Trump is a narcissist. Trump is a politician. But I had no need to say it twice. - paraphrasing Faile Bashere.

I'm waiting for something to tell us why Trump is different from any other national politician, aside from not being as good at faking otherwise.

Look, I don't support Trump. I didn't last time either. But he's the candidate we deserve, not the candidate anyone wants, because he's a product of his environment, our political culture. If you want to dismiss him as the clown and buffoon and not-serious-politician that you think he is...DON'T STOOP TO HIS LEVEL! That's ALL this guy is doing! He's lashing out at a guy who inadvertently trashed his candidate. He's making amateur psychological diagnoses, attributing behavior to speculative "secret insecurities" and REALLY doing a great job of overcoming the McCain campaign's image of being old and out of touch by comparing Trump to a foreign politician who died 70 years ago.

Speaking of Trump V. McCain, I really have no problem with his comment. No one is disrespecting veterans or belittling their sacrifices, but when you are a national politician, who has run for the highest office in the land more than once, you should not be immune to criticism based on such sacred-cow criteria. McCain has been dining out on his POW experience for forty years, and anyone who dares to point out the lack of imperial attire in questioning the relevance of that event to political competence or fitness for office, gets denounced as unpatriotic and every other related shibboleth. So when responding to a criticism by John McCain, Trump basically tossed off a casual remark that his critics seized and inflated. You want to know why it hasn't seemed to hurt him much? Because a LOT of people who had to make a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain, because it was the latter's "turn" had the reaction of "finally someone said it."

As if our founders had ANYTHING to do with designing our current system of choosing a president. The sad thing is, this might be an improvement. It was the old boys network that foisted McCain on us, and the presidential selection committee that was the Founding Fathers' original vision of the Electoral College might every well have made him president. We'll see if Trump is still the front-runner a year from now, and maybe that will be a cause for concern if he is, but for now, the real, non-wonk, people are too busy doing the stuff that makes America great (i.e. everything BUT politics), to be obsessively focused on the upcoming election for an entire year. A fairly undistinguished and indistinct slate of candidates gives them no reason to get excited, so when polled, they cite the guy with the highest Q rating, because at least he's amusing, which is all anyone needs or wants at this point.

If Trump is going cost the GOP this election, it's going to be by making the party look like a bunch of petulant humorless assholes and snobs who are completely overreacting to his novelty candidacy, more than a year before the actual election.

And yet, you're acting awfully scared.

We elected a B movie actor three times, a shady hillbilly real estate scam artist & rapist twice, a lightweight fratboy whose own family wasn't thrilled about his candidacy once (and then reelected him for comforting us when we got real scared that one time), and finally, a political none-entity chosen for his appearance and lack of a record twice. Anyone who thinks we are just now getting to that event horizon of idiocracy has been asleep for 35 years.

More than Reagan, Bush & McCain already have?
translation: Panicky offense

Maybe no one wants that consensus. Margaret Thatcher defined a consensus as lack of leadership. Maybe that consensus is what is ticking people off. We elected Republicans who campaign on standing up to Obama, who then make deals with Obama and let him get away with just about whatever he wants. Maybe people like Trump, because while they don't see much to distinguish him from the pack (or vice versa) on that small government, traditional morality stuff, at least he's the one guy who actually speaks out against turning this country we all love so much into Mexico Del Norte. It ain't racism, it's that people from the third world and Mexico bloc vote in favor of big government, planned economy and public largesse and in opposition to defending ourselves against any of their homelands.
I like how this guy has his finger on the pulse of the average American, and isn't condescending towards them at all.

I have yet to hear anything remotely conservative, prudent, or even intelligible about McCain's policies, except when he's in trouble and starts spouting Tea Party rhetoric to stay in office. If people wanted Democrats, they'd vote for Democrats. But the entrenched McCain machine in AZ and overwhelming beer money advantage means no other Republican will get elected as long as he's still alive, so they'll give him another chance when he gives a hint he might be capable of learning. But if we had the intelligence, good sense, and conservative principles Mr. Salter seems to think will keep us from voting for Trump, we'd have long ago thrown John McCain out on his ass for being a conservative every six years and the rest of the time cosponsoring infringements on our freedoms with Democrats and playing to the NY Times.

Instead of Chicken Little hyperbole and ad hominem attacks, why not tell us what's wrong with his ideas, instead of trying to keep him from eating lunch at the cool kids table. AFAIK the difference between Trump & McCain is that the former earned a good part of his fortune, instead of marrying it. And treated Ivanna better than Carol.
Salter's saving grace is that almost none of them read this sort of thing.

