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Trump as the new Perot: how the US presidential election will play out

Mon, 03 Aug 2015

$20 says Republican primary votes ultimately spurn Donald Trump, as is the party's want. At this stage in the race there is always a colourful candidate who is ultimately supplanted by an establishment figure — whom this time around will be Jeb Bush.

Mr Trump will maintain a sizeable following, however, and will pull a Ross Perot and run as an independent candidate.

That would have a poetic symmetry, given it was Mr Perot splitting the George Bush Snr vote that got Bill Clinton into power in 1992 (when Bill Clinton got 43% of the vote, George Bush Snr 37.5% and Ross Perot 18.9%). 

Beyond the fact Donald Trump inherited a real estate fortune and Ross Perot is self-made, and the latter has sensible hair, the pair are like two peas in a crazy pod. Both are blunt and buffoonish in media-savvy sort of way, both have the means to fund their own run, both have towering egos, and both are favour protectionism and populist policies. It was even a quip about Mexico that first catapulted both into the front-running.

Short story: Donald Trump is the best thing to ever happen to Hillary Clinton. It's 1992 all over again.

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Trump as the new Perot: how the US presidential election will play out
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