Pat Schroeder called Ronald Reagan the Teflon president. Whatever material Trump’s wearing is far more powerful; not only is nothing negative sticking, it actually empowers the candidate. It’s incredible.
His outing at AIPAC really was a microcosm of his entire campaign. Despite his wishy-washiness on Israel, his alleged stance of neutrality on Palestine, his calls for cutting military aid the day before the conference — when he said what AIPAC participants wanted to hear, he received a standing ovation.
Where was holding the candidate to task? Where were the challenges to Trump on how all the “right” things he was saying at AIPAC directly clashed with what he’d been saying up until that point?
The reception Trump received at AIPAC reveals the momentum behind this candidate: He says at a given time what a given group of people want to hear. That’s it. Apparently people are so desperate to be heard, and to have someone acknowledge and verbalize their views, that they don’t care about consistency. In that moment, their views are being publicized. It is cathartic, and it shows how disaffected many American voters have become.
The issue for Trump is that a president must move beyond saying things, and actually doing and following through with things. That’s an ability Trump has yet to demonstrate in the political arena. Whether he can do so in the coming months will likely make the difference between Trump the contender and Trump the candidate.
Since Trump said exactly what the other candidates said he got the same ovation. The audience was applauding what was said, not who was saying it. Since AIPAC is determinedly non-partisan it would have been rude to do otherwise.
In other words — don’t read too much into it? However, shouldn’t people care about who is expounding their message, and not just the message itself?