Donald Trump, still smarting from his campaign’s recent poor showing in Colorado and elsewhere in securing delegates according to the published RNC rules, has doubled down on his sore-loser rants. He is now vying for Whiner, Whinier, and Whiniest. No Presidential candidate in recent memory has ever displayed such a delicate, thin skin.
As Bob Cusack writes for The Hill on April 12:
Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), claiming the party’s system for selecting its presidential nominee is a “scam” and a “disgrace.”
During an exclusive interview with The Hill at Trump Tower, Trump said, “It’s a disgrace for the party. And Reince Priebus should be ashamed of himself. He should be ashamed of himself because he knows what’s going on.”
On Tuesday, Trump’s tone was sharply different: “I would have won Colorado. It’s not democracy. … It’s such a sad thing that the Republican Party has come to this.”
He added, “The Republican system is unfair, unjust, and they should create a fair system based on votes — not a system like they have now that is based on politics as usual.”
But whining is never enough for Trump. Then come the threats: intimidation, retaliation, and litigation.
Again from Bob Cusack on April 12:
Asked if he would call for Priebus to step down should he become the nominee, Trump responded, “I haven’t given that any thought.”
Pressed on whether he would file a lawsuit against the RNC, Trump said, “I don’t want to think about suing yet. I’m not looking to do the lawsuits. I’m looking to have it steered right.”
Trump floated a possible lawsuit after winning Louisiana, stating the party didn’t give him enough delegates. His campaign later downplayed the legal threat.
On Sunday, Trump aide Paul Manafort accused the Cruz campaign of not playing by the rules in its attempt to woo delegates. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Manafort said the Trump campaign will “file several protests” to the RNC.
Asked whether he’s talked to Priebus, Trump shrugged his shoulders and said, “Whatever happens, happens. I think the Republicans are being embarrassed. The whole country is talking about the scam that is going on, and it’s politics. I mean, basically the politicians put this in so that they can pick whoever they want, but I think we’re going to have a big surprise for them.”
The delegate system the Republicans are using is decades old. That’s right, decades old. That Trump hasn’t figured it out is no one’s fault but his own, or that of his various professional campaign managers.
Trump was heard to remark recently that he ‘understood the rules’. Clearly, he does not. And for what it’s worth, Trump had not one word to say about Colorado and its state delegate rules from June 2015 until the recent delegate selection process more than 10 months later, when he got shellacked by the Cruz campaign. Too bad for him.
But Trump whines “I could have won Colorado.” He might have, if he had a competent ground game. He does not, and he did not win. What’s the surprise? Now he blames Priebus and the RNC, instead of setting his own house in order.
His playing of the contender card brings back two indelible sports memories.
Trump and The Contender Card
New Orleans was awarded a National Football League franchise for the New Orleans Saints in 1966, and the team began playing in the 1967 NFL season. For most of their first 20 years, the Saints were barely competitive, that is to say awful, only getting to .500 twice. Yet they had legions of loyal fans in the Big Easy.
The Team was sold to Tom Benson in May 1985 for $70 million. (Purchase of an NFL franchise is a thirty-year old dream for Donald Trump, some he has failed to achieve multiple times, despite his “Art of the Deal” skills.)
The Saints play in the Superdome, which opened in 1975. It is the largest fixed domed stadium in the world, and has hosted 7 Super Bowls. It is also large enough to play major league baseball games inside.* The New York Yankees played games there in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1994 in front of more than 40,000 fans. I saw the Yankees play the Boston Red Sox in the Superdome on April 1, 1994. Just think of it. My favorite baseball team, and its bitterest rival, both playing each other in my adopted home city.
Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson playing baseball at the New Orleans Superdome (1981)
The 1987 football season started off poorly for New Orleans. There was a player strike and the NFL teams used replacement players for the first few contests.** The Saints suffered a humiliating loss to arch rival the San Francisco 49ers, 24-22, in Game 6 of a strike shortened 15-game season. Our star field-goal kicker, Morten Andersen, kicked five field goals in the game but missed a kick at the buzzer (long but well within his range) that would have won the game for the team. After the loss, Head Coach Jim Mora (1986-1996) had a memorable outburst (58 seconds) in front of the press, forever after to be known as the Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda” speech.
Watch Mora’s powerful 1-minute tirade on YouTube here.
Jim Mora said it best: “Black and White. Simple. Fact.” In plain English, no bull.
That’s how a professional reacts to a humiliating defeat. No excuses. Trump and his coaches are not up to scratch on the delegate selection process. How about owning up to their own self-inflicted mistakes? That’s what real athletes do.
