is not going to change my mind or my vote. In the final analysis, given
that the law is what it is, I think this is a non-issue.
Still, instead of trying to answer, he could have said, 'you know, Chris. I
really hadn't thought through that in great detail because right now, today,
Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s
the law and it’s not a law that’s going to be changed. The people wouldn’t stand
for it.'
That would have been honest, it would have given him room, and he wouldn't
now be watching his poll numbers plummet in Wisconsin and other places. It's
going to be an uphill battle to regain that ground because anything he does and
says is 100% wrong per the media. Even if he helped a little old lady across
eight lanes of traffic and rescued a sick puppy along the way, they'd find
something to criticize.
There is one opportunity, just one, to salvage something of what happened
during that Town Hall yesterday.
He has got to come out now, today,
and say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t give the voters my best effort yesterday. When
Chris asked me the question about abortion I was still thinking about the
nuclear question. That was such strange exchange it threw me, but that doesn’t
excuse what I said about abortion.
‘Obviously, Roe v. Wade is and will be the law of the land whether we agree
with it or not. I should never have said a word in answer to that question.
This is part of my learning about being a politician. Sometimes on the campaign
trail, when I’m trying to make a good impression, I speak when I would do
better to stay quiet.
‘I’m not a politician and that’s why I sometimes make mistakes. I’m a
manager, an administrator. I run things, big things and I build great things.
That’s why I’m in the race. I want to try to get the government under control,
to make it more efficient and reorganize it so it works better for everyone.
The policy matters are critical and that is why I’m surrounding myself with
brilliant and experienced advisors who know these things.’
This kind of a statement answers the question from the other night on CNN
when Anderson Cooper asked if Trump ever apologizes, and it shows both humility
and humanity. For a moment it would take him off the pedestal and show the base
his feet of clay.
A release like this wouldn’t salvage Wisconsin, but it might help going
forward. People understand that he’s a human being. Knowing that even a
presidential candidate can drop the façade long enough to admit that he’s wrong
would be, in my view, endearing. It might even make the women a little less
hostile.
Another thing that might help woo women is if he could convince Melania to
help him by speaking to women’s groups. Maybe she is already, but I’m following
the news closely because I am so anxious about this election, and I haven’t
heard a breath about her being involved. Just meeting with small groups like
Soroptimists and Rotary and Kiwanis would be fine – they don’t have to be talks
in front of roaring crowds, but introduce Donald to the women. Help them to see
him as she sees him – what she likes, his strong points and the little
kindnesses. She could talk about what qualities he has that would make him a
great president.
As for the nuclear issue, the idea of Japan and South Korea having nuclear
weapons is actually a good idea. Why
not?
After all, let’s say North Korea gets a working nuclear missile system.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a forward warning / forward intervention system in
the form of nukes in Japan and South Korea? That might well prevent a nuclear
warhead from reaching the United States – which is Kim’s stated goal.
So, no. That doesn’t bother me. It bothers me more to think that whack job
in Pyong Yang is going to get a nuke or two and we don’t have our systems
up-to-date and ready to go.
I don’t know that these things
would resolve yesterday’s foot-in-mouth situation, but it might help. There’s
no way to undo it but if he does nothing, hoping it just goes away, it won’t.
It’s all over the networks already and we can count on it being an issue going
forward by both his GOP opponents and by Hilliary. If he has answers in his
pocket, honest and human, it could take the water off the boil.
Once he gets past the nomination, he can tackle the nonsense Hilliary throws
at him one-on-one instead of five against one with the media taking sides.
I know he’s already tried to walk it back, but one thing I’ve noticed about
Trump is that his brain works faster than his tongue. He often (almost always)
speaks before he thinks and that
leads to messes like this one.
And, as much as I admire the man, he often speaks in ‘clouds’ of words.
There is a lot of fluff surrounding the central point, and that’s frustrating
to me. I wish he would be more incisive and clear because the dust makes his points
hard to find.
So there’s room for improvement in his presentation skills. That does not
mean that I want any change in his plans or policy ideas. It’s just that I’d
like him to be better prepared for those ‘gotcha’ moments the press is so
darned good at.
In any case, this too shall pass. Next week it’ll be something else and then
this will resurface in attack ads but, if he’s prepared with great, clear statements,
I think he can weather them, particularly if he gets back to driving the
conversation.
Have a wonderful day.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
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