Reply #152: Maybe he's building a power base. On TV, get that face time, get people thinking of you in a

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different way. Most Americans, anymore, have the attention spans, and memories, of gnats. Nobody's gonna remember, or care that much, by the time he rehabilitates himself, and by now he's got a whole nation (or world) knowing who he is and how forceful he is. There would, of course, be opposition research and commercials galore about it, but he may be working toward the position where he's above and beyond the reach of any of that. Because if you build enough good hoodoo behind you (that rehabilitates you and gives people enough other more current and positive things to think about regarding you), they won't care all that much about what you did earlier. And this was a victimless crime. Americans can be forgiving. They didn't give a rat's ass about bush's drunk driving. They don't care (yet) about how many divorces donald trump has. There's too much of a side show that's built up that distracts, changes the subject, and gives you another way to look at the value of the potential candidate.

It's MANIPULATING PUBLIC OPINION. It's TOTAL PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT.

When ronald reagan had to crap out in favor of Gerry Ford in 1976, and Ford got the nomination (there were some doubts there for a little while), reagan went back to being a private citizen and headed DIRECTLY to radio. He started producing these little "ronald reagan minutes" - "... our enemies would take advantage of us when we're weak (railing away for more military spending), not when we're strong. This is ronald reagan. Thanks for listening." I worked across the hall from a big AM talk station back then. I was on the FM sister station. And I heard those little 60-second "visits," little drop-in vignettes they played in pretty much every daypart. This happened on radio stations from coast-to-coast, and he had quite a team pushing that and helping him make that happen. Pretty soon ol' ronnie had redesigned and rebuilt himself as a commentator, an opinion-meister that people listened to and came to trust - with that powerful folksy delivery he had. He remade himself from actor and failed presidential hopeful into CONTENDER-PAR-EXCELLENCE and the anointed one to take on the power structure in the next presidential election cycle - in 1980. He did a total makeover, and before long nobody remembered that he was a loser, and a spoiler, in 1976, and nobody remembered anything but positives about ronald reagan. And he took it all the way to the REAL big-time.

Maybe Eliot Spitzer's doing the same thing? It'd be good to have one of the GOOD GUYS warming up in the bull pen like that. Because after Obama in 2016, who've we got? We need to be growing and cultivating the bench strength NOW.