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Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« on: January 26, 2016, 11:18:37 pm »
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/267059-republican-rivals-launch-effort-to-villainize-donald-trump

 By Jonathan Swan - 01/26/16 03:20 PM EST

Republicans are testing out new lines of attack on Donald Trump meant to portray him as a ruthless dealmaker who sought to make money at any cost — even if he hurt working people in the process.

The attacks are meant to go after one of Trump’s greatest strengths: that he is a consummate business dealmaker who can bring those skills to the White House and better America’s position with the rest of the world.

Ted Cruz’s campaign has launched an ad that accused Trump of colluding with “Atlantic City insiders to bulldoze the home of an elderly widow for a limousine parking lot at his casino.” The elderly woman is shown on screen saying of Trump, “He doesn’t have no heart, that man.”

Team Cruz, which is fighting for supremacy with Trump in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, makes no apologies for the hit.

“The idea is that eminent domain is for the public good and he attempted to use it for personal gain,” said Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler, in a telephone interview with The Hill. “It gives people the sense that, when [Trump] talks about the art of the deal … somebody’s going to get screwed.

“He doesn’t have a record of doing anything for the public good. He has a record of paying off Democratic politicians and the party, and now he’s claiming that they are the people destroying the country.”

In an interview with The Hill, Trump fired back at Cruz, calling the ad "one of the dumbest attacks I've ever heard" and saying that he never ripped down the Atlantic City woman's house.

"I said forget it, if she wants it that badly let her have it," Trump said. "By the way, she saved me a fortune because the market turned bad after that. She ended up getting a lot less for her house than she could’ve gotten."

Trump then defended eminent domain and criticized Cruz. 

"Without a eminent domain you wouldn’t have a highway in the country. You wouldn’t have a railroad, you wouldn’t have a road, you wouldn’t have a hospital, you wouldn’t have schools. And by the way, you wouldn’t have the Keystone Pipeline if it ever happens," he said.

Trump noted that Cruz backs construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

"Every conservative wants the Keystone Pipeline. The Keystone Pipeline couldn’t be one foot long if it weren’t for eminent domain," he said. "People get paid a lot of money for their land, the fair market value for their land. And they actually do better than that if they’re smart.

"I’m not in love with eminent domain, but you have to understand some things are necessary. The Keystone Pipeline, there’s a whole section devoted to eminent domain," he said.

PolitiFact adjudicated the Trump-Cruz dispute over eminent domain and found that Trump was half-right when he accused Cruz of "false advertising" during his appearance on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. In the 1990s Trump and the New Jersey government tried to use eminent domain laws to force the elderly widow Vera Coking to sell her house for Trump's limousine parking lot, but they lost the argument in court and the deal never happened.

Other ads in the planning stages are intended to hit Trump’s Atlantic City dealings hard, according to a Republican operative who has viewed opposition research against the GOP front-runner.

The operative said opponents see the attacks as an effective strategy to shake voters’ trust in Trump and cast him as someone who cares about himself and nobody else.

“When [voters] get a sense that Trump is really in it for himself, which his bankruptcy proceedings show,” it undermines his trustworthiness in the minds of voters, said David McIntosh, the president of conservative group Club for Growth, which has lashed out at Trump in a series of ads.

The attacks are similar in some ways to those used against 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In the GOP primary, Newt Gingrich zeroed in on Romney’s years at Bain Capital.

Bain was accused of acquiring failing companies and then cutting jobs before selling the streamlined companies for a profit. Romney and his supporters argued that Bain’s efforts actually saved jobs, since many of the companies would have gone under without Bain’s involvement.

Though the attacks were not enough to cost Romney the nomination, President Obama picked up where Gingrich left off in the fall.

Trump has been a Teflon candidate in this year’s race, seemingly invulnerable to attack.

Yet the Club for Growth, the first conservative outfit to spend significantly on attack ads against Trump, said its internal polling shows that his group’s eminent domain attack ad depicting Trump as “bullying property owners” cut through with voters.

The $1 million anti-Trump campaign from Club for Growth that ran in Iowa from midway through September to early October coincided with a temporary dip in Trump’s polling in the first voting state. But other well-funded conservative groups declined to follow Club for Growth’s lead, and Trump recovered in the absence of follow-up attacks.

Club for Growth believes that eminent domain can be used to lower Trump’s numbers in New Hampshire, where the subject has been controversial in the past in disputes over an energy transmission project.

