Salon: Matt Drudge might elect Donald Trump: The GOP front-runner’s secret weapon is the conservative media icon

www.salon.com

Donald Trump has already won one important primary, and that’s why he’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Every time Donald Trump says or does something that would destroy the careers of most politicians, he maintains or even gains supporters. It seems that nothing he does erodes his support. His voters are loyal, that’s for sure.

If you want to understand the Trump phenomenon and the durability of his campaign, you have to understand his voters and how they get their information. Many on the left mistakenly think that Trump supporters are “low-information voters.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, it’s the opposite. They consume a lot of news and information, and almost all of it comes from their most trusted source — Matt Drudge.

Matt Drudge is all in for Trump, and he is making sure that his millions of daily readers are getting the news.

Drudge, of course, is the owner of the popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report, a site that records approximately 2 million unique visitors a day with about 700 million page views per month. His readers are loyal, too. A 2014 Pew Research Center study found that the Drudge Report is among the most trusted news sources among conservatives, while most mainstream media outlets register a very high level of distrust from that group.

His loyal readers don’t trust information coming from other sources, and that allows Drudge to carefully curate links to articles that help to further his pro-Trump point of view among that audience. The most pro-Trump conservative news site isBreitbart.com. Breitbart is so pro-Trump that some have charged that the Breitbart company is being paid by Trump for favorable coverage. The truth is that Breitbart’s loyalty is more to Drudge than it is to Trump.

Breitbart was founded by the late Andrew Breitbart, who was the Drudge Report’s first employee. He founded the Breitbart news site after leaving the Drudge Report, but remained personally and professionally close to Drudge. The Breitbart site established itself quickly as the go-to news source for grass-roots anti-establishment conservatives, with an assist from Drudge who regularly posted Breitbart article links on the Drudge Report. Over the years, the Drudge Report has directed millions and millions of readers to Breitbart stories.

It’s not hard to find evidence of Drudge’s success in gaining his audience’s support of Trump. Trump has won every post-debate online poll of Drudge Report readers — by a lot. Those polls attract hundreds of thousands of votes. After the last GOP debate more than 350,000 voteswere registered and Donald Trump won 43 percent, followed by Ted Cruz with 27 percent. That audience loyalty is translating into strong support for Trump in the public scientific polls, too. Thanks to Drudge, Trump has led the GOP field nationally since July.

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The loyalty and respect go both ways — Trump goes out of his way to praise Drudge and mention his victories in the Drudge polls at every opportunity.

Why is Matt Drudge working to elect Donald Trump president? I haven’t asked him, but it’s not hard to connect the dots.

First, Drudge has a right-of-center point of view and describes himself as “more of a populist.” Trump’s campaign is clearly tapping into that conservative anti-establishment populism that’s been fueling the energy on the right in recent years. Drudge is primarily responsible for fanning the flames of that sentiment. He helped to build the Tea Party movement and is a constant thorn in the side of establishment Republicans in Washington.

The immigration issue is another example of Trump’s direct connection to Drudge. An opponent of immigration reform and “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, Drudge has made it his top priority in recent years. His coverage of that issue has been credited with killing the “Gang of Eight” legislation in Washington, and even leading to the primary defeat of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

Of course, Trump has made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign and he credits best-selling author and conservative provocateur Ann Coulter’s new book, “Adios America,” with shaping his view on that issue. Coulter and Drudge are close friends. In fact, they were seen sitting together in the audience at last week’s Republican debate on CNN. She even dedicated one of her many bestsellers to Drudge.

In addition to being anti-establishment and anti-immigration, Drudge is also famously anti-Clinton, both Bill and Hillary. The success of his site is a direct result of the attention he garnered when he broke the Monica Lewinsky story back in 1998. It put him on the political map. Since then, he’s unmatched in the distribution of anti-Clinton stories and rumors.

