Is Donald "Daddy Warbucks/ Mr. New York" Trump REALLY Serious About Throwing His Hat In The Ring To Run For President Of The United States In 2012 Against Barack Obama Or Is This All Just A Huge Publicity Stunt?
Only Time Will Tell.
I Think A Lot Of People Were Considering Him As Their Choice Until He Ventured Over Into "Birther" Land.
Perhaps Someone Needs To Advise Mr. Trump That "Obama Wasn't Born In America" Platform Agenda Is NOT Going To Fly!
He's Alienating Potential Voters.
Its Been Settled By The U.S. Supreme Court So Just Leave It Alone!
Oh Well Whatever The Case Of Whether He's Really Serious Or Not, Hey He's "The Donald" & You Gotta Love Him!
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Trump for President in 2012? Maybe. Trump for Trump? Without Question
Something predictable happens to the ratings of Donald J. Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC when he hints at running for president: They rise.
And when he talks about President Obama’s birth certificate, they really rise.
Proving cause and effect is impossible, of course. But the coincidence is not lost on Mr. Trump, a man who has erected a real estate and media empire on immodesty and indiscretion.
“Did you get the info I sent you?” Mr. Trump asked in a phone interview with The New York Times late last week. “I told the girls to send you the ratings.” He was referring to a 10-page packet of press releases with headlines like “Donald Trump Is Ratings Gold” and news articles from Politico and CNN that described his strength in recent polls. A day later, he re-sent the clips.
Depending on your perspective, Mr. Trump’s growing visibility on television and in political news stories over the last few weeks represents the opening phase of a political campaign or the metastasis of a media spectacle. Mr. Trump, who says he is absolutely serious about a run for president, has appeared regularly on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC and in a wide variety of political blogs. Media outlets that had expected the Republican presidential ticket to take on a fuller shape by now have found themselves with a news void, and in the absence of other news-making characters, many of them are filling it with Mr. Trump.
“Trump and the press have a symbiotic relationship, not unlike bees and flowers,” said William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs for the Columbia Journalism School. “At least in the natural world, you get honey out of it. Out of this campaign coverage, all you get are a lot of empty media moments about someone who is unlikely to run, more unlikely to be nominated, and utterly unlikely to win.”
Mr. Trump insists that he is not disingenuous about his presidential ambitions, even if others accuse him of pulling a publicity stunt. “I’m very serious,” he said. “I’m thinking very, very long and hard about it. I love what I’m doing. And I’m getting a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of running a really great company. My company is extraordinary. But the country is not extraordinary; it’s doing very poorly.”
Mr. Trump has said his announcement will come by June, which — coincidentally or not — is around the time “Celebrity Apprentice” wraps up its current season. A hint of his plans could come during the May 22 finale, he said in the interview last week. “I wouldn’t announce a decision,” he said, noting that NBC likely would not approve of politicking on its airwaves. “I may announce where the press conference will be,” he added.
Mr. Trump is walking a fine line with NBC. If he were to run, he would have to give up his “Apprentice” franchise, he said. There are no federal prohibitions on candidates being on a network payroll, although the Federal Election Commission does have rules cautioning against the use of air time to further a political campaign in some cases. Fox News, which had five potential Republican candidates on its payroll, recently suspended Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as they signaled they were planning to run.
NBC officials declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s political aspirations.
Mr. Trump acknowledged that if he were to run, he would be walking away from a lucrative and successful business. “It’s a great franchise, and I’ve done a great job,” he said.
Ratings for the show are up this season over the same winter season last year, despite the fact that the “Apprentice” franchise is seven years old. On March 20, a few days after Mr. Trump appeared on “Good Morning America” and questioned whether Mr. Obama was born in the United States — an issue among some conservatives who harbor suspicions about the president’s heritage and religion — the show had an average of 8.2 million viewers, up from 8.1 million for the same episode last year.
But Mr. Trump received significantly more media attention after he knocked heads with the hosts of “The View” on March 23. The March 27 episode of “Celebrity Apprentice” had an average of 8.6 million viewers, up from 8.0 million for the same episode last year.