“The reason that eminent domain — a reasonably arcane, esoteric concept — [tests well] is that it shows that Donald Trump has literally bulldozed over the little guy to get his way,” said Kellyanne Conway, a GOP pollster who leads the Keep the Promise I super-PAC supporting Cruz.

Conway compares Trump’s vulnerabilities to those of Chris Christie. Voters liked that Christie was outspoken and aggressive when they believed the New Jersey governor was doing so on their behalf, she says. But the minute that perception changed, with his staff causing traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge to exact political revenge, Christie looked like a bully who would hurt the little guy.

“At the beginning, he picked on the right bogeymen, the unions … then all of a sudden with Bridge-gate it looks like he screwed the wrong pooch, you and me, commuters trying to get to the hospital,” Conway said. “He’s never fully recovered even though his hands are clean.”

Conway and other Republican strategists interviewed for this story say it is one thing for voters to hear Trump attacked on a debate stage by a politician and another to see the matters discussed on television by Trump himself.

A new super-PAC, set up by former Romney aide Katie Packer, is now reportedly running a seven figure anti-Trump advertising campaign in Iowa. Packer would not confirm the total spent by Our Principles PAC or discuss the group’s plans, but it is clear from the material released so far that the group believes that there is enough damaging footage of Trump already in circulation to hurt him with GOP primary voters.

Some GOP donors and operatives are worried it is too late to take Trump down.

They say groups like the super-PAC Right to Rise, which raised $103 million by midway through last year and backs Jeb Bush for president, should have started hitting Trump earlier instead of spending some $20 million hitting another establishment contender, Marco Rubio.

“Part of my frustration is that groups like Right to Rise, who have so much money, haven’t tried to take him down,” said a Republican operative who has commissioned opposition research against Trump.

“What I have seen has indicated that there’s no one silver bullet that will take him down. … It’s the weight of attacks that works.”
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Offline flowers

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2016, 11:30:29 pm »
bkmk


Offline alicewonders

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2016, 11:40:27 pm »
Cruz's ad accuses Trump of buying a lady's house and bulldozing it down for limousine parking - but Trump says he never bought the house because she wouldn't accept his offer (she ended up selling it for much less) - so how did he "bulldoze" it?  Last I heard, the house is still there.

Where I come from, that's called a lie.

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Offline aligncare

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2016, 11:45:43 pm »
Cruz's ad accuses Trump of buying a lady's house and bulldozing it down for limousine parking - but Trump says he never bought the house because she wouldn't accept his offer (she ended up selling it for much less) - so how did he "bulldoze" it?  Last I heard, the house is still there.

Where I come from, that's called a lie.

Lying in a political campaign ad? Outrageous!

Offline aligncare

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2016, 11:46:15 pm »

 :beer:  :patriot:

Offline flowers

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2016, 11:57:47 pm »
Cruz's ad accuses Trump of buying a lady's house and bulldozing it down for limousine parking - but Trump says he never bought the house because she wouldn't accept his offer (she ended up selling it for much less) - so how did he "bulldoze" it?  Last I heard, the house is still there.

Where I come from, that's called a lie.
It is truly something else to watch isn't it?


Offline alicewonders

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2016, 12:01:11 am »
:beer:  :patriot:

A nasty lie, I might add.   :pondering:

 :beer:



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Offline katzenjammer

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2016, 12:05:03 am »
Cruz's ad accuses Trump of buying a lady's house and bulldozing it down for limousine parking - but Trump says he never bought the house because she wouldn't accept his offer (she ended up selling it for much less) - so how did he "bulldoze" it?  Last I heard, the house is still there.

Where I come from, that's called a lie.
Just to clarify, with the latest info that I could find.

According to the latest press account I could find (November 17, 2014), many decades after Trump was attempting to purchase the Vera Coking house at 127 S. Columbia Place in Atlantic City, it was purchased by an Ihcan subsidiary for $583,000.  According to this account, the house was in the process of having asbestos removed in preparation for demolition.

I assume that the demolition occurred in late 2014 or early 2015.  Again, decades after Trump has any involvement in this property.

So, implying that Trump had the house bulldozed is "misleading" at the least.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/icahn-revealed-as-coking-house-s-mystery-buyer/article_4f0d5ce4-6eb3-11e4-84fb-f73f13c741bc.html

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2016, 12:12:00 am »
Cruz's ad accuses Trump of buying a lady's house and bulldozing it down for limousine parking - but Trump says he never bought the house because she wouldn't accept his offer (she ended up selling it for much less) - so how did he "bulldoze" it?  Last I heard, the house is still there.

