Millionaire/billionaire (choose which one you think is accurate) Donald Trump accepted an offer from former Massachusetts Mitt Romney to in effect be a surrogate for him and in his new role Trump ripped into chief anti-Romney candidate former Senator Rick Santorum. And he did it in characteristic Trump style: blunt peppery:
Donald Trump demonstrated Monday that he has no qualms about going after one of Mitt Romney’s chief rivals, Rick Santorum.
“There’s nothing – there’s no gift, no Christmas gift, that could be given better than Rick Santorum to the Democrats,” Trump said in a radio interview which aired in Michigan. Democrats, he continued, “are just salivating at that. And, you know, I don’t think they believe it’s going to happen. But boy, would they like it to happen because that would be an easy election.”
In this case, Trump is correct — if the conventional wisdom (which has been wrong all year) is correct.
Michigan votes one week from Tuesday, and Trump is scheduled to take to the state’s airwaves daily this week to speak on Romney’s behalf.
The perception of electability was a major factor in deciding to endorse Romney, Trump said, and Republic
ans would be foolish to put forward Santorum as their nominee because “he basically has no chance” of winning.“Otherwise, what’s the whole purpose, what’s the purpose of working, working, working, going out voting, doing your thing if the person has no chance of getting elected,” Trump said on WSGW Radio of Saginaw, Michigan.
Trump considered a presidential bid himself, then nixed the idea, and in January tossed his endorsement to Mitt Romney. If Santorum were to win the Republican nomination, Trump suggested Monday that he would consider a run.
“If he doesn’t, and I hope that doesn’t happen,” Trump said of a Romney loss, “I would say there’s a good possibility that I would do something, yes.”
FYI:
1. I still believe in the end Romney will be the nominee, even if he just squeaks through.
2. And if Romney is not the nominee, don’t place bets that Trump will jump in. Trump talks about running for President almost as many times as Ralph Nader has run.
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.