[TheRealThing]

I do not know that much about Dr. Piper. However, I am almost certain that he occupies higher moral ground than Donald Trump. Unless he has recently disposed of some assets, Trump still derives an impressive income from strip clubs. He supports and has attempted to use eminent domain to acquire private property for private gain. There are many very successful businessmen, including the Koch brothers, who have never contributed money to Pelosi, Reid, the Clintons, Schumer, and other extreme left wing politicians. Those donations were not necessary to do business in New York City, but that is Trump's lie and he is sticking with it.

I could flood you with examples of immoral and inappropriate behavior by Donald Trump but the evidence from reliable sources is readily available to you if you care to look. It is appropriate to judge people on their past behavior when selecting a president. Otherwise, we would always elect a president for making the most impressive campaign promises.

Actions matter much more than promises to me and I just do not see how Trump's past behavior makes it likely that he will hold himself to many campaign promises that deviate from his past positions. If I am wrong about him, then so be it, but Trump has done nothing to earn my trust. In fact, his bullying and boasting diminishes my trust and respect for Trump on an almost daily basis.

At this time, I believe that there are two great men running for president, Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson. I would probably support Santorum if he became the nominee but neither he nor Carson have much of a chance of beating Trump, Cruz, or Rubio.

Donald Trump has fallen from second to last on my list of potential GOP nominees. There is nothing that he can do to change my assessment, because whatever he says or does before the general election will be said or done in pursuit of an enormous amount of power. If Trump's presidential actions match his words of the next few months, then I will reconsider in the 2020 campaign. Until then, I consider Trump the most dangerous candidate in the race, excluding Hillary Clinton.

I would ask everybody to think about Trump's claim that because he is at least partially self financing his campaign, he does not owe "special interests" anything, unlike his GOP rivals. Consider how many $billion of loans that George Soros and the largest U.S. banks made to Trump's companies. Think about how much of an issue Trump has made over the loans that Cruz took out against his stock holdings to help finance his Senate campaign compared to the leverage that the big financial institutions hold over Trump.

Trump boasts of how his political donations bought favors from Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, and a long list of other politicians. There is no reason to believe that President Trump would not continue to buy influence with taxpayer money. He is not a small government Republican and will use our money to make his deals. Trump supported TARP, the bailouts, and the Bush/Obama stimulus spending.

I don't trust Trump and I am surprised that any conservatives do. I would never have believed that any politician could be more divisive than the Clintons and Obama, but the number of conservatives who despise Trump is growing every day. He is going to have a very difficult time rebuilding all of the bridges that he has already burnt.

The overwhelming majority of religious leaders who have endorsed a candidate for president have selected Ted Cruz. In fact, Trump personally and dishonestly attacked Bob Vander Plaats, leader of The Family Leader, because he endorsed Cruz over Trump. As a presidential candidate, Trump is being judged on his record and an unusually large number of fiscal and social conservative Republicans say that they will never vote for Trump.

I think Trump can win without much conservative support because of the weak competition that he would face from Democrats but this election should have been an easy win for Republicans. Trump is making it more difficult than it should have been with his extremely divisive campaign tactics.

As far as offending my wife or me with your comments, I am more worried about offending you and my other friends on BGR. That is why I choose not to post more about Trump's disgusting past. Dr. Piper stands with the majority of religious leaders in this country in believing Trump is not fit for office. Hosting Trump in a college chapel to speak to his university students would be as inappropriate as hosting Obama in a chapel. There are more appropriate venues on campuses for controversial characters to address students.

You're not going to offend me I assure you. We both may find ourselves back on the same side of things before we could have guessed. My point about Piper was that the article you cited refers to him as an Evangelical leader of the Wesleyan Church. All I'm saying is that men of such cloth don't take the time to attack individuals. In fact, it is in the failing of the Church in which men have been encouraged to live openly and unashamedly in a fashion contrary to the dictates of our Lord.

Therefore, had Dr. Piper invited Trump to a one on one, and then come away satisfied that he was every bit the scoundrel he painted him in his article. Then it might have born more fruit. But I know what Dr. Piper's calling is, it is to evangelize folks like and maybe particularly Donald Trump. Not single them out as he has done. On the one hand Church leaders fear and complain about being shut out of the political arena by the state, and then they do things like Piper did. It seems like a clear case of a preacher stepping outside his charter to me. BTW, has Dr. Piper published anything critical in scope about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

And obviously, the face on which the whole article was presented has two sides. Donald Trump nor any subordinate, as far as I could determine, has ever approached Piper to ask if Donald could speak at Wesleyan University. None the less, that scenario was used as a vehicle to deliver his review of the person of Mr Trump anyway, which was his true intent.