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Trump calls for ‘extreme vetting,’ ideological test for would-be immigrants

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Youngstown, Ohio today.

WASHINGTON » Since Donald Trump called for temporarily banning Muslims from entering the U.S., he has tried to expand, narrow or otherwise redefine the polarizing proposal that helped win him the Republican primary but has posed a greater challenge in the general election campaign.

Today, he added a phrase to his policy lexicon: “extreme vetting.”

To Trump, that means ensuring anyone entering the country shares American values.

The newest addition to Trump’s immigration policy came during a major speech on national security in Youngstown, Ohio, that featured an unusually subdued Trump reading uneasily at times from a teleprompter and repeating several false claims, including his assertion that he was early to oppose the Iraq invasion and the unsubstantiated pronouncement that the neighbor of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooters saw bombs in their apartment before the attacks.

It followed days of criticism over Trump’s insistence that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton founded Islamic State. Those comments, and other unscripted and unforced controversies, have helped distract from Trump’s core economic and anti-terrorism messages, push down his standing in polls and lead Republicans to once again urge him to curtail his improvisational style of campaigning.

Trump did not explicitly back down from his December proposal, still on his campaign website, for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

He did not mention it, instead calling on the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security “to identify a list of regions where adequate screening cannot take place,” which would then be referred to to temporarily halt visas.

Trump spent more of his speech defining what he said was a new ideological test for those entering the U.S., comparing his plan to Cold War-era screening.

“We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people,” he said. “In addition to screening out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles — or who believe that Shariah law should supplant American law. Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted.”

The newest iteration of Trump’s policy, while not specifically demanding a religious test on entering the country, still allows for capricious enforcement, said Steve Yale-Loehr, a Cornell Law School professor who specializes in immigration.

“What one president thinks is important for American values, another president may deem not important,” he said. “We don’t want an immigration policy subject to the vagaries of political opinion.”

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau declined to comment on Trump’s immigration proposals but said: “We stand by the integrity of our visa process.”

Trump mostly delivered broad outlines for his ideas on fighting terrorism, many of which he has mentioned before, rather than specific policy proposals. Some of his ideas, like relying on more human intelligence to target terrorists in addition to drone strikes, echo Obama administration policy. The message from Trump, however, was that Obama and Clinton have tiptoed around the threat because they are unwilling to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” and are too afraid of offending those who would do harm to effectively target them.

Though his call to ban Muslims has drawn accusations that he is fomenting bigotry, Trump said his policies were instead geared toward national unity and fighting an ideology that promotes oppression of women and gays. He called on sending home those who preach hate.

At the same time, he cast suspicion even on second-generation immigrants, saying their status, along with those born in other countries, was a common thread in several terrorist attacks. That group of Americans with foreign-born parents would include Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland, and his youngest child, Barron, whose mother, Melania Trump, was born in the former Yugoslavia.

Trump, who has vacillated in recent days on his incendiary charge that Obama and Clinton were the founders of Islamic State, also known as ISIS, attempted to modify that assertion today. Instead of again calling them the literal founders, he said that “the rise of ISIS is the result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.” He singled out the withdrawal from Iraq.

Trump also asserted that Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran all posed lesser threats before Obama took office, though Trump failed to mention that he supported the interventions in Libya and Egypt that he now calls disastrous.

He also hinted at an unfounded claim made in some conservative media that Clinton is physically ill, asserting she “lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS and all of the adversaries we face.”

Vice President Joe Biden offered the most direct response to date on behalf of the Obama administration to Trump’s statement that the president was the “founder” of Islamic State, calling it not only “an outrageous statement,” but also a “dangerous one.”

Trump’s ideas are “not only profoundly wrong, they’re very dangerous and they’re very un-American,” Biden said.

“It’s a recipe for playing into the hands of terrorists and their propaganda,” said Biden, joining Clinton in Scranton, Pa., for their first joint rally.