Where I come from, that's called a lie.

I believe in the case of Cruz' campaign it is merely more incompetence.
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline alicewonders

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2016, 12:15:39 am »
Just to clarify, with the latest info that I could find.

According to the latest press account I could find (November 17, 2014), many decades after Trump was attempting to purchase the Vera Coking house at 127 S. Columbia Place in Atlantic City, it was purchased by an Ihcan subsidiary for $583,000.  According to this account, the house was in the process of having asbestos removed in preparation for demolition.

I assume that the demolition occurred in late 2014 or early 2015.  Again, decades after Trump has any involvement in this property.

So, implying that Trump had the house bulldozed is "misleading" at the least.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/icahn-revealed-as-coking-house-s-mystery-buyer/article_4f0d5ce4-6eb3-11e4-84fb-f73f13c741bc.html

Thanks Katz.  If I'm not mistaken, I think Trump offered her over a million dollars for the property.   She refused to sell and then the bottom fell out of the housing market, so she ended up getting much less.

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Offline alicewonders

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2016, 12:19:25 am »
I believe in the case of Cruz' campaign it is merely more incompetence.

Me too.  I think he's got some less than stellar advisers - which is a reflection on him.  Did I hear he's using Rick Perry's campaign adviser?   
:wtf!:



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We told you Trump would win - bigly!

Offline flowers

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2016, 12:23:55 am »
A nasty lie, I might add.   :pondering:

 :beer:
outright nasty.....amazing to watch the world today. just amazing.


Offline EasyAce

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #12 on: January 27, 2016, 12:26:49 am »
A nasty lie, I might add.   :pondering:

 :beer:

I'm reminded of a lament from one-time Hell's Angels president Sonny Barger on the group's negative press coverage:

There's not much good you can write about us, but that don't give people the right to make stuff up. All that bullsh@t, hell, ain't the truth bad enough for 'em?
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 12:27:25 am by EasyAce »


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Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline flowers

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #13 on: January 27, 2016, 12:28:50 am »
Me too.  I think he's got some less than stellar advisers - which is a reflection on him.  Did I hear he's using Rick Perry's campaign adviser?   
:wtf!:
remember Perry was a guest speaker at a LaRaza event? That was the final straw  for me. Less than stellar advisers or a fake?


Offline massadvj

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #14 on: January 27, 2016, 12:35:09 am »
It is one thing to use eminent domain for public USE such as the internet highway system or the Keystone Pipeline.  It is something else altogether when its constitutional protections for property owners are being eroded to include things like casino parking lots.  Trump has come down squarely FOR eminent domain in just about any circumstance, and that is a very ominous power for the people to cede to the state.

Once private property rights are gone, all other rights follow their demise.

Offline alicewonders

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #15 on: January 27, 2016, 12:44:56 am »
I'm reminded of a lament from one-time Hell's Angels president Sonny Barger on the group's negative press coverage:

There's not much good you can write about us, but that don't give people the right to make stuff up. All that bullsh@t, hell, ain't the truth bad enough for 'em?

LOL! 

True enough!

Don't tread on me.   8888madkitty

We told you Trump would win - bigly!

Offline aligncare

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2016, 12:45:19 am »
Just to clarify, with the latest info that I could find.

According to the latest press account I could find (November 17, 2014), many decades after Trump was attempting to purchase the Vera Coking house at 127 S. Columbia Place in Atlantic City, it was purchased by an Ihcan subsidiary for $583,000.  According to this account, the house was in the process of having asbestos removed in preparation for demolition.

I assume that the demolition occurred in late 2014 or early 2015.  Again, decades after Trump has any involvement in this property.

So, implying that Trump had the house bulldozed is "misleading" at the least.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/icahn-revealed-as-coking-house-s-mystery-buyer/article_4f0d5ce4-6eb3-11e4-84fb-f73f13c741bc.html

Thanks for fleshing that out. Those are the facts as I understood them.

There's a media caricature of Trump, and a political caricature of Trump, and then there's the real Donald J Trump. (thought I'd throw that little flourish in there in honor of the next president of the United States of America.   :bolt:

Offline musiclady

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #17 on: January 27, 2016, 12:47:09 am »
It doesn't take much "effort" to villainize Trump.  He does it pretty much every day, all by his onesies......
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

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Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline aligncare

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #18 on: January 27, 2016, 12:51:20 am »
Me too.  I think he's got some less than stellar advisers - which is a reflection on him.  Did I hear he's using Rick Perry's campaign adviser?   
:wtf!:

And let's not forget when we hire Ted Cruz, we get a cadre of advisers and political consultants, no doubt some focus groups, too.

