Michael's Insight

The Agony of a Republican Bundler

It’s not just the rich and famous who raise money in support of candidates running for public office. In reality, the bulk of the dollars that fund all political campaigns come from the efforts of thousands of people who work hard to convince friends, family and colleagues to support the candidates they believe in. This type of support is crucial because it is the money that pays the salaries and keeps the lights on in a campaign organization.

In the political world, it’s called "bundling."

I have been a registered Republican for much of my adult life. I believe deeply that Republican economic principles and international policies will create a stronger, safer and more prosperous America. I believe in limiting government, relying on the private sector for economic growth and in maintaining a strong national defense.

And I actively support candidates who mostly reflect my views.

During this election cycle, I spent countless hours enthusiastically raising money and campaigning for one of the most trustworthy, qualified and positive candidates to run for president in recent years, Ohio Governor John Kasich.

I guess the political establishment would call me a loyal Republican bundler.

Until now.

In this presidential election, my conscience has led me away from the Republican Party. As the campaign enters the home stretch, I know that I will never vote for Donald Trump. I considered not voting for president at all and I took a look at Gary Johnson. I rejected both of those alternatives because, in our two party/50 state system, only the Republican or Democrat has any chance of winning. A Trump presidency is just too frightening, so I was left with only one alternative.

Hillary Clinton has never been my first choice for President — nor my second nor third — but I will support and vote for her in November. Like her or not, agree with her or not, Secretary Clinton is the only viable alternative to a Donald Trump presidency. In this race, she alone passes the most basic test about serving as our President — she is qualified for the job. Donald Trump is not.

The time has finally come for Republican leaders to stop the absurd narrative that electing a Democrat is somehow worse than electing an unqualified, unprincipled, egotist to be President of the United States. Those of us who love this country, including loyal Republicans, must act to ensure that Donald Trump never, ever occupies the Oval Office.

How does a Republican get to this point?

For me, it began last year as I watched Donald Trump incessantly assert that his “hugely successful” business career qualified him to be President. Even if that were so, a simple examination of his record presents a very different reality. I thought about his claims from my own 30-year experience as a CEO and I concluded that Donald Trump’s business record is anything but the huge success he asserts. Consistent with his grandiose self-image, Trump judges his business acumen simply on how much money he has made for himself.

The true measure of CEO success is not how much money they make for themselves, but how well they serve their investors, their employees and their customers.

By that measure, Donald Trump is far from a success. One bankruptcy may be understandable, but it still is a material failure for a CEO. Donald Trump has led his companies into four of them, a feat few others can claim. Make no mistake, Trump’s personal leadership caused his investors to lose their money, his employees to lose their jobs and his customers to flee to the competition. His business strategies were poorly conceived, poorly financed and poorly executed. These business failures were even more unconscionable when he enriched himself personally by extracting millions of dollars from his stakeholders just as his companies were slipping into bankruptcy.

In the months that followed his entrance into the race, Donald Trump repeatedly shocked so many as he personally attacked his opponents with idiotic comments, he displayed a total lack of knowledge and even curiosity about the issues confronting the nation and then, in July, he crossed a line that should never have been approached. It is unforgivable that the Republican nominee for president of the United States incessantly attacked the Gold Star family of a true American hero, a family whose son gave his life to save the lives of his fellow American soldiers.

The hero’s grieving father, Khizr Khan, asked a simple question, “What sacrifices have you made?” The best answer Trump could come up with was that he worked hard.

Join the club.

It took a major intervention to stop a presidential candidate from continuing a week-long tantrum against a family who represents everything that is great about America.

Mr. Khan penetrated Donald Trump’s notoriously thin skin with nothing more than a few dozen words. Thin skin and temper tantrums is a disastrous combination in a Commander-in-Chief.

Perhaps the most frightening of all is Donald Trump’s reckless disregard for an informed and responsible foreign policy. Republican leaders must accept how serious the danger is if we elect an intensely self-absorbed candidate who cares more about what people say about him than in having a solid grasp of the issues confronting our nation and the role we play in the world. He praises dictators and tyrants, reducing his vision of American foreign policy to, “If he (Vladimir Putin) says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him.”

Really?

He advocates walking away from our commitments to our allies and allowing the spread of nuclear weapons. Such irresponsible talk has resulted in 50 Republican national security and foreign policy experts and over 70 Republican political leaders to declare that their party’s candidate is too unstable and unqualified to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

Republican candidates and supporters who try to distance themselves from Donald Trump’s childish behavior and dangerous words while tepidly continuing to endorse him, shame on you. The truly courageous among us, whether they decide to vote for Hillary Clinton, write in a candidate, or vote for no one, are people like John Kasich, George and Jeb Bush, Susan Collins, Lindsay Graham, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney and the rapidly growing number of other Republicans who refuse to support Donald Trump.

Our country will survive four years of Hillary Clinton. I fear that it would not survive Donald Trump.

