{"id":84877,"date":"2016-01-08T13:52:20","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T21:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=84877"},"modified":"2016-01-08T13:52:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T21:52:20","slug":"politico-forced-to-write-nice-things-about-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=84877","title":{"rendered":"Politico Forced To Write Nice Things About Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glenn Thrush writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Trump, blessed with more raw political cunning than any 2016 contender (including Clinton) hasn\u2019t yet won a single contest, but he\u2019s got good reason to pretend it\u2019s already down to just the Democrat and him. That strategy allows him to talk past his Republican opponents, legitimizes him as his party\u2019s frontrunner, gives him pushback against the argument he\u2019d get creamed in a general election, and lets him dry-erase the fact that he flirted with not-so-conservative politics and the Clinton Clan.<\/p>\n

1. He\u2019s going there on Bill Clinton…<\/p>\n

2. He\u2019s beating the same media that\u2019s beating her up. Clinton\u2019s inability to master the press \u2013 or even understand the basic rules of controlling bad coverage \u2013 is legendary. <\/p>\n

By contrast, Trump is an engaged ogre. From earliest days as a Gotham tabloid darling, Trump has embraced the need to directly and forcefully engage with the people who cover him. It\u2019s an often ugly and confrontational relationship, but one that has worked to his decisive advantage: He hectors his press contingent and personalizes conflict (in a repulsive episode late last year, mocked the physical disability of a New York Times reporter) but they seldom leave without a headline. Trump campaign reporters are often singled out for abuse at his rallies, but they occupy a central space in his campaign, and he deals with them directly without a screen of press staff.
\nAnd unlike Clinton, he often schmoozes with reporters — even after calling them \u201cdisgusting\u201d or \u201cunfair\u201d a day or two earlier.
\n3. He\u2019s fun. Hillary Clinton is a broccoli politician \u2013 Donald Trump is an all-you-can-eat donut truck.
\nClinton\u2019s support is deeper and (probably) more durable, but the respective size and passion of their crowds speak to her vulnerabilities, if not necessarily his electability. Clinton events are predictable, stodgy, policy-lecture pep rallies designed to bond her to the constituencies she must galvanize to win. Trump\u2019s rallies are gut-punch populist rambles through his id punctuated by the raucous ejection of pop-up protesters that break out with the approximate frequency of minor-league hockey fights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glenn Thrush writes: Trump, blessed with more raw political cunning than any 2016 contender (including Clinton) hasn\u2019t yet won a single contest, but he\u2019s got good reason to pretend it\u2019s already down to just the Democrat and him. That strategy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29752],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84878,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84877\/revisions\/84878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}