Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Donald Trump thinks he can score political points off the Chicago Cubs?

Whodathunkit?!? The great minds of political strategy can be found sitting in the stands at U.S. Cellular Field.

TRUMP: Taking advice from Sox fans?
It must be. Because to listen to the presidential campaign strategy of Donald Trump, he’s going to engage in political payback against the obscenely wealthy Rickets family, which helped fund the unsuccessful effort to try to defeat Trump in the Florida primary earlier this month.

AND WHAT WILL that payback be? Possibly television spots that remind us of how unsuccessful one of the Ricketts family’s business interests has been – as in the Chicago Cubs.

Basically, Trump is going to devote his time and energy to tell us that the “Cubs Suck!” Which is what any devotee of Chicago White Sox ball games has been saying for generations.

It was last month that Trump used a Twitter account to imply the Ricketts family was somehow conspiring against him with their political contributions and tried to intimidate them by saying “they’d better watch out.”

Now, Trump used an interview he gave to the Washington Post to say the Ricketts family “ought to focus on the Chicago Cubs.” He also said, “I’ll start taking ads telling them all what a rotten job they’re doing with the Chicago Cubs.”

OOH, THAT’S REAL hard-hitting stuff. What’s next, he’s going to tell us that Domino’s pizza stinks as well?

Now I know some political observers are mocking Trump because of his timing – after all, there are some baseball people who want to believe that 2016 is THE YEAR that the Cubs will finally be a championship team.

Donald’s so dumb, he doesn’t know the Cubs are good – is what they’re thinking. I’m not willing to go that far. The Cubs may have come close last year to doing something, but they still fell short. And it’s always possible that 2015 will be the closest the Cubs come to achieving anything.

Am I the only one who thinks Tom Ricketts ...
2016 could turn out to be a near miss.

SO I’M NOT going to ridicule Trump because he said the Cubs stink. Heck, they have been terrible for so many years, including several of the years that the Ricketts family has owned the team.

What I’m going to ridicule Trump for (not just his hair) is his thought that the Cubs in any way are relevant during a political campaign. There are many people who turn to following baseball (or any professional sport) as a form of escape from the daily details of life.

... bears a resemblance to Ted Cruz?
Now, Trump wants to merge them in a way that is bad. He could wind up turning people off. He could wind up being the person who makes the Ricketts family look downright sympathetic!

Heck, for his own sake, Trump ought to hope that the Chicago Cubs aren’t the national phenomenon that many of their fans believe the team is. Because if so, I could easily see where Cubs fans would be so disgusted at their choice of a favorite ball club being singled out to score political points that they turn on Donald.

CUBS FANS WHO had thought of backing Trump would change their minds and vote for somebody else. And those who were supporting someone else before will now become vehemently in favor of that someone else.

Trump thinks he’s bigger than the Cubs? Bigger than baseball? No politician is bigger than pop culture. The Cubs could easily become the factor that takes down The Donald.

Now I don’t know how much Trump knows, or cares, about baseball. I’ve heard those reports claiming that back when he was in prep school he played first base and was scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies.

I also remember that late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner used to like to invite pseudo-celebs like Trump to Yankee Stadium to add to the ball club’s aura.

BUT I’D SAY all the Ricketts family has to do in response to any baseball-related attack on themselves is release the video of Trump and television commentator Bill O’Reilly doing “The Wave.”

That sight alone ought to show us just how un-presidential Trump truly is.

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