Why Donald Trump will get away with insulting John McCain

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last updated 20 July 2015

In the immediate aftermath of Trump-McCain-gate — in which Donald Trump dismissed Sen. John McCain's storied Vietnam War record by asserting he likes "people who weren't captured" — the consensus was that Trump was going down. The comment was so beyond the pale that it gave almost every single Republican candidate in the primary field an opportunity to dump on Trump, presenting something of a unified front against the reality television star and real estate magnate.

But not so fast, says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, who makes the argument that a certain segment of the GOP primary electorate really won't care:

Let's not forget: these are supporters who have cheered Trump as he's called Mexicans rapists and criminals and all the rest. They don't have delicate sensibilities. Let's also not forget that these kinds of attacks on McCain (actually considerably uglier ones) have a long history among hardcore base Republicans, just the folks Trump is spiking with... McCain is just really not popular with base Republicans, especially not those who define themselves around the immigration issue. He's the ultimate RINO. [Talking Points Memo]

Among the ugly attacks that McCain has suffered in the past from his own party include the whisper campaign that his adopted daughter from Bangladesh was actually his illegitimate black child. Karl Rove denied that he was the source of that rumor, which was spread during the 2000 South Carolina primary between McCain and Rove's boss, George W. Bush.