Trump’s speech came amid doubts in his own party, and increasing levels of controversy, surrounding his campaign.

Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, denied a New York Times story that told of handwritten ledgers indicating he received $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

Manafort’s consulting work for former Ukraine President Viktor F. Yanukovych was already public. But the Times reported records of cash payments between 2007 to 2012 that were not previously disclosed. It said the ledgers were discovered by an anti-corruption bureau as “part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.”

Trump’s supportive comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin had already drawn scrutiny. But he did not back down in Monday’s speech, insisting that the U.S. “could find common ground with Russia in the fight against ISIS.”

“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Trump said, defying policy specialists in his own party who have cast a weary eye on Russia’s attempts to build its profile in the Middle East. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

——

(Times staff writers Michael A. Memoli in Scranton, Pa., and Joseph Tanfani and Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed.)

——

©2016 Tribune Co.

58 responses to “Trump calls for ‘extreme vetting,’ ideological test for would-be immigrants”

  1. keaukaha says:

    The poor thing had to read from the TelePrompTer and looked like the disciplined child who messed his pants. Chump is who he is and won’t change. His crazy supporters won’t like the subdued Chump and I can understand why. Very boring and dull. He looks like he would rather be playing Pokemon Go.

    • Tita Girl says:

      If he doesn’t have a teleprompter he’ll wander too far off the reservation. He should Always use a teleprompter. Less problems for him.

    • MillionMonkeys says:

      Yeah, he looked quite the dork. It’s probably too late, but if he has any chance to un-alienate all the smart people who turned their backs on him, he’ll have to speak off a teleprompter for the next 90 days—even during the debates!

      At the same time, all the current under-educated fan boys and racists would no longer like this strange dork when he stops putting his foot in his mouth. Trump wouldn’t be Trump if he were ever forced to stop saying ridiculous things.

      • thos says:

        Sad to say this is the speech George W. Bush would AND SHOULD have given in 2001, had he not let the weenies at State talk him out of it.

        Trump is stating a truth as plain as the nose on our face if we will but cast aside the idiocy of political correctness, walking on eggshells terrified we might offend someone somewhere some time.

        The truth is anyone who either does not embrace our Constitution or who believes Sharia should be the law of the land ought to seek citizenship in countries where Sharia IS the law of the land.

        Indeed it past time when we should have demanded loyalty oaths of our sorry a s s e d American professoriate, asserting their fidelity to our Constitution as amended. They and our so called “news” media constitute a treasonous, treacherous fifth column, the enemy within that rivals, often exceeds, the ferocity and hate-America attitudes of foreign jihadists.

        In daring to speak the plain truth, Trump triumphs.

        What a welcoming blast of fresh air!

        • klastri says:

          Both he and his campaign are spectacular wrecks, and he’s going to lose by about 10 million votes, or about 110 electoral votes. That kind of humiliation will hopefully shut him up forever.

          Maybe folks don’t like his kind of fresh air?

        • kuroiwaj says:

          Thos, fully agree with your post. Also, the polls are beginning to shift in Mr. Trumps favor driving the Democrats and Ms Clinton up the walls. And, it’s not even Labor Day.

        • keaukaha says:

          Shift! I think you meant sink.

        • jomama says:

          Nice,kuroiwaj. I see lying comes as easily for you as it does for Mr. Trump.

  2. Allaha says:

    I am totally surprised by the imbecility of the people who are welcoming more immigrants. Do they all like more misery? Traffic is ruining our lives and population growth hurts us only, competiton for space and homes hurting everyone except the professionals speculators and the our money absorbing realtors.

    • klastri says:

      I really feel sorry for you.

    • MillionMonkeys says:

      In case you dropped out of school before getting to the class where they teach about the immigration process, they already ARE vetting newcomers.

      Trump is just playing on the fears of the under-educated and the racists. What exactly does “extreme vetting” mean? How does it differ from what’s being done now? Or is this just another empty Trump promise?

