Clear and Present Danger for Donald Trump

If you are a fan of Donald Trump, then it might be easy right now to get carried away with enthusiasm and assume that he cannot be stopped. After all, Jeb Bush is basically imploding with omega male misery and the myriad other contenders are, for the most part, swirling and spinning in the wake of Trump's speedboat.

The only real threat appears to be Ben Carson. But ask yourself, are the other candidates trying to imitate Carson to make up the difference or are they imitating Trump? GOP candidates are trying to fire up the rhetoric and appear as outspoken as the Donald now but this is a pathetic effort doomed to failure. Even the dimmest bulb in the room sees through this effort and, worse, they are going to turn off many of their more traditional supporters.

However, if you have been through a few political cycles, you can see a serious but ambiguous threat to Trump's continued popularity.

Time Destroys All Things

Trump towers someday. But maybe not in 2016!

Just think, the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary are still four months away. Once those events occur, leading candidates have headlines to help carry their efforts to the next round of primaries. You can either count on winning a primary or doing better than expected to generate some free publicity and keep people interested.

But we are not in primary season. If you want to be noticed and gather support, you need to create your own stories. Now, so far Trump has had little difficulty doing this. The press has been giving him free publicity for several weeks but he was still considered a sideshow just a couple months ago. Now he has to slog through four months of quiet time.

The other candidates, even those with just a few percentage points of support, can still come back if they manage to hold on. Just like stocks usually bounce back from lows and reward investors who hold on to them, candidates can recover when emotional support for a frontrunner fades away as time passes and nothing new happens. That support has to go somewhere and it can trickle down to these stragglers and make some headlines for them.

I am not saying that Trump cannot do it, only that he has a different game ahead of him now. He has garnered a lot of press and support for being outspoken. Over four months, that will get old. He will probably have to begin producing policies and plans and compete with these others in their own games.

Clinging to a Bush

Jeb Bush has a lot of money. He can hold on. He might begin to look very good to people who tire of Trump's bluster and seek comfort in traditional candidates.  Other GOP candidates may share the same hope. Ben Carson can hope to appear as the safe and sensible alternative to "the crazies," as John McCain referred to the earliest supporters of Trump over a month ago.