Netanyahu, Perry, Trump and Palin

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 5/31/11

Did MSM really think that Donald Trump would go away because an elderly correspondent called him a “racist”? How did it work out back in June, 2009, when David Letterman called Sarah Palin a “slut”?

Donald Trump, interviewed by Neil Cavuto this week, had the same steam in his walk. He came across with ideas which are not coming up with the usually “establishment” candidates. They are powerful ideas and they are ideas which will be heard and taken seriously.

If anyone truly believes that Trump is a racist they share the moral complexity and density of a spider plant. It is a technique timeless to the demagogue, institutionalized in our time by Saul Alinsky. But his ideas will be considered because Trump, like Palin, now has folk status: the minions of Big Brother have tracked him down. Of course, he will be back stronger, bigger, better and more brash. He is writing a book on politics and people will listen because people always listen to Donald Trump – his is a mainstream American channel, like Oprah’s, like Letterman’s. And Trump has been endorsed by the two of the most popular religious leaders in America; Franklin Graham and Mike Huckabee. And that means to the America of big stormy stock cars and F 150s and .30-06’s. It means something to Sarah Palin’s America and Texas governor Rick Perry’s.

Which is saying something for a New Yorker. The only other I can think of who shares that true heartland karma is Rudy Giuliani, who was last married at Graceland, I believe. In fact, Trump and Palin might be considered, for lack of a better phrase, “Giuliani conservatives.” To recall, Palin was at a Yankee’s game with Giuliani when Letterman slandered her. It gave her a fresh future. This will give Trump one as well.

Trump will kick off the evening session at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference and strategy briefing this week. Get ready: Applause will come from this major group of social conservatives like that which came to Benjamin Netanyahu in his historic address to Congress.

Worth observing that there has been a regular occurrence of roaring this week with Netanyahu, interrupted 57 times in Congress, Palin who rolled with the thunder into the nation’s capital on a Harley, and Trump, reemerging on the Cavuto show. And wait till they get to hear Rick Perry. Market-wise, this accidental quaternity works well together are bringing something new; a power, a determination, perspective and enthusiasm that did not appear in politics in recent decades. It is a door that has opened – it was opened by Sarah Palin - that will not be closed.

Trump may be out of the running for president in 2012, but like Mitt Romney, Ross Perot and other corporate chiefs – include Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Mike Bloomberg and others – his positions and work and life experience should put him in the highest rank of candidate. He might make a nice running mate in this rising campaign which is delightfully outside the box and rapidly leaving the pale and watery behind.

Consider Perry/Trump ’12 or Palin/Trump ’12. There could not be a better salesman for the American spirit as it rises as if born again fearless and free into the new century.