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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Dos Equis on February 26, 2016, 05:19:11 PM
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Truth.
Pastor Lucado: Trump Saying He's a Christian 'Beyond Reason to Me'
(http://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=8b462a14-60bc-4d6d-b597-ab3c83b5a43c&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600)
Image: Pastor Lucado: Trump Saying He's a Christian 'Beyond Reason to Me' (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
By Bill Hoffmann | Friday, 26 Feb 2016
Best-selling Christian author Max Lucado believes Donald Trump speaks with a forked tongue when he calls himself a Christian one day and launches jaw-dropping personal attacks on people the next.
"It would be none of my business, I would have absolutely no right to speak up except that he repeatedly brandishes the Bible and calls himself a Christian," the San Antonio pastor said in an interview with Christianity Today magazine.
"If he's going to call himself a Christian one day and call someone a bimbo the next or make fun of somebody's menstrual cycle, it's just beyond reason to me."
Lucado — author of "Before Amen: The Power of a Simple Prayer," published by Thomas Nelson — said he had never opposed a presidential candidate before the billionaire developer entered the political arena.
"There was a time in Iowa when he said 'I'm a Christian,' and somebody asked about forgiveness and he said 'I've never asked God for forgiveness.' I can't imagine that. I'm just shaking my head going 'How does that work?'" Lucado said.
"Does a swimmer say 'I've never gotten wet?' Does a musician say 'I've never sung a song?' How does a person claim to be a Christian and never need to ask for forgiveness?"
Trump has made headlines with the shoot-from-the-lip missiles he's fired at opponents, recently ripping Sen. Ted Cruz a "totally unstable individual" and the "single biggest liar I've ever come across." During Thursday's GOP debate, Trump referred to Sen. Marco Rubio as "a choke artist."
Lucado also discussed Trump in a recent blog post at MaxLucado.com.
"The stock explanation for his success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, 'We are voting with our middle finger.' Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel," Lucado wrote.
"We can only hope, and pray, for a return to decency. Perhaps Mr. Trump will better manage his antics. (Worthy of a prayer, for sure.) Or, perhaps the American public will remember the key role of the president is to be the face of America.
"When he/she speaks, he/she speaks for us. Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of the president, do we not hope that they behave in a way that is consistent with the status of the office?"
Lucado, a father of three, is pastor of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, which Newsmax named as one of the Top 50 Megachurches in America. He was also anointed "America's Pastor" by Christianity Today and "The Best Preacher in America" by Reader's Digest.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/max-lucado-donald-trump-christian/2016/02/26/id/716286/#ixzz41KKGLt2N
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"There was a time in Iowa when he said 'I'm a Christian,' and somebody asked about forgiveness and he said 'I've never asked God for forgiveness.'
Any video of this?
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Nevermind. I saw something in which he says it.
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Max Lucado: Trump doesn’t pass the decency test
Policy aside, shouldn't we all demand that our president at least be decent?
By Max Lucado
February 26, 2016
Max Lucado is a pastor in San Antonio and a best-selling author of 32 books, including "Glory Days."
Donald Trump speaks to thousands of spectators at a rally in Lowell, Mass., on Jan. 4. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
As the father of three daughters, I reserved the right to interview their dates. Seemed only fair to me. After all, my wife and I’d spent 16 or 17 years feeding them, dressing them, funding braces and driving them to volleyball tournaments and piano recitals. A five-minute face-to-face with the guy was a fair expectation. For the next few hours, she would be affected by his ability to drive a car, avoid the bad crowds and stay sober. I wanted to know if he could do it. I wanted to know if he was decent.
This was my word: “decent.” Would he treat my daughter with kindness and respect? Could he be trusted to bring her home on time? In his language, actions and decisions, would he be a decent guy?
Decency mattered to me as a dad, and decency matters to Americans. We take note of the person who pays their debts. We appreciate the physician who takes time to listen. When the husband honors his wedding vows, when the teacher makes time for the struggling student, when the employee refuses to gossip about her co-worker, when the losing team congratulates the winning team, we can characterize their behavior as decent.
We appreciate decency. We applaud decency. We teach decency. We seek to develop decency.
So why isn’t decency doing better in the presidential race?
The leading Republican candidate to be the next leader of the free world would not pass my decency interview. I’d send him away. I’d tell my daughter to stay home.
I don’t know Mr. Trump. But I’ve been chagrined at his antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made a mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to a former first lady, Barbara Bush, as “mommy” and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people “stupid” and “dummy.” One writer catalogued 64 occasions that he called someone “loser.” These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded and presented.
Trump says he wants to punch protester ‘in the face'
Such insensitivities wouldn’t be acceptable even for a middle school student body election. But for the Oval Office? And to do so while brandishing a Bible and boasting of his Christian faith?
I have no inside track on the intricacies of a presidential campaign. I’m a pastor. I don’t endorse candidates or place bumper stickers on my car. But I am protective of the Christian faith. If a public personality calls on Christ one day and calls someone a “bimbo” the next, is something not awry? And to do so, not once, but repeatedly, unrepentantly and unapologetically? We stand against bullying in schools. Shouldn’t we do the same in presidential politics?
Could concerns be raised about other Christian candidates? Absolutely. But the concern of this article is not policy but tone and decorum. Prior presidents have exercised a restraint of the tongue. It’s hard to imagine George H.W. Bush using locker room language to demean an opponent on a debate stage. I didn’t vote for President Obama, but I appreciate the manner in which he has maintained the comportment of the office. At least we don’t wince when he stands to speak.
When it comes to language, Mr. Trump inhabits a league of his own. Some of my friends tell me that his language is a virtue. But I respectfully part company with my Christian colleagues who chalk up his abrasive nature to candor. “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” Jesus said. Words are a heart monitor. Christians would do well to summon any Christian leader to a higher heart standard. This includes pastors (especially this one), teachers, coaches and, by all means, presidential candidates.
All of them.
The stock explanation for Mr. Trump’s success is this: He has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, “We are voting with our middle finger.” Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel.
We can only hope, and pray, for a return to verbal decency. Perhaps Mr. Trump will better manage his comments. (Worthy of a prayer, for sure.) Or, perhaps the American public will remember the key role of the president: to be the face of America. When he or she speaks, he or she speaks for us. Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of the president, do we not hope that they speak in a way that is consistent with the status of the office?
As far as I remember, I never turned away one of my daughter’s dates. They weren’t perfect, but they were decent fellows. That was all I could ask.
It seems that we should ask the same of these candidates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/02/26/max-lucado-trump-doesnt-pass-the-decency-test/?postshare=6951456515174629&tid=ss_fb-bottom
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Donald Trump Is a Scam. Evangelical Voters Should Back Away (CP Editorial)
BY CP EDITORIAL
February 29, 2016
(http://images.christianpost.com/full/94048/donald-trump.jpg)
(PHOTO: REUTERS/RANDALL HILL)
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Sumter Civic Center in Sumter, South Carolina, February 17, 2016.
