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PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 29, 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM The Trump pivot By MICHAEL GERSON WASHINGTON – Word on the street is that Donald Trump wants to hire a serious campaign team and give some serious policy speeches – 10 months after his presidential announcement and just as he has nearly secured the Republican nomination. A consistent plurality of GOP primary voters has found such establishment credentials – a campaign with actual content – to be unnecessary. Trump’s disdain for outsiders and his air of authenticity have been enough. But now, according to campaign adviser Paul Manafort, Trump will demonstrate “more depth,” show that he is “evolving” and change “the part that he’s been playing.” The campaign has promised to hire speechwriters and Trump is practicing on a teleprompter in his offi ce. “At some point,” says Trump, “I’m going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored.” In the Trump pivot, he may move right, or left, or some incomprehensible combination of the two. (How many supporters of Planned Parenthood have the immediate instinct to punish women who have abortions?) Lacking a political philosophy, the reactions of any given day are uncertain. Trump is the quantum candidate: You can know his position on an issue, or the date on a calendar, but it is impossible to predict both at once. Any rebranding effort must honestly confront the problems of the brand. Trump has a disapproval rating of 70 percent among women and the highest overall disapproval rating recorded by Gallup since it began tracking this measure in 1992. Among voters 18 to 24, Trump loses to Hillary Clinton (who is notoriously weak among younger voters) by 25 points. A recent poll found Trump with 11 percent support among Latinos, the lowest support for a Republican presidential candidate since polls began tracking Latino votes. In Florida – won by Jeb and George W. Bush as governor and president – Trump is losing to Clinton among Hispanic voters by 51 points. Fifty- one points. A recovery from these problems would require spectacular and sustained political skills that Trump has never demonstrated. Trump has only shown one skill: displaying the Trump persona in public. His campaign is crippled by a technology developed by Thomas Edison – the ability to record the human voice. Trump can’t be the candidate who didn’t call for the systematic exclusion of Muslims at the border; the candidate who didn’t call for the mass expulsion of 11 million undocumented workers; the candidate who didn’t call women bimbos and fat pigs and attack the looks of an opponent’s wife. Trump has spent years purposely cultivating an image that is misogynist and “politically incorrect” on racial issues. There are limits to a speechwriter’s ability to make his cruel and cold creed seem warm and lifelike – as there are limits to the taxidermist’s art. In fact, Trump has been so vitriolic, so irresponsible, so far over the line, that he would need a commensurate repudiation of his previous views in order to be persuasive. He would need to reverse himself on immigration, on religious bias and on a national security policy consisting of war crimes. Rebranding Trump would require the repudiation of Trumpism, thus undermining the appeal of authenticity at the heart of his candidacy. GOP leaders such as Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus are trying to pretend this is a normal political moment, in which the party should forget its disagreements and unite against the Democrat. “We can’t win,” Priebus says, “unless we rally around whoever becomes our nominee.” This is a dangerous delusion. If Trump is chosen in Cleveland, the Republican Party is headed toward electoral disaster, all the way down the ticket. Many – if not most – Republican candidates at the state and local level would need to run in revolt against their party’s presidential pick. It was under Priebus’ leadership that the 2012 Republican “autopsy” was produced, a document calling for accelerated outreach to women, the young and Latino voters. Trump represents the reversal of everything Priebus had planned for the Republican future. If Priebus ends up blessing the Trump nomination, the results would reach far beyond 2016. It would turn the sins of Trump into the sins of the GOP. And Priebus would go down as the head of the party who squandered the legacy of Lincoln, the legacy of Reagan, in a squalid and hopeless political effort. If Trump wins in Cleveland, Priebus should think beyond the current election and demonstrate the existence of a party better than its nominee. The head of the RNC should resign, rather than be complicit as his party is defi led. guest column (Washington Post Writers Group) Obama’s Legacy Tour By PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY President Obama quietly slipped out of the country last week for a world tour intended to enhance his “legacy” as a globalist. His fi rst stop was Saudi Arabia to reassure King Salman of America’s continued support for that brutal absolute monarchy, where Christians are forbidden to worship openly. Obama then went to London to socialize with members of Britain’s royal family and play a round of golf with Prime Minister Cameron. At a joint news conference with the prime minister, Obama advised the British public how to vote on “Brexit,” the June 23 referendum on whether to leave the European Union. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is prohibited from expressing her personal views on such a controversial matter, but that didn’t stop America’s head of state from intruding on another country’s domestic political issue. Just as in our own presidential race, the loss of national sovereignty is a major issue in the United Kingdom where public opinion forced the government to call a referendum on continued membership in the EU. Obama even published an op-ed in Britain’s Daily Telegraph to urge Britain to stay in the European Union. Suggesting that national sovereignty is merely a relic of the past that “we all cherish,” Obama wrote that today’s challenges of “migration, economic inequality, the threats of terrorism and climate change” require “collective action.” No, the best way to control “migration” and “the threats of terrorism” is to restore national sovereignty. Events of the past year -- from the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, to the way Germany was overrun by more than a million Muslims from the Middle East -- prove the failure of “collective action” through the EU superstate. President Obama obviously doesn’t believe in national sovereignty, but has used