All of those things have enabled Drudge to cultivate the perfect audience for the time, and they are ready to engage in an epic battle. Matt Drudge’s dream 2016 presidential match-up is his anti-establishment, anti-immigration populist Donald Trump against his favorite target, Hillary Clinton. He’s going to do everything he can to make that dream come true by making sure that his sizable audience stays loyal to Donald Trump in the primary. So far, so good for Drudge.

More Jimmy LaSalvia.

COMMENTS

TRUMP 39% CNN POLL DOMINATION 2016

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Trump dominates GOP field heading into 2016

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Washington (CNN)Donald Trump seems set to end 2015 as the dominant force in the race for next year's Republican nomination for president, with Texas Sen.Ted Cruz now a clear -- yet distant -- second after a strong debate performance, a new CNN/ORC poll released on Wednesday has found.

Trump tops the field with 39%, according to the poll of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters. That's more than double the share backing Cruz, who, at 18%, has inched up 2 points since the last CNN/ORC poll, which was taken in late November.

Trump has been a constant atop the polls since his ascent to the lead in July, and this new poll marks the first time Cruz stands significantly apart from the other candidates vying for the nomination. Behind those two, Ben Carson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have each slipped a few points and now stand tied at 10%.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found a tighter race between Trump and Cruz, a finding that clashes with most other recent polling on the national race. It is one of only two live interviewer national polls released since Thanksgiving that found Trump with a lead smaller than 10 points. Across the 10 polls released during that time, Trump's lead over Cruz averages 16 points.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted after the Republican debate hosted by CNN and Facebook in Las Vegas on December 15. Among those Republicans who say they watched, 33% say Trump did the best job in the debate, 28% Cruz, 13% Rubio. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie follows with 6%. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, widely seen as needing a strong debate performance to boost his standing in the polls, was rated best by just 1% of debate watchers.

Six in 10 Republican voters in the poll now say there are one or two candidates they'd prefer to see win over the rest of the field, up from 48% who had identified favorites in July. That consolidation is reflected in voters' overall preferences. This marks the second CNN/ORC poll in a row in which more than three-quarters of Republicans now support one of the top four candidates (77% choose one of Trump, Cruz, Carson or Rubio), and 57% now support one of the top two candidates. That latter figure marks the highest share for any two candidates combined this cycle.

Trump's standing in the race for the nomination is bolstered by widely held trust that he can best handle the top issues facing the nation. Trump holds massive advantages over the rest of the field as the candidate best able to handle the economy (57% Trump, his next closest competitors are Cruz at 8%, Rubio at 7%, Carson at 6% and Bush at 5%), illegal immigration (55% trust Trump, followed by Cruz at 15%, Rubio at 10%), and ISIS (47% prefer Trump, 21% Cruz, 7% Bush and 6% Christie).

And Republicans are coming around to the idea that the Republican Party has its best shot at winning the presidency by nominating the New York real estate mogul. Overall, 46% of GOP voters say the Republicans have a better chance to win in 2016 with Trump as the party's nominee, while 50% say the GOP has a better shot with someone else at the top of the ticket. In August, just 38% said Trump brought the Republicans their best chances.

Perhaps obviously, Trump's supporters are most likely to think the GOP has its best shot with Trump as its nominee (85% say so), but even among those who aren't current supporters, 21% think Trump would be better than the alternative.

Among those who say the party has a better shot with someone other than Trump, Cruz is the preferred candidate, 25% would like to see him win the nomination, 16% Rubio, 13% Carson, 9% are Trump backers, 8% Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, 7% Christie and 4% each Bush and Kasich.

There are signs in the poll that Cruz's debate performance may have helped improve his appeal. Though he remains well behind Trump, Cruz gained ground on the front-runner on handling illegal immigration and ISIS, both a central focus of the debate's questions, while Rubio and Carson faded on both issues. Cruz's favorability rating has jumped 22 points among Republican voters since September, and he now holds the highest favorability rating among Republican voters of any of the seven candidates tested. He's also posted the largest increase in favorability rating among all adults since September, climbing from 27% favorable in September to 45% now, an 18-point gain. Trump (+8) and Rubio (+14) posted smaller increases.