Rather than obsess over the minutiae of politics, most voters respond to visceral stuff. Like a candidate suffering for his country in a POW camp, that kind of stuff. They vote for who they hope stands up for their basic values, they let real principled conservatives get marginalized by the mainstream GOP and treated condescendingly by the Romneys and McCains and Doles and Bushes, for that very reason, but nothing seems to get better, the professional political class makes backroom deals to protect their own, every Hollywood depiction of national politics is rife with cynicism, duplicity and electioneering instead of governing, so when a guy who can be perceived as an outsider shows up, with too much real world clout for the media to totally ignore, who says things in line with their own thoughts, they think that maybe he wouldn't be the worst possible choice.

I know "regular" Republicans, people who call themselves conservative, sneer at Obama, and only know about politics what they see on TV and couldn't quote a passage from the Constitution if their lives depend on it and think I'm weird because I actually know the names of the Presidents. There's more of them than there are of us, and there's more of their brand of Democrat than there are who nod their heads approvingly at this sort of infighting. Regardless of the reality of making policy, the first rule is to get elected (a fact so many establishment GOP politicians seem familiar with, given the dissonance between their campaign rhetoric and actual performance in office), which means inspiring the kind of person to come out and vote for you, and even switch party lines if necessary. And those kinds of people are really liking what they are hearing from Donald Trump. He might be a rich blowhard, insulted by money and privilege from the common man, but he knows how to talk to them. If Mark Salter ever did, it is not obvious from this article.

He and the rest of the GOP establishment might deplore the candidates who command a passionate following, but those are the ones who tend to win elections. The last such was Ronald Reagan, who won three times to the chagrin of the snobs. Like Trump, he was rather light on conservative credentials, had more experience in front of a camera than behind a podium, managed a better image than set of principles, and knew how to brand himself to get popular appeal. Unlike Mark Salter, he preached "Never speak ill of a fellow Republican."

Now, Mark. Don't be so hard on yourself. You are exactly as qualified to to make psychiatric diagnoses as you are to comment on a successful presidential campaign.

Well, politics is Mark Salter's profession, not Donald Trump's, so where does Mark get off, if he is part of something so rotten?

But he's not a gigolo. He didn't finance his unsuccessful challenge to a sitting president with his second wife's money, like the last two guys did. He also didn't raise a daughter with nothing of substance between her blonde hair and her rack, so there's that.
Yeah, because the regular politicians have demonstrated their complete indifference to fixing anything. They'd rather have soundbites and do something that looks good now, and the hell with the long term consequences. If We the People are qualified to look out for our own interests, there is no reason that someone from outside the political class isn't qualified to handle America's problems as well as an insider.

Seriously, what rationale do you have to suppose that Trump's team of consultants and advisers will be worse than Bush's or Rubio's or Walker's team of consultants or advisers?

At least a reality TV star isn't managed and coached nearly as much as a career politician.

Worth a shot.

The number suggest it's a start. Because Mexicans blow native born Americans of all colors out of the water in urban crime, single parent households and drug issues.
How would it not? Their very presence is an act of contempt for America. America might be an idea, but these are people with very different ideas, who are swarming this country faster than we can impart that idea. It might be an idea unrelated to a border or ethnicity, but has proven surprisingly difficult to take hold anywhere else.

And regardless of how nice Mexicans are, they are the biggest threat to those principles of small government, strong defense and the free market on the horizon. They're never going to vote Republican until we stop the flow and let them come to appreciate America, instead of importing Mexico. If Mexico is just as great and special, than let Mark Salter go live there. The rest of us like America better than Mexico (including those 11 million Mexicans) so there has to be some sort of substantive difference, that will be dilute by a mass migration, especially of people who don't respect America enough to obey its laws and boundaries. Illegal immigration is to patriotism as rape is to love.

And I don't trust anyone to "fix America's problems" if he's going to ignore any problem whose solution is too hard, and launch vicious personal attacks on anyone who disagrees.

Trump & his followers ARE looking for solutions. It's the rest of the party trying to make him a scapegoat.

Establishment employee of establishment politician defends establishment. Wow. What a shocker. Gee, Mark, so sorry someone's spoiling all the professionals' plans to manage a campaign that offers us a choice between Bush III & Clinton II.