Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times is spot-on in an article under the headline "The Five Stages of Donald Trump's Grief over his loss in Iowa," Mr. Rappeport writes first there was silence, Trump went dark for about 15 hours on Twitter, Rappeport says, one of the longest stretches since he began his campaign. Actually, Rappeport is wrong that silence was Trump's first response, he may have been silent on twitter but his first response was magnanimity, he gave a magnanimous concession speech.

When Trump reemerged on twitter early the next morning however he entered the second stage, frustration, with a bitchy tweet that Cruz' victory speech was overlong. Rappeport puts that tweet in the next stage attack, that's wrong, the bitchy tweet was frustration, not an attack, then a "1984" tweet that he had gotten the second highest vote total in Iowa caucus history and was getting no credit for the accomplishment of LOSING. In re-posting Trump's tweets from that morning, I wrote that the guy is a walking, tweeting Rohrsach test and that is what Rappeport's does in this article, he gives a psycho reading to a psycho's tweets. Trump was twitter-grasping that morning, very scattershot, tweeting that Iowa was "meaningless," that he had spent a lot of money that was "not worth it," and then tweeting that Iowa was a great experience. He was contradictory and confused.

After the misplaced attack Rappeport says Trump entered regret over his stumpy-fingered ground campaign, what we used to call GOTV, Get Out The Vote and his increasingly scared looking decision to boycott the last debate. I think regret is the right word for this stage.

And then Rappeport says there's denial, Trump's attacks on Cruz today. Yes, that is denial, it is the denial that comes with attacking the guy who knocked you on your ass in the fight, hell, Muhammad Ali claims to this day that he should have been declared the winner of that first fight with Joe Frazier despite having his jaw broken, which temporarily shut Ali's mouth of necessity, and, most importantly, taking a haymaker that knocked Ali ignominiously on his aforesaid ASS, with the tassels of his boots flapping  ridiculously. Ali was in denial. I must say, reading Trump's appalling ad hominem attacks on Ted Cruz today, the characterization, "denial" never entered my mind. Trump was at his most shrill and personal and Senator Cruz spoke my thoughts when he characterized them with "Trump's losing it," Trump was hysterical today. Today was Trump's attack day and not that first morning and that pathetic Cruz as Howard Dean tweet.

My reaction to today's Trump is that this "losing it," evidence of panic, of clouded decision-making under pressure is going to give those voters of New Hampshire who are not stupid nor insane, and there may not be a quorum there, but these will give how many of them there are the willies, and I predict that Trump is going to lose some support now to these "unforced errors." At this point I still think Trump will win New Hampshire but there's more than sufficient time between now and February 9 for Trump to bird-pump again and further narrow his victory margin. Put it this way. If I were a betting man, and I am, I would bet a Trump, Cruz, Rubio trifecta box. A little more expensive but those three in any order and I would recoup my "investment."

My conclusion on Alan Rappeport's article is that it is not quite spot-on, it has some spots on it.