Editors' Note: The Christian Post has not taken a position on a political candidate before today. We are making an exception because Trump is exceptionally bad and claims to speak for and represent the interests of evangelicals.
We the senior editors of The Christian Post encourage our readers to back away from Donald Trump.
As the most popular evangelical news website in the United States and the world, we feel compelled by our moral responsibility to our readers to make clear that Donald Trump does not represent the interests of evangelicals and would be a dangerous leader for our country.
Trump claims to be a Christian, yet says he has never asked for forgiveness.
While God, in His wondrous creativity, has drawn people to Himself through the saving grace of Jesus Christ in many different ways, there are certain non-negotiable actions needed to become a Christian: One must repent of their sins and follow Christ as Lord and Savior. Trump doesn't talk this way, even when urged to.
Further, his words and actions do not demonstrate the "fruit of the spirit."
Trump is a misogynist and philanderer. He demeans women and minorities. His preferred forms of communication are insults, obscenities and untruths. While Christians have been guilty of all of these, we, unlike Trump, acknowledge our sins, ask for forgiveness and seek restitution with the aid of the Holy Spirit and our community of believers.
On Sunday, Trump's apparent reluctance to disavow David Duke until late in the day was extremely distasteful. The Ku Klux Klan is an evil, unholy movement representing the worst of America. Anyone who will not immediately denounce their support is unfit to be president.
Trump claims he will "protect Christians." We already have a Protector, and He is not Trump.
The grievances of Trump's supporters are legitimate. Politicians for too long have promised to represent the best interests of all Americans before an election, only to represent the interest of their cronies after the election. But Trump's followers are being fooled into believing that he can help them.
Trump is promising many things that he cannot possibly deliver, but the most frightening part is Trump's stated willingness to ignore the authority of the Supreme Court, Congress and the U.S. Constitution if he were to become president.
Trump has been surrounded by controversy for decades because of his untruthfulness, questionable business practices, reported association with organized crime, and abrupt changes in fundamental positions. Many of these controversies involve defrauding the working class and decisions that compromised American workers. He has taken a political position both pro and con on virtually every subject and major political party. This should give evangelicals great pause and concern about supporting such a mercurial and chameleon-like candidate. Past performance is the best predictor of future behavior.
Trump said he wants to make it easier to sue newspapers that criticize him. When it was pointed out to him Sunday that he would have to amend the Constitution's freedom of speech and freedom of press clauses, Trump was unmoved, simply noting that England has weaker protections for the press.
Many evangelicals, including our friends, have criticized Trump on our own opinion page and elsewhere, such as Matt Barber, Dr. Michael Brown, Kristi Burton Brown, Susan Stamper Brown, Rev. Mark Creech, Wallace Henley, E.W. Jackson, Max Lucado, Dr. Russell Moore and Rep. Reid Ribble. If Trump were to become president we fear he would use the levers of government power to silence them and others.
We are already concerned about the expansion of executive power to dangerous and unconstitutional extremes in the current and previous administrations. Plus, in just the past year we have seen Christians put out of business and jailed for living according to the dictates of their faith.
Trump, an admirer of Vladimir Putin and other dictatorial leaders, may claim to be your friend and protector now, but as his history indicates, without your full support he will turn on you, and use whatever power is within his means to punish you.
This is a critical time in American history and we call on all Christians to pray for personal repentance, divine forgiveness and spiritual awakening for our nation. It is not the time for Donald Trump.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/donald-trump-scam-evangelical-voters-back-away-cp-editorial-158813/#HsCI2mDhHe0oTMW7.99
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Truth.
Pastor Lucado: Trump Saying He's a Christian 'Beyond Reason to Me'
(http://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=8b462a14-60bc-4d6d-b597-ab3c83b5a43c&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600)
Image: Pastor Lucado: Trump Saying He's a Christian 'Beyond Reason to Me' (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
By Bill Hoffmann | Friday, 26 Feb 2016
Best-selling Christian author Max Lucado believes Donald Trump speaks with a forked tongue when he calls himself a Christian one day and launches jaw-dropping personal attacks on people the next.
"It would be none of my business, I would have absolutely no right to speak up except that he repeatedly brandishes the Bible and calls himself a Christian," the San Antonio pastor said in an interview with Christianity Today magazine.
"If he's going to call himself a Christian one day and call someone a bimbo the next or make fun of somebody's menstrual cycle, it's just beyond reason to me."
Lucado — author of "Before Amen: The Power of a Simple Prayer," published by Thomas Nelson — said he had never opposed a presidential candidate before the billionaire developer entered the political arena.
"There was a time in Iowa when he said 'I'm a Christian,' and somebody asked about forgiveness and he said 'I've never asked God for forgiveness.' I can't imagine that. I'm just shaking my head going 'How does that work?'" Lucado said.
"Does a swimmer say 'I've never gotten wet?' Does a musician say 'I've never sung a song?' How does a person claim to be a Christian and never need to ask for forgiveness?"
Trump has made headlines with the shoot-from-the-lip missiles he's fired at opponents, recently ripping Sen. Ted Cruz a "totally unstable individual" and the "single biggest liar I've ever come across." During Thursday's GOP debate, Trump referred to Sen. Marco Rubio as "a choke artist."
Lucado also discussed Trump in a recent blog post at MaxLucado.com.
"The stock explanation for his success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, 'We are voting with our middle finger.' Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel," Lucado wrote.
"We can only hope, and pray, for a return to decency. Perhaps Mr. Trump will better manage his antics. (Worthy of a prayer, for sure.) Or, perhaps the American public will remember the key role of the president is to be the face of America.
"When he/she speaks, he/she speaks for us. Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of the president, do we not hope that they behave in a way that is consistent with the status of the office?"
Lucado, a father of three, is pastor of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, which Newsmax named as one of the Top 50 Megachurches in America. He was also anointed "America's Pastor" by Christianity Today and "The Best Preacher in America" by Reader's Digest.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/max-lucado-donald-trump-christian/2016/02/26/id/716286/#ixzz41KKGLt2N
So true. I'll go as far to say he's never even cracked open a bible.
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So true. I'll go as far to say he's never even cracked open a bible.
I agree, including the one he used as a prop.
(https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/values_voter.png?w=620)
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So true. I'll go as far to say he's never even cracked open a bible.
yeah, we agree there.
Trump saying the IRS targeted him for being too Christian... amazing. total pandering.
