So the latest theory Out There, as expounded by Charles P. Pierce, Jonathan Chait and others, is that Donald Trump has never really wanted to be President of the United States. What he's really been after all along is a media empire like Rupert Murdoch's.
I know the world is dying to hear what the guy who does the words for Groo the Wanderer thinks of this premise so I won't keep you in suspense any longer: Even in this "Anything Can Happen Day" we call a presidential election, it seems unlikely to me. Whatever Donald Trump has accomplished in the last decade or two, it's been based on the premise that people — make that some people — look at him and go, "There's a man who always wins." It's certainly why people invest cash in his projects, oblivious to his bad record. (I'm convinced the main reason he's the presumptive nominee of his party is because so many voters, eager to see any Republican in the White House, thought all the other candidates looked like losers.)
Would any part of Donald's business model work if instead, people looked at him and said, "There's a man who lost the presidency in a landslide!"? Seriously.
He couldn't even launch a clone of Fox News then. If you think Liberals hate this man now, wait'll you see his approval numbers with Conservatives if he's the guy who allowed Hillary Clinton to waltz into the White House while the G.O.P. also lost the Senate, the Supreme Court and maybe the House, as well.
No, I think he's in it to win it. So why is he running such a bad campaign and alienating voters he needs? I am reminded of an interview with Michael Dukakis a few days after he lost the presidency to the less destructive of the two George Bushes. The interviewer listed a number of moves he might have made when the polls began showing him going down to defeat. There were mudballs he could have flung, charges of wrongdoing he could have leveled, different campaign techniques he could have employed. I can't find the text of his actual response online but as I recall, it went something like this…
You're asking me why I didn't abandon certain techniques and principles. Well, those techniques and principles had worked. They made me Governor of Massachusetts and got me the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. So you're asking me to give up everything that had ever proven successful for me, the style that got me there.
I'm guessing something like that is the case with Trump. He's sticking with the style that has unofficially gotten him the Republican nomination. This is not to say he will until November. IF he sinks much lower, he's going to have to try something different. But he's not there yet. He has to sink a few more points for that to happen.