      Does it involve waterboarding? That would certainly qualify as “extrrme.”

  3. 64hoo says:

    lets see 2 months ago Obama said we have to get the million muslims to vote. which means for the last 8 years in office we had 1 million muslims migrate to this country, who are not citizens and Obama and Hillary want to steal the election my using illegal votes from these muslims.

  4. lespark says:

    Obama and Rotten eggs Hilliary still trying to figure out what Trump said. First of all, they don’t know what ISIS is. 2nd, they got their collective heads so far up their a holes they can’t think straight. All they were doing, her and Biden was talking about some nuclear code? I wouldn’t trust Rotten Hilliary with the keys to my moped.

    • klastri says:

      She’s going to be your President – probably for eight years. Get used to it.

      Trump is finished. A spectacular failure.

      • sarge22 says:

        Roger stone and Robert Morrow are about to release a new report, and the Hillary Clinton campaign is already scared!

        The book, entitled The Clintons’ War on Women, goes into graphic detail about Bill Clinton’s decades of sexual assault and alleged rapes. This news could remind voters just how dangerous the Clintons are and spell doom for Hillary’s campaign.

        According to the authors, Clinton’s first alleged rape was Eileen Wellstone, at age 19. In England, Clinton sexually assaulted her after they met at a bar near Oxford. Bill Clinton admitted having sex with her but “claimed it was consensual.” The victim’s family didn’t want to pursue the case, and a report filed at the time by a State Department official was ignored by superiors. Apparently, the State Department didn’t want a Rhodes Scholar to have a rape charge.

        For 41 years, Hillary Clinton has worked tirelessly to discredit and destroy women like that. Since 1982, she has been hiring private detectives to look into their lives and find anything that could embarrass them. Hillary once told private detective Ivan Duda to give her the name and addresses of all of Bill’s girlfriends, so she could “get rid of all these bitches he’s seeing.”

        More than once, Hillary knew about Bill’s rapes as he was committing them:

        Read more: http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/every-clinton-sex-assault-victim/#ixzz4HTMAE4Bm

        • klastri says:

          I’ve lost track of how many things you have written that were forecast to “spell doom” for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

          How did they all work out for you so far?

        • sarge22 says:

          Still working out>>>As Hillary Clinton pursues a return to the White House, this time as president, she is facing attacks from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his supporters over the numerous sexual misconduct allegations her husband has faced. President Bill Clinton has been accused of sexual assault by two women, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey. At least eight other women have accused Bill Clinton of sexually harassing them or making unwanted sexual advances toward them, with the allegations dating back to the 1970s….Juanita Broaddrick | Kathleen Willey | Paula Jones | Sandra Allen James | Eileen Wellstone | Christy Zercher | Carolyn Moffet | Helen Dowdy | Becky Brown | Regina Blakely Hopper | Monica Lewinsky | Elizabeth Ward Gracen | Gennifer Flowers | Connie Hamzy | Dolly Kyle Browning | Sally Miller (Sally Perdue) | Lencola Sullivan…

        • klastri says:

          sarge22 – Well sure – that all makes sense. Those things from the 70’s are bound to come back to life and fix the impossible electoral college deficit that Mr. Trump is facing now.

          Did you know that Mr. Clinton is not running for President? I can never tell how deep your knowledge gap is.

          Great strategy!

        • sarge22 says:

          It’s working. Clinton Foundation and classified emails just won’t go away either. HiLIARy also looking sickly. Wiki wiki

        • kuroiwaj says:

          Klastri, add to the Clinton’s women, Mr. George Soros, that has started to hit the front pages of all the media because of Mr. Soros and Ms Clinton’s open borders World policy, and their hate of the Country of Israel. The challenges are mounting from all different fronts. Including the shifting of the polls in Mr. Trumps favor.

  5. justmyview371 says:

    Using Obama’s test of American values, anybody can come.

