Donald Trump has entered the race for the GOP Presidential nomination. Businessman, TV star, investor, and outspoken, he has no electoral experience. He does hold a BS in Economics from the Wharton School.
On The Issues lists him as a Right Conservative:
Other than favoring staying out of Iran, I can’t say I like his answers to the standard social quiz managed by On The Issues.
Amidst the punditry giggles is the story of Mr. Trump showing up in second place in a Suffolk University poll conducted of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire:
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (14 percent) leads businessman Donald Trump (11 percent) in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary contest, according to a poll from the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
However, the balance of the results are mixed for Trump – he’s number 11 in the list of candidates NH GOP voters would wish to see on a debate stage:
“This is where Trump’s unfavorability is limiting people’s tolerance to hear what he has to say, and voters would rather see other candidates in the debate,” said [David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston]. “Trump’s controversial candidacy is being constructed in a way that gives him visibility and exposure in the short term but may also limit his growth in the long run, like a glass ceiling.”
To my mind, this suggests New Hampshire voters may have less interest in the outspoken social conservatives and more in someone who has had business success, rather than just running their mouths – although Mr. Trump is well-known for his, perhaps, over-articulateness. The applicability of business acumen to political processes, however, is limited, as I’ve discussed before:
Let’s consider something else that can get my knickers in a knot – the businessman who decides to run for office and repeatedly offers up his businessman experience, his acumen, as his credentials that makes him qualified for office – H. Ross Perot being the best known example in my lifetime (“I just want to get under the hood and fix things.”). So what’s wrong with this picture?
What we’re forgetting is that the goal of business – commerce – is NOT the goal of the government. I’m finding it a little hard to articulate the goals of government that are not objectionable to someone out there, so I’ll suggest that, if only currently, the goals of government are to protect society from outside intervention; and regulate the internal interactions of society, individually and collectively, such that, well, colloquially, everyone is equally unhappy; or that everyone is justly, according to their actions, treated.
As the one is not the other, it seems reasonable to propose a simple principle by which we can avoid future mistakes: those activities, supporting the goals of government, which may reasonably be undertaken by government, should always be taken care of by government. It is not a necessity that government be absolutely lean; showing a profit at the end of the year is not a requirement, although certainly a large deficit can be a drag on the economy. When the principle is abrogated, we find such distasteful activities as companies lobbying for longer prison sentences solely to inflate their bottom line.
(h/t Scan @ The Daily Kos)