When we hire Donald J Trump, we get Donald J Trump.

Offline alicewonders

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #19 on: January 27, 2016, 01:42:57 am »
It doesn't take much "effort" to villainize Trump.  He does it pretty much every day, all by his onesies......

Does it bother you that Ted Cruz's ad is a lie?

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Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #20 on: January 27, 2016, 01:52:57 am »
Me too.  I think he's got some less than stellar advisers - which is a reflection on him.  Did I hear he's using Rick Perry's campaign adviser?   
:wtf!:

And Richard Mourdock's too !! Jeff Roe is the name.
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Offline Dexter

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #21 on: January 27, 2016, 02:04:58 am »
Does it bother you that Ted Cruz's ad is a lie?

Few would admit it, but a lot of people will rationalize it as a greater good thing.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 02:05:16 am by Dexter »
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Offline katzenjammer

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #22 on: January 27, 2016, 02:35:58 am »
It is one thing to use eminent domain for public USE such as the internet highway system or the Keystone Pipeline.  It is something else altogether when its constitutional protections for property owners are being eroded to include things like casino parking lots.  Trump has come down squarely FOR eminent domain in just about any circumstance, and that is a very ominous power for the people to cede to the state.

Once private property rights are gone, all other rights follow their demise.

Two initial points:

1.  Trump wasn't one of the five Supreme Court Justices deciding in favor of the City of New London in Kelo.
2.  We usually don't blame individuals or entities for attempting to make use of existing legal precedents.


While some of us may not like particular laws that exist, we usually don't attempt to vilify people for operating within the laws, unless we have an axe to grind.  (Another related example, I've never heard of such an uproar as we have lately over Chapter 11 reorganization, and we all know why we do.)

And it is interesting to hear the anti-Trump contingent constantly harp on his "abuse of eminent domain" as if it were a constant pattern.  I am curious, does any know of any other cases of Trump's alleged "abuse" of eminent domain beyond the oft discussed Coking case?

I know of only one such other case: In 1994, Trump attempted to build a $350 million office and entertainment complex on the waterfront in Bridgeport, CT.  While a plan was discussed in which the City of Bridgeport would partner with Trump in an attempt to gain the properties, through condemnation if a suitable purchase price could not be reached with the owners.  The project never proceeded beyond the planning stages before being discontinued.

If anyone is aware of any actual cases of Trump's "abuse" of eminent domain, I am interested in reading about them.

So, here we have the truth behind these breathless claims of serial abuse, one case in which the property owner refused his offer of several times the value of the property (after another builder had built around and over the property), and a failed attempt of the  Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to gain control of the property.

You may disagree, but this "issue" seems to be quite a lot of rhetorical huffing and puffing over very little substance.  :shrug:

ETA: I focused my search on the domestic US, I now recall there may be a case in Scotland in which an 'eminent domain' style action was attempted.  I will have to look into that one further to better understand the result.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 03:26:50 am by katzenjammer »

Offline aligncare

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #23 on: January 27, 2016, 02:51:02 am »
Does it bother you that Ted Cruz's ad is a lie?

It bothers me a little. But, it's politics, it's expected. Trump can take it, though. He's a big boy (he said, understating the matter).

No, what bothers me more is that Ted Cruz is just another lawyer and has become just another politician, that he's got that subset of typical politican skills, that he conducts a typical political campaign with the usual campaign consultants and focus groups, who prep him and polish his lines and hit the right demo group, and wear the right jacket, and say the right words for the right audience.

He didn't start out that way. But, when he's numbers started going up and the money started coming in from establishment sources and big donors, he started spending it on high-paid consultants to craft his message. So how much of what we hear from Ted Cruz is him, and how much of what we hear is consultants?

Contrast that with Donald Trump. No donors or special interest money. No dozens of campaign consultants. No focus groups. No speech writers. No canned, memorized lines.

Just Trump. I'm pretty sure that's how politicians used to operate, back in the day. You voted for the man, not his team of handlers.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Republican rivals launch effort to villainize Donald Trump
« Reply #24 on: January 27, 2016, 03:00:12 am »
It bothers me a little. But, it's politics, it's expected.

You know politics has gotten bad when lying is overlooked because it's expected.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 03:00:40 am by Dexter »
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