New Hampshire on Trump: he’ll shake things up

In a state where voters are accustomed to all sorts of presidential candidates, Donald Trump may be right at home.

The self-promoting billionaire made his first campaign swing Wednesday as a declared candidate for the Republican presidential nomination to the state with the first primary, finding plenty of room for his particular style of political bombast. It is the state after all, that likes to shake up the races itself, and which gives a forum to everyone from future presidents to the likes of Vermin Supreme, a perennial candidate who wears a black boot as a hat.

“I like Trump’s chutzpa,” said Greg Salts, 51, a Manchester truck driver and self-described political junkie so into the state’s opportunity to vet presidential candidates that he ran home to get a baseball to autograph when he spotted another potential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, strolling down Main Street.

Of Trump, Salts said: “He’s going to help zing up the debates by bringing up topics others might not.”

At nearby Manchester Community College, where Trump planned a rally, John Babiarz, 58, said he was looking forward to getting a second look at Trump. He’s narrowed his field of potential candidates to Trump and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky.

“Trump has the courage to say what needs to be said,” said Babiarz, a Grafton firefighter and libertarian who plans to vote in New Hampshire’s Republican primary. “He’s getting everyone nervous and that’s a good thing. I think the political class needs to be shaken up.”

While Trump is unlikely to win the presidential race, he appeals to many in the electorate who cheer his blunt attacks on the political establishment.

Kasich, who was walking Main Street with Mayor Ted Gatsas, took a diplomatic approach on Trump’s role in the race, telling reporters that “anybody that wants to get out there and run for president is somebody you have to have respect for because it’s obviously not easy.”

Gatsas, who endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012 but is not yet affiliated with a candidate, said he expected Trump to “shake it up.”

The Republican Party was already on mop up hours after Trump made his bid official on Tuesday.

His accusation that Mexico funnels drugs and rapists to the U.S. was “not helpful,” to a Republican Party anxious to engage more Hispanics, Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer acknowledged to CNN.

Trump told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly that he wasn’t going to “slash and burn” his rivals. But he skewered them in his announcement speech, questioning Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio’s intelligence for their positions on the war in Iraq.

“You looked at Bush, it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn’t answer the question. He didn’t know. I said, ‘Is he intelligent?’” Trump said. “Then I looked at Rubio. He was unable to answer the question, is Iraq a good thing or bad thing? He didn’t know. He couldn’t answer the question.”

His conclusion: “They don’t have a clue. They can’t lead us. They can’t. They can’t even answer simple questions.”

In an interview that will air Thursday, he named Bill Clinton as the best president in recent history, telling MSNBC’s Morning Joe program that Clinton had a “little spirit” and that “had he not met various and sundry semi-beautiful women he would have had a much better deal going.”

Some voters see Trump’s venture as nothing more than a publicity stunt for the host of “The Apprentice” and “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

“Anyone can run for president, Vermin Supreme runs for president,” said Jim Gordon, 36, a libertarian and former financial adviser.

“And the difference between them is one of them knows he’s a joke candidate,” added his friend, Joel Cox, a Manchester computer programmer.

Trump is polling in ninth place, according to an average of national polls by realclearpolitics.com – ahead of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, John Kasich and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

That position could mean he’ll make the cut and share a debate stage with Bush, Rubio and Scott Walker when Fox hosts the first Republican debate on Aug. 6.

In New Hampshire, Trump is polling fifth but his numbers carry an enormous asterisk: He had the highest unfavorable rating – 56 percent – of any Republican in a recent poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. And he came in first when Republican primary voters were asked to name the person they wouldn’t vote for “under any circumstance.”

This story was originally published June 17, 2015 at 6:42 PM with the headline "New Hampshire on Trump: he’ll shake things up."