For a time there, it seemed as if The Donald was going to walk away from a huge Democratic field and stay in power for four more years. Things were falling his way, which is saying something for a casino titan. Yesterday, however, a letter appeared that thrilled the dickens out of those he hates and who hate him. Robert Mueller's objections of AG Barr's flash card summary of the Independent Council's Report make it technicolor-clear that Barr was gilding the lily when he withheld the text and claimed Mueller had given the Boss a free pass.
With the appearance of yesterday's letter, the opposition has been resuscitated. Who knows how long it will last? The war in the country isn't over.
I found this note this morning, a post from nine years ago. It's just fun to read, given all that's happened.
In a staunchly Republican neighborhood like mine, the only real issue that matters is abortion. I live among Iowa's heartiest social conservatives, in a state where the social conservatives write the battle plan for the first Presidential skirmishes.
Out here, our country's fiscal woes are not particularly evident--unemployment remains low, and corn prices have soared higher than they've ever been. It's impossible even to imagine that land prices could elevate, although people have been saying that for the last several years. Someone told me that not long ago a chunk of Iowa land sold for $12 thou@acre. Let me print that out--$12,000 for one acre of crop land.
Millions of Chinese and Indian people are doing more than aspiring for what we call middle class status, and America seems to be the only place in the world (Brazil maybe too) where food commodities are produced and available in abundance. Agricultural products--which is to say, food--are our only profit-making trade commodity, I'm told, the only export where we as a nation make a buck. That's not going to change soon.
I live in the very heart of all of that enterprise--good land, long growing season, abundant rainfall. Here in northwest Iowa, we're doing well.
But that's not why we're conservative. The real reason is abortion, the innocent deaths of innocent children. That's why. Not long ago, Donald Trump, the would-be candidate for President, long-time real estate mogul, reality show star, and hairdo king, told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network that he'd had a change of mind on the issue of abortion. He said a friend of his had told him that he'd not wanted the child his wife had determined she was carrying, but when they decided not to abort and had the child, he'd fallen in love with his new baby.
Therefore, Trump told Brody, he'd changed. He was now staunchly pro-life.
Honestly, I don't think Trump will run. But not running might be difficult for him, given what the polls tell him these days--that most Republicans now rate him higher than Tim Pawlenty, second only to Mitt Romney.
The ardent Republicans I live with have to be conflicted when it comes to "the Donald." Despite his recent conversion to the pro-life, despite his investigation of the mysterious birth of one Barack Hussein Obama, despite his meteroric rise in the polls and the newly energized ratings of "The Apprentice," he lugs with him some Trump-tower sized problems, despite his celebrity status.
After all, he makes big money by way of Las Vegas's one-arm bandits, he's been married and unmarried several times, and we've absolutely no proof that he's any kind of church goer at all. New York City born and reared, he probably knows absolutely nothing about corn and soybeans or life on America's rural Main Streets. Nor has ever cared.
Till now.
But, here's the thing: recently, he's seen the light on abortion. If he actually flies into the Presidential race on his Trump plane, it's going to be fascinating because he'll have to suffer some stringent scrutiny from the press--with regard to his business deals especially.
But it'll be a ball to see how he does out here in Northwest Iowa, and he'll almost have to roll his bandwagon out here because he'll need all this staunch conservative support.
But, honestly, no conservative presidential candidate can possibly seem as off-the-mark from what people here might proudly call "traditional Sioux County values." I honestly can't imagine they'll trust him.
But I know this: likely as not, they trust Barack Hussein Obama even less.
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*First appeared here on April 11, 2011.
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