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Donald Trump and America’s sewer politics: A campaign beyond embarrassment
By Cal Thomas
Published March 01, 2016
FoxNews.com
(http://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxnews.com/content/fox-news/opinion/2016/03/01/donald-trump-and-america-s-sewer-politics-campaign-beyond-embarrassment/_jcr_content/par/featured_image/media-0.img.jpg/876/493/1456781257702.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump points as he speaks during a rally Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016, in Madison, Ala. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
I was going to write about how the Republican presidential campaign has become gutter politics, but given Donald Trump’s horrid statements, the gutter would be a step up, because things have descended into the sewer.
Never in modern times has there been a presidential candidate who has hurled more personal insults and hurtful accusations at his fellow candidates and others who disagree with him. It should embarrass a normal person, but Trump appears beyond embarrassment.
He criticizes Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, for dropping the F-bomb when he did the same thing during the New Hampshire primary campaign. He attacks Marco Rubio for repeating himself when Trump repeats himself repeatedly. He has criticized the personal appearance of Carly Fiorina, Rosie O’Donnell and Arianna Huffington, among others, when he isn’t much to look at. He tosses out words like “loser” and during the Houston debate responded to a question from radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt by saying no one listens to his program and his ratings are lousy.
The country is not served by such language. Neither does the political debate format serve the public when it resembles a cage match rather than a serious discussion about the multiple challenges facing America. There must be a better way to elect a president than this.
“Bully backs blowhard for president,” was the headline on The Daily Beast, referring to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s endorsement of Trump.
What continues to amaze is the strong backing of Trump by so many evangelicals. If their church members behaved as Trump does, they would receive a serious talking to by the deacons or pastor and if they didn’t repent and change their ways they might face expulsion. With Trump, most evangelical leaders have remained largely silent, offering neither criticism nor praise. This is what can happen when some pastors who are called to a different kingdom and a different King settle for an earthly kingdom and lesser king.
Does anyone know what Donald Trump’s position is on anything? Do they care? Apparently not from the sycophants who cheer his every insult at packed rallies around the country. He belittles, he whines and he complains that some in the media don’t treat him “fairly” when he has been on TV more than all of the other candidates combined. The reason for all the coverage he receives? He gets big ratings and the networks live for ratings.
One of the few evangelical leaders to take Trump on is San Antonio pastor and best-selling author, Max Lucado. In a recent blog post, Lucado says Trump’s “antics” “wouldn’t even be acceptable … for a middle-school student body election.”
In an interview with Christianity Today, Lucado was asked why he published his post, which he titled “Decency for President.” While saying he doesn’t bring politics into his church, he said he felt the need to speak out because of Trump’s “derision of people,” adding, “It would be none of my business, I would have absolutely no right to speak up except that he repeatedly brandishes the Bible and calls himself a Christian.”
“If he’s going to call himself a Christian one day and call someone a bimbo the next or make fun of somebody’s menstrual cycle, it’s just beyond reason to me.”
Beyond reason best describes the Trump campaign. It also explains the fealty so many have for a man with whom one hopes they have nothing in common — from his lifestyle, to his indecipherable politics, to his fact-challenged pronouncements.
In past elections some voters have complained about being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. If the nominee for the Democratic Party is Hillary Clinton, and if Republicans select Donald Trump, this election may force voters to choose between the least evil of two lessers.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/03/01/donald-trump-and-america-s-sewer-politics-campaign-beyond-embarrassment.html
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Props to you repubs for being complete honest about trump.
He's a liberal piece of shit. He's spend the past nine months destroying the reputations of the top republicans from the past decade, as well as future stars.
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Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Trump endorsement draws objections from his late father’s confidant
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/01/jerry-falwell-jr-s-trump-endorsement-draws-objections-from-his-late-fathers-confidant/
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Marco Rubio: Donald Trump 'the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency'
By Eugene Scott, CNN
March 4, 2016
Washington (CNN)Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Friday that Donald Trump is the most vulgar person to ever run for President of the United States.
"Donald Trump has been perhaps the most vulgar - no I don't think perhaps - the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency in terms of how he's carried out his candidacy," Rubio said
"The majority of the questions had something to do with he said or she said. I would love to have a policy debate. I think that's important," Rubio said
Washington (CNN)Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Friday that Donald Trump is the most vulgar person to ever run for President of the United States.
"Donald Trump has been perhaps the most vulgar -- no I don't think perhaps -- the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency in terms of how he's carried out his candidacy," he told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day."
RELATED: Donald Trump defends size of his penis
The Florida senator was responding to a question about a moment during Thursday night's Republican presidential debate hosted by Fox News when Trump assured American voters that despite what Rubio suggested on the campaign trail, there was "no problem" with the size of his hands -- or anything else.
"Look at those hands, are they small hands?" the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination said, raising them for viewers to see. "And, he referred to my hands -- 'if they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee."
Rubio said Trump's vulgarity has prevented candidates from discussing the policies affecting the American people.
"The majority of the questions had something to do with he said or she said," he said. "I would love to have a policy debate. I think that's important. We're talking about the presidency of the United States here."
Rubio in recent days on the campaign trail ramped up his teasing of the brash billionaire, including reviving a decades-old old insult, mocking Trump for having relatively slight hands.
"He's always calling me Little Marco. And I'll admit he's taller than me. He's like 6'2, which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5'2," Rubio said in Virginia on Sunday. "And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can't trust them."
Despite his disagreements with Trump, Rubio stood by his repeated pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee -- even if it's the real estate mogul -- something that he now said puts him and the American people in a tough place.
"That's the quandary I'm trying to avoid the Republicans Party having to face," he said. "I don't want us to have a nominee that people have to make up an excuse why their voting for or hold their nose and vote for. I want us to have a nominee that we're excited about."
Winning the general election with Trump as the nominee would be difficult.
"If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, we're going to have a party that's divided. We're going to have a party that's going to have to somehow justify to itself why it's voting for this man," Rubio said. "I think its hard to win an election with a nominee like that."
Rubio spoke to several shows the morning after the debate, including ABC's "Good Morning America," where he said he regretted "the way the campaign has become."
"Look, sometimes when someone is as offensive as he is, repeatedly, he needs to get a taste of his own medicine," Rubio said. "And let's be clear, nothing I have ever said comes anything close to what Donald Trump says regularly on a daily and routine basis. Not once."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/politics/marco-rubio-donald-trump-vulgar/index.html
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Rubio chose to step right down into the mud WITH trump. Rubio brought up penis size, perhaps the most vulgar part of all of this. He has lost any high ground with criticizing Trump for it.
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Props to you repubs for being complete honest about trump.
He's a liberal piece of shit. He's spend the past nine months destroying the reputations of the top republicans from the past decade, as well as future stars.
I may not agree with many things about others, but I have to say that I respect both DE and hh6 for denouncing the things Trump has said and not supporting him.
Forget the Liberal / Conservative crap for a second.
