Can-do fervor, strong talk giving Trump edge on Cruz

The relentless Donald J. Trump campaign is surging onward like a monster storm.

But even as some old-time Republicans are hunkering down until this election blows over, much of America sees a forceful leader and winner.

In almost the time it took to say, “New York values,” Trump has turned the Republican presidential primary upside down, becoming a pragmatic alternative to ideologue U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and casting Cruz as least likely to win in November.

“The guy makes deals and gets things done,” said Fort Worth novelist Dan Jenkins, a former New Yorker whose musings on golf, football, politics and enchiladas are must-reads for a generation of sports fans, including the Bush family.

Jenkins didn’t know Trump in New York, and likes Cruz, too.

“But when the state screwed around on fixing the ice rink in Central Park, Trump did it in three months,” Jenkins said. “He says he’ll build the Trump Tower and gets it done. The establishment in Washington hasn’t gotten anything done.”

Trump first broke into national news as the millionaire behind the startup United States Football League New Jersey Generals. His players included former NFL and TCU tackle Marshall Harris of Fort Worth.

Harris is not a Trump voter.

“I’m familiar with his sales pitch that ‘We will change the world,’ and that runs true until you recognize that it’s Trump’s world he is talking about,” Harris wrote in a message.

“When there are obstacles to his design that are insurmountable” — say, the NFL — “Mr. Trump will cut the rope and cut his losses and abandon the people who joined to support his cause … You can’t simply file for bankruptcy when you are the president of the United States.”

Like him or not, Trump has expanded his support from the original border hawks and secular Tea Partiers to include more mainline voters hoping he’ll make savvy business deals.

In other words, the more Cruz accuses Trump of being too moderate, the more establishment moderates like Trump.

“Some of the Republican establishment has decided that Trump is less of a threat,” TCU political science professor Jim Riddlesperger wrote by email, noting former nominee Bob Dole’s warning that nominating Cruz would be “cataclysmic.”

TCU professors Emily M. Farris and Adam Schiffer both noted recent graduate research at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, showing that voters who like strong authority figures prefer Trump sharply and are less interested in issues or conservative ideology.

“Trump taps into Americans’ frustrations and fears and portrays himself as a leader who speaks the truth,” Farris wrote.

Schiffer wrote that Trump is drawing more business establishment support because those Republicans consider him “less of a disaster” for the party than Cruz.

“Just stop and think about that for a moment,” Schiffer wrote — “ ‘I'll take even Trump over him’ is a pretty shocking development.”

Yuge.

This story was originally published January 22, 2016 at 11:11 PM with the headline "Can-do fervor, strong talk giving Trump edge on Cruz."