Guest Post by Onan Coca
The core of the conservative wing of the #NeverTrump movement has always cited Donald Trump’s liberal tendencies as their reason for standing against him (and standing against Hillary Clinton). Over the many months of the primary and now the general campaign, Mr. Trump has proven their concerns justified again and again. Whether on healthcare, or welfare, or infrastructure – Trump is nowhere near as liberal as Hillary Clinton, but he’s far from conservative.
Even given this tendency to lean towards the middle, Donald Trump’s plans for the economy have consistently been far to the right of his opponent’s plans. On taxation, spending, and regulation Mr. Trump’s plans would be a breath of fresh air for the economy and for the American people, which is why some Republicans wondered why Donald Trump was ignoring his built-in advantage over Clinton on the economy.
His neglect of this issue has been a mystery. Why would he sideline an issue on which he has an enormous advantage over Hillary Clinton? Trump would provide incentives for private investment, economic growth, and job creation, a policy that worked brilliantly for Presidents Kennedy and Reagan. Hillary would provide zero incentives for growth and rely on government spending to generate jobs, a policy that has never produced a robust economy.
The contrast, so favorable to Trump, begged for him to harp on it in speech after speech. But he held back, talking about everything from terrorism to child care and driving some of his closest allies crazy.
Now that he’s finally taken a lead in the polling, he’s still got his best issue to fight against Clinton with!
But Trump may have known something the rest of us didn’t. Or maybe he’s just been lucky. In either case, he has soared from well behind in the race a month ago to a tie with Clinton today—without unleashing his best issue. Now he is. He’s poised to drive home his plans for the economy in the final weeks of the campaign.
Yes, Donald Trump has turned the election around without having to turn to his best “Trump” card (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). Since September 11th all of the national (and most of the state to state) polling data has shown a severe shift in trends towards Trump and away from Clinton. The combination of Clinton’s many, many scandals and her obviously failing health has driven the electorate towards Trump in a way none of the pundits had predicted. However, with the debates before us and the election still 7 weeks away Mr. Trump’s business acumen is coming in handy.
Mr. Trump is an accomplished businessman and one of his greatest talents has always been the ability to “close.” Without being a closer, so many of his business deals would have fallen apart before they ever had the chance to be realized. He’s now using this closing talent on the American electorate. He’s known all along that the weak economy was Hillary Clinton’s Achilles heel, and his best weapon against her. And now, in the final days of the campaign, he will use the economy to end her hopes of ever being President.
That’s closing the deal and it’s the one thing Mr. Trump does best.
Crossposted from Constitution.com
