By Frank J Biga III -
An ancient Greek myth portrays the story of the people of a city hearing an oracle tell them that their next king will arrive in a wagon. A poor peasant named Gordius then strolls in to town and they name him king. He then dedicates his oxcart to Zeus and ties it up with his own unique and special knot. Future oracles foretold that whoever undid the knot would rule all of Asia.
Many decades later along comes Alexander the Great, who also struggles taking apart the knot. So in a pique of frustration, he decides that it doesn’t matter how the knot is undone, so he just pulls out his sword and releases the oxcart by cutting through the knot, rather than untying it.
This is the perfect analogy to the Trump campaign. Defying the consensus rules and norms on political campaigns from funding to debating to organizing, Trump has taken the GOP nomination contest by storm in a mere seven months. Trump has not followed the conventions and has confounded the so-called experts of the political class. And still, despite two resounding wins in NH and SC in the last few weeks, experts are calling for his imminent demise.
Michael Smerconish is practically famous now for making the observation that Trump only got 33% of the vote in SC and that as the Republican field thins, the sum of Rubio, Bush and Kasich would be higher than Trump’s totals. But it is exactly this kind of static analysis that has bedeviled the establishment GOP and their goal of derailing the Trump train.
Trump just keeps on confounding the critics. He did well with evangelical voters despite his less than perfect past. Maybe they remembered the life story of St. Augustine? His win in New Hampshire was so complete that he won almost every major subgroup of voters in the state. He swept every county in South Carolina save two, and ironically, one of those counties is the seat of the capital city Columbia. Looks like the dukes and earls of the SC GOP are pulling up their drawbridge surrounded by a sea of Trump supporters.
The Nevada caucus results just came in and the results are an astounding 46% for Trump doubling the vote total of Rubio and Cruz individually. Since Trump was able to put together another "yuge" win here, what will be the excuse of the chattering classes this time? Too little time to organize a defense against him? Trump also won among Hispanic voters in Nevada as well. I look forward to the mental gymnastics needed to explain that.
Super Tuesday is just a week away. On March 1, the states of Massachusetts, Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Vermont, Minnesota, Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska, Wyoming and Tennessee will hold primaries or caucuses and recent polling shows Trump winning by large margins in most of them. This could change, of course, but this is usually where the establishment lines up a string of victories behind their candidate of choice and steamrolls any upstart candidacies. Now, the tables have turned and it could happen to them and they don’t know what to do other than circle the wagons.
Radio commentator Erick Erickson has stated that he will never vote for Trump. A Superpac largely funded by Marlene Ricketts has put Trump in its sights. More endorsements have come out of the woodwork for Rubio. Kasich is being pressured to leave the race. Bush did leave the race. Collectively, this smacks of pure desperation. Who knows, maybe it will work, after all, these are professional politicians. But the establishment reminds me of the 1980 Russian Olympic hockey team that was down 4-3 in the final minutes of the third period. They didn’t even know how to pull the goalie since they had no experience being behind late in the game!
It is now the end of February and Trump is still in the driver’s seat. And he has done it with the most unconventional tactics of any recent politicians, neophyte or otherwise. That Gordian knot may have been too intimidating and difficult for other candidates to unwind in the past. But if Donald Trump pulls off the unthinkable and wins, our grandkids may be telling their grandkids about it.