    • gmejk says:

      Hawaii’s population is made up of the decedents of mostly immigrant laborers who came for a better life. I don’t think any of the Chinese, Japanese, Filipino or Korean immigrants to Hawaii knew anything about Hawaiian values when they came. They figured it out when they got here and the rest is history. The fact that everyone has adopted something from all the cultures has been rather a blessing to the state that has elected the first Japanese, Hawaiian and Filipino governors in the history of the U.S. and has a very tolerant attitude in comparison to the rest of the 49 states.

      • d_bullfighter says:

        Comparing past immigrants with current Muslim immigrants is like comparing apples and oranges. Islam is theocracy which affects not only religious affairs but also affairs of State as well. Muslims adhere to their own set of laws which include both ecclesial and civil law. The problem is that Shari’a law is antithetical to the US Constitution so you have immigrants with divided loyalties. This is in marked contrast to past immigrants to Hawaii who accepted, adopted and blended in with the values of their new homeland.

        • BlueEyedWhiteDevil says:

          Thank you for making those distinctions. Well said.

        • klastri says:

          You seem to think that if you write incorrectly about Muslims and Sharia Law over and over and over again (and then over and over again) that what you write will somehow magically become true. That’s ridiculous, of course. Two partners in my firm are Muslim and one was a military judge. Somehow, they never mention slipping Sharia Law into any of their work.

          You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

    • bumbai says:

      If you have a pulse and will vote for Democrats…you’re IN!

  6. bsdetection says:

    The Trump campaign website included statements about his wife’s immigration and citizenship. Those statements have been proven to be false, and they were scrubbed from the website. Will Trump release his wife’s immigration records? Or will he continue to conceal them, like his tax returns?

    • sarge22 says:

      The Clinton website has no mention of husband’s rape victims. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign deleted her comment on the campaign website assuring rape victims that they deserved to be believed.
      “I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we’re with you,” Clinton said in September 2015.

      That quote was featured on the campaign website, according to Reddit user “goonsack” but the line “you have the right to be believed” has since been deleted.

    • nalogirl says:

      Who cares. Trump was not a career politician like Clinton. Quite amazing that you can become a multimillionaire when your whole life was to be a public servant.

  7. Keonigohan says:

    Great FP speech. Trump will be a great POTUS!
    Trump Pence 2016! Make America SAFE Again!!!

  8. bumbai says:

    For someone who the media keeps telling us is “crazy,” Trump sounded like he has a lot better approach to defeating these ISIS clowns than Obama or Clinton.

    • BlueEyedWhiteDevil says:

      Ya got that right.
      His ISIS speech today was the most significant foreign policy speech since Reagan’s.
      I like his choice of John Bolton for SOS too. How about Guiliani for atty. gen. and Joe Arpaio for Homeland security as well?

  9. lunalilohi says:

    Mr. Trump seems also to be suffering from amnesia, as if all recent history began with Mr. Obama and conveniently avoiding the fact that many of the policies he denounced derive from George W. Bush. Among these policies were regime change and nation-building, which Mr. Bush pursued in Afghanistan and Iraq, and which Mr. Obama has largely abandoned.

  10. klastri says:

    The best news of the day is that Mr. Trump’s chance of winning the election was reduced this morning to 9%. Mrs. Clinton’s odds of winning were increased to 91%.

    Trump is finished.

  11. Ikefromeli says:

    Even at its very best, Republican support of Trump is tepid and a half-hearted exercise in ambivalence. The following snapshot is not a singular outlier or abberational, but rather a common symptom of support, or lack thereof, even with his OWN party.

    Peter Greathouse, a Republican from Utah, says he’s not “comfortable” with Donald Trump as his party’s nominee. Jane Lynch, a GOP veteran from Arizona, says she’ll likely cast her personal vote for libertarian Gary Johnson or a write-in candidate. Loren Byers, a Texas Republican, calls Trump “a loose cannon.”

    Their critiques rank as mild in this polarized election year – until you consider who they are. All three are members of the Electoral College, and if Trump wins their states in November, they’ll be asked to cast the formal ballots that could make him president.

