Trumped Up!

I liked Melania's speech and I loved Chris Chrisite's speech. That's my governor. So go to hell.

Mr. Trump is trying a different tack with his campaign and convention. Will it work? I dunno.

Here is what I do know, the policy wonk conventions, the speeches talking about top marginal tax rates, school vouchers, flat taxes and medicare reform are all flops. I should know. I've written before about being the Gen X conservative, the policy wonk type with all this ideas about bettering government. We came of age in the 1990's after the great existential battles of the 70's and 80's were won. The right won those battles because they were talking about broad themes, no boring audiences with the minutia of private garbage collection vs  public. Private is better btw. Rubio and Cruz, they're my guys, and they're also planning vacations in November.

I suppose the great architect of this kind of conservatism is Karl Rove, Bush's campaign guru. He watched what the Clintons did to Newt, the ultimate conservative policy-wonk and concluded you had to play defense, you had to be safe.

Karl Rove is a loser.

I love how other losers are lecturing Mr. Trump on what he has to do. Bob Dole says he needs to make amends. Norm Coleman, who lost the '98 governor's race in MN to Jesse Ventura, only won his senate race in '02 because of extraordinary circumstances, and lost that seat in 2008 to Al Franken, won't vote for him. Jeb! is boycotting the convention.

He blew the 2000 election, Bush was leading with a week left and Rove told him to take it easy, don't do too much, don't make a mistake, sit on the lead, prevent mistakes. Anyone whose ever watched an NFL game  knows how this ended. The prevent defense prevents you from winning. OK, he won in 2004 but think that was more to the organizational skills of grand game operators like Ed Gillespie and Ken Mehlman.

In 2012, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS which spent something like a hundred million bucks, was humiliated.

So basically, the guys like me, well, we don't know much about winning presidential elections.

Say what you want about Mr. Trump, he's a winner.