every available way to tie us down in a web of global controls and commitments. Hence the enthusiasm by ordinary Americans for presidential candidates who promise to reverse the bipartisan “consensus” run by and for the elites. The U.S. presidential race in both parties has come down to three aspects of national sovereignty: controlling our borders, regulating trade in the interests of American workers, and avoiding pointless foreign wars in the Middle East. On all three issues, Hillary Clinton is on the wrong side, and so are the Republican kingmakers who are trying to stop Donald Trump and Ted Cruz from winning the Republican nomination. While Obama was campaigning for global governance in London, his Secretary of State John Kerry was in New York to sign the global climate change agreement adopted with great fanfare in Paris last December. Some 175 nations sent representatives to the UN for a signing ceremony on Earth Day. Many of the 175 nations plan to submit the agreement to be ratifi ed by their respective legislatures, but Obama has no plans to seek the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. As Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) says, “The only reason President Obama is not sending the Paris Climate Agreement to the Senate as a treaty is that he knows the Senate would handily reject it.” Lack of ratifi cation is not stopping Obama from implementing what he considers a binding agreement containing enforceable “pledges” other views It’s spring! Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS NEWS EDITOR Craig Murphy editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric A. Howald news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes The weather has improved, the outdoors are drier and warmer so conditions invite the planting of one’s favorite fl owers and vegetables. The amateur gardener like me has gone to a nursery and bought seeds or small plants already underway. A day or two is spent getting the ground ready by way of a bag or two of topsoil and with some rainfall, but not too much, all by way of getting things to grow to adult-size and eventual harvest or vase display indoors. You retire for overnight from your labor and wait for happenings. You come out the next morning to survey the products of your work and – the horrors! – the leaves have been half- or fully-chewed away and it appears that there’ll be no fl owers or veggies for you to visually enjoy or enjoy in tasty eating. Meet the snails and slugs that have been laid as eggs in the ground last fall and have slept through the winter in anticipation of those warm rains and sunny days that bring them to life with big appetites. However, not all need be lost. When in matters of those items that grow in the ground and things agricultural, there’s the Oregon State University Extension and Experiment Station Communications. Most recently, those in need of help with the scourge of slugs and snails can look to what OSU Extension Service master gardener Claudia Groth has to offer those gardeners who seek advice on garden growth survival. Of course, slugs and snails are aroused to action when spring arrives as then they rise from their winter hiding places underground to feast on tender seedlings, emerging plants and even seeds as all this takes place when the soil temperature gets above 50 degrees. The advantage these creatures have against you is they’re equipped with tongues lined with thousands of tiny, very sharp teeth. Unfortunately, once the leaves are nipped, the damage is there all summer long. These pests are selective in what they love to eat, like petunias, but they don’t usually bother geraniums. In the veggie- and fruit- bearing areas, they like lettuce and other salad greens like broccoli, beans and strawberries. These gene h. mcintyre to reduce the use of carbon fuels. Obama’s Clean Power Plan regulation was temporarily blocked by the Supreme Court shortly before Justice Scalia died, but a host of other costly regulations are moving forward with little or no resistance from the Republican Congress. At the very least, Senator Lee says, Congress must block any more payments to the UN’s Green Climate Fund, to which taxpayers have already sent $500 million. That’s in addition to the $10 billion a year our government wastes on “green” energy schemes, which can’t provide steady, reliable and affordable electricity. Obama concluded his weeklong foreign trip in Germany, where he praised Chancellor Angela Merkel’s disastrous mishandling of Muslim migrants and refugees, saying she’s “on the right side of history on this.” No, the right side of history would have been to emulate the Polish King Jan Sobieski who turned back Muslim invaders at the Gates of Vienna on Sept. 11, 1683. German sovereignty is now so compromised that Merkel agreed to prosecute a German comedian for reciting a poem that she said was “intentionally insulting” to the Turkish president. Turkey controls the fl ow of migrants and refugees into Germany, and could easily send many more. Even in our country, political correctness has prevented an open discussion of how immigration is changing our culture. We need a president who restores national sovereignty and puts Americans fi rst. (Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author. Her most recent books are Who Killed the American Family? and the 50th anniversary edition of A Choice Not An Echo. She can be contacted by e-mail at phyllis@ eagleforum.org.) gardener frustraters go on attack at night while they look for protected places during the day. A search and seizure approach of all places where they may be hiding will bear “fruit” as I have found them even on the inside lid of my “green” garbage can which is kept outside at my house. Sneaky devils they are, they’ve been known to hide even under gloves left unattended in the garden. Along with the “to do” above here, Groth recommends the following actions with which I agree: (1) Water in the morning or you’ll provide them the best means of transportation if all’s wet at night; (2) Although it’s against my better instincts, use “beer traps” by pouring beer in a shallow container and place it strategically in your garden; (3) Avoid salt use, as it damages soil and plants therein; and (4) Go out after dark with gloves on and pick them up for disposal as you see fi t. Further help can be obtained by a search of the National Pesticide Information Center at OSU. We own no stock in the company but have found a liquid product at Fred Meyer called Force II, Deadline Slug and Snail Killer. It leaves nothing to guess work in our garden. Best wishes for gardener success! (Gene H. McIntyre’s column appears weekly in the Keizertimes.)