He is one of the most dazzling figures of the U.S. glamour world: Donald Trump, the Billionaire. Now he has an eye on a Republican presidential nomination. He is ahead in the opinion polls.
Do you remember Donald Trump? He is the super-rich property shark from New York, the billionaire, the “tycoon” with a blow-dried hairstyle, that “mogul” who provided prime gossip with the flamboyance of his ex-wife Ivana in the ‘80s. In the U.S., Trump had never entirely disappeared from the scene. But now, he has caused chaos with one project in particular: He has his eye on the Republican presidential nomination, with power over a very special property — the White House in Washington. Trump — “The Donald” — flirts with the fact that he, now 64, could become a challenger to President Barack Obama in 2012.
Arrogant. Direct. Omnipresent.
Trump’s presence in U.S. media is huge, even though he has not even officially declared his candidacy. This is not simply because he presents the talent show “The Apprentice” on NBC each week. Since rumors of a possible nomination have surfaced, Trump is omnipresent as an interviewee — even in political broadcasts. Last weekend, he also appeared at an event for the right-wing tea party movement. Arrogant and direct, Trump is trying to score points with easy solutions. On the U.S. operation in Libya, Trump says that the government ought to have been paid by the Arab League. Oil prices are also no problem. According to Trump, the U.S. just needs an “ambassador” who makes it clear for the boys at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that they ought to lower crude oil prices. According to Trump’s principles, he is indeed getting his way, but it just needs to be correctly communicated. It depends on brainpower. Trump thinks Obama is an extremely bad ambassador, whose election is owed to George W. Bush. On Sunday, Trump repeated his principles of faith again on CNN’s program “State of the Union.”
Trump Presents Himself as a Figurehead of the “Birthers”
Let’s focus on Obama. Trump’s biggest success, even before the primaries have begun, is currently the assertion that the Democratic presidency is based on one single big fraud. According to Trump’s mantra, Obama is not a U.S. citizen, because he was not born in Hawaii — that is to say, on American soil — but in Africa. This fable is a right-wing classic in the U.S. that Trump has now made his own. The so-called “birthers” have been trying to pick at Obama’s legitimacy since the last presidential election. Trump, who is in many respects is actually a liberal, presents himself as the new figurehead of the right. Of all places, in an interview with NBC, he was allowed to claim without contest that Obama’s Kenyan grandmother said the president was born in Kenya.
As Gail Collins, columnist for the New York Times, attacked Trump for this and accused the whole presidential number of being pure self-advertising, Trump fired back immediately, by a letter to the editor. In it, he ranted that: “I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent.” The New York Times printed the letter. “Trump seems to have embraced the idea of running for president,” writes Jim DeFede in the online magazine The Daily Beast, and Trump is now fighting “with the same zeal and self-confidence that has made him what he is today — America’s most famous and most boorish business executive. But in today’s political landscape, boorish is in.”
“You’re fired!”
On the one hand, Trump’s popularity in the U.S. is based only in part on his supposedly legendary business sense and his success as a realtor or developer, which has turned the Trump Tower in New York — that mega-building on 5th Avenue and 56th Street — into a monument. (Trump was less successful with casinos.) On the other hand, he owes his popularity in almost equal measure to the huge success of the television show “The Apprentice,” which is airing its 11th season this spring. Trump has presented the reality party since 2004, which is basically a talent show for a managerial position. Whoever wins among the 16 participants will receive a $250,000 one-year contract in one of Trump’s companies. Every time a candidate is sacked, Trump calls out a now famous “You’re fired!” In Germany, the RTL television channel once experimented with a similar format. “Big Boss” was the name of the short-lived show; the German version of Trump was former soccer manager Reiner Calmund. However, Trump is much more like Dieter Bohlen, star of Deutschland Sucht den Superstar in Germany, which is a show similar to American Idol. He could rival his popularity, boorishness and commercial success with Trump, who is now divorced from the famous Ivana and married to a woman named Melania instead.
Trump’s possible nomination may seem like a joke or a clever PR campaign for his television show to political professionals, but at least in initial polls, it is more than that. According to a poll of Republican party supporters or party-friendly voters carried out by CNN, Trump is actually — together with Mike Huckabee, a former governor from Arkansas — at the very front in a slow-forming field of applicants, followed by Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and former vice-presidential candidate.
In June, Trump Intends to Declare His Nomination
Of course, Trump’s current high is to be treated with great caution. It is still a long way off until the Republican primaries get serious; there is still a lot of preliminary skirmishing; neither the candidates nor the exact dates of the primaries have been confirmed. Huckabee is considered to be a contender, but has not yet officially announced his candidacy. In the past week, Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, has announced that he intends to have his nomination examined by a committee. Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota’s former governor, has done the same. There are even a number of candidates in the tea party’s milieu. What Palin is planning exactly is unknown. Michelle Bachmann, the delegate from Minnesota, has competition from her own camp — it is considered to be likely that Bachmann will step forward. Newt Gingrich, the former majority leader in the House of Representatives, is also considering a nomination; and there are other possible candidates. The major goal of each candidate would be to be made the figurehead at the Republican nominating convention, which is currently planned to be held in Tampa, Florida. But nothing is 100 percent certain, not even when the primaries are due to take place in the traditional first states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It could be as early as February 2012, but even that is not completely set in stone.
Trump is using the gap, doing interview after interview, avoiding no confrontation. He has sent an investigative team to Hawaii to research whether documents can be found that prove the birth of Obama in that state. He also declared that he intends to announce his decision on whether or not he will stand in June. He has also revealed that there will be more details before June — on “The Apprentice,” on May 22, to be more precise. This is the date of this year’s season finale.
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