More Republican voters (62%) say Cruz has the right experience to be president than say so about Trump (57%) or Rubio (53%), and two-thirds say Cruz shares their values and is someone they would be proud to have as president (66% each). Slightly fewer say either sentiment applies to Trump (63% values, 60% proud) or Rubio (64% values, 62% proud).

Education remains a stark dividing line among Republicans, but since last month Trump has gained ground with the party's college graduates. In the new poll, 27% of GOP voters with degrees back Trump, up from 18% in the late-November poll. Among those without degrees, 46% back Trump, the same share as in November. Non-college voters could prove to be an Achilles heel for Rubio, who holds just 6% support among that group compared with 19% among those who hold degrees.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted by telephone December 17-21 among a random national sample of 1,018 adults. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For results among the 438 registered voters who are Republicans or independents who lean toward the Republican Party, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

COMMENTS

Polls may actually underestimate Trump's support, study finds

www.latimes.com

Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential field in polls of Republican voters nationally and in most early-voting states, but some surveys may actually be understating his support, a new study suggests.

The analysis, by Morning Consult, a polling and market research company, looked at an odd occurrence that has cropped up repeatedly this year: Trump generally has done better in online polls than in surveys done by phone.

The firm conducted an experiment aimed at understanding why that happens and which polls are more accurate -- online surveys that have tended to show Trump with support of nearly four-in-10 GOP voters or the telephone surveys that have typically shown him with the backing of one-third or fewer.

Their results suggest that the higher figure probably provides the more accurate measure. Some significant number of Trump supporters, especially those with college educations, are "less likely to say that they support him when they’re talking to a live human” than when they are in the “anonymous environment” of an online survey, said the firm's polling director, Kyle Dropp.

With Trump dominating political debates in both parties, gauging his level of support has become a crucial puzzle. The Morning Consult study provides one piece of the solution, although many other uncertainties remain.

Among the complicating factors is this: The gap between online and telephone surveys has narrowed significantly in surveys taken in the last few weeks. That could suggest that Republicans who were reluctant to admit to backing Trump in the past have become more willing to do so recently.

Another issue is that not only can polls change over time, but Trump's support in pre-election surveys might not fully translate into actual votes. He has not invested as heavily as some of his GOP rivals in building the kind of get-out-the-vote operation that candidates typically rely on, particularly in early voting states.

Some of the polls that show heavy support for Trump have also shown him doing better among self-identified independents who lean Republican than among regular GOP voters. At least some of those independents may not be in the habit of voting in primaries and caucuses, which could make a robust turnout operation even more necessary.

On the other hand, a candidate of Trump's level of celebrity may simply not need much of a get-out-the-vote operation. No one really knows.

Another complication is that most polls made public this year have been of people nationwide, not of voters in the states that actually hold the first primaries. In Iowa, which will kick off the election season with party caucuses on Feb. 1, Trump has slipped into second place, trailing Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the majority of recent polls.

In New Hampshire, which holds the first primary, on Feb. 9, Trump leads, but less dramatically than in national polls. In recent weeks, he has averaged a bit more than one-quarter of the vote there.

Still, the Morning Consult experiment sheds considerable light on an issue that has puzzled pollsters for months.

The firm polled 2,397 potential Republican voters earlier this month, randomly assigning them to one of three different methods -- a traditional telephone survey with live interviewers calling landlines and cellphones, an online survey and an interactive dialing technique that calls people by telephone and asks them to respond to recorded questions by hitting buttons on their phone.

By randomly assigning people to the three different approaches and running all at the same time, the researchers hoped to eliminate factors that might cause results to vary from one poll to another.

The experiment confirmed that "voters are about six points more likely to support Trump when they’re taking the poll online then when they’re talking to a live interviewer,” said Dropp.

