Primary Perspective: Kirk Dumps Trump & Christie Stands By His Man

Well I just got back from casting my primary vote not too long ago and it was fairly busy in the lobby and library of my local polling site for District 54 in the Gershon Senior Citizens Building.

It took a few minutes of me waiting in the "A - K" line while a man in front of me had to straighten out a small issue with a name or address change that required him to step out of the line and fill out some additional paperwork before he could step into the booth and cast his vote.

But aside from that it was a pretty smooth election day experience for me, I was in and out in about seven minutes and I was determined to cast my vote regardless of the decision by the Associated Press last night to announce that Hillary has won enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.

You may recall my having mentioned the little old guy named Bernie who monitors the two voting booths at the Gershon on the blog last fall on November 15th.

He was seated in his wheelchair in his usual spot between the voting machines today too keeping an eye on things, although he seemed a little grouchier than usual.

I asked him about the day's attendance and Bernie said it was pretty solid for a primary voting day; he felt it was because voters are angry.

I certainly couldn't disagree with Bernie on that one and I nodded in agreement as he took my green receipt as he lamented about the state of the nation.

Fox News commentator Rudy Giuliani 

"It's a shame what's happened to this country." Bernie grumbled as he looked up at me from his chair.

"I wanted to vote for Rudy Giuliani but he screwed up." he confessed as he looked off.

With that I shook my head in silent sympathetic agreement and slipped between the curtains to cast my vote. 

I pegged Bernie as a Fox News watcher long ago, and while we always exchange pleasantries at the booth, I try to avoid topics like one's personal politics at the poll site, so when he mentioned liking Rudy Giuliani as a presidential candidate, it told me two things about Bernie.

One, he's pretty conservative, and that's cool with me - I couldn't tell Bernie that I lived in New York City during the Giuliani mayoral regime, and I happen to think he worsened racial and cultural divisions in the city during his tenure (particularly with the way he ran the NYPD) and he morphed into a total right-wing nut job after his short-lived presidential hopes fizzled.    

Remember Rudy's "Obama doesn't love America." comment? Which he made at an event to raise funds for the equally right-wing nut job Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's presidential campaign back in February, 2015.

Secondly, Bernie's grumbling about Giuliani also told me that he's one of many Republicans who are sickened by Donald Trump's stubborn refusal to back away from his criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel because of his Mexican heritage.

My sense is that Bernie, like many conservative voters,is coming to grips with the unfortunate reality that the GOP is backing Trump as the 2016 candidate.

Bernie is a veteran in his 80's and he's smart enough to know that nothing good is going to come of that for the Republican party.

Watching Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan publicly lecture Trump today like a couple of school principals berating some dimwitted bully harassing kids in the halls in an effort to disassociate the party from Trump's views, I could only shake my head.

The two of them are as responsible for Trump being the nominee as anyone else in the GOP, as their stubborn agreement to use their Congressional leadership positions to oppose any of President Obama's initiatives not only led to the gridlock that angered so many voters, it also set the tone for the unprecedented contempt with which conservatives treated Obama throughout his tenure.

Contempt which served as a green light for the open expression of racism and xenophobia within conservative American circles.  

Republican Illinois Senator Mark Kirk

Now they're watching this disaster unfold, and neither of them has the courage to stand up and say enough is enough.

Republican Illinois Senator Mark Kirk did.

The former veteran, who'd previously broken with his party over their refusal to even consider Judge Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, stood up and did what I think a lot of  moderate Republicans want to do.


He publicly revoked his support for Donald Trump. In a detailed statement he said in part:

"It is absolutely essential that we are guided by a commander-in-chief  with a responsible and proper temperament, discretion and judgement...After much consideration I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world."

It's refreshing to see a Republican with some principles (and some cojones) finally stand up and say it, but it's sad that a more prominent member of the party leadership didn't say it first.

Singer Tammy Wynette

We certainly didn't get that kind of politcal and moral courage from our own governor here in New Jersey.

Much like the famous American country singer Tammy Wynette, earlier today, Chris Christie announced that he's gonna "Stand By (His) Man".

Despite a laundry list of offensive public statements by Trump, and virtually the entire Republican leadership denouncing his statements about judge Gonzalo Curiel as racist, Christie told baffled reporters,

"I've said this before, that I know Donald Trump, I've known him for 14 years, and Donald Trump is not a racist."


See no evil, hear no evil I guess, whatever lets you sleep at night and wake up and look at your face in the mirror in the morning.

Christie's denial of Trump's true character is a sad reflection of just how far to the right he's moved politically and morally in order to make himself more palatable to conservatives and pander to the extremists who control the Republican party.

As the media has been quick to observe today, Christie was the one back in 2011 who hit back at conservatives who criticized his decision to appoint Muslim judge Sohail Mohammed, an immigrant from India who became a U.S. citizen, as a State Superior Court Judge in Passaic County.

Christie publicly denounced delusional Republican fear-mongers who expressed "concerns" that Mohammed was a terrorist who would advocate for Sharia Law on the bench.

Apparently the chance for a cabinet position in a 2016 Republican presidency 'Trumps' Christie's own distaste for irrational conservative bigotry.

The righteous indignation Christie once expressed over politician's questioning a qualified judge because of his ethnicity?

That's all in the past.

