Hes big and hes brash and he brags like a sailor on shore leave. All fine for a TV personality hyping his new show. But Donald Trump is talking about running for the highest office in the land.
Lets not let him. Whatever happens.
Lets stop inviting this baloney business magnate to speak at tea party picnics. Lets stop asking him serious questions about national policy so he can blather back the answers he thinks we want to hear. Let's stop following his combination political and TV-show malarkey on E! channel. And let's definitely stop comparing him as one commentator did last week to Ronald Reagan.
It's time to derail the Donald Trump Presidential Express while it's still at the station.
In case you missed it, Trump appeared Sunday morning on CNN's "State of the Union."
It made me wonder which is more embarrassing to the GOP, this 20 minutes of self-aggrandizing clown talk repeated every time he faces a camera, or the fact that Republican voters are buying it and putting him ahead in so many 2012 presidential polls.
First question Sunday, CNN's Candy Crowley asked Trump about possible 2012 rival Mitt Romney. In that condescending, I-just-feel-sorry-for-the-poor-shmuck tone of his, Trump said he's a better businessman than the former Massachusetts governor (who is "just a small-business guy"), that he has a "much, much bigger net worth. I mean, my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney's."
Trump went on during Sunday's interview to deliver a description of his business bio. Here is some of it:
"I've built a great company. And one of the beauties of, frankly, if and when I announce, some time prior to June, you will see how big my company is, because it's much bigger and much more powerful and much stronger than anyone really knows. So you're going to see how good it is. You're going to see how strong it is. It's a big, strong company that I built. And I have thousands and thousands of jobs that I've created over the years ..."
Does this sound presidential to you? Anybody?
I know, I know. Lots of people plain don't care what he looks like up close and personal. I got into a conversation last week with a man holding a sign near the Capitol. He told me he's a Donald Trump fan. "OK," he said, "(Trump's) attitude may or may not make him good company in a lifeboat. But I think a big ego is a great characteristic to have in business. And if Donald Trump runs, I'm voting for him because we need a top class businessman running this country."
Hmm. Top class. Does Trump really fit that description? True, Forbes lists his weath at $2.4 billion, give or take. But fortune and arrogance and windbaggery don't make Trump the businessman who will lead this country to the promised land. The wealth and patter are nothing more than a distraction. A diversion from what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of the story."
And the rest of the story? It's how he got here from there. It's his bankruptcies. He's had three of them. Trump, the real estate mogul, has managed to stiff bond holders and duck out of a ledger-list of company debts and still keep his billions. How? The man doesn't get personally involved. He knows how to protect his personal finances. In all three instances, his corporations have done the filing; he personally has not.
He will tell you he created a gazillion jobs -- the number is large and vague and changes from interview to interview. But remember this: In those business failures he's also lost plenty of them.
Is Donald Trump a "good businessman" for America or is he part of the reason the economy tanked in the first place?
While millions of Americans try to save their homes, try to climb out of bankruptcy or scrape and claw to avoid it, here's Trump riding a wave of the same financial strategy that brought them down and keeps them there. Trump's path to prosperity is legal, not admirable. Nevertheless, he may want the country to reward him with the presidency. He claims he's going to make an announcement about running when his "Celebrity Apprentice" show ends.
Meanwhile, to set the record straight, "small-business guy" Romney is a former venture capitalist with a record of turning around failing companies. He even helped launch the Staples office supply chain and bought Domino's Pizza, all the while heading up Bain Capital and eventually turning it from tragedy to triumph.
I'm not trying to promote Romney when I say this, but to the best of my knowledge, he has never filed Chapter 7, 11 or 13 bankruptcy, either personally or through a corporation.
Columnist Nancy Smith can be reached at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
