NY Senate candidate sees Republican front-runner as 21st century Reagan
The #NeverTrump crowd is running out of steam — and time.
All of its attacks — that he’s as liberal as Hillary Clinton, anti-immigrant, or a con man who will say anything to be elected — have failed. But perhaps the most absurd criticism of the Trump Deniers is the argument that he would hurt Republicans “down ticket.” In fact, the opposite is true.
We’ve seen this movie before. In 1980, the Washington Establishment raised the same chorus against Ronald Reagan, who was accused of being a reactionary and a divisive drag on the whole GOP ticket. But Reagan led the GOP to the biggest U.S. Senate swing since 1958, picking up 12 seats and giving Republicans control of that body, to the shock of the Establishment. What’s more, Reagan swept 34 new seats into the House, along with hundreds of legislators at the state level.
Still, Republican incumbents are “increasingly worried,” The New York Times tells us. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urges incumbents such as Sens. Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson, Mark Kirk, Kelly Ayotte, and Rob Portman to avoid Trump and to “focus on local issues,” hoping for ticket-splitting when Clinton is elected.
But I’m running on the Trump Ticket (secure borders, rule of law, American jobs, rebuilding our military, and America First in foreign policy) for U.S. Senate in New York, a blue state that Reagan won in the last major political realignment, before the GOP became a cup of weak tea.
For years, while we suffered under “compassionate conservatism” and a “kinder, gentler” GOP, private citizen Donald Trump talked about Americans losing jobs and income, about China beating us on trade, about the nonsense of government bureaucrats running our nation into the ground with debt and dysfunction, about our military being weakened and our veterans abandoned, and about Common Core failing our children.
On these fundamental issues, he was practically a lone voice. He’s been right on all of them. He has also been a lone voice on European Muslim ghettos and Christian genocide in the Middle East — even though it was politically incorrect to say so. While he’s at it, he’s on a mission to defeat political correctness itself, which will be a giant step forward for our country.
Grassroots and GOP county leaders in New York hoped Trump would run for governor of the state two years ago and get rid of the corrupt Cuomo machine that is running the Empire State into the ground. We were disappointed when he chose not to, but then we saw he had plans to do what we had hoped — for the whole country.
The two major parties in America have become empty vessels for whoever is in power. The Democratic Party has migrated to the far left to try to capture voting blocs by selling a false bill of goods that America is sexist, racist, xenophobic, and blinded by every other kind of bigotry.
The Republican Party since Reagan has reacted defensively to heightened political correctness instead of beating it down. The GOP is long overdue for reinvigoration. In 2016, Trump has invited the GOP to rally around the flag with a message of strong borders, American jobs, and an America-first immigration, trade, foreign, and military policy.
Trump’s presence in the race — and my confidence that he would win not only the GOP nomination but also the presidency — emboldened me to jump into the 2016 election to take on Chuck Schumer, the poster boy of the professional political class in Washington whose chokehold on our country Trump will break.
Schumer is the face of Corrupt Big Government: bought and paid for by special interests, never had a job in the private sector, a career politician for 40 years. His politically correct, welfare-state, gun-hating, open-borders liberalism has comfortably taken root in the brambles of the Washington Establishment that Donald Trump is pulling up.
GOP turnout in the primaries is already at record levels. Trump will solidify GOP loyalty when he becomes the head of the party and fleshes out his positions on private-sector job creation and economic growth, strong borders, tough negotiations with our trade and military opponents, restoring our Constitution and the proper role of courts, and the government keeping its promises to veterans, taxpayers, and seniors. Independents and Reagan Democrats will gravitate toward him in the general election because they will see that he is real, and that he cares about them.
Trump is the anti-corruption, anti-Establishment leader who will bring down Hillary Clinton. He doesn’t need this job. It is a sacrifice, which is what running for public office should be — not a ladder to climb to money and power, as Clinton and Schumer have used it.
Trump says, “We’re going to get rid of these politicians.” If Republicans on the ballot under Trump embrace his cause, to battle corruption and cronyism that is bringing this country down, they have a chance to be part of a historic realignment that will inject life and strength into a new, America First GOP.
In a blue state, I’m counting on Donald Trump to help me tell Chuck Schumer: “You’re fired.”
Wendy Long is the nominee for U.S. Senate in New York of the Republican, Conservative, and Reform parties.