One of the most fascinating spectacles of 2011 has been watching Republicans’ love affair with Donald Trump, which blossomed as grandly as the flowers in Spring when he suddenly became the nation’s most famous birther. Suddenly, some conservative talkers who had dissed The Donald seemingly worshiped him. Suddenly, he had another network home besides NBC: Fox News, which loves anyone who does the opposite of love Barack Obama and was instrumental in spread anti-birther charges until the day Obama provided evidence (still not accepted by some stubbornly residing in the political Twilight Zone) of his birth.
Next came The Great Nondebate where most GOP candidates (except Newt Gingrich who proclaimed how he could not see anyone would not want to “hang out” with Trump and Rick Santorum) distanced themselves faster than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did from House Speaker John Boehner in the recent payroll tax fiasco. You got the feeling that many Republicans would rather be on a show with Donald Duck (but, then, Glenn Beck isn’t on TV anymore).
In the end, Trump’s admirers had shrunk to some celebrity worshipers, Fox News talk show hosts and people who belong to Hair Club for Men.
So now Trump will show them — and get publicity as well: he has dropped his registration as a GOPer, is now an independent and is dangling the possibility he’ll run as an independent.
If he does, how much do you want to bet the worshiping talk show hosts won’t worship him anymore, Fox News won’t think he’s just brilliant any more — and the news media will go ga ga if it looks he might REALLY be serious…just as he seemed REALLY serious about staying in the Presidential race and REALLY serious about moderating the debate.
So were the GOPers and media snookered bigtime? And will Trump now get tons of publicity about how he’s REALLY thinking of running as an independent as he mentions his new book more than Chris Matthews mentions his (wait: that is an impossibility)?
Donald Trump continued to tease a potential presidential run by changing his voter registration Thursday from Republican to “unaffiliated” and publicly denouncing the behavior of members of his former party.
Michael Cohen, an aide to Trump, said the real estate mogul and reality television star made the switch “in order to preserve his right to run for president as an independent if he’s not satisfied with who the Republicans nominate.”
The change was made with the New York State Board of Elections.
Cohen added that Trump was “disgusted with the way Republicans are handling” the payroll tax cut extension, saying the actions of Republicans were partly to blame for his party change.
Cohen also cited foreign policy issues, claiming Trump had been ahead of the curve in predicting security issues in Iraq after the U.S. pulled out troops.
“Iraq is imploding. Who else has been saying this except Trump?” Cohen said.
Trump’s party switch is just the latest move taken by the businessman to indicate he might run for president. He very publicly contemplated a run in the Spring before announcing he wasn’t willing to give up his reality show “The Apprentice” to launch a campaign.
Look for a lot of headlines tomorrow to say TRUMP TO REPUBLICAN PARTY: YOU’RE FIRED!
But I think the real headline is “TRUMP TO REPUBLICAN PARTY: NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK.”
UPDATE: Doug Mataconis:
The latest stage in the Donald Trump publicity campaign that pretends to be a political movement came today when Trump announced that he had changed his party registration to “Independen
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.