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Go Home The Winner Of The Trump Meltdown

JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 11, 2011

The Winner Of The Trump Meltdown

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

I should preface this item by noting that all my writing about pure horse race politics, and presidential primary politics especially, is highly speculative. Public policy is something that can be analyzed with some precision. Elections are highly unpredictable. It can be (hopefully) interesting and fun to speculate, but the speculation should be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, I've been predicting for months and months that Mitt Romney is a dead man, but I'm a lot more likely to be wrong about that than, say, whether the aggregate income of the richest 10% of the public is greater than or less than the budget deficit.

Anyway, caveats aside, it occurs to me that Donald Trump's implosion still leaves a huge opportunity on the Republican right. Trump was a horribly, horribly flawed messenger -- his past was filled with support for Democratic politicians, causes like single-payer health insurance, and he horrified Republicans in his high profile first speech in Las Vegas by dropping a series of f-bombs. But Trump's message itself was deeply powerful. There remains a powerful demand for a candidate to fill it.

Meanwhile, the moderate wing of the GOP primary electorate is being over-serviced. Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty are running, Jon Huntsman is drawing some decent press, and Mitch Daniels might jump in. That is a lot of competition for the establishment vote. It could take a while for one candidate to emerge from this group, and they could easily crowd each other out long enough so that none of them consolidate establishment support until well into 2012.

That leaves a lot of demand for a fire-breather, and it isn't being met. Rick Santorum or Herman Cain might catch fire, I suppose. But it sure looks wide open for Michelle Bachmann. If she can just keep a lid on her crazy side, she has enough high-profile support to avoid the kind of marginalization that Trump endured when the party elite ganged up on him. (Rush Limbaugh likes her, for instance.) Bachmann raises a ton of money, has a close relationship with Sarah Palin -- who still commands significant loyalty within the party but appears unlikely to run -- and has a real chance to win in Iowa.

Anyway, lots can happen, etc., but I see a real opening for Bachmann.

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11 comments

When something is unpredictable, people bet on it. Last October, Romney was a 1 in 3 favorite and Palin was 1 in 4. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2603381/posts

- Nusholtz

May 11, 2011 at 9:48am

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Hey, Noga. You out there? Why is it that I'm 'okay' with this ridiculous pic of the Donald while maintaining the 'demagogue' photo out of bounds?

- jacko

May 11, 2011 at 10:21am

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I like your locution "If she can just keep a lid on her crazy side ...", Jonathan. If El Rusbo can just keep his mouth shut, if the Houston Astros can just stop losing, if I can just keep myself from commenting on TNR threads. Then Michele can win. $100, Jonathan, five-to-one odds, that MB doesn't make it anywhere. But I know you don't respond. You never respond to the proletarians, except twice, that I know of, and that was out of vanity. Once was to correct a misimpression that you left and the other was to respond to the pathetic rationale. I miss the likes of Dayo Olopade and Noam Scheiber. They would respond to us once in a while. I certainly understand not doing it often because it would take too much time and detract from working on posts and/or articles. Bradford Plumer responds to readers from time to time, too. All hail, Dayo, Noam, and Bradford.

- liberalref

May 11, 2011 at 10:26am

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An opening to get the nomination? Or an opening to enhance her clout (media, fund raising, etc.)? You surely can't mean the former? Because that is not going to happen for her, anymore than it was going to happen for Trump--and she would be giving up her House seat. I know she's delusional, but THAT delusional? Well, maybe.

- timteeter

May 11, 2011 at 10:39am

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Funny, if there's a "demand for a fire breather", isn't that EXACTLY Michelle Bachman's crazy side? Why should she TRY to sound moderate, when the moderate field is already full? True, she can't win the national election that way, but she'll sure be popular with the Tea-Party crowd until November 2012, when reality comes crashing back down.

- AllanL5

May 11, 2011 at 10:42am

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I've always thought Michelle Bachmann was being under-estimated by the media. She's a good campaigner, good fundraiser, good-looking [by the standard of politicians], was born in Iowa, is from a neighboring northern plains state and is very close to Steve King, the far-right Iowa Congressman who wields enormous influence in the caucuses. Particularly if Mike Huckabee sits this one out, I like Bachmann to win not only Iowa, but also South Carolina. With two of the first four contests in her column [and the other two, New Hampshire and Nevada, for Romney], Bachmann would have a helluva chance of winning the nomination.

- DC Spence

May 11, 2011 at 10:45am

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Let's all get on our hands and knees and pray that Michele Bachmann becomes the GOP presidential nominee. She would be the Republican McGovern. We need a GOP electoral catastrophe to marginalize that loathsome party and perhaps force it to move back toward the sane center. Of course, Republicans have become so delusional that they might tell themselves that the reason they got annihilated at the polls is that they still weren't being conservative enough. It's really unbelievable that the electorate gave this collection of deranged right-wing fanatics control of the House of Representatives. Let's hope that buyer's remorse is starting to set in.

- DAVIDDREIER@EARTHLINK.NET-old

May 11, 2011 at 11:35am

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Michele B. looks scary to me, not attractive. I suppose her persona has a lot to do with my perception. But then, I don't respond the same way to Sarah Palin and you would think I might. She is said to be comely but I can't get that winking photo out of my mind (and JC just posted it again the other day, too); SP comes off as a non-attractive nebbish to me, but not in a scary fashion.

- liberalref

May 11, 2011 at 12:35pm

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I'm interpreting your first paragraph as an admission that you've overdoing the whole Mitt Romney Deathwatch thing. No-one expects you to be 100% accurate in your predictions, but you were doing some major cherry-picking with that running theme, and although it was entertaining at first, it's been getting old lately, especially when you would ignore obvious signs that Romney is still going strong and your pick, T-Paw, can't catch any sparks. I'm with you that Michelle will benefit from Trumps flame-out. I've been pretty sure for months that she would run - she doesn't like the Old Boys Network to keep her down. I think she'll win Iowa if Huckabee doesn't run. Not sure she'll go anywhere after that. I agree with Allan that she doesn't need to keep a lid on her wild side. There are so many videos of her craziness on the web that her opponents could point to, it doesn't matter if she says a few more crazy things. Her supporters like it. When Mitt or T-Paw criticize her, she can just say that they don't "get it," or start talking about all her adopted children or whatever. She's got her routine down, she's good to go. But I still think Romney is the guy to beat. Huckabee could give him a run for his money. I don't see anyone else with a good chance. That's my instinct, and the numbers agree: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/a-polling-based-forecast-of-the-republican-primary-field/ If it's not one of those two, my 3rd pick is Daniels. He doesn't have the height or the hair that Romney has, but he looks pretty cool on a motorcycle: http://mymanmitch.com/

- tysonsahib

May 11, 2011 at 1:21pm

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Romney always looks strong until he opens his mouth.

- Pnaut

May 11, 2011 at 1:37pm

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The "moderate wing" of the GOP is overserviced? There is no longer such a creature as a GOP moderate. Any plausible nominee will have to pander to religious zealots and Tea Party wingnuts. Today's posting by Michael Kazin discussing Mitch Daniels illustrates this point.

- rbbrown

May 11, 2011 at 3:11pm

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