Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day October 22nd, 1987, a shiny black French-made helicopter lands on a grassy airfield

in southern New Hampshire and outsteps a 41-year-old real estate developer from New York, red tie, blue suit, he gets into red tie, dark suit,

he gets into a rented limousine and rushes off to give a speech at the Portsmouth Rotary Club at a restaurant called

yolkins. This real estate developer as you may have gathered is Donald J. Trump and

this moment as you may have gathered is the run-up to the 1988 election.

Vice President George H.W. Bush would eventually go on to win the GOP nomination,

but at this point, more than a year out,

the field was pretty open and in stepped Trump to do what Trump does best.

Gin up some attention hinting at a possible presidential bid

and the speech that he gives in October 87 draws a bigger crowd

than many of the other possible candidates, the more realistic

candidates bigger than Bob Dole or Jack Kemp or Pat Robertson had drawn at the very same

venue. We've talked about some of the elements of this election before

mostly on the Democratic side like that photo of Michael Dukakis in the tank and I

don't know if we've done an episode on Gary Hart or not but it feels like we

probably have but anyway this is a chance to talk about the GOP race and of course the

seeds of Trump's political aspirations here to discuss this moment our special

guest for this episode Robert Fleigler associate Professor of History at the University of Mississippi, and

author of a new book called Brutal Campaign, How the 1988 Election set the stage for 21st

Century Politics.

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