With a woman in charge, Trump could pull this off
When my syndicate editor told me a few clients had been asking, of his ill-chosen words. What’s next, a prayer for forgiveness of sins?
“Sometimes I can be too honest,” he said, brilliantly setting up his opponent’s fatal flaw: “Hillary Clinton is the exact opposite. She never tells the truth.”
It’s no coincidence that Conway, a veteran of the anti-Clinton wars, is also a pollster.
Her firm, The Polling Company Inc./WomanTrend, has monitored women’s thinking on a wide variety of issues since 1995.
Her handiwork, which has included telling Republicans to stop using the word “rape” in campaigns, is in clear evidence with her newest client.
Which means, I suppose, that this positive Trump column is really about Conway.
Will her magic work? Which is the real Trump? Can he sustain this new persona, and for how long? Attention span isn’t his strong suit, but then neither is it America’s.
Unless Trump has been projecting someone else the past year just to capture the conservative, white male voter who was never going to vote for Clinton, anyway, there’s every reason to believe his impetuousness will prevail.
Moreover, it’s questionable whether voters can be swayed by a sudden personality change.
Will women suddenly forget everything Trump has said? Will African-Americans buy Trump’s promise that their lives will be “amazing” if they vote for him? Will the seed Trump planted of Clinton’s bigotry, seeing blacks only as votes, take root?
Such a statement from any other Republican would burst into flames from the volatile combination of hypocrisy and absurdity, but nearly everyone understands that Trump isn’t really a Republican.
He has been losing ground essentially because of the cumulative effect of his persistent nastiness.
Add to this his remarks about maybe using nukes, leaving NATO to its own resources, his praise of dictators and strongmen, and he was someone you wouldn’t want anywhere near the football.
Or oneself, as Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt wrote so brilliantly, saying Trump was the person you hoped wouldn’t be seated next to you at a dinner party. On the other hand, I’ve long admired the sentiment popularized by Alice Roosevelt Longworth: If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.
The man funny, even at his meanest. What many have found repugnant about his style was indeed the secret to his success. People love hearing said aloud what they’re really thinking.
But that was then — and for now at least, it appears to be Conway’s show: No more insults, stick to script, focus on Clinton’s dishonesty.
It just might work.