By RYAN SENECAL
Staff Writer
Last week was not a very good for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. If people have disregarded the type of inflammatory remarks Trump has said in the past, they should really think twice before they defend him now.
First, he told a reporter recently that he would only nominate judges to the Supreme Court who would look into Hillary Clinton’s email investigation. We know that the Supreme Court’s job is to interpret the law, not investigate individuals.
Trump also went on to say, in an MSNBC town hall forum with Chris Matthews, that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who obtain abortions. People from both the pro-choice and pro-life movements cringed.
Trump’s opponents quickly came out and criticized his words. Senator Ted Cruz issued a statement saying, “Once again Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention.” He continued, “Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world.”
Governor John Kasich released a statement the following morning, saying “The past 24 hours revealed in the clearest way yet that that Donald Trump is not prepared to be president. On top of all his previous inflammatory statements, [Wednesday] he proposed punishing women who receive abortions, attacked the Geneva Conventions and said he’d nominate Supreme Court justices based on who will look into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.”
Trump also managed to use nuclear weapons loosely. This, as you would expect, raised concerns at home and abroad.
On Thursday, Trump met with top party officials, including chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus, in what many assumed would be a meeting discussing what he said on abortion and other matters such as delegates.
The RNC has tried to focus its attention away from abortion after what was said on the controversial topic in the 2012 election cycle. Who could forget former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s comments about Planned Parenthood going into shopping malls and calling them “the LensCrafter of abortion.”
Republicans have had a hard time explaining their position on abortion without insulting anyone for the last few years. Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a former presidential candidate, is one of the most pro-life governors right now. He said that he believed that the women’s body could tell the difference if conception occurred by rape or incest and could self-abort the embryo.
So, Trump’s abortion comments are not the first that are controversial. Many people have made controversial comments on the topic, but Trump made them so now it gets the attention of the world.
Regardless of Cruz and Kasich responding to Trump’s comments, it looks bad for the Republican Party as a whole. You can be pro-life, but that doesn’t mean that you should make comments on abortion, as a presidential candidate, that may blow up in your face. Same goes for those who are pro-choice.
People shouldn’t be labeled bigots because of views on abortion, whether one is pro-life or pro-choice.
It seems through many people who are supporting Trump are starting to rethink who they want as the nominee.
On April 5, Wisconsin voters will head to the polls to vote in their presidential primaries. In a state that was leaning heavily for Trump at the end of February, Cruz has jumped ahead by 10 points according to several polls.
Looking two weeks ahead to the New York state primary on April 19, Trump has a sizeable lead over Cruz, but two weeks is a long time in politics.
What’s interesting about this cycle is that we still do not have a presumptive nominee on the Republican side. By this time in 2012, it was clear that former Governor Mitt Romney was the presumptive nominee.
If Cruz were to win the Wisconsin Primary, it would only tell us that a contested convention is more likely. The thought of a contested convention is so likely that the RNC launched a website that explains how the convention works. The website is conventionfacts.gop.
It’s possible that the 2016 GOP convention could be worse than the one in 2012. Remember how most of the Maine Delegation stormed off the floor of the convention in protest?
If a contested convention occurs, Trump may not fare well after the first ballot and the nominee would certainly be a real conservative, not a phony conservative like Trump. Also, the RNC needs to oversee this process a little better than it has in the past and in the present.
As we are about halfway through primary and caucus season, expect Trump to make some more controversial comments. Do we really expect anything else at this point?