The things Trump has been saying are just completely un-American. They are the exact opposite of what this country is supposed to be about.
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I may not agree with many things about others, but I have to say that I respect both DE and hh6 for denouncing the things Trump has said and not supporting him.
Forget the Liberal / Conservative crap for a second.
The things Trump has been saying are just completely un-American. They are the exact opposite of what this country is supposed to be about.
The only reason Trump is getting any support at all, is because people are tired of career politicians. It is a FU from the American people to the "establishment". As far as Trump being christian, not relevant since the US is not a theocracy. Trump may be an asshole but he is not stupid, he saw the right time to run and grabbed it.
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Didn't Trump get more of the evangelical vote in Nevada and also some states on Super Tuesday than SuperFundie Ted Cruz.?
Since when is being a stupid vulgar bigot mutually exclusive with being a christian?
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Major Pro-Catholic Leaders Oppose Trump
(http://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=6a1df1f4-1473-47b7-8c59-88bbeb089d7d&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600)
Image: Major Pro-Catholic Leaders Oppose Trump
By Greg Richter | Monday, 07 Mar 2016
A group of Catholic leaders has signed a letter urging members of the faith "and all people of good will" to vote against Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.
In the letter, titled "An Appeal to Our Fellow Catholics," Princeton professor Robert P. George and George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center argue that Trump is "manifestly unfit to be president of the United States."
They cite his call for waterboarding terrorists and killing their families, and say that nothing in his record shows they can believe he will defend the rights of the unborn, religious freedom or limited government.
They admit Trump raises legitimate concerns about immigration, "political correctness," wage stagnation and other issues, but say another candidate would better serve those needs with resulting to what they term Trump's "vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and — we do not hesitate to use the word — demagoguery."
They do not endorse a candidate.
Other signatories include Mary Ellen Bork of the Ethics and Public Policy Center; Kate O’Beirne, former Washington editor for National Review; and Robert Royal, of the Faith and Reason Institute.
Read the full text below.
I am proud to be a co-signatory to the following letter authored by George Weigel and Professor Robert George that was released moments ago. The letter is an appeal to our fellow Catholics to reject the candidacy of Donald Trump and choose one of the qualified alternatives. The letter does not dismiss or deny many of the genuine concerns that have animated Trump supporters. Rather, it affirms that their frustrations are real and legitimate. Please share our message today with your family and friends, especially those living in key primary states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. -Brian
An Open Letter to Catholics, and all People of Good Will
In recent decades, the Republican party has been a vehicle — imperfect, like all human institutions, but serviceable — for promoting causes at the center of Catholic social concern in the United States:
(1) providing legal protection for unborn children, the physically disabled and cognitively handicapped, the frail elderly, and other victims of what Saint John Paul II branded “the culture of death”;
(2) defending religious freedom in the face of unprecedented assaults by officials at every level of government who have made themselves the enemies of conscience;
(3) rebuilding our marriage culture, based on a sound understanding of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and
(4) re-establishing constitutional and limited government, according to the core Catholic social-ethical principle of subsidiarity.
There have been frustrations along the way, to be sure; no political party perfectly embodies Catholic social doctrine. But there have also been successes, and at the beginning of the current presidential electoral cycle, it seemed possible that further progress in defending and advancing these noble causes was possible through the instrument of the Republican party.
That possibility is now in grave danger. And so are those causes.
Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States. His campaign has already driven our politics down to new levels of vulgarity. His appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice are offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility. He promised to order U.S. military personnel to torture terrorist suspects and to kill terrorists’ families — actions condemned by the Church and policies that would bring shame upon our country.
And there is nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us grounds for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to subsidiarity and the principle of limited constitutional government.
We understand that many good people, including Catholics, have been attracted to the Trump campaign because the candidate speaks to issues of legitimate and genuine concern: wage stagnation, grossly incompetent governance, profligate governmental spending, the breakdown of immigration law, inept foreign policy, stifling “political correctness” — for starters.
There are indeed many reasons to be concerned about the future of our country, and to be angry at political leaders and other elites. We urge our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to consider, however, that there are candidates for the Republican nomination who are far more likely than Mr. Trump to address these concerns, and who do not exhibit his vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and — we do not hesitate to use the word — demagoguery.
Mr. Trump’s record and his campaign show us no promise of greatness; they promise only the further degradation of our politics and our culture. We urge our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to reject his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination by supporting a genuinely reformist candidate.
Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University
George Weigel
Distinguished Senior Fellow and
William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies
Ethics and Public Policy Center
and Ryan T. Anderson
William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow
The Heritage Foundation
Stephen M. Barr
University of Delaware
Francis J. Beckwith
Professor of Philosophy and Church–State Studies
Baylor University
Mary Ellen Bork
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Board
Gerard V. Bradley
Professor of Law
University of Notre Dame
Don J. Briel
John Henry Newman Chair of Liberal Arts
University of Mary
Brian Burch
President
CatholicVote.org
James C. Capretta
Senior Fellow
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Joseph Cella
Founder
National Catholic Prayer Breakfast
Grazie Pozo Christie, M.D.
The Catholic Association
Ann Corkery
Founder
Catholic Voices USA
Neil Corkery
Sudan Relief Fund
David Paul Deavel
Interim Editor
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture
Mary Eberstadt
Senior Fellow
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Eduardo Echeverria
Professor of Philosophy and Systematic Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Thomas F. Farr
Director
Religious Freedom Project
Georgetown University
Matthew J. Franck
Director
William E. and Carol G. Simon Center
on Religion and the Constitution
Witherspoon Institute
Anna Halpine
Founder
World Youth Alliance
Mary Rice Hasson
Director
Catholic Women’s Forum
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Stephen J. Heaney
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of St. Thomas
John P. Hittinger
Pope John Paul II Forum
Center for Thomistic Studies
University of St. Thomas
Elizabeth M. Kelly
Managing Editor
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture
Rachel Lu
Senior Contributor
The Federalist
Bruce D. Marshall
Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine
Perkins School of Theology
Southern Methodist University
Robert T. Miller
Professor of Law and
F. Arnold Daum Fellow in Corporate Law
University of Iowa College of Law
Kate O’Beirne
Former Washington Editor
National Review
C. C. Pecknold
The Catholic University of America
Robert Royal
Faith and Reason Institute
Deborah Savage
Professor of Philosophy and Theology
University of St. Thomas
Timothy Samuel Shah
Religious Freedom Project
Georgetown University
Nina Shea
Director
Center for Religious Freedom
Hudson Institute
Hilary Towers
Developmental psychologist and author
David R. Upham
Associate Professor of Politics
University of Dallas
Edward Whelan
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Stephen P. White
Fellow
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Titles and affiliations of each individual are provided for identification purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individual signatories and do not necessarily represent the views of any organization or entity.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/catholic-leaders-oppose-trump/2016/03/07/id/717955/#ixzz42HMvs5vY
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The same guy who was butt-hurt that people questioned his faith. A stone cold hypocrite.
