By Mark Rhoads - 
I have been contacting old high school friends for a class reunion and many of them are not very interested in politics. But I was shocked to find a husband who liked Donald Trump while his wife said she was for Bernie Sanders.
One possible explanation might be that there is a big difference in the way people answer polls now and the way they will actually vote later when it counts.
When I asked the husband why he likes Trump, he said because Trump speaks his mind and says things other Republicans are afraid to say. So I said, "Then you think he would be a good president?" and my old classmate said, "Are you kidding? He would be a terrible president if he ever actually got elected but I will vote for him anyway to send a message to the news people I hate." His wife had a similar reply about Bernie Sanders who she said would not be a good president but she would likely vote for him anyway. I find this kind of thinking scary because I also think Trump's monstrous vanity and mean personality would make him a terrible president if he continued in his immature rants about world leaders and allies the way he rants about other candidates. Trump is riding high in the polls and so is Bernie Sanders among Democrats and yes I do think the polls are an accurate picture for summer 2015 but I still think it is ridiculous to think those polls now are accurate predictors of the way people will really vote in a primary next year if they take their vote seriously. Ross Perot had a similar populist appeal back in 1992 but he flopped in the fall.
Jonah Goldberg of National Review said in 2012 that Mitt Romney "speaks conservative as a second language" and Trump speaks it in an even grubbier dialect. Trump knows how to get rich in real estate developments but I don't think he could pass a pop quiz on the Constitution or name a conservative author he most admires. That is because Trump admires himself more than any founder or any other person now living. Bernie Sanders can spout all sorts of socialist lunacy on the campaign trail that will excite a crowd but defeat him in a general election if he really got nominated. That is why I think the current polls are accurate but still mislead with nonsense conclusions.