“I want him to show his birth certificate!” Mr. Trump said on “The View,” despite the fact that the president has indeed produced a certification of live birth showing he was born in Honolulu. “There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like,” Mr. Trump added, to sneers from the hosts. “Oh, that’s a terrible thing to say,” Barbara Walters chided him.
Mr. Trump has a history of simultaneously talking up his presidential ambitions while promoting various Trump-branded goods. The first time was in September 1987 when he announced plans for a trip to New Hampshire ahead of the 1988 presidential primaries. A local activist who said he had never met Mr. Trump started a “Draft Donald Trump” movement and invited him to speak to a Rotary Club luncheon.
Mr. Trump also bought full-page advertisements in major newspapers around the country that said “There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.”
His book “Trump: The Art of the Deal” was published in November 1987 and reached The New York Times best-seller list by December. Synchronicity?
In any case, by the time he appeared at the Republican convention in New Orleans in August 1988, his ambitions had cooled. “Everybody wants me to do it,” he declared then. “But I have no interest in doing it.”
In late 1999, just before his book “The America We Deserve” went on sale, he began flirting anew with the idea of running for president, this time as a Reform Party candidate. He went on the road with his girlfriend, Melania Knauss, now his wife, to meet with constituents. He bashed the presidential hopefuls that year with trademark Trump braggadocio. Pat Buchanan was a “Hitler lover”; Al Gore was an “anointed” leader; George W. Bush had substandard business skills. Mr. Trump said he was for a woman’s right to have an abortion, a position he has since reversed.
By February 2000 he had abandoned the idea of running, concluding that the Reform Party was fraught with infighting that he likened to “general fratricide.” The head of the party at the time complained, “Donald Trump came in, promoted his hotels, he promoted his book, he promoted himself at our expense.”
Just as then, the media now is watching with breathless anticipation. The anatomy of the latest Trump for President gambit also has mysterious New Hampshire origins, just like his 1987 efforts. On Oct. 3, a few weeks into Season 10 of “The Apprentice,” Time.com reported that New Hampshire residents had received phone polling queries of unknown origin that appeared to be testing Mr. Trump’s viability as a candidate. Later that week, Mr. Trump said of his presidential aspirations on Fox, “For the first time in my life, I’m actually thinking about it.”
A group of New Hampshire Trump loyalists started a Web site called ShouldTrumpRun.com; they said Mr. Trump had nothing to do with their efforts.
Then, however, there was little change in ratings for “The Apprentice,” which were only slightly higher in the weeks after news broke about his presidential flirtations. By February, Mr. Trump’s name began to percolate in the news media as a presidential hopeful. He has made headlines as far away as India and Australia.
Yet Mr. Trump has a well known fear of germs, which he has promised to conquer before he starts the glad-handing required of presidential candidates. His most serious effort yet at campaigning was done mainly at a distance from crowds — a speech in February at CPAC, a gathering of conservatives in Washington.
His comments about Mr. Obama’s birth have been the subject of lengthy, heated debates on cable programs like “Morning Joe” on MSNBC.
He was a guest last week three nights in a row on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor.” And starting Monday, Mr. Trump will be a weekly guest on its morning show “Fox & Friends,” which is touting “Mondays with Trump.”
Whether or not they take him seriously — and some surely do — media outlets have found great grist in Mr. Trump. He makes news as a serious candidate or an unserious self-promoter. Either way, he makes news.
“We are doing lots of coverage of nearly every possible and plausible candidate,” said Jim VandeHei, executive editor of Politico. “Trump certainly falls into that category.”
Mika Brzezinski, a friend of Mr. Trump’s and co-host of “Morning Joe,” where he appears every few weeks, said she takes his candidacy as “seriously as anyone that wants to run for president.” But she said it was her obligation to call him out on the birth certificate issue, as she did on TV last week. “Along the lines of friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” she said, “friends are honest with each other.”
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Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps
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