[WideRight05]

What Trump, or any other candidate says, is not as important as what they said or did before they were candidates. Trump will say whatever it takes to win the nomination and urge you to ignore whatever his past record is. Then, with the nomination in hand, he will say whatever it takes to win the general election. At that point, Trump will do whatever is best for Trump.

Trump reminds me of Chris Christie. It is really tempting to rally behind Christie as he bullies a public sector union leader or some other liberal, but after a while, it becomes obvious that he treats anybody who disagrees with him the same way. Christie has shown that he can exercise some restraint to win support. Trump has shown nothing but contempt for his political rivals.

It is never wise to align yourself with a bully because he will not respect you any more for supporting him. Your time on the receiving end of his abuse will eventually arrive.

Trump will take as many positions as he must to win the nomination. If Trump's words are enough to remove your reservations about this megalomaniac, then he will probably not disappoint you.

That could hurt Trump in the long run. Cruz has a very passionate base and IMO one of the most informed bases in politics. Trump could lose a lot of support by going after Cruz like that should he win the nomination.

I'm curious to see how these coming debates are going to be handled. I feel that Carson and Kasich are starting to slow down while Rubio, Christie, and Bush still have some momentum. Cruz and Trump are the two leaders to this point.

If the GOP limits it to two or three, which I doubt they will, then I anticipate Cruz will have a great showing. Trump will be tough for Cruz to beat handily though, and I think Cruz will have to win in a blowout to gain any kind of real traction. Trump is sharp as a tack and is good at using an insult to counter a point made by an opponent. If it does come down to just those two on the stage, at this point I think the establishment will try to make sure Cruz doesn't come out of there winning. Even though the establishment doesn't like Trump, having him would probably be better in their eyes than having a Christian conservative that has a proven record of standing up to the establishment.

I started out liking what Trump was doing and I can't say that it's not needed for establishment candidates or liberals, but this isn't the way to handle things. It may win him the primary, but at the end of the day the only way he would gain back the support from voters of other candidates would be if Hillary or Bernie puts enough of a scare in them that they show up at the polls to reluctantly vote for Trump. Then again, I may be wrong here. As a society (especially in politics) unfortunately we have very, very short memories.