Donald Trump for President? Pinch Me, I’m Having a Nightmare!

Real estate mogul and reality TV personality Donald Trump has hinted that he might be a contender for the next Presidential race; now, there’s a show that should top the ratings charts – we could call it, Celebrity Pretender – The Missiles Are Fired.  Actually, Trump has more than hinted.  For those familiar with how these things work, his recent forays into the media raising the ‘birther’ controversy, sound eerily like an exploratory gambit.  And, it seems to be working; recent polls show him ahead of other potential Republican contenders.

The fact that the former director of the Hawaii Department of Health has validated President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and multiple investigations have debunked the ‘born abroad’ stories that flooded the airwaves during the 2008 election campaign, don’t seem to have swayed the estimable Mr. Trump.

Trump sounded more like a politician than a businessman when he raised the issue; stating that the circumstances and disclosure of the the birth certificate was a “strange situation.”  He then tried to deflect attention from the issue by talking about the economy.  That’s a lot like dropping a sizzling stick of dynamite in the middle of the table and then offering to talk about the price of rice in China.  Let’s not forget, Trump has also called for seizure of Saudi Arabian and Libyan oil fields as a solution to America’s dependence on foreign energy sources.  This is a man that many in recent polls would vote for.

Sadly, there are too many Americans who are ready to listen to this kind of rhetoric, and worse, support the person peddling it.  Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, for instance, has jumped on the Trump band wagon already; on the “Judge Jeanine Show” on Fox News, she said, that although she believes the President was born in Hawaii, there must be something there that he doesn’t want people to see, and she ‘appreciates’ Trump’s questioning. 

The only bright spot in all this is that polls are situational, they only reflect what people are thinking at the moment the poll is taken, and thankfully, when they get in the voting booth they often do the rational thing – not always, but often.  The chances of Donald Trump actually getting elected are about as good as a duck piloting a space shuttle.  For now, he’s venturing into a new form of entertainment.  Let’s just hope this show doesn’t run as long as Celebrity Apprentice.

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