Did Trump Get Snookered?

Did Donald Trump get Snookered? Did the Grand Old Party snooker the king deal maker? Was Trump snookered into signing a pledge that he would not seek an independent run for president if he did not receive the Republican Party nomination?

Now that we are past Labor Day and are rushing headlong into the 2016 presidential election cycle, it is time to analyse the GOP preseason. Their preseason, as a result of Trump crashing their party, comes down to the above questions. After all, much of the attention in the Republican battle to take back the country from the Democrats has centered on the enormous air that Trump sucked out of the Republican tent.

So much that the party brass thought it necessary to get Trump to sign a pledge that he would not seek an independent run for the White House should he not receive the Republican nomination.

Trump said he was willing to sign the pledge because he received assurances that the GOP would be fair to him. I am not sure what that means. Trump does not appear to care how people treat him, because he has an uncanny ability to throw hard Mike Tyson like punches, whenever attacked by an adversary.

At any rate, Trump says he got  respect and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus got a promise, without legal recourse, that Trump would remain in the Republican tent no matter what happens at next summer’s convention.

Trump signed this pledge at a time when polling data from several respected polling firms project that he is running away with the nomination. So why sign what appears to be a desolutary pledge? If Trump is the nominee, obviously he is not running as an independent. All indicators at the close of preseason are that Trump is the odds on favorite to gain the nomination.

But wait a minute. Priebus is not a stranger to the art of deal making. He wrestled control of the GOP from Michael Steele in 2011. In January he will become the longest serving Chairman of the Republican Party in modern history.

If Priebus thought Trump had a lock on the nomination, he would not have put so much energy (traveling to Trump Towers) in getting Trump to pledge his fidelity to the GOP whether Jeb Bush or Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina claimed the top prize at the conclusion of the primary season.

I suspects as the election cycle progresses, that Trump the businessman, is in for a rude introduction to politics 101 and the art of political deal making, which is not the same as making a deal on reality TV, or twisting arms in a board room when you have all the marbles, not to mention the skills necessary to navigate one’s way through the intricate decisions a president is called upon to make in the oval office every day during a four year term.

Did Trump get snookered? The smart money favors Priebus.

Harold Michael Harvey, is the author of the legal thriller “Paper Puzzle,” and “Justice in the Round: Essays on the American Jury System,” available at Amazon and at haroldmichaelharvey.com. He can be contacted at [email protected] 

SOURCES:

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/opinion/20150909/eugene-robinson-donald-trumps-practical-pledge

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-third-party-independent_55e856cfe4b0aec9f35631a0

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/donald-trump-2016-rnc-pledge-meeting/

https://www.gop.com/leaders/national-chairman-reince-priebus-nt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_candidates,_2016