Article originally published in the Lincoln Journal Star on September 14, 1987. Full article text provided by Newspapers.com below.
By Nicholas von Hoffman
Donald Trump, gambling casino proprietor and real estate dealer, has announced in a roundabout way that he is a candidate for president. He has taken ads out in three of the nation’s leading newspapers to give readers the benefit of his opinions on foreign policy.
What those opinions are need not detain us here since there is a high likelihood a flack was paid to think them up, write them down in undistinguished prose and arrange to buy the full-page ads wherein they are displayed.
With Donald Trump we are looking at a man who is many cuts below a Ronald Reagan. Say what you will about Reagan being an ex-movie ham, the truth is that the president served a long apprenticeship in government and politics. He stumped for the conservative wing of the Republican Party for years, served two terms as governor of California and took several shots at the nomination before he landed it. When Reagan took the oath of office he was a seasoned and experienced politician.
Trump is not. Trump’s experience with government has been confined to figuring out ingenious methods of tax avoidance. In New York City, the home of arrogant, self-anointed, loud-mouthed millionaires, Trump is best known for engaging the likes of the late Roy Cohn to get tax abatements on his real estate investments. Recently, Trump has had a falling out with Ed Koch, the mayor of America’s dirtiest and generally most disgusting city.
And what were they fighting about? Educational policies? The subways? Traffic congestion? The frightful noise? The bad air? The prohibitive price of a place to live? No, they were fighting about money.
Trump has gotten himself yet another chunk of Manhattan upon which he hopes to build a subcity of vulgar skyscrapers, if he can escape paying real estate taxes on his property. The mayor, sympathetic to the tax burdens of people worth a billion dollars or more, has in effect taken the position that Trump’s fiscal fardels should be lightened as much as possible, but that politically it was somewhat embarrassing for such a person to pay no taxes.
Thus the two have had a falling out and Trump, who could not say enough good words about Koch six months ago, is now pointing out what everyone in New York has long since known, which is that the municipal government is sick with corruption, dying of cynicism and indifference to duty and service, suffused with white-collar crime, favoritism and waste.
Trump, who has profited from the Koch regime, has embraced reform because the mayor is willing to give him $10 million favors but not $100 million ones. With people like Dollar Donald leading the charge, how can the cause of good government lose?
Now Mr. Big Bucks, whose experience, besides real estate, extends to running a gambling house in Atlantic City and a professional football team in a bankrupt league, offers himself to America. We’d be crazy to turn the guy down.
The full-page ad in the three newspapers is more than Trump trumpeting himself; it’s testing the idea that a man in his position can buy the nomination. He may be able to. Under the election laws, Trump is legally permitted to spend any amount, from $1 million to $1 billion, on his own behalf. If he hires people who are smart enough to spend the money so it works and doesn’t boomerang on him, he may be able to buy the presidency.
In the tussle for the Republican nomination he will be competing against more than one millionaire. Bush is loaded, Robertson has got big bucks, Haig also; Kemp is probably a millionaire, but only a millionaire — which is what a guy like Trump pays for his shoeshines. With this race, if it comes to pass, the dominating fact is that Trump is so rich, so very, very rich, that these baby millionaires may not be able to successfully compete.
Why would a man like Trump want to spend wads of money getting elected to a job that pays so little? Well, he’s got to put his money in something. Van Goghs are going for $40 million; luxury real estate is out of sight. These people have got to find places to park their money and, for Trump, buying the presidency won’t be that expensive.
Hell, he can move into the White House for the price of a couple of Mondrians and a Cezanne.
© 1987 King Features Syndicate
