Winner of the Week: Donald Trump
Editor’s Note: This is a weekly feature where we single out which 2016 presidential candidate did the best job crafting a winning message, based on the 10 Commandments of Political Warfare from Steve Deace’s book “Rules for Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again.”
Previous Winners:
Week of March 17th: Rand Paul
Week of March 24th: Ted Cruz
Week of March 31st: Ted Cruz
Week of April 7th: Bobby Jindal
Week of April 14th: Rand Paul
Week of April 21st: Rick Santorum
Week of April 28th: Scott Walker
Week of May 5th: Ted Cruz
Week of May 12th: Carly Fiorina
Week of May 19th: Bobby Jindal
Week of May 26th: Ted Cruz
Week of June 2nd: Scott Walker
Week of June 9th: Rick Perry
Week of June 16th: Mike Huckabee
This one was a no-brainer.
Despite the fact he announced only a day after the media’s anointed so-called frontrunner, Donald Trump is our winner of the week for absolutely dominating the news cycle with his presidential announcement. The likes of which we haven’t seen since Ted Cruz was the first to put himself out there three months ago, which allowed him to monopolize the headlines.
But in this case Trump was able to pull it off with an already crowded field of candidates, and by overcoming the shadow of Jeb Bush’s official announcement the day before. On one hand his detractors want to diminish him for not being a serious candidate, but at the same time they’re giving him the platform to legitimize himself as one.
You bet it’s helping Trump.
Trump’s entire message to conservatives beyond weary of wimpy Republicans is “I’m the guy that plays offense” (Commandment #10), and he was able to stay on that message throughout the week (Commandment #9). Even turning attacks from Hillary Clinton and the Club for Growth to his advantage (Commandment #5). Even the negative coverage of Trump seemed to work to his advantage, since much (but not all) of it came from outlets that aren’t taken seriously by most GOP primary voters anyway. Which Trump could easily spin in his favor as “all the right people oppose me.”
Throughout the course of this week, I received several texts, emails, and social media interactions from conservatives nationwide saying stuff like “at least Trump has some balls” or “I wish my guy said the stuff Trump says.” In politics, that’s a little bit like when a husband says “I wish you were as pretty as that other woman.” Or the wife says “I wish you had a job that paid as well as that other guy’s does.”
Trump even welcomed a crowd of 500 people who waited while he was 90 minutes late for his official Iowa Caucus campaign spot. Those are the types of crowds only frontrunners typically draw in Iowa.
For these reasons Donald Trump is our winner of the week.