The most telling part of the experiment, however, was that not all types of people responded the same way. Among blue-collar Republicans, who have formed the core of Trump's support, the polls were about the same regardless of method. But among college-educated Republicans, a significant difference appeared, with Trump scoring 9 points better in the online poll.

The most likely explanation for that education gap, Dropp and his colleagues believe, is a well-known problem known as social-desirability bias -- the tendency of people to not want to confess unpopular views to a pollster.

Blue-collar voters don't feel embarrassed about supporting Trump, who is very popular in their communities, the pollsters suggested. But many college-educated Republicans may hesitate to admit their attraction to Trump, the experiment indicates.

In a public setting such as the Iowa caucuses, where people identify their candidate preference in front of friends and neighbors, that same social-desirability bias may hold sway.

But in most primaries, where voters cast a secret ballot, the study's finding suggests that anonymous online surveys -- the ones that typically show Trump with a larger lead -- provide the more accurate measure of his backing.

"It’s our sense that a lot of polls are under-reporting Trump’s overall support," Dropp said.

Obama Accuses Trump of Exploiting Working-Class Fears

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President Obama during a news conference on Friday. In an interview with NPR, he was critical of Donald J. Trump while defending his own strategy for taking on the Islamic State.By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVISDecember 21, 2015

President Obama said in a radio interview airing on Monday that Donald J. Trump, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working-class men to boost his campaign. Mr. Obama also argued that some of the scorn directed at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African-American to hold the White House.

Demographic changes and economic stresses, including “flatlining” wages and incomes, have meant that “particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with National Public Radio.

“You combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear — some of it justified, but just misdirected,” the president added. “I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.”

The comments were Mr. Obama’s most pointed response to Mr. Trump since the Republican candidate suggested that Muslims be barred from entering the United States after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. The attack was carried out by a couple who apparently were radicalized Muslims, one of whom had entered the United States on a fiancée visa.

In the wide-ranging interview, conducted the day before he left Washington on Friday for a two-week holiday vacation with his family in Hawaii, Mr. Obama defended his approach to taking on the Islamic State. He dismissed the notion that the militant group is an existential threat to the United States even as he conceded that he had received “legitimate criticism” for failing to adequately explain his strategy for confronting it.

He also described his view of the anxiety on which Mr. Trump has capitalized, arguing that some voters who voice fears about his presidency and doubts about where Mr. Obama’s loyalties lie are reacting to the fact that he is the first black president.

“If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, etc. — which unfortunately is pretty far out there, and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials — what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me, and who I am and my background,” Mr. Obama told Steve Inskeep, the host of “Morning Edition” on NPR. “In some ways, I may represent change that worries them.”

“That’s not to suggest that everybody who objects to my policies may not have perfectly good reasons for it,” the president added. He noted, as an example, that voters living in coal-dependent areas may blame him for the loss of their jobs.

Mr. Obama has struggled to appeal to white voters who do not have a college education, carrying only 36 percent of them when he was re-elected in 2012. Republicans perform particularly well among that group, although it represents a shrinking share of the electorate.

On the Islamic State, which is also called ISIS or ISIL, Mr. Obama pushed back against criticism of his approach and said he was “confident that we are going to prevail.”

“This is a serious challenge — ISIS is a virulent, nasty organization that has gained a foothold in ungoverned spaces effectively in Syria and parts of western Iraq,” Mr. Obama said, referring to attacks the group organized in Paris and apparently inspired in San Bernardino. “But it is also important for us to keep things in perspective, and this is not an organization that can destroy the United States.”

He also suggested that heavy coverage of the media-savvy extremist group by news outlets chasing viewership had contributed to the public anxiety that has dragged down his approval ratings on the issue.

“If you’ve been watching television for the last month, all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you,” Mr. Obama said. “And so I understand why people are concerned about it.”

Asked whether news organizations had been manipulated by the Islamic State, he added: “Look, the media is pursuing ratings. This is a legitimate news story.”

