OPINION:
Rasmussen pollsters found that despite the widely shrill pantings of the anti-Donald Trump press, the Paul Manafort guilty verdicts and the Michael Cohen plea bargain won’t matter when it comes to harming the president.
In other words: The people who matter most are yawning at the Manafort-Cohen developments.
They don’t think the special counsel roads lead back to Trump.
Sorry, Democrats. Looks like the old standby, “Impeach Trump,” isn’t going to be the banner campaign slogan the left would like, after all.
“Voters still tend to think the highly publicized cases of Trump associates Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen will not cause criminal problems for the president,” Rasmussen reported, in a survey released Friday. “But it’s a party line vote.”
Specifically, only 44 percent of likely U.S. voters believe the Manafort convictions and the Cohen admissions are going to bring on criminal charges against Trump. Fully 50 percent say that’s just not going to happen.
That leaves the left in a bit of a lurch, still looking for the linchpin that can win them the majority this November and the White House in 2020.
The media’s been going gung-ho gangbusters to make it seem as if Manafort plus Cohen equals Trump On A Noose.
“A reckoning could be coming for Trump,” sounded one ominous CNN headline.
“Matthews: Manafort, Cohen proof that Trump conducts business with crooks,” sounded another from MSNBC, citing network anchor Chris Matthews.
Former TV newsman Dan Rather, meanwhile, took to CNN to warn the spectacle was far from ended.
“Mueller knows so much more than he has shown,” Rather said, in an interview with Don Lemon. “If you think [Manafort, Cohen] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we’ll find out what they are, is going to make yesterday pale by comparison.”
Is that a bit of wishful thinking there?
But numbers speak louder — louder even than Manafort convictions and Cohen guilty pleas and hovering Mueller specters and scores of anti-Trump punditry in the press. As Rasmussen found, Trump supporters post-Manafort, post-Cohen, are still loyal Trump supporters — are still likely loyal Trump voters.
Take that and put it in Maxine Waters’ impeachment purse.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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