Manhattan
I wrote in this space last week that Trump’s slick rhetoric about Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be President based on the “natural born citizen” clause was him spreading FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) about Cruz. FUD is a tactic that Microsoft turned into an art form awhile back to use against its actual or perceived threats.
I wasn’t happy with Trump doing this at first, because Trump’s Obama birtherism killed his nascent 2012 campaign back in the summer of 2011. However, I’m starting to change my mind about at least the effectiveness of the tactic; I think Trump learned from the first go-around, and is a lot more sly and clever about deploying it this time. And the other factor is this: Judge the results. People are actually arguing the yeas and nays of Cruz’s eligibility, and Cruz’s poll numbers both in Iowa and nationally are going down. I don’t think Trump cares about the actual answer to eligible or no as much as he cares that people are arguing about it in the first place, the argument creates the FUD which hurts Cruz.
I also now think that Trump’s birther FUD re Cruz is a backhanded under the table attempt to get a mulligan at the Obama birther issue.
Countenance Blog 
He’s reminding everyone of two things:
– He was right in ’12 and people should have listened to him. (That $5 million check is still uncashed)
– Cruz is a foreigner.
Everyone he has attacked, has seen their numbers drop.
Glad to see that you’ve finally come around :)
Before you spike the football, all I’m saying is that it didn’t hurt him and it seems like it’s helping him, but I think that was a matter of dodging the bullet. I still would have advised him not to do it, and if it ever comes up again, I’ll still advise against it. This is just a matter of the one time you smoked a cigarette in bed resulting in the house not getting burned down.
Damn, I missed my ashtray I was laughing so hard. Trump is a Master Troll. The man is brilliant. His timing was excellent. I couldn’t have done better myself. Both he and his mulattress have repeatedly stated that they believe Cruz is eligible. It’s those evil Democrats who will tie him up in court for two years. He’s right about that. You’re also right. Trump doesn’t give a shit one way or the other. It was merely a ploy to snatch a few votes from the undecided. Admittedly, it has turned out better than I anticipated, mostly due to overwhelming support from Alt Right Twitter.
Congratulations to His Imperial Majesty :)
Here’s what got my mind running in this direction.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/223769/
First off, this is a long ass post for a blog that’s supposed to be “Insta”-Pundit.
Second, I can just see Cruz’s support on the margins bleeding off from people who may like him for one reason or another and may want him to be President, but don’t want to have to read or get involved in these kind of protracted legalistic arguments that involve 17th century law dictionaries.
It was posted by Elizabeth Price Foley. Whoever she is, she’s wrong. By that reasoning, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, former Crown Prince of Jordan, is eligible to run. Queen Noor is an American. Prince Albert II, Ruler of Monaco, is also eligible. Grace Kelly was American. The clause was inserted to prevent foreign princes from being elected President.
On the other hand, you’re absolutely correct. The Courts will side with Rafael. Most of the judges attended Government schools, so they don’t know how to read. Besides that, most of them are Leftists. They wouldn’t want to prevent some future third-world subhuman from running.
“Youth” for Bernie
Wait- did I just see the words “honest” and “politician” jammed right up against each other, looking for all the world like this guy meant them seriously?
Also, he (Bern) “actually cares”, blah,blah. This guy writes like a 13 year-old girl. Lucky for him the sign wasn’t bigger, this is a lot to live down as it is.
I still think Bern is playing with fire by relying so much on young voters.
At least wimps like this won’t steal his microphone.
“I still think Bern is playing with fire by relying so much on young voters.”
I don’t think he really has a choice. Hilldog has a pretty good hold on the blacks through years of careful pandering; she also has the big money “sure bet” gamblers; and the corporations; and a whole lot of the vagina-owning voters. I think Bernie’s message of endless abundance and cradle-to-grave State mommy-ism is going to resonate the most with the kids anyway; so he really has to throw his lot in and hope they can be bothered when voting time comes (“oh, TODAY was the voting??”).
If you were advising Bernie, which segment of Hillary voters would you try to peel off?
p.s. I got an email from Bernie’s camp the other day (why I’m on Bernie’s email list I don’t know unless Trump traded lists with him). Bern said he needed three dollars from me to really make “revolution” happen. I’m still concerned that at his advanced age, Bernie doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “revolution”.
If I was advising Bern:
Remember how things worked for Democrats in 2008. Obama won the states that were very white and very black, while Hillary won the states whose black-white demographics were close to the national average. Meaning that in white states with hardly any blacks, a lot of white liberals who are in love with blacks but have no experience with them voted Obama. In the heavily black states, all the whites are Republicans, so Obama won its Democrat voters, its black voters, same difference. It was only in middling states where there are enough blacks to piss off whites but not enough blacks to preclude the existence of white Democrats, and those kind of white Democrats voted Hillary.
This year, the white Democrats in middling states are moving heavily towards Trump, so they’re going to be a non-factor as far as Democrats are concerned. So this leaves the lily white state blue team voters, and Bern already has those locked down. So, what’s left? Right, the blacks. Bern is going to have to make a major league play for blacks. Remind them of his civil rights activist past, and he does have one, remind them while racial issues have not been his political locus through his path up the political ladder, Mayor-House-Senate, that the issues he does care most intensely about, the sort of Scandinavian social democracy kind of issues, would disparately benefit blacks greatly. Then, drop wedges between the Clintons and blacks, remind them of Bill saying bad things about Obama, (“he would have been shining our shoes a few years ago”), that Bill supported Confederate flags when he was AR Governor, that he signed welfare reform and tough on crime bills as President, that Hillary’s pandering is smarmy (“I don’t feel no ways tarrd”). If Bern can combine his lily white state blue team army with peeling enough blacks away from the Clintons, he has a chance to win the nomination. That is, if the Democrat Party superdelegates don’t chimp out.
He also needs an Econ refresher course, if he thinks $3 buys what it did when he was a kid.
And if this guy actually wins the D ticket, Trump is going to absolutely brutalize him with that weird rape-fantasy story he wrote back in the 70s.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/14/2775244/
http://news.yahoo.com/quarter-republicans-think-cruzs-birthplace-disqualifies-him-president-120508988.html
[…] When asked in comment form here a several days ago, I responded: […]