Editorial by Bobby Tingle

 

Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States. He announced his desire to pursue the nomination one year ago on June 16, 2015.

Generally, I believe, he was not taken seriously then. He has considered running for office at other times according to an article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump. The article claims he has considered running for President in 1988, 2004 and 2012, for Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014 and as a potential running mate of George H. W. Bush on the Republican Party’s 1988 presidential ticket. Dan Quayle was the eventual choice for that slot.

Trump seems to have baffled the political know-it-all folks. As I stated already, he was not taken seriously when he jumped into the race. When the list of candidates pursuing the nomination was deep and wide, he garnered much attention.

Primarily that attention was negative. Much of the coverage was along the lines of, “guess how Trump hurt his campaign today?” or “Trump insults another group today”. I believe the reports were considered by those reporting his antics to be an embarrassment to candidate Trump. The general notion of the reports tended toward providing evidence for why he would soon be eliminated from competition.

Often he was asked, sometimes strongly asked, to walk back his statements or positions. At times he appeared to do so but for the most part he stuck to his stated convictions.

Political pundits are truly baffled by him. He, it would seem in their general opinion, should have self-imploded long ago.

So why hasn’t he?

I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton. I would rather stay home than vote for her. My conviction regarding Clinton has a lot to do with her personally. But I also have a strong aversion to the Democrat Party platform. There are, in my opinion, some abhorrent positions on their platform. So Clinton gets disqualified on two accounts.

So I have to decide if I vote for Trump only because I will not vote for the opposition or can I truly support him?

The President of the United States should be a fairly impotent individual when it comes to issues that relate to domestic policy. The reality is that Presidents Obama and Bush have changed that. The bloated federal bureaucracy runs this country with more power than Congress. It shouldn’t be that way.

But the President does perform some duties that are extremely important. He initiates the process whereby federal judges are appointed and he is the commander in chief of the military.

I cannot yet fully support Trump for President. But there is much that I admire about him. He generally sticks with his convictions for one. He speaks his mind for another. I am impressed that he has broken the rules of political correctness. Many have tried to derail his campaign. They have so far been disappointed.

At the grass roots level he is loved and hated.

I expect to vote for him. He is not perfect. No candidate or president in my lifetime has been.

God bless the United States of America.

 

Bobby Tingle is publisher of The Orange Leader. He can be reached at bobby.tingle@orangeleader.com