There are basically three reasons that a person will run for political office. One is to gain money, one is to gain influence and power, and the last is to try and make the world a better place. Of course you never want to support the first two types of candidates, but you even need to be wary of the third. For example, I believe that Obama is much closer to the third category than any of his primary challengers were, or than John McCain was. Its true that he engages in double talk and has made tons of petty power grabs, but I think that it has all been to means to an end. It's just that his idea of a perfect world, were the US is just one among many nations that have given up their national sovereignty to global bureaucrats, is not popular with the general public. So he has to lie a lot and regularly break the rules to push the nation closer to his dream. Hillary and McCain on the other hand just wanted to be president. Any actual good that they did would just be a perk.
So the question is, what kind of politician is Donald Trump. He does look good at first glance. There are a lot of issues that show how the people are not represented by the government, such as closing the border, where over 70% of the population stands against DC. On these issues politicians who stand with the people against the political ruling class are to be commended. Donald Trump is championing two such issues. 60% of people are not sure if Obama is eligible to hold his current office. And well over 50% of the public is against free trade. On both of these issues Trump has come out swinging like no other candidate on the field. It has earned him a high spot on presidential straw polls.
So in these cases to evaluate a candidate I try and find out two things about them. The first is whether or not they are just posturing, and the second is to evaluate what the foundation of their beliefs are.
The first thing that I did with Trump was to find his view on abortion. After doing some searching I found that he has in the past favored bans on partial birth abortion, but not the rest of them. This is a major red flag, because it says that he does not have a foundation in Christianity. You cannot believe that human life is sacred, and be ok with killing children in the womb. There may be some room to argue over when the child become a separate living entity. But there is no doubt that it is long before birth that the child is a its own being capable of feeling the brutal pain inflicted on it during an abortion. Being okay with torturing a child to death generally shows an atheistic way of thinking, that says that people don't have intrinsic value aside from being loved by other people. And because atheism really does not have any kind of basis for morality, I do not trust any one to lead who has that mind set.
As to whether or not Donald Trump is just posturing or not, my first big clue came when he said on the Laura Ingram show that he is pro life. It was a statement made without qualification, or any kind of profession of a road to Damascus experience. Mitt Romney at least had the decency to say that he has now seen the light during his 08 bid.
After some more digging on Donald Trump, I found some information on his past campaign contributions. To be fair he has donated to both republicans and democrats. But when looking at the specifics, the republicans that he has donated to are all rinos like John McCain and Arlen Specter (who was so bad a republican he actually changed teams when it was clear that his own base would not vote for him). The democrats that he has contributed to on the other hand, were fighting for key positions, such as Harry Reid in his 2010 race against Sharron Angle.
So in conclusion, who knows, maybe he really does what to see Obama's birth certificate, and to put a tariff on goods imported from China. But that is where his conservative credentials stop. The rest is just posturing. So if you are looking for a candidate who will actually champion conservative causes, look elsewhere.
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