You've probably heard about the new ABC/Washington Post poll that shows Donald Trump opening up a big lead among Republican presidential contenders, pulling 24 percent of respondents compared with second-place Scott Walker's 13 percent. The political media, of course, are flabbergasted as to how Trump could possibly be doing so well given that they consider him an un-serious joke of a candidate.
I am not arguing here that Trump should be president, but in a battle of wits between Trump and the political media, Trump wins every time. And that's exactly why he's leading the race at the moment. He's playing them like a fiddle.
Look, here's how it is: Coverage of the presidential nomination race at this point is about anything but policy positions, governing skill and track records. If those things were the focus of coverage, then John Kasich's entry into the race would be a significant story - and again, I'm not saying he's my choice, but his background as the House Budget Committee chairman and as governor of Ohio make him a very credible candidate worthy of serious consideration and, yes, scrutiny too.
Instead, it remains all Trump all the time, by the very media who claim to consider Trump a joke.
Why? Because the political media are obsessed with the sort of story that puts Trump in the spotlight time and time again. They get excited about controversial (they think) things people say, about "gaffes," about insults, about bombast . . . all the sort of stuff that's Trump's specialty. But here's where they're going wrong, and where Trump is outsmarting them at every turn.
They think the rules of the game are these: Candidate sticks foot in mouth. Media pounces. Candidate "walks it back". (Who invented that idiotic expression?) Rivals denounce. Candidate attempts damage control. Media decides whether to declare candidate has recovered. Candidate either survives to campaign another day or folds up the tent. And of course, in Trump's case, there would never be any declaration of recovery.
The problem for the media is that Trump doesn't play that game. The way Trump plays the game is as follows: Trump says whatever he wants to say. Media pounces. Trump tells media and anyone else who doesn't like it to go to hell. Media has apoplectic seizure, thus putting Trump front and center day after day after day. Trump continues to defy media and do what he wants. Media covers Trump's intransigence as if it were the biggest news story of all time. Trump soars to the top of the polls.
Trump's lead is the media's creation, and he's very intentionally manipulating them into it. He understands that anyone who doesn't play by their rules will become the ongoing focus of their ire, but the other thing he understands that typical politicians don't is that you're better off continuing to defy them than you are meekly backing down on the dumbass theory that "you shouldn't start a fight with people who by ink by the barrel." Far from it, get them to use their barrels of ink to your benefit.
If the political media focused on issue positions and governing credentials, Trump would still have a shot at some coverage, but there's no way he'd be dominating the news coverage day after day - and that news coverage dominance is the only reason he's at the top of the polls. With so many people running, it's only natural that no one candidate is breaking out of the pack right now. So if someone can make himself the center of attention for the moment, he'll soar to the top of the polls solely on his momentary dominance of the public's attention.
My personal belief is that the ongoing story of Trump's bombast gets tired after awhile and he falls back to the pack when that happens. Then again, having the public's attention to the extent he does presents an opportunity to roll out a more serious governing vision - detailed policy positions and so forth. He does have some. When he appeared the week before last on Herman's show, the boss actually asked him about some of these things and Trump gave what I thought were at least some minimally substantive answers. Keep that up could give him a chance to solidify his status a truly serious contender.
Of course, that would present some other challenges. One is that he'd have to explain how to square some of his proposals with conflicting positions he's taken in the past. But more to the point, if he starts talking about policy substance, the media will get bored and stop paying attention to him, because they have neither any interest in substance nor any ability to comprehend it.
They should know, though, that they've created Donald Trump's moment, and that he knew exactly what he was doing when he set out to manipulate them into it. If they really don't want Trump in the race any longer, they can make that happen fairly easily just by turning their focus elsewhere. But the guess here is that they can't control themselves and Trump knows that perfectly well.