He rejected critiques from Republican presidential candidates who have suggested “carpet bombing” the group, as well as the suggestion by Hillary Clinton, his party’s leading presidential candidate, that the United States establish a “no-fly zone” over Syria. He argued that doing so would require substantial ground troops and would fail to damage the Islamic State, which does not have an air force.

Still, the president said his administration had not done enough to explain its strategy and promote its successes in carrying it out.

“There is a legitimate criticism of what I’ve been doing and our administration has been doing in the sense that we haven’t, you know, on a regular basis, I think, described all the work that we’ve been doing for more than a year now to defeat ISIL,” Mr. Obama said.

On domestic matters, Mr. Obama said he was concerned that a recent uptick in campus protests around the country, in which students have shone a spotlight on racial misunderstandings, has in some cases shut down important debates.

“I think it’s a healthy thing for young people to be engaged, and to question authority,” Mr. Obama said. “I do think that there have been times on college campuses where I get concerned that the unwillingness to hear other points of view can be as unhealthy on the left as on the right.”

He cited as examples student protests last year of planned appearances by Christine Lagarde, the head of theInternational Monetary Fund, at Smith College, and Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, at Rutgers University that led both women to withdraw.

“Feel free to disagree with somebody,” the president said, “but don’t try to just shut them up.”

Correction: December 21, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated Steve Inskeep’s job at NPR. He is the host of “Morning Edition,” he is not a correspondent.

Cruz Opens Big Lead in Iowa, Trump Tops in New Hampshire, South Carolina

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by MIKE FLYNN20 Dec 20154,325

A new CBS poll shows TexasSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has opened a strong 9 point lead over Donald Trump in Iowa, the first state to vote in the 2016 nominating contest.

Cruz has the support of 40 percent of likely caucus goers, followed by Trump with 31 percent.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is a distant third, with 12 percent support. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson is fourth with just 6 percent support. All other Republican candidates are at 2 percent or less, including Jeb Bush, whose allied super PAC, Right to Rise, has spent millions on advertising in the caucus state.

Together, Trump and Cruz draw more than 70 percent support from likely caucus-goers in Iowa.

Trump, meanwhile, dominates the Republican race in New Hampshire, earning 32 percent support from likely primary voters. Trump’s vote, in fact, is double the support of Ted Cruz who, with 14 percent support, is in second place. Rubio is in third, with 13 percent, followed closely by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at 11 percent and Ohio Governor John Kasich at 8 percent.

Jeb Bush is sixth in New Hampshire, with just 6 percent support. Bush, Christie and Kasich have all spent considerable sums advertising in New Hampshire. All three campaigns, or super PACs affiliated with them, have spent several million dollars advertising in the first primary state. Christie and Kasich have clearly gained from the spending, while Bush has lost ground in the Granite State.

Trump also dominates the field in South Carolina, which votes on February 20th, soon after Iowa and New Hampshire. Trump leads with 38 percent, followed again by Cruz with 23 percent. Rubio is 3rd, with 12 percent, followed by Carson with 9 percent and Bush with 7 percent.

In all three states, one issue dominates the political discussion; national security and terrorism. In each state, at least 70 percent of all voters believe America is becoming “more dangerous and insecure.” More than 60 percent of Republicans in each state list national security as the most important issue in 2016.

While the first votes are still several weeks away, voters’ preferences in all three contests are solidifying. More than 60 percent for Republicans in all three states say their minds are made up and are unlikely to change their support. In Iowa, just 25 percent of Republicans say they might still change their minds. In South Carolina and New Hampshire, only about a third of Republicans say they may still change their minds.

After 5 debates and months of intense campaigning, the Republican field is nearing the final turn before voting begins in early February. Trump and Cruz are separating from the pack, with Rubio running a distant third. In New Hampshire, though, the middle of the pack is becoming more crowded.

