On Monday evening, something strange happened: Donald Trump became a “loser.”
Not in the pejorative sense of the word (as he so often uses the term), but rather in the sense that the GOP front runner who just two days ago surpassed Ted Cruz in Iowa pre-caucus polls for the first time since last August, lost to the Texas senator in the all important Iowa caucuses.
To be sure, few would have predicted last year that the brazen billionaire would have been competitive in Iowa, let alone place second. In that regard, last night’s performance was a validation of Trump’s legitimacy as a born again politician.
On the other hand, the results suggest Trump can’t win on mere bombast. Trump spent as much on “Make America Great Again” hats as he did on staff in the lead-up to the caucuses and that, some say, may have cost him.
Make no mistake, Trump is a smart man. He surely recognized when he decided to run for The White House that the deck was stacked against him and poll numbers aside, there’s little doubt that he understands just how unlikely his rise to the forefront of America’s political consciousness truly his. The problem going into Monday may have been that Trump was beginning to believe his own rhetoric. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”, Trump asked/said a week ahead of the caucuses.
“Ok.” But what Monday night’s results may have signaled is that while there’s a groundswell of enthusiasm for Trump’s bellicose bellowing, when it comes time to cast their ballot, voters are gun shy. And as anyone who watched last night’s proceedings is well aware, the defeat wasn’t for lack of turnout.
So where does the Trump campaign go from here, you ask? Well, onward and upward, according to the billionaire’s concession speech which was uncharacteristically humble.
“We finished second and I want to tell you, I’m just honored,” Trump said. “I want to congratulate Ted, and all of the incredible candidates,” he added.
Does the change in tone suggest Trump has been humbled by the experience in Iowa? Probably not. But it may signal a shift towards rhetoric that’s less likely to turn off undecided voters, who Trump will need if he wants to win the nomination.
Up next is New Hampshire.
In the meantime, Trump plunged from 48 cents to 30 cents on Predictit overnight.
And a bit of humor from The New Yorker:
Senator Ted Cruz’s stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses is serving as a beacon of hope to despised people across the nation, a number of disliked Americans confirmed on Monday.
In interviews from coast to coast, dozens of pariahs said that the Cruz triumph meant that “the sky’s the limit” for widely hated people like them.
Tracy Klugian, a real-estate agent from Jupiter, Florida, said that the fact that she has systematically alienated her co-workers, by bad-mouthing them to management and stealing their listings, no longer seems like an obstacle to advancement.
“Sometimes, knowing that everyone in the office hates me so much that they won’t even ride in an elevator with me kind of brought me down,” she said. “That’s why this Cruz thing is such a game-changer.”
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1P30PRK Tyler Durden