Trump Blasts Romney in Utah: 'Are You Sure He's a Mormon?"
By Sandy Fitzgerald
Saturday, 19 Mar 2016
Donald Trump had a question about Mitt Romney for his Salt Lake City supporters Friday night: "Are you sure he's a Mormon?"
"Do I love the Mormons? OK, I love the Mormons," Trump told the rally, held in the Utah city where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is headquartered, reports The Hill. "By the way, Mitt Romney is not one of them ... Are you sure he's a Mormon? Are we sure?"
The questions about Romney's faith, posed in a city that itself was founded by Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers, is the latest in the heated battle between Trump and the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, who has sworn his opposition against the current party front-runner.
This is not the first time Trump has questioned his rivals' religious faith, including posing doubts about Ben Carson's religion, as a Seventh-Day Adventist.
However, Trump took offense when Pope Francis questioned his Christianity in February, saying that it was "disgraceful" for him to doubt another person's faith.
Romney has not officially supported any candidate, although he announced earlier on Friday that he will vote for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Utah, where he owns a home, because he believes Cruz, not Ohio Gov. John Kasich, has the best chance of defeating Trump.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/romney-trump-utah-mormon/2016/03/19/id/719883/#ixzz43YiOG9kz
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Marco Rubio seemed like a decent guy until he started with his little Don Rickles routine.
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Marco Rubio seemed like a decent guy until he started with his little Don Rickles routine.
Are you bothered by Trump's hypocrisy?
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The same guy who was butt-hurt that people questioned his faith. A stone cold hypocrite.
Trump is really disrespectful when it comes to questioning what others believe.
I'm cool when people accuse obama of lying about his religion, but to question a republican is very mean.
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Trump is really disrespectful when it comes to questioning what others believe.
I'm cool when people accuse obama of lying about his religion, but to question a republican is very mean.
To actually judge whether another is a Christian or not is kind of strange. Especially when the ol' imaginary man told everyone "Judge not...."
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To actually judge whether another is a Christian or not is kind of strange. Especially when the ol' imaginary man told everyone "Judge not...."
Don't know if I ever met a Christian that wasn't a hypocrite
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Are you bothered by Trump's hypocrisy?
I consider myself to be pro-capitalist and have zero hatred for the rich but I'm just not a big fan of these big time multi-million dollar pastors.
For me it's more of a case of not really caring for the messenger.
I don't know that Trump is any more a hypocrite than this guy hoarding millions of dollars preaching the words of Christ.
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I consider myself to be pro-capitalist and have zero hatred for the rich but I'm just not a big fan of these big time multi-million dollar pastors.
For me it's more of a case of not really caring for the messenger.
I don't know that Trump is any more a hypocrite than this guy hoarding millions of dollars preaching the words of Christ.
You are comparing Trump to Lucado? I don't think there is any comparison, but what I was asking is whether you are bothered by Trump's hypocrisy. Are you saying you're not bothered by it because people who might be attacking Trump are also hypocrites?
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You are comparing Trump to Lucado? I don't think there is any comparison, but what I was asking is whether you are bothered by Trump's hypocrisy. Are you saying you're not bothered by it because people who might be attacking Trump are also hypocrites?
The term "hypocrisy" could be taken a million different directions.
I could just as easily say all these "Conservatives" who say they will vote third party(and thus a proxy vote for Hillary) rather than the guy who has already said numerous times he would nominate the justice "closest to Scalia" are hypocrites.
Anybody who claims to be Conservative and would vote in a manner helping to destroy the Supreme Court for the next 30 years by turning it liberal is certainly a hypocrite to me.
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Good to know the pastor believes in reason now that it is convenient. An entire "career" based on the neglect of reason....
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The term "hypocrisy" could be taken a million different directions.
I could just as easily say all these "Conservatives" who say they will vote third party(and thus a proxy vote for Hillary) rather than the guy who has already said numerous times he would nominate the justice "closest to Scalia" are hypocrites.
Anybody who claims to be Conservative and would vote in a manner helping to destroy the Supreme Court for the next 30 years by turning it liberal is certainly a hypocrite to me.
I'm specifically asking about Trump. Are you bothered by the fact he was butt-hurt when Carson, the Pope, and others questioned his faith, but did the same thing to others, including most recently to Romney?
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I may not agree with many things about others, but I have to say that I respect both DE and hh6 for denouncing the things Trump has said and not supporting him.
Forget the Liberal / Conservative crap for a second.
The things Trump has been saying are just completely un-American. They are the exact opposite of what this country is supposed to be about.
Could you explain what this country is supposed to be about please?
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I'm specifically asking about Trump. Are you bothered by the fact he was butt-hurt when Carson, the Pope, and others questioned his faith, but did the same thing to others, including most recently to Romney?
Does it bother me? I suppose a little bit.
But it's like Gregg Valentino said, "to get to that level you have to step over a few people and you are either the shark or the guppy being eaten up"
And it certainly doesn't bother me as much as a Liberal Supreme Court until I'm 60 years old.
Pull your heads out of your asses, "conservatives" this general election has big time far reaching consequences.
If Trump is such a disaster as you all claim then you simply primary his rotten self in 2020 with the Ted Cruz 'I Told You So' Campaign.
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Does it bother me? I suppose a little bit.
But it's like Gregg Valentino said, "to get to that level you have to step over a few people and you are either the shark or the guppy being eaten up"
And it certainly doesn't bother me as much as a Liberal Supreme Court until I'm 60 years old.
Pull your heads out of your asses, "conservatives" this general election has big time far reaching consequences.
If Trump is such a disaster as you all claim then you simply primary his rotten self in 2020 with the Ted Cruz 'I Told You So' Campaign.
Thanks. It bothers me a lot, but not as much as his other flaws: dishonesty, lack of conviction, immaturity, lack of discipline and self-control, lack of definitive policy positions, extreme narcissism, etc.
Trump is an absolute disaster. That's why the Trump vs. anti-Trump vote so far is 7 million to 12 million. That's why his honesty ratings are among the worst ever recorded for a presidential candidate. I'm certainly not supporting someone like that. And he's no better than Hillary IMO. He might even be worse. This really is a cruel joke.
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Thanks. It bothers me a lot, but not as much as his other flaws: dishonesty, lack of conviction, immaturity, lack of discipline and self-control, lack of definitive policy positions, extreme narcissism, etc.
Trump is an absolute disaster. That's why the Trump vs. anti-Trump vote so far is 7 million to 12 million. That's why his honesty ratings are among the worst ever recorded for a presidential candidate. I'm certainly not supporting someone like that. And he's no better than Hillary IMO. He might even be worse. This really is a cruel joke.