The race in New Hampshire, in fact, is a reversal of recent political history. Traditionally, several conservative candidates have fought for a clear shot at the establishment frontrunner. This year, however, the establishment candidates are clawing at each other to take on anti-establishment frontrunners.

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. This year, the rhythm is playing a conservative tune.

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Establishment to Trump: You Can’t Afford to Run For President

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by JOHN HAYWARD20 Dec 20153,080

Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal took a look at Donald Trump’s finances over the weekend, and suggested the outspoken billionaire might not be able to afford to keep a serious national campaign going past the first few states:

None of his offenses against propriety seem to have dinged the support that, in a crowded race, keeps Donald Trump atop the GOP primary polls.

Republicans are now talking about a brokered convention, which could be a disaster for the country, and for the GOP, and quite possibly hand the election to Hillary Clinton without a real contest or even critique of her agenda.

So goes the fear. But unless we miss our guess, our long national nightmare-cum-sketch comedy show actually has a termination date. It will end the moment campaigning begins to threaten Mr. Trump’s finances and business interests.

Actually, as Jenkins notes further in his piece, Trump’s campaign already has already damaged his business interests:

In any case, his comments have become an opening. Already Mr. Trump’s Middle Eastern business interests are under assault. He lost a few U.S. deals early on due to his slurs on Mexican-Americans. Now a handful of Silicon Valley biggies—the CEOs of Apple, Facebook and Google—have ventured criticism without mustering quite the courage to mention him by name.

What happens when important business partners start letting Mr. Trump know, publicly and noisily, they think he’s doing serious damage to the country? By Mr. Trump’s own inflated reckoning, most of his net worth resides in the value of his name.

Our guess is that Mr. Trump has always planned on being satisfied with making a splash and ventilating his high opinion of himself. He will rightly be able to claim that he gave neglected voters a voice and transformed the debate. Notice that he manages to maintain his jolly equanimity even when being vilified. He is not grimly “on a mission” as so many candidates are whose self-image is wrapped up in electoral success.

As a direct result of his presidential campaign, Trump ended up in a $10 million lawsuit with chef Jose Andres, who was supposed to be a part of the Trump International Hotel project in Washington; lost a battle against a wind farm in Scotland; lost a merchandising relationship with Macy’s department stores; and might end up losing business at some of his properties, although the actual damage from loudly-declared boycotts is open to debate.

Jenkins makes some shrewd observations about the realities of campaign financing, especially the need to win the support of big donors.  A network of deep-pocketed special interests will shower Hillary Clinton with the kind of cash Trump simply cannot provide by tapping into his own assets.

Also, the many political assets the Republican Party would bring to the table for most other nominees won’t be there for Trump if the Establishment makes good on its threats to sit out in 2016, dumping the nation into Clinton’s claws, if Trump is the standard-bearer.  The old fear was that a frustrated Trump would run third-party and dynamite the race after failing to secure the nomination; now we’ve got Trump cheerfully assuring Republican voters in the last debate that he’ll keep his promise to stay with the party no matter what, and it’s Jeb Bush talking about signing up with Team Clinton as an unofficial junior partner if Trump’s the GOP nominee.

The enormous national polling success Trump has achieved through earned media – summoning a swarm of microphones and cameras every time he feels like making a statement – will go down in the political history books, but once primary voting begins in earnest, targeted paid advertising will matter more than the kind of media pandemonium that keeps Trump on top of national polls.

Of course, the conventional wisdom about the limits of earned media could be wrong, just as every other confident prediction about Trump has been wrong so far.

Articles like the WSJ post on Trump’s finances could be one more attempt to apply conventional political analysis to a campaign that routinely defies it… or it might be taken as a shot across the bow, a warning to Trump that he ought to deliver what Jenkins envisions as “a glorious ‘I’ve got better things to do than hang around with you losers’ exit” before he suffers the kind of financial loss he can’t recover from.

