One day a few years ago I rounded a corner in Downtown Manhattan and walked right into Donald Trump.
The man was standing in one of those larger than life poses with a camel hair coat draped over his shoulders.
He was, as I said, standing, not seemingly going anywhere. He was looking southwards along Broad Street.
He could have been a statute, but it was the living, breathing Donald.
He didn’t notice me, but I sure noticed him. I also noticed something else.
Taking a bead on Trump in his Superman pose and looking straight up Broad to where it meets Wall Street, I was looking right at the bronze statue of George Washington.
Washington towers above passers-by on his plinth. It was in this place that he was sworn in as America’s first president in 1789.
I didn’t entirely link the two at the time, didn’t quite blend the scene into a “vision thing,” as the elder George Bush might say.
No, I did not have a vision then. But I sure have one now. And there’s something else.
Was Trump actually posing like Washington that day, his coat a cloak to match those habitually worn by the burly Washington? Was Trump thinking in terms of someday succeeding the first president?
Thinking back, and given all that is going on now, this is all more than possible.
And given all that is going now, it is also possible that Trump might later this year realize the dream that he might have been having that day.
Lord almighty, I might have been witness to the moment when the dream was born!
Some questions concerning Trump’s no longer quite quixotic quest will be answered in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses.
But in advance of the quirky caucuses, and likely after them, there will be a question bouncing around. Will 2016 be a year of a big rebound?
When you look at presidents in modern times, and particularly from the 1960s on, you can, if you want to, see a rebounding effect.
Nixon was a rebounder after Kennedy and Johnston, and Reagan sure was after Jimmy Carter, just as Carter was after Nixon, not Gerald Ford.
The aforementioned elder Bush survived the phenomenon once, but not twice. Bill Clinton was all about change, big rebounding change.
You could argue that the younger Bush was not a rebound because he didn’t actually attract more votes than Al Gore in 2000. But his securing a second term in 2004 suggests that he was - to a degree.
It’s hard to imagine a bigger rebound from Bush than Barack Obama.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump.
There are a few Republican candidates roaming the Iowa corn stubble who might make the rebound grade in 2016, but there’s nobody, absolutely nobody, to match Trump.
Of course, it may all end up being a general election contest between Hillary Clinton and some other Republican.
But if it’s Trump, he stands to gain mightily if there’s a rebound factor.
Hillary doesn’t make the grade in this context. Her main angle is the promise of being the first ever woman in the Oval Office. But she offers far less a contrast to Obama than “The Donald.”
Trump’s rise, when you look at it this way, is not entirely surprising.
He is not, of course, the first populist to make an early run at the presidency, and cause great excitement in doing so.
The fate of others in former years who fit the Trump mould would seem to suggest that the man will eventually stumble and fall.
But there’s something about this man, and the times that are in it.
The Hill newspaper is a respected political daily. A glance at its online page on a day earlier in the campaign turned up eighteen headlines with Trump’s name included.
This was extraordinary.
Now, a couple of months later - with earlier predictions of Trump flagging as the Republican race got serious now looking as wobbly as Trump’s hairstyle - the man is still dominating headlines, at time of writing in part to his well-orchestrated feud with the FOX network, and in particular its star debate host, Megyn Kelly.
Donald Trump is no fool.
He is a master of the art of being, well, Donald Trump, property mogul, reality TV host and star, and maybe, just maybe, a presidential election year rebounder for the ages.
:: Ray O'Hanlon is editor of the New York-based Irish Echo.
