Jason Grill: Will Trump Boost Romney?

The endorsement by “The Donald” of Mitt Romney will amount to very little when all is said in done in the Republican primary.

To be honest, I firmly believed Trump would endorse Newt Gingrich. Why? First off, I think Trump and Newt are more aligned politically. More importantly, in the last year Trump has said Romney walked away with some money from a company he didn’t create, he closed companies and got rid of jobs, and he wasn’t in love with the job he did in Massachusetts. Trump also didn’t like the fact that Romney wasn’t a popular governor, served only one term, and didn’t like that he didn’t have high approval ratings. Trump wanted the individual running for president of the United States to be the most popular person you can have.

Lastly, Trump is on record stating Romneycare is not a good situation, that Romney is missing in action, and that Mitt Romney hasn’t done a damn thing. All of these statements are on camera and have made the rounds on the cable news networks in the last year. Trump endorsed Romney yesterday because he knows he can’t win as a Republican or an Independent and he wanted the very predictable self-promotion. He now sees Romney as the clear-cut front runner for Republicans after Florida and knows February will be a good primary/caucus month for Mitt. Trump is jumping on the bandwagon now because its the popular thing to do. Fox News Polls have shown that only 6 percent of Republican voters would be positivity influenced by a Trump endorsement. Many more would be negatively influenced or simply would not be affected or don’t care either way.

I can already envision the campaign ads & YouTube videos with Mitt saying “I like to fire people” spliced with Trump saying his famous line “You’re fired.” Maybe I was wrong…maybe they are a match made in heaven after all.

(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)