In Morrison County Record editor Tom West's latest column, One GOP delegate’s torturous road to Cleveland, we learn that former DFL state representative Steve Wenzel, who resigned from the legislature to become Dubya's Minnesota state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program from 2001 through 2008, then:
Republican presidential nominees John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. . . .
This January, he decided to support Jeb Bush’s candidacy for the Republican nomination. His motivation was to find the best candidate to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
He attended a Republican precinct caucus for the very first time on March 1.
When Jeb’s candidacy went nowhere, Wenzel then decided to support Sen. Marco Rubio, who was rising in the polls at the time. Not long after Wenzel switched his support, Rubio’s numbers sagged, and soon the Floridian was out of the race.
So then Wenzel decided to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whom the polls showed had a much better chance of defeating Clinton than the only other Republican still in the race, Donald Trump.
When the 8th District Republican convention came up, Wenzel saw an opportunity to stop Trump and hence Hillary — by supporting Trump. Huh?
At that point, Trump did not have enough national convention support to win on the first ballot. On the basis of Minnesota’s precinct caucus vote, Trump was allocated one delegate from Minnesota’s 8th District, Wenzel ran for it, and he won.
His strategy, however, was to stop Trump from being nominated. He figured that even if he were obligated to vote for Trump on the first ballot, if Trump failed, all bets were off. Wenzel would then support Kasich.
Five days later, Kasich dropped out, too.
So now Wenzel is headed to Cleveland as a Trump delegate.
West writes that Wenzel is a "reluctant convert," but supports Trump in part because of his pro-life Supreme Court nominees in waiting, and Trump's intellectual prowess:
In defense of Trump, Wenzel said, “He’s no buffoon. He was first in his class at the Wharton School of Economics.”
Not really. Donald Trump did graduate from Wharton (part of the University of Pennsylvania) with an undergraduate degree in economics, the Washington Post's Answer Sheet reported in Yes, Donald Trump really went to an Ivy League school, but first in his class? Unlikely:
A 2011 Salon magazine article refers to a 2001 book called “The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire,” by Gwenda Blair. It says that Trump’s grades at Fordham, a Jesuit school in New York, had been “respectable,” and that he was admitted to Penn after an interview with a “friendly” Wharton admissions officer who was an old classmate of Trump’s older brother.
The article also points out that Trump has happily allowed the media to report that he graduated first in his class from Wharton, including in New York Times stories in 1973 and 1976 about him. But the story goes on to say:
Writing in the New York Times magazine in 1984, William Geist reported that “the commencement program from 1968 does not list him as graduating with honors of any kind,” even though “just about every profile ever written about Mr. Trump states that he graduated first in his class at Wharton in 1968.” … In 1988, New York magazine reported that the idea that Trump had graduated first in his class was a “myth.” [emphasis by Salon]
The complete paragraph in the Geist article notes that Trump says that he's not the source of the "graduated first" story:
And just about every profile ever written about Mr. Trump states that he graduated first in his class at Wharton in 1968. Although the school refused comment, the commencement program from 1968 does not list him as graduating with honors of any kind. He says he never told them that either.
Justin Elliott reports in his 2011 Salon article, Just what kind of student was Donald Trump?:
. . . Among other things, Trump has allowed the media to report for years that he graduated first in his class at Wharton, despite strong evidence that this is not true and indications that he was, in fact, an undistinguished student.
Trump did not go to Wharton’s prestigious MBA program. Rather, he received an undergraduate degree offered by Wharton to University of Pennsylvania students. And Trump didn’t attend Wharton for a full four years. Instead, he transferred there after spending his first two undergraduate years at Fordham, the Jesuit university in the Bronx. . . .
The writer Jerome Tuccille reported in his 1985 biography of Trump that while “it has been reported that he graduated first in the class … Donald denied that he ever made such a claim. Actually he was not among the honor students that year.” Emphasis added. . . .
Finally, in April 2016, Beth Harpaz reported for the Associated Press in Trump and Wharton: A complicated relationship:
You don't hear Ted Cruz talk much about his Princeton degree. Hillary Clinton doesn't often mention Yale. But Donald Trump can't stop trumpeting his Ivy League pedigree.
"I went to the Wharton School of Finance, the toughest place to get into. I was a great student," he has said. He's called Wharton "super genius stuff." Accused of making a vulgar comment, he responded: "Who would say that? I went to the Wharton School of Finance!"
But Trump's relationship with his alma mater is complicated. . . .
And if you assumed his degree was an MBA, you'd be wrong. Trump holds a bachelor of science degree in economics from Wharton, earned after transferring in as a junior from Fordham University. Several early Trump profiles, including a 1973 New York Times piece, stated that he graduated first in his class at Wharton, but that has since been disputed. A 1968 commencement program does not list his name among students who graduated with honors.
The Daily Pennsylvanian has published several articles about Trump's relationship with the school: 2015's Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery. There's a timeline in What we actually know about Donald Trump's ongoing relationship with Penn. Another review can be found in Trump's Unknown Penn Past.
Since Wenzel's a shape shifter, the shifting story of Trump's education dovetails nicely with the lawmaker's conversion. We'll see how often this urban legend is used as a talking point in rural Minnesota. But let's hope Wenzel's political science students learn to do a little more fact checking than their sly master appears to do.
Photo: Is a talking point about Donald Trump taking shape in Central Minnesota?
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen P.O. Box 108, Maynard MN 56260) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen at gmail.com as recipient.
Donations are not tax deductible.
Comments