Is the GOP really the party of Trump? We’re finally going to find out.

Is the GOP really the party of Trump? We’re finally going to find out.




by digby

I wrote one last piece (hallelujah!) about the GOP race in Iowa for Salon today:

It seems as though every political journalist and every pundit  is in Iowa right now. The cable nets have countdown clocks and panel discussions and detailed rundowns of weather patterns and past caucus results. They all say it’s about turnout, turnout, turnout.  And in that respect they may be right. In the Democratic race the gold standard Iowa poll has Clinton up by three and in the Republican race it has Trump up by five so the race is close on both sides. The two outsider candidates, Trump and Sanders are going to need a big turnout, which would include many of the first time caucus goers who support their campaigns.  In a somewhat ominous sign for both, the registration numbers have not increased much for either party and although there is same day registration, the Iowa hands all point out that the Obama upset was presaged by very substantial registrations of new Democrats for months ahead of time. Whether that means anything for this time it remains to be seen, but some of the Iowa talking heads think it might portend lower turnout than the two outsider candidates need.

As we wait for the results it’s worth taking a look at the last ads by the candidates in order to see exactly what they believed was their best argument going into this first contest.

Donald Trump hasn’t “wasted” a lot of money on ads and so far it doesn’t seem to have hurt him.  It helps that all the news networks hang on to his every word and often show his rallies from beginning to end. At one point he had promised to spend 2 millions dollars on ads in Iowa but that doesn’t not seem to have materialized. He ran that Pete Wilson style anti-immigration ad at one point but now it’s even disappeared from his website. In this final month he did put out one sharp and effective ad against Ted Cruz’s immigration record. Say what you will about Trump he knows which side of his white bread is buttered on.

Since before the campaign he’s released Instagram videos opining on all manner of issues of the day. In recent days he’s produced some YouTubes that open with martial music and a “Patton-esque” Trump logo.  He stares at the camera and makes a short emphatic statement.

Here’s an example called “Unifying the Nation”:

Our country is totally divided. There’s so much hatred. There’s so many problems. Our president was a terrible unifier. He was the opposite of a unifier. He was a divider. I will unify and bring out country back together. It’s something I’ve done all my life. I get along with people. A lot of people don’t know that about me. They don’t think that’s the case. That is the case. I built a great company by bringing people together.

I will bring our country together.

We will be unified.

We will be one.

We will be happy again

You’ll recall that Kim Jong Un is among the very few people in the world for whom Trump has expressed admiration, so perhaps he’s been studying his style.

Ted Cruz, naturally, has taken a more traditional approach. Although he and Trump are locked in a close battle for first place, Cruz didn’t run any ads against Trump in the final days. For once it isn’t based upon the dumb assumption that to run against him would ruin his chances to pick up Trump voters when he inevitably flames out. By this time people have recognized that Trump is The Teflon Don.

No, as Sahil Kapur at Bloomberg pointed out, Cruz is attacking Marco Rubio rather than Trump because according to the Des Moines Register poll, Trump voters are solidly with him, while Rubio voters are still subject to persuasion. If Cruz can seduce a few Rubio voters over to his side he might just edge out Trump.