What do you think we should call Donald Trump?Now stop that. This is a serious question. It came up on Super Tuesday night, when Chris Christie introduced the triumphant candidate in Florida.
“Since June 16, when Mr. Trump declared his candidacy, he has shown himself to be tough and strong and bold,” the phantom governor of New Jersey began. Remember when Christie was supposed to be tough and strong and bold? Now he’s just Donald Trump’s sidekick.
Trump and his helper made their Super Tuesday appearance at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s gold-plated Florida club where the membership fee is $100,000. Recently, Trump said it represents his championship of equality.
Seriously. When Trump was asked about the Ku Klux Klan controversy on “Good Morning America,” he once again “disavowed” the former KKK leader David Duke and then added: “There’s nobody that’s done so much for equality as I have. You take a look at Palm Beach, Florida. I built the Mar-a-Lago Club totally open to everybody.”n Super Tuesday night in the ballroom of equality, Christie stood behind Trump appearing totally miserable. As a number of commentators noted, he looked like a person who had just been informed that his family was being held hostage and would be released only if he kept quiet and stared straight ahead.
Most of us can live with the possibility that he has not found happiness in his new role as Donald Trump’s most prominent supporter. Instead, let’s consider the fact that in his introduction, Christie called the candidate “Mr. Trump.” To which Trump responded, “Chris, thank you very much.” Then he congratulated “Ted” for winning Texas and looked forward to taking on “Hillary.”Why is Donald Trump always “Mister”? True, since he has absolutely no record of public service, he lacks a title like Senator or Governor. But this goes way back — on his reality show, all the would-be apprentices, including the celebrity ones, called the host “Mr. Trump,” even when he wasn’t in the room. “It’s this underlying power,” an ex-contestant explained to Cosmopolitan.
Just remember that this will be an administration where all millionaires, whatever race, creed or color, will be given equal opportunity. As long as they don’t call him Donald.
Is there anybody who can beat him? The only candidate who seemed discouraged by Super Tuesday was Ben Carson, although so far he’s only announced he will not be in Thursday’s debate. We will certainly miss him complaining that nobody ever asks him a question. And his answers! At about the same time Carson made his semi-news, a website posted a video in which he avers: “We have a process, an electoral process. That is a process that I am in the process of following, and will continue to follow.”There’s still Ted Cruz, who won Texas, where he lives, plus Oklahoma and Alaska. Three states that are really, really into oil. If there’s a derrick on the horizon, Cruz can’t lose.
And Marco Rubio won the Minnesota caucus. His first state! “We are so excited about what lies ahead for our campaign,” the junior senator from Florida said. He’d better be, since once this is over Rubio won’t even have a job. He’s vacating his Senate seat, which he never seemed to sit in all that much anyway. His other family income is mainly from people who’ve believed he had a presidential future worth investing in.
The last time he was in terrible financial trouble, Rubio solved the problem by writing a memoir, “An American Son,” for which he got $800,000. I am wondering what the bidding will be for “An American Also-Ran,” the inspiring story of the man who won the Minnesota caucus.
If we lost Marco Rubio, I’d really miss his fund-raising emails. Late on Super Tuesday, I got one asking for a donation on the basis of his spectacular performance.
“Friend” (Marco always calls me Friend) “In the days leading up to tonight, a lot of the media had written us off. … I’m happy to be an underdog. We’re a country of underdogs. I come from a community of underdogs, too, as I said in Miami tonight. I’ve been an underdog in the past — and once again, we’re going to be an underdog campaign that WINS.”
Wow, a lot of underdogs. A little bit later I got a letter from the campaign, just checking to make sure I got Marco’s note. “There’s no doubt he feels like an underdog now, but it’s important to recognize what he accomplished last night, and one sign he’ll win this thing: He picked up a whole bunch of delegates from all across the country.”
Well, at least they didn’t call him “Mister Rubio.”
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