^^ It's like talking to a brick wall.
Enjoy your Liberal Supreme Court.
I'm sure it will be worth it when shit decision after shit decision gets handed down over the next few decades.
But you can rest assured that you made the right decision because "you didn't care for Donald Trump's tone"
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^^ It's like talking to a brick wall.
Enjoy your Liberal Supreme Court.
I'm sure it will be worth it when shit decision after shit decision gets handed down over the next few decades.
But you can rest assured that you made the right decision because "you didn't care for Donald Trump's tone"
Brick wall? Well I am pretty solid. :) I'm not one of those people who dislikes a particular politician for no reason. I've given my reasons why I and millions of others dislike Trump. And I certainly didn't conclude it was simply because I don't like his tone. Nonsense.
You are confident Trump will appoint Supreme Court justices like Scalia. I'm not. I don't believe a word that man says. So you can keep saying this is all about the Supreme Court, but you really cannot say it with any degree of reasonable conviction when it comes to Trump.
If your issue was really about the Supreme Court, you'd get behind Cruz.
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Brick wall? Well I am pretty solid. :) I'm not one of those people who dislikes a particular politician for no reason. I've given my reasons why I and millions of others dislike Trump. And I certainly didn't conclude it was simply because I don't like his tone. Nonsense.
You are confident Trump will appoint Supreme Court justices like Scalia. I'm not. I don't believe a word that man says. So you can keep saying this is all about the Supreme Court, but you really cannot say it with any degree of reasonable conviction when it comes to Trump.
If your issue was really about the Supreme Court, you'd get behind Cruz.
Are you kidding me? I know all about Ted Cruz. Before any of you on here.
I supported Ted Cruz going back to his long shot 2012 election versus David Dewhurst when he was a nobody and I am CERTAIN I was the first getbigger to mention his name on this site. If I wasn't so damn lazy I could probably pull up the posts to prove it.
It's like the legendary character Doyle said in the movie Slingblade - "You need to wake up and face this thing called reality"
I would love a Cruz presidency, but he probably isn't going to win the nomination.
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Are you kidding me? I know all about Ted Cruz. Before any of you on here.
I supported Ted Cruz going back to his long shot 2012 election versus David Dewhurst when he was a nobody and I am CERTAIN I was the first getbigger to mention his name on this site. If I wasn't so damn lazy I could probably pull up the posts to prove it.
It's like the legendary character Doyle said in the movie Slingblade - "You need to wake up and face this thing called reality"
I would love a Cruz presidency, but he probably isn't going to win the nomination.
I'm not competing with anyone about when they first started supporting Cruz, although I did create a thread about him three years ago, which I've been updating ever since. http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=477208.0
At this point, Cruz is more likely to be the nominee than Trump, because the GOP is headed to a contested convention. I really don't believe Trump will win a floor vote. I previously didn't think Cruz had a shot, but I've changed my mind after talking to some folks.
But back to Trump: supporting that maniac is lunacy IMO. Listening to him is surreal. I just cannot believe how ridiculously under qualified that man is to be president. I'm not sure I've heard him speak where his comments were not littered with overstatements and/or falsehoods. It's like listening to a little kid in an adult's body with a microphone. And billions in the bank. lol
Trump is in large part a media creation this cycle. Have you heard about the obscene amount of free air time he has gotten? What's funny, in a sick sort of way, is the MSM is now starting to panic a little because they think Trump might not only be the nominee (which they wanted), but win the general (which they clearly don't want).
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You are confident Trump will appoint Supreme Court justices like Scalia. I'm not. I don't believe a word that man says. .
And this is why the GOP is done when it comes to winning national elections, folks.
Trump has bent over backwards to be gracious in the past 3 or 4 trounce victories towards his opponents, mainly Cruz and Rubio.
He has stated over and over he wants to unify and bring the party together and he has stated again and again he would nominate the most conservative justice out there.
It's not enough for these people.
If they don't have a candidate that fits their little "17 point conservative checklist" they cry like 3 year olds.
Enjoy your Liberal Supreme Court shitting all over your rights.
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I'm not competing with anyone about when they first started supporting Cruz, although I did create a thread about him three years ago, which I've been updating ever since. http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=477208.0
Beat you.
A lot of it still comes down to likability. Look at Ted Cruz and Rand Paul...both of those guys are pretty far to the right and seem to have already began to establish some level of presence on the National Stage. I would take either one of those in a race against moderate Republicans in large portions of the country.
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And this is why the GOP is done when it comes to winning national elections, folks.
Trump has bent over backwards to be gracious in the past 3 or 4 trounce victories towards his opponents, mainly Cruz and Rubio.
He has stated over and over he wants to unify and bring the party together and he has stated again and again he would nominate the most conservative justice out there.
It's not enough for these people.
If they don't have a candidate that fits their little "17 point conservative checklist" they cry like 3 year olds.
Enjoy your Liberal Supreme Court shitting all over your rights.
Absurd.
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Beat you.
Ok. You win. By three months. Even though this isn't a contest. :)
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Absurd.
LIBERAL SUPREME COURT
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LIBERAL SUPREME COURT
Great commentary here. It addresses people with your current mindset about Trump, and how supporting Trump is really supporting Hillary. Hillary will likely beat Trump.
Believing the Unbelievable
Mar 28, 2016 | By Stephen F. Hayes
Here’s the new line from Donald Trump's cheerleaders in the conservative media: A refusal to support Trump is a de facto endorsement of Hillary Clinton. It's an argument they're making out of necessity, not conviction, trying to use peer pressure to achieve the unanimity their previous exhortations failed to produce.
First, they asked us to believe Trump was a conservative. But that argument couldn't survive a cursory look at his background, and it falls apart further with nearly every policy pronouncement Trump makes. Then they said he was antiestablishment. But Trump financed the establishment of both parties for years and is now telling anyone who will listen that he intends to go establishment once he gets the Republican nomination. Then they asked us to look past his boorishness and promised he'd tone it down as the process went on. But Trump continued his subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) race-baiting and lately has encouraged violence against those who protest at his rallies. And when his supporters answered his call, he defended their actions and once again raised the possibility that he'd pay the legal fees of offenders. They promised he'd surround himself with the very best people. But Trump's campaign manager manhandled a female reporter, and when Trump was asked last week to make good on his promise to name his foreign policy advisers, he said: "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things. . . . My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff."
Trump is manifestly unqualified for the office he seeks. And despite the best efforts of Trump boosters to persuade people otherwise, many Republican primary voters remain unconvinced.
