Donald Trump is a fraud: Report confirms the billionaire’s presidential bid is a long and...

All it says is that Trump is not stupid and that his behavior in front of the media is calculated to keep him in front of the media. Sounds pretty political savvy to me.

Always go deeper than the article. Always go to the sources. In this case the source is a report by Politico. So the question becomes "how much do we trust Politico?"

(I'm as sick of Trump as anyone, for the record. I've just learned that you have to verify the paper trail)

By the article title I thought the point was going to be that the fraud was that Trump was planning on some point of dropping out as a giant publicity stunt. But it wasn't. So I don't know if con is really the right word here. Every politician stakes out positions in the primaries that tend more towards the extreme ends of the base than their actual positions. That's because the base tends to vote more in primaries, and in many states independents can't vote at all in primaries.

Then they start walking back those positions when they have the nomination because the real battle in the general election is for the moderate/independent voters in the middle who tend to be put off by the extreme views on both ends of the spectrum. Romney's campaign manager took a lot of heat for making the comment that they would be like an etch-a-sketch, and shake it and start over for the general election. But it's true for all of them.

I've suspected that originally Trump did plan on making this a publicity stunt as he has done every four years. The way he talked about quitting if he wasn't treated with respect by the RNC was his built in way out. But what happened is both he and the RNC were shocked by the polling and the size of the groundswell of support. So the RNC had to back down, and Trump found himself holding onto a rocket that I'm not sure even he controls anymore. And that rocket may take him to the nomination.

I did read an article that suggested that some of the repub billionaire power brokers are starting to believe Trump is exaggerrating his statements for effect, and that they think they can work with him since he actually comes from the same business circles they do.

But my bottom line assessment is that all politicians calibrate their messages based on where in the election cycle they are and modify ir as needed. Trump just takes it to a level not seen in a main party candidate before.