Aug 10^th

Donald Trump was “disinvited” to the RedState confab in Alabama on Saturday but he showed up in spirit anyway. Eric Ericson, the conference host and noted conservative blogger claimed that he didn’t want his daughter, and his many invited friends, to be in the same room with Mr. Trump. It didn’t work because Donald Trump still monopolized the gathering. By “disinviting” Donald Trump, Ericson guaranteed that Trump, although nowhere in sight, would be one of the primary topics of conversation…and he was. Trump will be the primary topic of conversation among Republican candidates whether he is in the room or not.

This is an absolute disaster for the Republicans. They need to win the women’s vote; Trump’s misogynistic comments go unchallenged, they go unchallenged because if the other candidates responded to all of Trump’s nastiness they would never get their own messages out. The result is that Trump’s abusive comments about women are let stand, and so for many women they are beginning to represent the Republican brand.

Then there is the clear unevenness of the audience response to Trump’s misogynistic remarks: You may recall that Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his comments by illustrating some of his caustic remarks, and Trump interrupted her by saying, “That was only about Rosie O’Donnell.” And then the right wing audience snickered. It was clear that his abusive comments about Rosie O’Donnell, a left wing lesbian comic, were permissible and even considered funny by the Republicans; but his ugly remarks about the trim, blonde, conservative, Fox representative were beyond the pale. What a difference sexual orientation, fifty pounds and hair color can make to Republicans.

Then there are the polls: What has happened to Trump’s fan base in the few days since the debate and the “disinvite” in Alabama? The only poll we have is from an outfit called Survey Monkey. In spite of the name they have a decent reputation. Trump is at 23 percent and Cruz, who is closest to him, gets 13 percent; the rest quickly drop out of sight. A Republican functionary assured everyone that this poll was irrelevant but I’ll bet that if Trump and Cruz had switched places this guy would have been very enthusiastic about the poll’s results.

Trump has had some issues with Fox news and he has been quite vocal about them. Today he and Roger Aisles have had a discussion and apparently Fox will, according to one report, try to be scrupulously fair with Mr. Trump; smart move by both parties. Fox is clearly the voice of the RNC and also, equally clearly, neither Fox nor the RNC want to drive Trump into splitting himself off from the Republicans into his own party. The best the Republicans can hope for is that Trump just fades away. Not likely; Trump like all the (other?) Democrats is just having too much fun.