    Interviews with Republican members of the Electoral College – all from the red states Trump has his best chance of winning – reveal that the divisions that have wracked the GOP for months have also reached this oft-overlooked body with the ultimate authority to decide the election.

    All of the members contacted by POLITICO – including Greathouse, Lynch and Byers – insisted they would cast their electoral vote for Trump if he prevailed in their state. (They’d disenfranchise millions of voters and risk a Constitutional crisis if they didn’t.) But most indicated they would do so through gritted teeth – if only to reject Hillary Clinton or to uphold oaths they took to their party.

    “You hold your nose and do some things,” said Jim Skaggs, a Kentucky GOP elector, who said he would cast his electoral vote for Trump but may stay home on Election Day. “Neither one of them give a damn about the voters of Kentucky. They’re here to get elected.”

    Several GOP electors refused to say who they’d cast their personal ballot for on Election Day. Others committed to voting for a third party or write-in candidate – if they vote at all – even though they committed to support Trump with their electoral votes.

    Crickets??!??!? Buahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/voting-for-trump-through-gritted-teeth-227031#ixzz4HVW9L3qA

    • Ikefromeli says:

      SA wassup?

    • d_bullfighter says:

      Fact is Trump has never garnered support from GOP insiders so all your comment does is to beat a dead horse. His outsider status is what makes him so popular among voters so the GOP insider opinions that you cite are basically irrelevant.

      • klastri says:

        I think what makes Trump so popular with his supporters is that his supporters somehow can’t recognize his ignorance about foreign and domestic policy; they support his racism & bigotry; they can’t recognize his spectacular personality defects; and they don’t recognize his total and complete lack of understand about the Constitution and the law.

        It looks like now that Trump may not only drag down the Senate into the whirlpool that he created, but the House as well.

        We can only hope.

        • sarge22 says:

          Things are heating up>>>>The FBI has turned over to the GOP-controlled Congress a variety of material from its criminal probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, said federal law enforcement sources on Tuesday.

          That material includes an investigative summary from the FBI’s probe of Clinton; reports known as “302s” containing interviews with the Democratic presidential nominee and others; and classified emails found on her private server. FBI Director James B. Comey announced in early July he would not recommend charges against Clinton despite finding that she and her staffers were “extremely careless” in their use of the server.

          [FBI recommends no criminal charges in email probe]

          Several House committees received the documents, including the Oversight and Government Reform, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Judiciary panels.

          “The FBI has turned over a ‘number of documents’ related to their investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Committee staff is currently reviewing the information that is classified SECRET. There are no further details at this time,” said an Oversight spokesman.

          A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said earlier Tuesday that the FBI “will be providing classified documents to the relevant congressional committees today.” The office deferred to those committees for updates going forward.

          FBI spokeswoman Carol Cratty said the materials were provided to “assist [lawmakers] in their oversight responsibilities in this matter.”

          “The material contains classified and other sensitive information and is being provided with the expectation it will not be disseminated or disclosed” unless the agency agrees, she added.

          The delivery of the material to the Republican Congress in the midst of a heated campaign season is not likely to help the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who is leading in the polls against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Polls show, however, that 60 percent of voters don’t believe the Democratic nominee and former first lady is “honest.”

          Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon called the document transfer “an extraordinarily rare step that was sought solely by Republicans for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the FBI.”

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/08/16/hillary-clinton-interviews-by-fbi-have-been-delivered-to-congress/

        • keaukaha says:

          Because they’re his clones.

  12. Ikefromeli says:

    When Trump loses, and he will lose, and badly, it will be all his fault. Ike spouting off again, liberal propaganda–nope–my tried and true, the ultra conservative National Review, beacon of reupublican ideology, takes out Trump once again.

    If Trump loses, he’ll likely be one of the few candidates in history who only has himself to blame. If Donald Trump suffers a big loss in November, it will go down as a true rarity in the history of modern American presidential politics: a self-inflicted landslide defeat.

