The headline says it all: Ayotte: I will ‘stand up’ to Trump but will vote for him.
There’s nothing courageous about Senator Kelly Ayotte’s position on Donald Trump. Since Day 1 of “support vs. endorse,” Ayotte’s attempt to convince the Granite State that she’s not all in for Trump has been deceitful and idiotic. Voters are already seeing through it:
- Stan Lloyd, a self-described independent from Loudon, New Hampshire, confronted Ayotte as she was heading to the dunk tank at Loudon’s Old Home Day festival.
- She’s trying to play this game,” said the retired teacher, who supported Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the GOP presidential primary. He said he would not vote for Ayotte or Trump this fall.
- She’s going to vote for him and support him but not endorse him?” Lloyd asked. “I don’t know what the difference is.”
Even her fellow conservatives at Red State are calling her out:
I have bad news: “I’m going to vote for Trump” is an endorsement of Trump. That’s what an endorsement means in the political context. This is something the folks who have jumped on the Trump Train after the convention don’t seem to recognize: your vote is a form of endorsement. It’s actually the most important form of endorsement you have, because public pronouncements of support don’t actually put people into the White House. Votes do.
The absurdity of the position is that it is also bad politics. What it says, nonsensically, is, “Trump is good enough for me to actually go into the voting booth and give my personal stamp of approval to, but I can’t say that anyone else should do the same.” Voters are often easily misled and believe some crazy things, but they have a great ability to see through this kind of BS and punish those who are responsible for slinging it.
At the same time, Ayotte said Trump should release his tax returns — once again trying to have it both ways.
She can’t even bring herself to say she trusts Trump with the nuclear codes, but instead that she believes in “checks and balances.” Some bad news for Kelly Ayotte — when it comes to the nukes, Congress’s power won’t help much:
Meanwhile, the problem with placing trust in our institutions to limit Trump when it comes to handling the nuclear arsenal is that this is one area where the President enjoys enormous latitude to act. As the New York Times recently reported, the practical peculiarities involving the nuclear arsenal have effectively eroded meaningful checks on his or her power over it, leaving the president with “awesome authority.”
Donald Trump is completely unfit to be Commander-In-Chief. His unpredictable temperament makes him much too dangerous to control anything, let alone the nuclear codes. By pledging her vote to him — by endorsing Trump — Kelly Ayotte makes it clear she cannot be trusted to lead either.
Published: Aug 17, 2016 | Last Modified: Jan 18, 2024