The Wall Street Journal analysis backs into an aspect of Trump’s success that our political culture has a hard time accepting: his supporters think he’s immune to the corruption sickening D.C., the Big Government corruption that Hillary Clinton is the living, breathing, influence-peddling avatar of.  At this point, everyone gets the idea that Trump is taking a serious financial hit from this campaign – they hear all the stories about boycotts and busted business deals, and it only reinforces their sense of Trump’s sincerity.

They grasp that it’s not very likely he is running for President to pad his pockets, and when they hear other billionaires are furious with Trump and scrambling to fund his competitors, it reinforces their sense that whatever else the outrageous Trump might be planning to do with the Oval Office, he won’t be using government power to enrich a network of cronies the way Obama did, and Clinton absolutely would.

Democrats are, of course, institutionally oblivious to rising public anger at corruption – they think they can manage it by spending ad money on lavish campaigns to convince their gullible voters that each new socialist figurehead is motivated by nothing but compassion.  A few Republicans understand that corruption is a ripe issue – it’s been a major theme for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) – but perhaps even fewer understand just how incandescently angry taxpayers have become.

It’s easy to scoff at Donald Trump as an unlikely crusader against corruption – he was downright cheerful when he reminisced about buying influence in the first GOP debate, and never quite got around to explaining why it’s a bad thing that he needed to grease the right palms to get what he wanted.  But there is a real sense among his supporters that, whether his ideas are right or wrong, he’s enduring great personal expense to stay in the race and express them.  Just about every candidate talks about being a “fighter,” but Trump has real bruises.  Political analysts seem to be underestimating how much credit people give him for staying in the race when it’s obviously hurting him.

As for whether it will be prohibitively expensive for Trump to run a full-boat campaign, the Wall Street Journal figures he might have as little as $70 million in liquid assets, which is “less than what several candidates in the race (Bush, Clinton, Cruz) and their super PACs already have raised.”  But how much does that $70 million count for, when it’s mixed with Trump’s proven ability to hold the media spotlight?

If, as some have suggested, the transition to local political organizations and likely primary voters prevents Trump from winning any of the early primary states, it’s doubtful any amount of campaign cash would be enough to turn an implosion narrative around.  But if he does score some strategic early victories and keep his frontrunner narrative alive, he might be able to stretch a dollar further than anyone ever has.  Meanwhile, the Democrats stash their candidates in Saturday-night cellars to keep voters from getting a good look at them.

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Trump: Hillary Is a Liar — 'She Lies Like Crazy About Everything' - Breitbart

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by Pam Key20 Dec 20150

20 Dec, 201520 Dec, 2015

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while responding to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton saying in the debate last night that he is “becoming ISIS’s best recruiter,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared that to be “just another Hillary lie.”

Trump said, “Nobody has been able to back that up. It’s nonsense. Just another Hillary lie. She lies like crazy about everything. Whether it’s trips where she was being gunned down in a helicopter or an airplane, she’s a liar and everybody knows that. But she just made this up in thin air.”

He continued, “I think my words represent toughness and strength. Hillary’s not strength. Hillary’s weak, frankly, she’s got no stamina, she’s got nothing….she couldn’t even get back on the stage. Nobody even knows what happened to her. It’s like she went home and went to sleep….She couldn’t get back on the stage last night I’ll tell you why. Because we need a president with great strength and stamina and Hillary doesn’t have that. We can not have another bad president like we have right now. We need a president with tremendous intelligence, smarts, cunning, strength, and stamina.”

He added, “She may have traveled a lot but she didn’t do the job because the entire world blew up around her. So she wasted a lot of time and energy and money and frankly she wasted a lot of lives because her policies were disaster for the world. The Middle East has blown up around her. Her decisions were horrible. and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed because of her faulty decisions.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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Trump Jumps To 39 Percent in Post Debate Fox Poll

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by NEIL MUNRO18 Dec 2015152

Donald Trump has spiked his primary support to 39 percent among the 402 GOP primary voters reached in the latest Fox News poll, released Friday evening.

