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From 1988 to 2016 – The Evolution of ‘Donald Trump for President’

Posted on
September 27, 2016
by Andrew Cullen
If you only judged by last night’s debate performance, you may think that this is Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign – it’s not. In 2000 Trump went the way of Ross Perot and ran as a Reform Party candidate. He snagged more than 15,000 votes in the party’s California primary that year.

But even as far back as 1987, Trump had considered and flirted with running for president. Perhaps to no surprise, his message then is pretty consistent with his message now: America doesn’t win anymore, and it takes a winner to get the country back on track. After a shaky performance at the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, Trump released this ad, titled “America Will Win Again!” – reminding his supporters that he’s a winner, and promising those supporters that with the country under his care, they can be winners too.

Trump in ’88: ‘We’re Really Making Other People Live Like Kings – And We’re Not’

A typical politician often runs for office with a big war chest of positive clips of themselves – often in the halls of Congress, or on the campaign trail. Trump doesn’t have much of that kind of footage, but he has plenty of clips featuring him on talk shows and Sunday news programs throughout the 80s and 90s – and this ad is full of them.

Like the opening clip from the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988, where we can hear the making of some themes in Trump’s 2016 campaign. “I really am tired of seeing what’s happening with this country,” a younger Trump says, “how we’re really making other people live like kings – and we’re not.”

But who should be the person to fix it? According to Trump in 1988 – anyone other than him. “I think I would do a fantastic job,” he says. “But I really would prefer not doing it.” But it should be, “Somebody with strong views,” Trump thinks. “Somebody with the kind of views that are maybe a little bit unpopular – which may be right – but may be unpopular.” Looks like a few years later Trump thought he was the only guy who fit the bill.

“The fact is,” Trump admits at the 1988 Republican Convention, “I go down the streets of New York and the people that really like me are the taxi drivers and the workers, etcetera, etcetera.”

‘Do You Want to See the United States Become a Winner?’

Some corners of Team Trump have shifted their messaging strategies in recent weeks to focus more on highlighting Trump’s positive attributes, rather than constantly hammering on Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses.

One major Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America Now, even told their donors that their own internal polls found that stressing Trump’s background and future plans tested better than traditional attacks against Clinton. The official Trump campaign hasn’t completely adopted that ideology, but at last night’s debate Trump did try to pin the “nasty commercials” squarely on Clinton – despite his campaign having aired plenty of “nasty” ads themselves.

Trump’s biggest obstacle with flipping reality in this instance is time. There’s only 41 days left until the election. If he is going to frame Clinton as insulter-in-chief, it will take more than some positive Trump ads to do the trick – though they certainly can’t hurt.
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