August 27, 2015--TRUMP: Swimsuit Competition

Barack Obama's former senior political advisor, the savvy David Axelrod, posted a clever Tweet on Tuesday.

Attempting to sum up the TRUMP phenomenon, especially TRUMP's continued surge in national and local polls, knowing that The Donald has owned the Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants, Axelord said--

"In a parlance Trump would appreciate: We're still in the swimsuit competition. It gets harder in the talent rounds."

Now, I don't know if TRUMP knows how to play the harmonica or can pull off a hula hoop routine, but so far he is looking good and I think will continue to widen his lead over all the other candidates because his talent may be the swimsuit competition.

Not talent of the sort traditional political strategists such as Axelrod respect and feel is essential to a candidate who wants to be taken seriously as a potential commander in chief.

Ditto for James Carville and Mary Matalin. On Morning Joe yesterday, when asked why TRUMP is doing so well they both in effect agreed with Axelrod--TRUMP's electoral balloon will burst soon because of his lack of substance. They both said that once the public begins to pay attention they will want to know his specific policies about the Middle East, strengthening the US economy, fixing the education system, balancing the budget. His shtick will wear thin, they say, and the public will discover that the emperor has no hair.

Or, if you will, there's no there there. Or that there's sizzle but no beef.

They failed to note that the public they claim is not yet paying attention to the campaign is turning out in droves for his appearances and the largest TV audience in history, 24 million, tuned in to the first Republican debate. Four years ago, the initial GOP debate was watched by 3.2 million. Eight times fewer.

The next thing we'll hear from old-school political analysts is that these numbers have little to do with TRUMP but reflect voters' deep interest in Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

Oh really?

They don't get the fact that in addition to liking TRUMP's tell-it-like-it-is style (a quality that huge numbers of potential voters like to think they have), his can-do enthusiasm and optimism (Make America Great Again! is his campaign slogan), and his track record as a business man, a large part of TRUMP's appeal is that he seems to have just stepped out of a reality show.

In fact he did.

But beyond starring in The Apprentice for 11 years, he and his glittering family share many characteristics of the Kardashians. They are beautiful, smart, successful, comfortable with themselves, exhibitionistic, quirky, titillating, and intriguing in a Modern Family sort of way.

If you doubt this, wait until bionic wife Melania, extraterrestrial-looking daughter Ivanka, his three perfect boys, his second Daughter Tiffany (named after the store), and I suspect his previous two wives, Ivana and Marla Maples join him on the campaign trail. There hasn't been as glamorous a political family since the Kennedys.

This mix is very powerful political medicine in our celebrity-sodden culture.

Melania Trump