{"id":72517,"date":"2016-03-16T07:10:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T11:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=72517"},"modified":"2016-03-16T07:10:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T11:10:50","slug":"donald-trump-quintessential-florida-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/03\/16\/donald-trump-quintessential-florida-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump: Is he the quintessential Florida man?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Donald<\/a>
Donald Trump (Photo from Trump’s official Twitter account<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Donald Trump drew thousands to his rallies around the Sunshine State, basking in their adoration, his face glowing like a Florida orange as he anticipated victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorida loves Trump, and I love Florida, so I think I\u2019m going to win Florida,\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n

Trump did win Florida on Tuesday, claiming victory with the bravado of someone who survived a particularly hellish South Florida commute.<\/p>\n

The only actual Floridian in the race \u2013 Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American born in South Florida who earned all his degrees from Florida universities \u2013 failed to make his case, and Trump had already squashed the hopes of the GOP\u2019s other Florida candidates like so many palmetto bugs.<\/p>\n

Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who was supposed to have this thing locked up before the Southern primaries, flamed out shortly after he finally tried to find Trump\u2019s jugular by labeling him \u201cthe chaos candidate.\u201d Ben Carson, who lives in a West Palm Beach mansion, finally quit, too, and endorsed Trump.<\/p>\n

Somehow, it\u2019s Trump who captured Republican hearts in what some consider America\u2019s strangest state. Trump made his name in New York City, displaying \u201cNew York values\u201d with a brash, fast-talking, larger-than-life persona. But really, when you think about it, Donald Trump is the quintessential Florida Man.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe embodies the Florida dream: the idea of a better life,\u201d says historian Gary Mormino.<\/p>\n

All the things people fantasize about in the frigid north \u2013 a beachfront mansion and endless riches to spend on endless rounds of golf \u2013 Trump has it and more, right here in Florida.<\/p>\n

And he doesn\u2019t just live the Florida lifestyle \u2013 he\u2019s a Sunshine State soulmate.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is more casual, more flippant, less buttoned up, just like Floridians,\u201d says Paul George, a history professor at Miami-Dade College.<\/p>\n

But what about Rubio, the actual Floridian who dropped out of the race after Tuesday night\u2019s crushing loss? Rubio seems youthful and has a vision for America, but \u201ccomes off as restrained,\u201d George says, \u201cmuch more buttoned up, which is ironic, since he\u2019s from Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like each winter\u2019s snowbirds and two-thirds of state residents, Trump is from outside Florida. But he plays and does business here. In 2010, he launched a multi-level marketing company that sold vitamins to an adoring crowd of thousands in Miami. Earlier this month, after 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney declared that \u201ca business genius he is not,\u201d Trump summoned the media to his Trump National Golf Course in Jupiter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an empire builder, and Floridians, especially South Floridians, are empire builders,\u201d says George. \u201cOr they dream of building an empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his Trump Tower penthouse in New York imitates the Palace of Versailles, his most famous home has been Mar-a-Lago. In 1985, he paid $10 million for the 58-bedroom Mediterranean revival mansion with a 20-acre oceanfront estate straddling Palm Beach Island.<\/p>\n

Trump and his third wife, Slovenian model Melania Knauss, held their wedding reception at Mar-a-Lago, which Trump had turned into a high-end club, much to the consternation of his traditional Palm Beach neighbors. \u201cTrump\u2019s Palm Beach Club Roils the Old Social Order\u201d was the headline on the Wall Street Journal story.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another Florida Man attribute: roiling the social order. Trump\u2019s been doing it for years.<\/p>\n

Mormino, a professor emeritus at the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg, points out Trump bought into Palm Beach when national ads by the tourism bureau proclaimed: \u201cFlorida. The rules are different here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That could almost be Trump\u2019s campaign slogan, no?<\/p>\n

Take his four corporate bankruptcies: No big deal in Florida, which trails only California in bankruptcy filings. Or his marriages: 7 percent of Florida’s men have married three or more times, like Trump. The national average is 5 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Or the fact he has made and lost fortunes in real estate. Floridians still gamble on slices of sunshine, despite the last housing bust.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s got the Florida values and Florida lifestyle down,\u201d says George.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s brand was nicked by a failed condo project in Tampa, but that, too, was classic Florida. Trump boasted in 2005 the 52-story Trump Tower Tampa would be \u201ca signature landmark property so spectacular that it will redefine both Tampa’s skyline and the market\u2019s expectations of luxurious condominium living.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years later, Trump sued for $1 million in unpaid licensing fees, the developer went bankrupt, and buyers who put 20 percent down on a tower that was never built were out tens of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump was like the Pied Piper who led us all into it, trusting him that he wouldn\u2019t put his name on something bad,\u201d said Mary Ann Stiles, a Tampa attorney who lost $100,000 on the deal.<\/p>\n

Ah, but no one wants to dwell on the bad here. They\u2019d rather play \u2013 preferably under the cool shade of a palm tree \u2013 like golfers and presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon did when they set up their Winter White Houses in Florida.<\/p>\n

Trump has three world-class golf courses in Florida \u2013 Doral, Palm Beach and Jupiter. He invested hundreds of millions into Doral after rescuing it from bankruptcy, and the course has been a popular PGA Tour stop since 1962. But golf-watchers say this run is threatened by Trump\u2019s remarks: the PGA canceled its Grand Slam of Golf at Trump\u2019s course in Los Angeles after his comments disparaging Mexican immigrants, and Doral could be next.<\/p>\n

Trump-haters may seek solace in this tidbit that Mormino pointed out: No Florida man has ever been elected president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Donald Trump drew thousands to his rallies around the Sunshine State, basking in their adoration, his face …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":72518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,16,483,17],"tags":[1080],"class_list":["post-72517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news","category-politics","category-news-w","tag-ap","mauthors-tamara-lush","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}