Why Mark Burns Matters

 

Mark Burns seemed to hit the political jackpot. In a matter of weeks, he rose from virtual obscurity as a South Carolina televangelist to national prominence, speaking at the Republican National Convention, introducing a presidential candidate at huge political rallies and surrogating for Donald Trump on countless cable news shows.

Then on Friday, Victor Blackwell, the seasoned CNN journalist, had an on-camera interview with him. He asked Burns about a number of biographical claims that recently had been called into question. It turns out, Burns embellished some things about himself. The usually booming preacher looked like a deer in headlights as the interviewer fired shot after shot, quoting directly from the interviewee’s own website. Statements about his military service, his college education and his fraternity membership were raised, all of which proved false.

Burns first tried to dispute the challenges, even suggesting that his website had been hacked. Soon he realized it was hopeless so he began to change his story in real time before finally walking off the set and leaving Blackwell and crew alone in Burns’ own tiny tele-church.

It was excruciating to watch but the story here is not about the public meltdown of Mark Burns’ five minutes of fame. What is newsworthy is the fact that the Trump campaign was, yet again, derelict at performing a most basic managerial function — finding the right people for the right job. The organization did a classic management injustice to Burns by putting him in a role for which he had no experience. They also failed their supporters (think “loyal customers”) by neglecting to do even the slightest bit of due diligence prior to catapulting an unknown televangelist into the glaring and unforgiving spotlight of an American presidential campaign.

Most successful CEOs know instinctively that the single most important task in management is to surround themselves with the most qualified and talented leadership team they can find. Indeed, Donald Trump’s cornerstone argument about why he, a businessman with no political or policy experience, is qualified to be our President is that he possesses superb managerial skills from his business career. After all, how many times has he said he would surround himself with “the smartest people around. You know, people like Carl Ichan.”

So, why does the man who wants to become the CEO of the free world, in fact, consistently surround himself with unproven and unqualified people? Even the most critical managerial role in his world right now— the campaign chairmanship — has been filled repeatedly with people who have had no previous experience in a role like that. No surprise he’s on his third one.

Running for president is the major leagues. One needs the best of the best — seasoned, experienced management — to run a complicated, multi-faceted campaign organization. So why does it seem like the CEO candidate is managing a campaign for zoning commissioner of a small suburban town?

Donald Trump’s repeated demonstration of his lack of basic management skills is breathtaking. And make no mistake about it, at the end of the day, Donald Trump is calling the shots in this campaign. With her own trustworthiness challenges in the polls, Hillary Clinton is very lucky that voters are questioning something far more fundamental in Donald Trump — whether he is even qualified for the job.

The Artless of the Deal

 

Just when you think it can’t get any crazier, Donald Trump raised the level of crazy to new heights. Tuesday night, the Trump campaign announced a hastily-arranged trip to Mexico to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto. The meeting would take place just hours before his major policy speech about immigration in Phoenix.

What was going on here? The trip seemed so risky for Trump. And why would Peña Nieto agree to this meeting? Was the Mexican president preparing to deliver a sucker punch to the man who repeatedly denigrated his country and insulted its citizens?

Wednesday morning, Trump ditched the press corps and flew to Mexico City. For an hour or so, he met in private with the president of the country that is our 3rd largest trading partner in the world.

After their meeting, they stood, side-by-side on the stage, in front of whatever members of the press happened to be in the neighborhood. They jointly reported on their “productive” meeting. 

They agreed they would try to work together to find common ground if Trump becomes president. Later, they disagreed about whether the question of who will pay for the wall ever came up. Trump said no, Peña Nieto said it did and that he told Trump there was no way. But overall, it seemed like a very amicable meeting.

Turns out, there was no sucker punch.

Simply by standing on the stage with the candidate for president, Peña Nieto actually made Donald Trump seem presidential — an accomplishment that even Trump himself has been unable to achieve.

Trump triumphantly boarded Air Trump One for the flight to Phoenix where he finally was going to explain his immigration policy in clear and precise terms. After that friendly meeting with Peña Nieto, what was he going to announce? Would he find some compromise to help gain support from the undecideds? Seemed logical.

Then, in that Phoenix arena filled with thousands of supporters, the sucker punch came, not from President Peña Nieto but from Donald Trump himself. Inexplicitly, Donald Trump quadrupled down on his anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican rhetoric just when he might have gotten swing-voting suburbanites to wonder if they may have been overly critical of this Trump phenomenon.

In reality, Donald Trump quadrupled down on his total lack of qualification to be President of the United States. When it comes to our international relationships, we can’t afford a Commander-in-Chief who constantly snatches defeat out of the jaws of victory.

 

Donald Trump simply reconfirmed that he can’t resist rabid devotees, even at his own expense. When he appears in front of a cheering crowd, he becomes possessed by it. He had an opportunity to sway swing voters Wednesday night in Phoenix but instead he bolted into the welcoming, adoring arms of his most fervent and loyal supporters who would vote for him anyway, even if he really did shoot someone on Fifth Avenue.