    If the current polling is accurate, Hillary Clinton is likely to win all the states Obama won twice, plus North Carolina. That would give her 347 electoral votes. She has a shot in Arizona, Georgia, one of Nebraska’s congressional districts, and perhaps Missouri or Utah; sweeping all of those would give her 391 electoral votes.

    The past two generations of American voters saw some epic landslides in presidential races: Democrat Lyndon Johnson beating Barry Goldwater in 1964, Republican Richard Nixon beating George McGovern in 1972, Republican Ronald Reagan beating Walter Mondale in 1984. But a Trump loss would likely be remembered quite differently than those one-sided contests. Only once since 1952 has a party kept control of the White House for three straight terms: the Republicans, from 1980 to 1992.

    That third term is nearly impossible to lock up, even under circumstances more prosperous and peaceful than today’s — ask Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Al Gore. Trump is taking on the second-most-unpopular nominee in recent polling history at a time of terrorist attacks on American soil, a growing menace overseas, and a still-middling economy. Models of a generic Republican against a generic Democrat show a GOP win. Considering all the other factors, a Republican candidate shouldn’t lose by a wide margin. It’s not clear that Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, or Walter Mondale squandered political circumstances quite so favorable.

    Some have compared Trump’s campaign — and the strident, often-personal criticism it’s invited — to Goldwater’s effort in 1964. It’s easy to picture the Clinton campaign recycling Johnson’s infamous “Daisy” ad, which suggested that Goldwater’s election would lead to nuclear war. It’s even easier to picture Clinton’s team repurposing the anti-Goldwater slogan, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts,” for use against Trump. Trump is quite different than Goldwater and McGovern in that he goes out and confirms his opponents’ caricature of him every single day. But if Goldwater was a lunatic, he was the kind who somehow managed to hold it together long enough to reach the rank of major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, flying 165 types of aircraft in his career. If Goldwater was a lunatic, he was that rare one who could write the philosophical treatise The Conscience of a Conservative. Johnson and others very effectively caricatured Goldwater as a senatorial version of Slim Pickens riding the H-Bomb, which helped cost him the election. But in actuality he was a humble, gracious, deep thinker who worked extensively with members of both parties.

    After President Kennedy’s assassination, any Republican nominee would have had an enormously difficult task defeating Johnson, running on Kennedy’s agenda with the public’s sympathy at his back. You rarely hear historians speculating that other GOP options in the 1964 primary, such as Nelson Rockefeller or James Rhodes, would have succeeded where Goldwater failed.

    The caricature of McGovern’s 1972 campaign was also so successful as to pass into history almost unchallenged: “Acid, amnesty, and abortion,” a phrase that originated with McGovern’s short-lived running mate, Thomas Eagleton. But McGovern, like Goldwater, contradicted the cartoon his opponents painted in some key ways. He was the passionately anti-war candidate who volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces a month after Pearl Harbor and flew 35 bombing missions over German-occupied Europe. He was a known quantity in American politics by 1972 having been elected to the House 16 years earlier and the Senate ten years earlier. His liberal agenda might have seemed extreme at the time, but no one doubted his sanity or temperament. William F. Buckley called him the “single nicest human being I’ve ever met.” If McGovern was an extremist, he was the kind of extremist who would work with colleagues for two-and-a-half decades in Congress, the kind of hard-line ideologue who could somehow bring himself to vote for Gerald Ford and Robert Dole over Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in 1976.

