How would you like to run for the job of President of the United States and it won’t cost you a nickel?
I am sure that there would be many takers, but there is one catch. You have to be Donald Trump to pull off a deal like that.
Last April, Trump announced that he would seek to be the Republican candidate for president. He pledged to run a “self-funded” campaign and criticized any candidate who would rely on a political action committee.
To this day, he has only scathing words for PACs and super PACs and demeans anyone who isn’t spending their own money.
It is amazing that Trump has gotten so far along the nominating path and in fact has spent next to nothing to get there.
An analysis of air time given to politicians in the last six months shows that Donald Trump, a reality-show star, has gotten an astonishing seventy per cent of the air time relating to this contest.
I can’t give you an exact figure on how much he has saved but it could be as much as $50 million in free airtime.
Turn on your television set and within minutes a news show will feature an interview with Trump. There is no doubt that MSNBC is considered the so-called Democratic news outlet, but MSNBC has given generous airtime to Trump because it helps their ratings.
One of my favorite morning shows used to be “Morning Joe” show featuring former Congressman Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski.
About two weeks ago, I stopped watching that show because it was feeding Donald Trump with easy questions, we call them “softballs.”
Trump pretty much had the run of the show until he refused to disclaim the support of former KKK sympathizer David Duke.
Scarborough told Trump that he was “disqualified “ to run for president but then days later Trump was again a frequent guest on the Morning Joe show.
How much money has Trump spent on his campaign to date? Trump says its $8 million, but others say it’s a lot less.
Consider the fact that Jeb Bush spent $150 million on his contest and then dropped out, Trump’s investment is just about nothing. His organization buys hats, T-shirts, jackets and banners and sells them at the heavily attended campaign rallies.
What is more amazing is the fact that Trump is winning state after state without spending a nickel. This past week, he was forced to spend a lowly $1 million dollars in ads in Florida because the anti-Trump movement was spending upwards of $50 million to warn the world what a Trump White House would be like.
Like in all national elections, there is a catch.
It is fair to assume that very shortly Trump he will be the odds- on favorite to capture the Republican nomination. Marco Rubio will be gone very soon and Ted Cruz and John Kasich will have no path to the nomination.
Once Trump appears to be his party’s standard-bearer, Trump will be faced with the extraordinary task of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to run a 50-state campaign.
Even though he claims that he is worth $10 billion dollars there is no circumstance under which Trump will spend that kind of personal money.
There are probably a few Republicans who will try to seize the chance to be close to Trump the candidate, but the funds needed to run nationwide are not going to come raining down from heaven.
On top of the lack of real moneys, running in 50 states requires a campaign team in almost all of the states, something which Trump doesn’t have.
In addition, there is no way a national candidate can build up such a team overnight.
Donald Trump has gotten pretty far on almost no investment but once he clinches the nomination, the free ride is over.
