What Trump Wants

Don't forget that I was in the house at CPAC when The Donald announced he was a candidate for the presidency. That's when he smacked down the Paulbots, which was priceless. I wouldn't have expected that he'd come on as strong as he has in the polls. Ed Morrissey has in interesting headline on that, "Rasmussen survey shows Obama can’t clear 50% even against Trump."

But see Politico, "What's Donald Trump really after?" (via Memeorandum):

More than anything else, according to those who’ve spoken to him, he doesn’t want to be seen as the butt of this particular joke.

“He gets mad that people aren’t taking him seriously,“ said a Republican who’s spoken with him.

Still, while he is “serious” from the organizational point of view and appears very likely to emerge as a formal candidate for office, he will struggle hard to be taken seriously as a potential Republican nominee. Trump may not be in on the joke — he rarely jokes about himself — but he has been a punch line as long as he’s been a public figure. He’s still more of a sideshow than anything else, most Republican insiders are convinced, and his respectable showings in largely meaningless early polls reflect little more than his widespread notoriety.