President Trump stood up in Myrtle Beach on Friday and told a packed crowd to do something the smart people in Washington will spend the next week calling unhinged. He said, pretend I’m on the ballot Tuesday. Just pretend. And then go vote.
“So what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot,” Trump said. “Just come and vote. It’s so important.”
Now, I guarantee you the talking heads at NBC and the rest of the cocktail-party press are already working on their segments about how this is some kind of desperate move, how it shows he can’t let go of the spotlight, how it’s proof of whatever personality disorder their favorite cable-news psychologist diagnosed last week. Bless their hearts.
But here’s what I see with my own two eyes: the man knows his people. He knows that Republican voters turn out when his name is on the line and sit on the couch when it’s not. That’s not a theory. That’s midterm math going back years. And instead of pretending that problem doesn’t exist, the way every Republican consultant in a fleece vest does every even-numbered year, Trump just said the quiet part out loud. Pretend I’m there. Show up anyway.
Unknown authorUnknown author (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsThat’s not crazy. That’s honest.
He’s in Myrtle Beach for Darline Graham, who is running in a Republican runoff Tuesday against Rep. Ralph Norman for the Senate seat her late brother Lindsey held. Lindsey Graham died unexpectedly in July, and Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline to fill the remainder of the term. Trump encouraged her to run for it herself, endorsed her before she’d even announced, and now flew down to South Carolina to pack a hall for her.
Darline Graham is not a career politician. She said so herself: “I am many things: a problem solver, a mother, a leader, but I am not a career politician.” She talked about the conservative values she learned in the back of a liquor store, which is the kind of line that makes the people who write policy briefs faint and the people who actually vote sit up and listen.
Naturally, the press has been working overtime on the one thing that might sink her. During a debate this week, she stumbled on a foreign policy question about Taiwan. She said she wasn’t up to speed on national security. The clips made the rounds. The experts clucked.
Tichnor Brothers, Inc. (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsBut Trump brushed it off like a man who’s been around the block. He told reporters she “was being honest” and that she’s “surrounded by very good people.” Imagine that. A candidate who admits what she doesn’t know instead of pretending she’s memorized every briefing binder cover to cover. I have questions for the people who think that’s disqualifying. How many senators currently sitting in that chamber couldn’t find Taiwan on a map if you spotted them the continent? Half of them? More?
The runoff is Tuesday. South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in decades, so whoever wins this Republican nomination is almost certainly going to the Senate. The question isn’t whether the seat stays red. It’s whether the person filling it is someone Trump can work with or someone the establishment prefers.
Trump picked his horse. He showed up in Myrtle Beach to ride her across the finish line. And if asking folks to pretend he’s on the ballot is what gets them to the polls, then I’d say that’s a lot more useful than another memo from the RNC.
The man knows what moves people. Washington still doesn’t. That’s why he’s there and they’re not.