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!
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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.)