Keller @ Large: What happened to Trump's unity message?
BOSTON - Republicans should be furious.
All week long, their leaders have been calling for the party to unify behind former President Donald Trump as their nominee and begin the general election battle with President Joe Biden.
As Trump himself put it in his Iowa caucus victory speech: "This is the time now for everybody in our country to come together. We want to come together, whether it's Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative. It would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world, straighten up the problems and straighten out all of the death and destruction that we're witnessing."
So, what does he do in New Hampshire? Trump comes out on stage (way too late, as Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair Steve Kerrigan, who was doing primary night analysis for us, noted, suggesting he would have sent Trump out halfway through Nikki Haley's speech to bigfoot her), and uses his moment in the spotlight to ridicule Haley and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, her chief supporter, spew some falsehoods about his own electoral track record, and then turn the microphone over to some of the political losers previously eliminated from the race.
What happened to the unity message? Where was the emphasis on the issues voters care about that Biden has allegedly mishandled? Why was there no effort to reach out to curious swing voters who might be ambivalent about Trump but are looking for an alternative to the incumbent this fall?
Looking ahead to upcoming events on the GOP primary calendar, there is little hope of Haley finding a mix of moderate Republicans and independents as amendable to her candidacy as New Hampshire was. And she still was on track to lose by double digits as this was written.
Barring some unforeseen developments, the race is effectively over. But before Trump can start seriously building a winning case against Biden that appeals beyond his slavishly devoted base, he must still overcome perhaps his most formidable opponent - himself. There are no polls showing swing voters are looking for petulance and pettiness and narcissism to vote for in November, quite the opposite.
"I want to make [unity] a very big part of our message," Trump said in Iowa. "We're going to come together; it's going to happen."
Not without the candidate himself legitimately on board.