    McGovern’s campaign stumbled, most notably by picking and then replacing the politically toxic Eagleton, but the chaos of the late 1960s and early 1970s undoubtedly put Americans in a mood for “law and order.” The Democrats’ other top options, Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie, had just lost to Nixon four years earlier. Walter Mondale will be remembered for the worst electoral college defeat in American history. But in 1984 he was considered the safe choice for Democrats. He had been a vice president, senator, and attorney general; he stood in what was then the relative center of the Democratic party. He was a relatively unifying choice, and was the front-runner throughout the primaries. His selection of Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate was bold and historic. Yes, he did the unthinkably unwise, declaring in his acceptance speech at the convention that, “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”

    But in the end, Mondale’s defeat was less a reflection on him than on his opponent; Americans felt really good about where the country was in 1984, so they eagerly signed on for another four years with Reagan.

    Trump is quite different than Goldwater and McGovern in that he goes out and confirms his opponents’ caricature of him every single day. Unlike those men and Mondale, he has no record of votes in a legislative body or signature legislation, no military service, and few longtime allies in the national and state parties. He has high name recognition but has never run for office before, a trait that his fans insisted was an advantage. He’s erratic, imprecise, and sometimes incoherent in his statements. He shows no interest in policy details and dismisses the need for campaign offices in swing states.

    Looking back on previous historic presidential defeats, a confluence of factors made the losing candidate’s task almost impossible: the economy, social changes, the national political environment, the electorate’s appetite for change or lack thereof. If Trump loses, the explanation for 2016 will be much simpler: Even with the wind at his back and a deeply flawed opponent, he simply wasn’t up to the task of winning over a majority of the American electorate.

    To the Cricket crew— buahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahshah!!!!!!!!

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438998/donald-trump-loss-self-inflicted

  13. Maipono says:

    I like Trumps strategy, by attacking the things that matter to Americans, he will become a more attractive candidate. Let HilLIARy have as much press as possible, she will meltdown sooner or later, she always does. The more Americans see HilLIARy Rotten Clinton, the more Americans will see what a total fraud she is and should never be president of our great nation.

    • DPK says:

      Ever wonder why she hasn’t given a press conference since December of 2015?

      • nalogirl says:

        Ever wonder why everything reported by this paper on Trump is negative? The media is trying to slant the election to Clinton. If the email and DNC scandal had been the Republicans it would be front page news for weeks. It is so obvious that this paper wants Clinton it is sickening. TRUMP for President!

        • klastri says:

          Everything is negative because they print what he says and does. And just about everything he says and does illustrates his racism, ignorance, bigotry, xenophobia and psychoses.

          Trump is finished. It’s over.

        • sarge22 says:

          The delivery of the material to the Republican Congress in the midst of a heated campaign season is not likely to help the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who is leading in the polls against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Polls show, however, that 60 percent of voters don’t believe the Democratic nominee and former first lady is “honest.”

  14. buttery says:

    running for President also calls for “extreme vetting”. where is his “Taxes”!?

  15. NEtrades says:

    Trump wouldn’t pass his own test base on all the things he’s said over the past year.

  16. CEI says:

    *Sarcasm Alert* For those humorless, angry, joyless and willfully ignorant progressives I made sure to indicate that I have employed the use of sarcasm to make a point. I’m pleased to see the self righteous progressives in the media are subjecting 1% Clinton the the same level of scrutiny that Trump gets. It’s refreshing to see the Star Advertiser focus in on the decades of Clinton corruption. Whitewater, cattle futures, travel gate, Vince Foster, managing Bill’s bimbo eruptions, stealing the White House china and furniture, private servers, influence peddling, charity donations to the her own family foundation, the list goes on and on. I’m sure glad I don’t live in one of those countries with a state controlled media that slants reporting to favor the taxpayer leeching, wealthy elites like the Clintons and their handlers. Thanks SA and keep up the good work of exposing Hillary’s lies.

    • klastri says:

      Trump is finished. He’s going to lose in a historic landslide.

      • CEI says:

        The point is that in a sane world the Clintons wouldn’t be anywhere near the Withe House again. The fact that she is illustrates the power of the the very wealthy and politically connected to get what they want when they want. If the world were sane, legitimate big-government socialists like Bernie Sanders or “Pocohantas” Senator Warren or even lecherous Joe Biden would be the nominee.

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