Columnist and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan stated that if the primary was today, he would “bet on” Donald Trump for the nomination on Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”
Buchanan said of Trump, “Well, he’s got lots of money and he’s very able and colorful and popular, and he ought to go into that debate, just as he said. You know, you dance with the one that brung you, Neil, and he’s gotten where he is based on his persona, and his straight talk, and his humor, and all the rest of it, and that’s all he’s got to bring with him.”
He added, “I think another reason is, everybody piled on, and the American people, they realize people make gaffs and mistakes and they laugh with them, sometimes they laugh at them, but the huge pile on, even by some of his colleagues in the race saying get out, get out, get out, I think offended an awful lot of people, and it looked like everybody’s baiting the bear, and people starting cheering for the bear.” And “This race, almost always in the Republican Party, and you mentioned my race, comes down to the establishment guy, Dole, versus the outlier, the outsider, the insurgent, Buchanan, and once you go through the early primaries, the establishment all comes together, and wins, almost always. This time, the insurgent is the frontrunner. He could come out of these primaries, if he holds where he’s at, and some establishment candidate’s going to have try to rally everyone behind him.”
Buhanan continued, “I think the establishment, and the other candidates, as and when they dropped out, and frankly, if Donald’s running at 25%, say he comes in second to Walker in Iowa and wins New Nampshire, I think they’ll start dropping out and the establishment people will start moving immediately in all the other states and the dropout candidates, all 15, or 14, or 13 of them, almost all of them I would think would endorse, say, a Bush, or a Walker, or someone like that, who’s against trump, but I think Trump, if he starts off today — if we started the primaries right where he is today, I mean, I would bet on him for the nomination.”
Buchanan did say that Trump, has “to get organized in Iowa at the grassroots. That’s getting people out, it’s not simply poll numbers. He’s got to do that, but if, let’s say, if he comes in second to Walker in Iowa, as I did to Dole, and he wins New Hampshire, I think it’s Katy bar the door. I don’t know where [Jeb] Bush or somebody else, comes around and beats him in an early primaries, so they have to catch up with him in the later primaries.”
Buchanan also stated Trump is “very much a populist candidate,” who you “laugh with,” while the other candidates look “very vanilla.”
Buchanan did point out, “the problem he’s got, he’s ought to maintain this freshness that he’s got, colorfulness, and it’s very tough to sustain that, when the — getting the kind of coverage he’s getting, but he’s done a whale of a job, I’m astonished.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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