Donald Trump on Evangelical Support

Decency in Presidential Politics

For the first time in his 61 years of life, influential Christian preacher and author Max Lucado has spoken out about politics.

Lucado shared his decency test when vetting prospective suitors for his teen-aged daughter with the crucible being evident decency.

Lucado wonders why in Election 2016 that Donald Trump, the current front-runner in the Republican Presidential Primary race, would be turned away from Lucado's door as he persistently fails the decency test.




Some polling from the first four Republican primary contests show that Trump grabs a good amount of support from self proclaimed evangelical voters. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) who had expected to earn the support of most evangelicals, posits that Trump is getting lots of self-described "Born Again" votes but not real evangelicals.

The logic is that evangelicals who are serious about their Christian walk in faith care more about being biblically correct than eschewing political correctness through Trump support.  It is similar to the political divide between Mass going Catholics (25% of the total) and those who are C-I-N-Os (Catholics in Name Only).

After electing Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Americans should have learned the lesson that despite triangulating promises and eloquent oratory that character matters.  When some one shows you who they are, you ought to believe them.

Decency is a good gauge of character.

On Politicians and Profanity

Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has successfully generating lots of earned media coverage by being a bombastic loose cannon who may launch an "F" bomb at any time.  This may thrill those Trump supporters who are always spoiling for a down and dirty fight and who abhor political correctness, but it has also driven Trumps unfavorable rating  to over 60%.

This circus campaign strategy worked well before voters started casting ballots.  But as the race became serious and is focused in the Bible Belt, this boorish bluster does not play so well.  

In fact, Trump promised not to use foul language on the campaign trail.  This promise lasted about twenty minutes, as Trump relapsed into crass asides later in the same speech.

An MSNBC Focus Group in  South Carolina  had participants visibly cringe at Trump's profane presentations.

Opponents are eager to capitalize on this Trump shortcoming.  Thus, Ted Cruz opined: "It is not a good thing if parents would be embarrassed to have their children repeating the President."  Last week, the Cruz campaign released a video ostensively  about "Eminent Domain", but the puerile playtime imitating Trump with chagrined parents watching reinforced themes rebuking crass campaigning, which certainly would include profane politicians

If polls are to be believed five days before the South Carolina primary, Trump has a commanding 20% lead.  But one needs to parse political polling to discern its true worth.  And South Carolina has a history of making sudden shifts at the last minute.

The Republican South Carolina primary will be held on Saturday Feburary 20th 2016.

Trump Swears Off Profanity?

In a major campaign announcement from a rally in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump promised to swear off foul language.

That sounds like a satirical piece from The Onion.  Alas, that really happened. Trump has earned loads of earned media during the early primary process by making outrageous and inflammatory outbursts.Trump's military strategy was the equivalent of bombing the fecal matter out of ISIS.  Trump has also whispered the "F" bomb from center stage.

In the eve of the New Hampshire primary, when Trump was critiquing his main opponent Senator Ted Cruz's approach on enhanced interrogation, the Manhattan Mogul gleefully repeated a vile and vulgar shout out from the crowd referring to female genitalia.  This was a quintessential example of Trump employing paralepsis, in which a speaker says something with plausible deniability. Later, Trump justified his crass comments that we were just having fun. Sure.

 But if we are to believe Trump's Baton Rouge Pledge, the GOP front-runner will no longer use foul language.  Some have argued that the quip against Cruz was intended to be short for pussillanimous.  If so, why pretend to chide the shout out not to use the language with a smile?

It is a sad statement of the state of Trump's campaign that a populist politician has to shout it out to the rooftops that he will swear off foul language.  So why the sudden shift?

Much of Trump's appeal to die-hard supporters is that he can't be bought since he claims to be self-financing his campaign (but won't turn down contributions).  That being said, Trump does not hesitate to pander, to questionable effectiveness.

In several early primaries, such as Iowa, South Carolina and five of the SEC primaries, evangelicals make up a substantial proportion of the Republican electorate.  So it's no surprise that politicians hungry for evangelical support would play up faith themes on the hustings.

Well, this was not a believable ploy for Trump, especially with his "Two Corinthians" citation at Liberty University. But this voter bloc should be more than properly quoting Bible verses.  They also tend to be values voters.  And a foul mouthed, avarice animated politician is a hard sell to those seeking to walk the faith.

The Cruz campaign sought to capitalize on this crucible with a clever ad mimicking Trump themes from the mouths of babes.



The spot successfully captured the crassness of Trump with boorish behavior without putting foul words in the childrens' mouths.  But the telling shot was the parents  watching the playroom with a voice over "We wouldn't tolerate this behavior in our children--why would we want them in a President?"  Thus the commercial was more than about illustrating crony capitalism and eminent domain but about values voters, which is a bulleye in South Carolina with a 60% evangelical GOP voter base.

Let's see how long Trump can stifle his crass asides.  As the SEC primaries are on March 1st, I suspect it will be March second (sic) if we are lucky.