I still haven’t run for Mayor or dog-catcher yet but I’ve had a lot of practice. So, I just decided to join all those other politicians who have surpassed the “Peter’s Principle” and risen to their level of incompetence. I’m throwing my hat into the Presidential Ring.  What a turn of events. Just two weeks ago I was contemplating suicide in this column. Yes, we still have two years of Donald Trump playing golf and spending nine hours a day watching Fox and Friends but I just can’t give up on the nation my hero Abe Lincoln sewed back together. 

Our Egotist-in-Chief gave us a pretty good preview of his loyalties after visiting Russia thirty years ago in 1987 before the Iron Curtain rusted. The charity-averse Trump came home to NYNY and spent $94,000 on full page ads trashing America’s “freeloading allies.” 
I know my parents were warned that their hotel rooms on the other side of the border were bugged when they visited Russia a few years earlier. But Donald Trump is not one to deny himself and 2016 isn’t the first time the CIA was worried the Russians had the goods on him. Back when Vladimir Putin was just a KGB intern its possible, maybe likely, that Czech State Security had cameras catching /trump en flagrante delicto. That would have been a decade earlier in the 1970’s when Trump was pursuing business deals. And then he returned with a new wife Ivana Zelníčková in an age when Czech State Security worked hand in hand with Russia’s KGB. 

In the Sic Semper Tyrannus department Trump hasn’t just killed Lincoln’s legacy of unity he’s killed “trust but verify” Reaganism and, as an afterthought, driven a stake into the heart of democracy. 
I don’t expect President Trump to be trembling in his boots any more than his compliant ally Pete Stauber did when I tossed my hat in the Congressional ring. But that hasn’t stopped me from preparing  a Welty for President Exploratory Committee of one.  I’ve also bought the domain name: LincolnRepublican.Com. It will pair nicely with my eleven-year-old blog LincolnDemocrat.Com. That name is a reminder that my hero was so anxious to bring the nation together that he made Democrat, Andrew Johnson, his Vice Presidential running mate in 1864. Compare that to former Democrat Trump. He’s using his old  party as a bogeyman to scare baby boomers who are watching Fox and Friends with him while he sits on his bed in the Lincoln bedroom.

With all those liabilities I feel a little sorry for President Trump even if he has a hundred million dollar headstart over me in campaign donations. I just remember how that beggar Jesus Christ founded the most populous religion on Earth with a few loaves and fishes. Our shady billionaire doesn’t hold a candle to the Nazarene.

I know, I know. Trump has managed a few miracles himself. How else can you explain his turning so many evangelicals into Trump worshipers. Golly, did they forget that Jesus warned them to render unto Augustus only that which was owed to Rome’s fake God? Someday evangelicals will discover they lost their children the same way Hamlin lost its children to a Pied Piper. 

I may not have the Republican Presidential field all to myself. I checked on the Internet and there are a couple other Republicans whose names are being bruited about. I’m pretty sure I’m the first to register a domain name. Its WeltyforPresident.com. I’ve forgotten how to set up a new website but I’m in no hurry. I only had about five minutes and three hundred dollars before deciding to challenge for Congress this year. I have a year before the other Republican Trump critics skulk off and hide. 

And if my old Republican friends noses are out of joint because they think I’m being tough on them I’d like to remind them that it’s been a two-way-street. One of the last Republican conventions I attended I was pointed to from the stage and told in no uncertain terms that I was “a worse mass murderer than Mao, Stalin and Hitler” all put together! If that accusation hadn’t come from a party that fought against insuring children and regularly short changed their education, I might have taken the accusation to heart. 

Yup, it’s now Donald Trump’s Party. But it will be worth it to try to return it to the heirs of Abraham Lincoln…….the man who kept the United States from flying apart.

Harry Welty is a local eccentric and perennial candidate for office in Duluth who, when he is not running for public office, pontificates on his blog: www.lincolndemocrat.com.