The other iconic “I coulda been a contender” moment occurred in the storied Elia Kazan movie “On the Waterfront” with actor Marlon Brando.**** Brando plays a former boxer, Terry Malloy, who took a dive in a prize fight, and blames his brother, Charlie, for his own mistakes.
Terry: You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.
From IMDb quotes, On the Waterfront (1954):
Charlie: Look, kid, I – how much you weigh, son? When you weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.
Terry: It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, “Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.” You remember that? “This ain’t your night”! My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have to take them dives for the short-end money.
Charlie: Oh I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.
Terry: You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you, Charley.
Watch Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy deliver the lines:
Whether the sports comparisons are made to dramatic moments in real life or in the movies, Trump and his campaign are failing the real man test.
Get over it. Play the game as scheduled out to the end. American voters are not going to feel sorry for you and change the rules just so you feel better.
In fact, after Mora’s genuine display of anger, the Saints never lost another game during the regular season. They won 9 straight, including a rematch with San Francisco, and finished the 1987 regular season with a won-lost record of 12-3. They made the playoffs for the first time in their 20-year team history.
I lived in New Orleans then and I doubt the Saints would have succeeded in 1987 if Mora had used the press conference to whine about how unfair the rules were, how the press coverage was biased, and that the NFL scheduling process was to blame for his team’s substandard performance to start the season. What do you think?
How will Trump’s campaign do for the rest of 2016? We will have to wait and see, and no doubt suffer some more Trump complaints. One other thing. The constant whining is getting to be B..O..R..I..N..G. We might have to switch the channel, Donald.
As for Trump’s chances of winning the Colorado delegates if he had been prepared: you mighta, you oughta, but you didn’t.
*When the plaza level seats remained moveable, the capacity for baseball was 63,525 and the field size was as followed: 325 feet to both left field and right field, 365 feet to both left-center field and right-center field, 421 feet to center field, and 60 feet to the backstop. Due to the reconfiguration of the lower bowl that began in 2011, the stadium can no longer host baseball games.
**Read the extensive four part “Who Dat History: The 1987 Season” by By Ralph Malbrough and Hans Petersen
***After the game Mora launched what became known as his “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda” speech. In his postgame press conference, Mora angrily said the following:
“They’re better than we are; we’re not good enough. We shouldn’t be thinking about beating these 49ers; we shouldn’t be talking about it, ’cause the Saints ain’t good enough. And you guys shouldn’t write about us being a playoff team and all that bullstuff—that’s malarkey. We ain’t good enough to beat those guys and it was proven out there today. It’s that simple. We’re not good enough yet. We’ve got a long way to go; we’ve got a lot of work to do; we’re close, and close don’t mean shit. And you can put that on TV for me. I’m tired of coming close, and we’re gonna work our asses off until we ain’t close anymore, and it may take some time; we’re gonna get it done; we aren’t in there—we aren’t good enough. They’re better than us—black and white, simple, fact!
“Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve” is the difference in what I’m talking about! The good teams don’t come in and say “Could’ve.” They get it done! All right? It’s that simple! I’m tired of saying “Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve.” That’s why we ain’t good enough yet! ‘Cause we’re saying “Could’ve” and they ain’t!
I’m pissed off right now. You bet your ass I am. I’m sick of coulda, woulda, shoulda, coming close, if only.”
**** Wikipedia entry for “On the Waterfront”:
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film with elements of film noir. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film was suggested by “Crime on the Waterfront” by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November-December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story.[1] The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received twelve Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time and in AFI’s 2007 list it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein’s only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.
In 1989 On the Waterfront was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
According to Richard Schickel in his biography of Kazan, Marlon Brando initially refused the role of Terry Malloy, and Frank Sinatra then had “a handshake deal” — but no formally signed contract — to play the part, even attending an initial costume fitting. But Kazan still favored Brando for the role, partly because casting Brando would assure a larger budget for the picture. While Brando’s agent, Jay Kanter, attempted to persuade Brando to change his mind, Kazan enlisted actor Karl Malden, whom Kazan considered more suited to a career as a director than as an actor, to direct and film a screen test of a “more Brando-like” actor as Terry Malloy, in an effort to persuade Spiegel that “an actor like Marlon Brando” could perform the role more forcefully than Sinatra. To that end, Malden filmed a screen test of Actors Studio members Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward performing the love scene between Terry and Edie. Persuaded by the Newman/Woodward screen test, Spiegel agreed to reconsider Brando for the role, and shortly afterward Kanter convinced Brando to reconsider his refusal. Within a week, Brando signed a contract to perform in the film. At that point, a furious Sinatra demanded to be cast in the role of Father Barry, the waterfront priest. It was left to Spiegel to break the news to Sinatra that Malden had already been signed for that role.