In the five contests held on March 15, the share of GOP primary voters who told pollsters flatly they would not support Trump if he becomes the nominee ranged from roughly a quarter to a third. When GOP voters were asked if they'd be "satisfied" with a Clinton vs. Trump matchup or if they'd look at supporting a third-party candidate, the numbers were staggering. In Missouri and Illinois, 43 percent of GOP primary voters said they'd "seriously consider voting for a third-party candidate." In Ohio, 42 percent said they were potential third-party voters. In North Carolina it was 39 percent, and in Florida, Trump's best state that day, 3 in 10 Republican primary voters said they'd seriously consider a third party.
As those numbers indicate, a large swath of the Republican primary electorate is either so stubbornly opposed to Trump that they will not vote for him or dissatisfied enough that they will consider alternatives outside of their party. Those percentages may diminish, but given the intensity of views about Trump, they may not come down that far. So much for the myth, eagerly propagated by Trump enthusiasts, that the battle for the GOP nomination is a fight between Donald Trump and the protectors of the "establishment" in Washington.
Having failed to ease concerns about Trump's character and convictions, his advocates are now making a different case: Trump will crush Hillary Clinton in a general election. It's a revealing tack—answering objections about temperament and philosophy with claims about electability. It's also highly dubious.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich says that with support from the "Republican establishment," Trump could turn his effort "into a Reagan campaign like 1980 and have the party win a stunning victory."
Stunning is one word for it. Ronald Reagan won 10 times the electoral votes of Jimmy Carter—489-49—in 1980, winning 55 percent of the votes cast for the two major-party candidates. Reagan won all but six states. The map of the 1980 election is almost entirely red, with a few spots of blue.
It was a landslide. Donald Trump matching that feat is, well, improbable.
Hillary Clinton has beaten Donald Trump in 43 of the past 49 head-to-head national polls. Sixty-seven percent of American voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll out last week, and 56 percent say their view is "strongly" unfavorable. His favorable rating is at 30 percent, giving him a net favorable rating of negative 37. That's not only the lowest rating of any candidate in the 2016 race, it's among the lowest ratings seen in modern history.
Clinton has abysmal honest/trustworthy ratings; Trump's are lower—in some cases nearly twice as bad as Clinton's. In head-to-head comparisons with Trump, she's seen as a candidate who is more empathetic and relatable and who has the right experience for the job. And, importantly, the more voters have seen of him, the worse he's looked. His numbers in all of those categories have declined since September, in some cases markedly.
A separate Washington Post poll released in late January found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans say that the idea of a Trump presidency gives them "anxiety." For Clinton, it's 5 in 10. (Fifty-one percent say they're "very" anxious about Trump; 35 percent say the same of Clinton.)
Trump regularly claims he'll do well with Hispanic voters, the nation's fastest-growing voter bloc. But a Washington Post/Univision poll from February found that 8 in 10 Hispanic voters have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, with 7 in 10 having a very unfavorable view of him. In a head-to-head among Hispanic voters, Clinton beats Trump 73-16—some 13 points worse than Mitt Romney fared in 2012.
In 2012, Romney won 59 percent of the white vote and lost by five million votes. Trump is now polling below Romney's anemic 27 percent performance among Hispanics and below Romney's 17 percent among all nonwhites. That means Trump would have to win almost 70 percent among whites to gain a popular majority in a likely 2016 electorate. That's better than any Republican has ever performed in the history of exit polling.
Importantly, Trump's unpopularity isn't new. Although he's grown less acceptable to general election voters even as he's become better known, he never looked like a strong general election candidate.
Is it possible for Trump to win a general election against Hillary Clinton? Sure. She's an awful candidate who is under FBI investigation and stands a reasonable chance of being indicted or having one or more of her top aides charged with serious crimes. Trump enthusiasts rightly point out that his polling at the beginning of the GOP nominating process was also pretty grim. If Trump were to prevail, it would be one of the most dramatic reversals of electability prospects in recent memory. The closing argument from Trump enthusiasts isn't much of an argument at all. It's a wish.
In short, the same people who have asked us to overlook his cronyism, his liberalism, and his chauvinism now want us to disbelieve all the data on Trump's electability, and some of them would have us believe he wouldn't just win but would triumph in a landslide.
When that doesn't happen—and when Trump either loses or proves a disastrous president—they'll go looking for someone to blame.
They won't have to look far.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/believing-the-unbelievable/article/2001620
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Great commentary here. It addresses people with your current mindset about Trump, and how supporting Trump is really supporting Hillary. Hillary will likely beat Trump.
Believing the Unbelievable
Mar 28, 2016 | By Stephen F. Hayes
Here’s the new line from Donald Trump's cheerleaders in the conservative media: A refusal to support Trump is a de facto endorsement of Hillary Clinton. It's an argument they're making out of necessity, not conviction, trying to use peer pressure to achieve the unanimity their previous exhortations failed to produce.
First, they asked us to believe Trump was a conservative. But that argument couldn't survive a cursory look at his background, and it falls apart further with nearly every policy pronouncement Trump makes. Then they said he was antiestablishment. But Trump financed the establishment of both parties for years and is now telling anyone who will listen that he intends to go establishment once he gets the Republican nomination. Then they asked us to look past his boorishness and promised he'd tone it down as the process went on. But Trump continued his subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) race-baiting and lately has encouraged violence against those who protest at his rallies. And when his supporters answered his call, he defended their actions and once again raised the possibility that he'd pay the legal fees of offenders. They promised he'd surround himself with the very best people. But Trump's campaign manager manhandled a female reporter, and when Trump was asked last week to make good on his promise to name his foreign policy advisers, he said: "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things. . . . My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff."
Trump is manifestly unqualified for the office he seeks. And despite the best efforts of Trump boosters to persuade people otherwise, many Republican primary voters remain unconvinced.
In the five contests held on March 15, the share of GOP primary voters who told pollsters flatly they would not support Trump if he becomes the nominee ranged from roughly a quarter to a third. When GOP voters were asked if they'd be "satisfied" with a Clinton vs. Trump matchup or if they'd look at supporting a third-party candidate, the numbers were staggering. In Missouri and Illinois, 43 percent of GOP primary voters said they'd "seriously consider voting for a third-party candidate." In Ohio, 42 percent said they were potential third-party voters. In North Carolina it was 39 percent, and in Florida, Trump's best state that day, 3 in 10 Republican primary voters said they'd seriously consider a third party.
As those numbers indicate, a large swath of the Republican primary electorate is either so stubbornly opposed to Trump that they will not vote for him or dissatisfied enough that they will consider alternatives outside of their party. Those percentages may diminish, but given the intensity of views about Trump, they may not come down that far. So much for the myth, eagerly propagated by Trump enthusiasts, that the battle for the GOP nomination is a fight between Donald Trump and the protectors of the "establishment" in Washington.
