Gee, what a surprise. Now that Donald Trump won New Hampshire it turns out he is a serious candidate after all.
The amazing thing about all the declarations to the contrary that started even before Trump entered the race is that they were not even qualified. It would be one thing if people wrote, “This does not look like a serious campaign.”
Or, “It is difficult to imagine Trump winning the White House because the last time the voters selected a president who never held electoral office was 1952 with Dwight Eisenhower.” Or, pointed out that another billionaire businessman, H. Ross Perot, garnered little support with his own bid.
Instead, establishment Republicans and journalists, acting like they were capable of reading Donald Trump’s mind, said emphatically that his candidacy was not “serious.”
Even though, by definition, only voters decide which candidates are serious.
The dismissal was partly due to typical liberal snootiness. It is hard to think of any journalists in 2012 who said that former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman was not a serious candidate. He had just worked for Barack Obama, not exactly a big selling point among the GOP base.
It is worth remembering that in 1980 lots of people said Reagan was not a serious candidate. How could a guy who made a movie with a chimp actually want to be president?
And this time around everybody just knew that Trump was a huckster. Instead of “Bedtime for Bonzo” the talking point was, “The Apprentice.”
Interestingly, most of the journalists who assured readers and viewers Trump would never win did not even bother to ask actual voters what they thought.
The Huffington Post famously moved all coverage of the Trump campaign to the entertainment section because he was supposedly not a serious candidate.
Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim, who had recently displayed great news judgment by ignoring a huge racial discrimination lawsuit against the United States Capitol Police, solemnly explained that, “Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait.”
Of course you won’t. Trump is the biggest egomaniac in the country. How could anybody possibly think somebody like that would want to be president?
Clearly, reality TV star is a much bigger gig.
538.com writer Harry Enten was equally prescient.
Just hours before formally entered the race on June 16 posted an item that purported to show, “Why Donald Trump is not a serious candidate in one chart.” Enten’s “proof” was that Trump had high negative ratings among Republicans. And we all know those things never change.
He concluded that, “Trump has a better chance of cameo in another “Home Alone” movie with Macaulay Culkin — or playing in the NBA Finals — than winning the Republican nomination.”
Enten did not reply to an inquiry last night. But asked on Twitter right before the Iowa caucus about his prediction he first pretended to have never said it. Then referred back to his December 30 post, “What Harry Enten Got Wrong In 2015.”
In that faux mea culpa he said not taking Trump seriously was due to his “semi-major mistake” of “putting too much stock in” his low poor results when he entered the race.
But Enten proceed to say he believed Trump may very well “collapse in Iowa and disappear from the national stage.”
Very astute. No wonder this guy gets paid to make predictions.
U.S. News and World Report opinion editor Robert Schlesinger even bragged to readers that, “I’ve been consistent in my belief that former reality TV star Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee” and linked to another column he wrote calling the real estate magnate’s candidacy an “illusion.”
In his Oct. 2 column that was not nearly as cute as he imagined, “Trump will lose or I will eat this column,” diminutive Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote that, “I’m so certain Trump won’t win the nomination that I’ll eat my words if he does. Literally: The day Trump clinches the nomination I will eat the page on which this column is printed in Sunday’s Post.”
In his Dec. 8 tweet, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who once assured everybody that Barack Obama would not defeat Hillary Clinton in any 2008 primary contest, again pulled out his crystal ball. The longtime Sarah Palin aficionado reiterated his frequent contention that Donald Trump would not be the nominee. “Sticking with my prediction: Trump will win no caucuses or primaries, and will run behind Ron Paul 2012 in IA and NH.”
Establishment Republicans were also really on the mark about Trump.
Mitt Romney, who welcomed Trump’s endorsement in 2012 when it was politically advantageous, assured Georgetown University students in September that he “will not be the nominee” this time around. “I’m afraid he brought attention to [immigration] in a way that was not productive and not appropriate in saying the things he did about Mexican-American immigrants.”
And just hours before Trump won New Hampshire Jeb Bush was insisting Trump’s candidacy is a joke. He told NBC News 10 in Manchester, N.H.,, that the real estate magnate is “not a conservative and he’s not a serious candidate. He’s a great entertainer.”
Trump is undoubtedly a great entertainer.
But one of the most entertaining parts of the campaigns thus far is watching highly-regarded Washington types dismiss his White House bid as a joke.
The joke is now on them.