Trump enlists Palin to try to win over swing state
Donald Trump had a tough job in Colorado yesterday. With Sarah Palin as his opening act, he needed to woo a gathering of deeply conservative voters in the critical swing state and make nice after offending the Republican political establishment during the primary season – and sound like a man who could actually be president.
And he had to accomplish it all during his first campaign visit to the state, in a cavernous ballroom where empty seats were in the obvious majority.
‘‘This is a tremendous crowd,’’ Trump told the Western Conservative Summit, which boasted 4000 eager attendees, most of whom did not show up to hear the presumptive Republican nominee for president, who was nearly an hour late for his keynote speech.
Palin, who was introduced as a ‘‘conservative political icon’’, stepped in to fill the empty time.
She lamented the United States’ ‘‘Swiss cheese borders’’ and decried ‘‘those who don’t yearn for America’s freedoms . . . but instead yearn for child brides and female mutilation and killing all gays and nonbelievers and refusing assimilation’’.
She slammed what she called the ‘‘GOP wing of the good old boys’ club’’ – establishment Republicans who will not support Trump. They felt threatened, she said, by the passionate men and women who stand behind the billionaire.
Just how much Palin helps a Republican nominee struggling to broaden his reach is up for debate.
Trump lauded the 2008 vicepresidential candidate – but he waited until nearly 10 minutes into a 50-minute speech.
‘‘When people think of highmindedness and dignity, the face of Sarah Palin does not appear in the mind’s eye,’’ said John J Pitney Jr, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.
‘‘The only thing Sarah Palin can do for him is rally the Republican base. But at this point in the campaign, he needs to move beyond that base, and she is not helpful.’’
Trump acknowledged his highprofile social media spat with Colorado’s Republican senator Cory Gardner, who has not endorsed him, and his primary season outburst in which he told the entire state that its political system is broken.
Paulo Sibaja, a small business owner and political consultant who was in the crowd, acknowledged that Trump was ‘‘trying to be a sharper candidate’’ but said he had a lot of work ahead of him to attract moderates, bring the important Hispanic vote into the fold and overcome his Colorado faux pas.