Having failed to ease concerns about Trump's character and convictions, his advocates are now making a different case: Trump will crush Hillary Clinton in a general election. It's a revealing tack—answering objections about temperament and philosophy with claims about electability. It's also highly dubious.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich says that with support from the "Republican establishment," Trump could turn his effort "into a Reagan campaign like 1980 and have the party win a stunning victory."
Stunning is one word for it. Ronald Reagan won 10 times the electoral votes of Jimmy Carter—489-49—in 1980, winning 55 percent of the votes cast for the two major-party candidates. Reagan won all but six states. The map of the 1980 election is almost entirely red, with a few spots of blue.
It was a landslide. Donald Trump matching that feat is, well, improbable.
Hillary Clinton has beaten Donald Trump in 43 of the past 49 head-to-head national polls. Sixty-seven percent of American voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll out last week, and 56 percent say their view is "strongly" unfavorable. His favorable rating is at 30 percent, giving him a net favorable rating of negative 37. That's not only the lowest rating of any candidate in the 2016 race, it's among the lowest ratings seen in modern history.
Clinton has abysmal honest/trustworthy ratings; Trump's are lower—in some cases nearly twice as bad as Clinton's. In head-to-head comparisons with Trump, she's seen as a candidate who is more empathetic and relatable and who has the right experience for the job. And, importantly, the more voters have seen of him, the worse he's looked. His numbers in all of those categories have declined since September, in some cases markedly.
A separate Washington Post poll released in late January found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans say that the idea of a Trump presidency gives them "anxiety." For Clinton, it's 5 in 10. (Fifty-one percent say they're "very" anxious about Trump; 35 percent say the same of Clinton.)
Trump regularly claims he'll do well with Hispanic voters, the nation's fastest-growing voter bloc. But a Washington Post/Univision poll from February found that 8 in 10 Hispanic voters have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, with 7 in 10 having a very unfavorable view of him. In a head-to-head among Hispanic voters, Clinton beats Trump 73-16—some 13 points worse than Mitt Romney fared in 2012.
In 2012, Romney won 59 percent of the white vote and lost by five million votes. Trump is now polling below Romney's anemic 27 percent performance among Hispanics and below Romney's 17 percent among all nonwhites. That means Trump would have to win almost 70 percent among whites to gain a popular majority in a likely 2016 electorate. That's better than any Republican has ever performed in the history of exit polling.
Importantly, Trump's unpopularity isn't new. Although he's grown less acceptable to general election voters even as he's become better known, he never looked like a strong general election candidate.
Is it possible for Trump to win a general election against Hillary Clinton? Sure. She's an awful candidate who is under FBI investigation and stands a reasonable chance of being indicted or having one or more of her top aides charged with serious crimes. Trump enthusiasts rightly point out that his polling at the beginning of the GOP nominating process was also pretty grim. If Trump were to prevail, it would be one of the most dramatic reversals of electability prospects in recent memory. The closing argument from Trump enthusiasts isn't much of an argument at all. It's a wish.
In short, the same people who have asked us to overlook his cronyism, his liberalism, and his chauvinism now want us to disbelieve all the data on Trump's electability, and some of them would have us believe he wouldn't just win but would triumph in a landslide.
When that doesn't happen—and when Trump either loses or proves a disastrous president—they'll go looking for someone to blame.
They won't have to look far.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/believing-the-unbelievable/article/2001620
I'm hoping this is all just healthy "down the stretch, primary dog fight" talk and once the dust settles come November we all wake up to the reality of the implications of this general election and come behind whoever RIGHTFULLY DESERVES the GOP nomination and prevents a Liberal Supreme Court for the next 30 years of our lives.
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I'm hoping this is all just healthy "down the stretch, primary dog fight" talk and once the dust settles come November we all wake up to the reality of the implications of this general election and come behind whoever RIGHTFULLY DESERVES the GOP nomination and prevents a Liberal Supreme Court for the next 30 years of our lives.
Dude. Did you read the commentary? This should concern you:
Hillary Clinton has beaten Donald Trump in 43 of the past 49 head-to-head national polls. Sixty-seven percent of American voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll out last week, and 56 percent say their view is "strongly" unfavorable. His favorable rating is at 30 percent, giving him a net favorable rating of negative 37. That's not only the lowest rating of any candidate in the 2016 race, it's among the lowest ratings seen in modern history.
This should bother you too:
In 2012, Romney won 59 percent of the white vote and lost by five million votes. Trump is now polling below Romney's anemic 27 percent performance among Hispanics and below Romney's 17 percent among all nonwhites. That means Trump would have to win almost 70 percent among whites to gain a popular majority in a likely 2016 electorate. That's better than any Republican has ever performed in the history of exit polling.
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Dude. Did you read the commentary? This should concern you:
Hillary Clinton has beaten Donald Trump in 43 of the past 49 head-to-head national polls. Sixty-seven percent of American voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll out last week, and 56 percent say their view is "strongly" unfavorable. His favorable rating is at 30 percent, giving him a net favorable rating of negative 37. That's not only the lowest rating of any candidate in the 2016 race, it's among the lowest ratings seen in modern history.
This should bother you too:
In 2012, Romney won 59 percent of the white vote and lost by five million votes. Trump is now polling below Romney's anemic 27 percent performance among Hispanics and below Romney's 17 percent among all nonwhites. That means Trump would have to win almost 70 percent among whites to gain a popular majority in a likely 2016 electorate. That's better than any Republican has ever performed in the history of exit polling.
I understand every single concern lined up there.
But these are spring/summer issues. "Right now" issues.
Fast forward 6 months, when the final GOP nominee is named, you get behind him and crawl on broken glass to support him because the option of a Hillary/Liberal Supreme Court is much worse.
This is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that cannot be overlooked...a Hillary presidency.
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I understand every single concern lined up there.
But these are spring/summer issues. "Right now" issues.
Fast forward 6 months, when the final GOP nominee is named, you get behind him and crawl on broken glass to support him because the option of a Hillary/Liberal Supreme Court is much worse.
This is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that cannot be overlooked...a Hillary presidency.
Yes I agree this is only March and things could change by November.
That said, there is still the issue of whether Trump can be trusted. You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that Trump will nominate the kinds of justices you want on the Supreme Court. You have to ignore an awful lot to reach that mindset.
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I understand every single concern lined up there.
But these are spring/summer issues. "Right now" issues.
Fast forward 6 months, when the final GOP nominee is named, you get behind him and crawl on broken glass to support him because the option of a Hillary/Liberal Supreme Court is much worse.
This is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that cannot be overlooked...a Hillary presidency.
1000% agreed. Any voter staying home as a Republican/conservative because Trump gets the nod is going to immensely regret it. They are fools. No candidate is as clearly repugnant as her.