Trump Wisely Passes On White House Bid

If there had ever been any time in his life when he needed to think about himself rather than his country, this was the time. Donald Trump wisely announced he won't be seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. From ABC News:

After a roller-coaster flirtation with a presidential bid, Donald Trump bowed out of the 2012 contest in true Trump fashion on Monday, saying that while he would not be a candidate this year, if he had run, he would have been able to win the primary and the general election.

"I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election," Trump said in a statement on Monday. "I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."

Trump, who had contemplated running for president in years past, seemed poised take the plunge this year. He even had a tentative date set for a campaign announcement: May 25 in the atrium of Trump Tower in New York City.

According to Trump aides, the real estate mogul and reality television mogul had even settled on campaign consultants to help steer his potential presidential bid. Trump had already made two visits to New Hampshire within the last month and had a series of events planned in that state and in Iowa over the next few weeks.

"This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country," Trump said in the statement. "I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly."

ABC goes on to speculate in their online story that the lucrative contract Trump had with NBC for his "Apprentice" TV show had more to do with his decision to forego a presidential bid than anything else. The fact of the matter was Trump realized the Omedia was digging into every financial transaction he had ever made, Obama-friendly attorneys were readying lawsuits against his real estate ventures and every other aspect of his personal life was being looked at by Obama's opposition research operation in Chicago and Omedia loyalists. In short, Donald Trump would have been professionally destroyed and facing personal bankruptcy if he had challenged Obama. His departure from the race means there is no Republican candidate in the field who will hit the phony Obama narrative head on, which is precisely what the Obama campaign and Omedia set out to accomplish when Trump dared to raise the questions everyone else is too afraid to address that deeply troubles a large segment of the American electorate.