Pastor Scott's 'Come-Up' & Trump's Imaginary African-American

Trump supporter Pastor Darrell Scott

In response to the growing backlash against Donald Trump's (latest) bigoted statements, his campaign has been quick to trot out the enigmatic Pastor Darrell Scott in an almost Quixotic effort to dispel the public perception that Trump is a racist xenophobe.

Scott was the man largely responsible for helping to round up that group of African-American church leaders back in the fall, ostensibly as visual evidence of Trump's support within the black community.

Have you seen any of those church leaders lately?

Most likely it was a staged photo op for Trump to be seen pictured with some black people.

Now obviously people can support any political candidate they like, but given Trump's divisive rhetoric, Scott seems like a bit of a strange duck.

Earlier today I watched him being interviewed on CNN by Brooke Baldwin along with two other panelists discussing the fallout from Trump's public feud with a federal judge whose parents were of Mexican descent.

While it's not my intent, place or desire to judge the pastor's work with the church, watching him field questions about Trump's attitudes towards racial minorities and immigrants on CNN, it seemed to me as if Scott came off as more of a political PR hack than a man of the cloth.

Back in March, Jason Johnson wrote an interesting piece on Scott for TheRoot.com in which he observed that Scott is not widely viewed as one of the leading members of the black clergy in the city of Cleveland (Johnson has lived there on and off for 10 years), nor has he been seen as taking any kind of public leadership role on major issues impacting the local black community there.

From what I could tell, Scott seems to have no substantive answer to questions about the numerous examples of Trump's racial and ethnic intolerance, or what his bogus "university" might say about his qualification to be president - he's like a blind supporter of Trump.

Ohio Rep Stephanie Howse

According to Johnson's Root.com article, the good pastor, a self-professed former drug addict who preaches "prosperity ministry" to the roughly 200 members of his New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland, it's likely that he's getting a nice paycheck from The Donald for his support.

The title graphic under his name during the CNN interview listed him as the "CEO of the Coalition for Diversity for Trump" - or something like that; I doubt he's doing that for free.

Johnson's article quotes Democratic State House Representative Stephanie Howse, a Cleveland-area lawmaker who sits on the House Community and Family Advancement Committee, as saying of Pastor Scott's stumping for Trump:


"This is all about the money and getting next to Trump. Just last year his wife was on a reality show (Lifetime's Preach). He's trying to get famous and be on the come-up. If he really cared so much about politics, where has he been on local issues, where he could make a much greater impact?"

My guess is the Donald saw a relatively lower-tier minister preaching a gospel of prosperity in the same city where the Republicans will hold their convention and saw an opportunity - one he was ready to pay for.  

Trump has already secured enough delegates to secure the GOP presidential nomination, but lately it seems like he's on some kind of campaign to disassociate himself from the divisive bigotry which has been spewing out  his own mouth for months.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel

It's like lately he's on a mission to prove that he's really not the xenophobic bigot that his words have shown him to be since the day he kicked off his campaign with a now infamous diatribe against Mexican immigrants.

Trump is facing growing criticism from members of his own party (including Senators Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and Kelly Ayotte, and House Speaker Paul Ryan) for his comments suggesting that federal judge Gonzalo Curiel should be disqualified from hearing two lawsuits stemming from the sham Trump University.

Why? Because (in Trump's view) Curiel's "Mexican heritage" would make him too biased to rule fairly on the case.


(This from a guy who recently celebrated Cinco de Mayo by posing while eating a taco bowl with the quote, "I love Hispanics!") 

As the Washington Post reported today, a number of Republican Senators and House members arriving back on Capitol Hill after the Memorial Day break all but ran from reporters to avoid having to comment on Trump's suggestions that a sitting federal judge is not qualified to rule on the merits of a case because of his ethnicity.

Now Trump finds himself pushing back against Republican party establishment figures like Newt Gingrich on the eve of the California primary; and let's be honest, the West coast has not been good for Trump.

Gregory Cheadle - Not Trump's African-American

Not only were some of his appearances marred by violent protests against his anti-immigration policies,  Trump's effort to reach out to a black attendee standing in the crowd at a rally in Redding, California backfired when Trump pointed to the man and uttered the cringe-worthy phrase, "Look at my African-American over there."

Putting aside the fact that Trump completely missed the paternalistic master-slave context of his own words, as NPR reported yesterday, it turns out that man he pointed to, Gregory Cheadle, is not a Trump supporter.

Cheadle is a Republican.



In fact he's running for California's 1st Congressional District and he told reporters he attended the rally because, "I am not a Trump supporter. I went to hear Donald Trump because I have an open mind."

Cheadle, whose head is bald, told reporters he was holding a cardboard 'Veterans for Trump' sign over his head to block the sun when Trump pointed at him and made the comments; which he said were "surreal" but did not offend him.

According to a recent interview, Cheadle is a successful businessman who describes himself as an "1856 Republican" who values freedom based on his having grown up during segregation and experienced it first hand; he also wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Cheadle also sees jobs and the economy as a priority and wants to address the issue of mass incarceration and the impact it's having on the lives of former felons.

He certainly sounds like a much more intriguing Republican presidential candidate than Trump.

Who knows, with the huge unexpected boost in name recognition and national media exposure he's been getting from Trump's comments, maybe we'll see him walking the halls of Congress someday.

Whoever Cheadle is, he's clearly not "Trump's African-American", nor anyone else's for that matter.