who has suffered major financial ups and downs, and is thrice married – has shoved his way into the top tier of potential Republican challengers to President Barack Obama next year. His resume would ordinarily foreclose a run for America's highest office, but the real estate mogul and reality television figure has used his celebrity to stand out in a crowded field with no obvious favorite. These days, he is ensuring a place in the spotlight by latching onto discredited claims that Obama, whose father was from Kenya, was born outside the US. Regardless of Trump's wealth and poll numbers, most political wisdom puts him as a very long shot to win the nomination and with virtually no chance of beating Obama in November 2012. Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum question whether Trump, who has elevated his profile over the last few years with his TV show “The Apprentice,” is just engaged in a publicity stunt. Karl Rove, architect of George W. Bush's two presidential wins, has called Trump “a joke candidate.” Nevertheless, some polls show Trump is strongly challenging presumed Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and a successful businessman himself. Trump still has not announced his candidacy. Romney has already taken the first official step toward running. Trump has shaped himself as an ultraconservative candidate, reversing some positions he once held. He now would make abortion illegal, opposes gay marriage and gun control. He advocates repeal of Obama's health care overhaul that became law last year. He wants to cut foreign aid, is highly critical of China's trade and monetary policies and wants to end the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he has gotten the most political traction by latching onto the “birther” movement: those who believe claims initiated by the far-right that Obama was born outside the United States – despite the release of official birth records in Hawaii and other evidence. The US Constitution requires that presidential candidates be “natural-born” US citizens. In recent days, Trump has appeared in interviews on all the major American cable television networks, pushing relentlessly his message that Obama needs to prove he was born in the United States. He points to his rising poll numbers as proof that Americans like what he is saying on that deeply divisive issue. “I'd like to have him show his birth certificate,” Trump said on NBC television. “And to be honest with you, I hope he can.” The birther movement has fed on some voters' festering disaffection with the status quo and economic fears. That's especially so with those captivated by the antiestablishment, low-tax, small-government tea party movement that sprang to life after the financial meltdown in the fall of 2008, shortly before Obama was elected. The false assertion about Obama's birthplace has gained a stunning number of followers. A new poll by the New York Times and CBS television finds that 25 percent of all Americans incorrectly think Obama was not born in the United States. Among all Republicans, 45 percent believe he was born in another country, as do 45 percent of tea party supporters, the poll shows.
