The 2016 GOP presidential primary circus took a turn toward the absurd on Tuesday when real estate mogul and reality television star Donald Trump announced he was “totally” running for president.
Along with a string of outrageous analogies that included likening China’s national leaders to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots when pitted against a local high school football team (that is, America’s current leadership), he also proclaimed, with no apparent sense of humility, that he would be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
To Trump’s announcement, Holly Shulman, national press secretary of the Democratic National Committee, penned the appropriate—if sarcastic—response: “Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days. He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation.”
Ouch.
More than a dozen nationally known GOP candidates have formally announced their candidacies for president, including: former Florida governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, California businesswoman Carly Fiorina, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former governor of New York George Pataki, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, former governor of Texas Rick Perry, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. And those are just the candidates a politically astute reader would know. There are more than a dozen fringe or lesser-known candidates who have also announced or are exploring a run as a Republican presidential candidate, and more are likely.
The Republican circus makes Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ platform and performance appear all the more mainstream, and on target.
Angelo S. Lynn