I’ve been around elections for a long time, and I have never seen anyone try to lose. You have to have a fire in the belly to be a candidate, a successful candidate. You have to want it more than anything. You sacrifice a lot to be a candidate. Your life is no longer your own, and the time and effort to win is all consuming. If you are a candidate for President of the United States, you have to know that every part of your life prior to being a candidate is going to be open for discussion. The media will be prying into every nook and cranny of your life up to the point that you announced your candidacy. The question of the hour should be, did Donald Trump ever want to win the election or did he just want the fame and attention? Was his campaign driven by his own ambition of wanting to have a Trump media empire?

From the very beginning of his campaign, Donald Trump defied campaign norms and practices. His well known extreme comments still elicited substantial support from his followers to the extent that he famously said that he could go out onto Madison Avenue and shoot someone and not lose any votes. But could this type of strategy to say the most outrageous things he could think of to gain notoriety and fame could not gain him a general election triumph. He has failed to do the necessary work to build a genuine campaign. He has virtually no ground game in the 50 states. He is in danger of losing Utah for example where Republicans have won for years and years.

This was a campaign that was winnable. It is a historic fact that after a two term President of one party leaves office it is rare indeed to find a successful candidate who runs on the theme of continuing the themes and programs of the sitting President. This general rule has a few exceptions, one of which was the win of Harry Truman in 1948. And if you remember that the victor was a huge underdog. Dewey was declared the winner by numerous news sources. Truman with a terrific sense of humor poked fun at the media for counting him out, showing the headline of one newspaper as he imitated one of the famous news commentators of the day by saying Dewey wins.

Donald Trump even went so far as to ask those who he approached to be Vice President under his candidacy, were asked if they could do the nuts and bolts work that a President would have to do. Even one of his sons stated that for his father, being President would be a step down. This comment shows a definite lack of enthusiasm for the office of President from of the insiders of the campaign.

He has stubbornly refused to prepare for debates, and he has constantly sought to twitter instead of keeping on a steady course regarding the campaign. Instead of taking being able to take advantage of a few opportunities to make it a really competitive race he has made the campaign about him.

It really is a divided nation and he could have taken advantage of history to make it a race. One can conclude that he was never serious about winning. He is not a stupid man, but he run one of the worst campaigns we have ever seen. Is he just a bad campaigner or was his heart never in the race. In our cynical moments we might even hazard a guess that he just wanted the publicity to having a new cable network.