Orlando’s primary newspaper just issued a devastating broadside against the Trump campaign on the morning of its kickoff rally in the Florida tourism mecca.
The Orlando Sentinel’s unprecedented decision to issue what amounts to the endorsement of Trump as a one-term president went viral on Twitter and is setting the narrative of his campaign early.
Sentinel editorial boards tend to favor Republican presidential candidates overwhelmingly; since 1952 they’ve only endorsed two Democrats. President Obama in 2008 (not in 2012) and President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. But today, their editorial board sent a clear message to Donald Trump — that absolutely nothing he could possibly do or say in a political campaign will change his pathological lying nature or any of the other horrible problems he’s inflicting on the American people from the White House.
They wrote:
Donald Trump is in Orlando to announce the kickoff of his re-election campaign. We’re here to announce our endorsement for president in 2020, or, at least, who we’re not endorsing: Donald Trump.
Some readers will wonder how we could possibly eliminate a candidate so far before an election, and before knowing the identity of his opponent.
Because there’s no point pretending we would ever recommend that readers vote for Trump.After 2½ years we’ve seen enough.
Orlando is the heart of Central Florida’s urban-suburban corridor that runs alongside Interstate highway 4 (I-4).
It is the largest swing region in America’s largest swing state.
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The Sentinel’s editorial board decided to put their thumb on the scales on the campaign’s highest profile day in their city by hammering away at the one most undeniable problem with Trump, which even Republicans and definitely independents have to admit is disastrously problematic: his incessant lies. The board wrote:
Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies. So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.
Trump’s capacity for lying isn’t the surprise here, though the frequency is.
It’s the tolerance so many Americans have for it. There was a time when even a single lie — a phony college degree, a bogus work history — would doom a politician’s career. Not so for Trump . . .
President Trump knows that without Florida, he’s got little chance of winning a second term.
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Politico reports that he’s completely obsessed with the state, which has been his long-time second home. His last campaign chair in Florida says that he considers Florida his home now, which makes sense since he rarely if ever visits New York City, a liberal bastion that would (and does) greet him with enormous protests.
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Over the last decades, the Sunshine State has favored Republicans over Democrats in the most recent statewide races by only the slimmest of margins.
Today’s poison pen letter from the Sentinel is a devastating blow to his chances of winning the state of Florida.
Read the complete Orlando Sentinel editorial here:
The Orlando Sentinel editorial board (@OrlandoOpinion) – which has traditionally favored Republicans for the White House – took an unusually early stance today.https://t.co/v19Lui6iVa
— Scott Maxwell (@Scott_Maxwell) June 18, 2019
Follow Grant Stern on Twitter @grantstern and check out his first book, Meet the Candidates 2020: Elizabeth Warren and Meet the Candidates 2020: Bernie Sanders on sale today, as part of his Meet the Candidates 2020 Series.
