Was Trump’s quick trip to Mexico dumb or politically daring?
“Culero” is Mexican slang. As an adjective, it means unpleasant or possessing bad quality. As a noun, it means someone who is disliked and an awful person. Literally, it refers to a posterior region of the human body. However translated, it is a word that many Mexicans would love to affix to a sombrero on the head of their least favorite American, Donald Trump.
When Trump made a whirlwind trip to Mexico City today, he was not looking to improve his standing among Mexicans. (If anything, his visit did further damage to the already low standing of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.) Trump only cares about his standing with American voters and, though conventional wisdom says that a photo opportunity south of the border is a waste of time that could be better spent rehearsing for the upcoming debates with Hillary Clinton, conventional wisdom may not apply to Trump.
Soon after Trump finished his news conference with Peña Nieto, I went downstairs to the LA Times cafeteria for a quick lunch. The chef preparing my sandwich was a young Latino. I asked him what he thought of Trump daring to go to Mexico after all the nasty things he has said about that country and the Mexican immigrants who have come to the United States.
The chef grinned and said, “He’s got balls.”
That may be exactly the reaction Trump hoped to get to his trip. The Republican nominee has gotten to where he is by characterizing his various opponents as weak, low-energy people who are too timid to take bold action. Running off to Mexico for a couple of hours is not a great feat of diplomacy, but it certainly got everyone’s attention. Peña Nieto asked Hillary Clinton to drop in for a visit, too, but the invitation probably was put on indefinite hold until it could be mulled over by a focus group and a team of campaign consultants. Trump just decided to do it.
At this point, the number of voters who still have not made up their minds in the presidential race is small. They tend not to be people who have strong opinions about specific policies or an ideological commitment to one side or the other. Late deciders are more often swayed by general impressions of a candidate. Trump may be bad at all the standard arts of campaigning — organization, fundraising, a coherent set of policy positions — but he sure knows how to make an impression. He dominates the conversation day after day, grabbing hours of free TV time.
So, what are undecided voters who are just beginning to take notice of the campaign seeing? Not much of Hillary Clinton. She is spending a great deal of time sequestered with big campaign donors, adding to her already massive mountain of money. She is avoiding news conferences. With negatives nearly as high as Trump’s, she seems to be relying on a professional political operation that aims to win with a vast, well-funded ground game in pivotal swing states.
All the smart people seem to think Clinton’s textbook campaign is headed for victory. They scoff at Trump’s improvisational, unorthodox effort. The whip-smart pundits on MSNBC were highly amused that Trump chose to spend Tuesday in Everett, Wash., in a corner of the country he has no chance of winning, when he could have been in Ohio or Pennsylvania, where the election will more likely be won. Maybe it was a dumb choice. On the other hand, it was such an unconventional move that Trump’s speech in Everett got plenty of airtime on cable TV where folks in Ohio and Pennsylvania could watch as easily as if he’d been at a high school gym down the street.
The quick dash to Mexico also got a day’s worth of attention and perfectly set up the immigration speech Trump is giving tonight in Arizona. Trump knows how to keep the public eye fixated on him. For impressionable voters who have yet to make up their minds, that might make him look like a “caballo delantero” — the leading horse.
Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter
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