In mid-November, Trump was at 28 percent in a Fox poll. His December score of 39 percent is almost a 40-percent spike  in one month.

In the new December poll, 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

97%

 climbs 4 points to 18 percent, while 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

79%

 is down 3 points to 11 percent. Brain-surgeon Ben Carson crashed from 18 percent down to 9 percent. The poll was conducted after Tuesday’s GOP debate in Las Vegas.

Gov. Jeb Bush, once the hero of the establishment GOP, scored only 3 percent, equal to Gov. Chris Christie, CEO Carly Fiorina and 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

93%

. Bush was at 5 percent in Fox’s November poll.

However, Trump may be hitting his support ceiling, partly because his support among women and college-educated voters is much below his support among non-college voters. He’s got the support of 45 percent of non-college voters, reflecting his strong campaign opposition to the inflow of cheap illegal labor.

But that narrow base of support means that Trump only gained two points when the poll’s respondents were asked to pick from a four-man field of Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Carson.

That narrow set of choices left Trump with 41 percent, while Cruz jumped to 25 percent, Rubio climbed to 17 percent, and Carson only reached 12 percent.

Also, Trump has the most distance to reach Hillary Clinton’s support, according to Fox’s poll.

He now lags behind her, 38 percent to 49 percent.

In contrast, Cruz matches Clinton, 45 percent to 45 percent, while Rubio is a little ahead, at 45 percent to 43 percent.

One advantage that Rubio has over Trump is stronger support among younger voters, perhaps because of the demographic differences between young and old. “Clinton tops Trump by 29 points among those under 30, while Rubio bests her by 4 points,” notes Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Anderson.

“For whatever reason, millennials are more resistant to Trump’s appeal,” said Fox.

The Fox News poll reached 1,013 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research, and Shaw & Company Research, on Dec. 16-17.

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Big Government, 2016 Presidential Race,Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, poll

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/19/fox-news-poll-trump-jumps-cruz-climbs-carson-sinks-in-gop-race.html

Trump: Republicans ‘threw in the towel’ on spending bill

December 18, 2015 - 10:26 AM EST

BY JONATHAN EASLEYTWEET SHARE MORE

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump excoriated House Republicans for passing a $1.1 trillion funding bill on Friday, claiming they “threw in the towel” to avoid a government shutdown.

“If anyone needs more evidence of why the American people are suffering at the hands of their own government, look no further than the budget deal announced by Speaker Ryan,” Trump said in a statement to ABC News.

“In order to avoid a government shutdown, a cowardly threat from an incompetent president, the elected Republicans in Congress threw in the towel and showed absolutely no budget discipline.”

The House easily passed the spending bill on Friday in a 316-113 vote, which featured the support of 150 Republicans in a major victory for new Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), whose leadership team whipped furiously in support of the bill.

The Senate is expected to approve the spending bill, along with a House-passed tax package, later in the day. The White House has said President Obama will sign both measures.

Trump on Friday blasted the spending bill, saying it would result in “higher deficits, greater debt, less economic liberty and more corporate welfare.”

“Congress cannot seem to help itself in bending to every whim of special interests,” Trump said. “How can they face their constituents when they continue to burden our children and grandchildren with debts they will never be able to repay? Our government is failing us, so we must do something about it. Who knows how bad things will be when the next administration comes in and has to pick up the pieces?”

The spending bill includes the first major change to ObamaCare since the healthcare law was first passed by Congress — suspending the “Cadillac tax" on top-end insurance plans.

But some conservatives were disappointed with the overall bill, saying it was largely negotiated by former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on his way out of office. The bill also didn’t put any new restrictions on Syrian refugees entering the country or block government funding for Planned Parenthood.

“The only special interest not being served by our government is the American people,” Trump said. “It is time we imposed budget discipline by holding the line on spending, getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse, and by taking on our debt. To do these things, we need a president who can lead the fight to hold Congress and the rest of the government accountable.”