Trump may be a flim-flam man, but he is no P.T. Barnum as far as his politics.

[Stonepounder]

Happened to stumble across this on KOS. Turns out that Barnum might have been a lot of things, but as far as politics he was a liberal. He was a state assemblyman who worked hard to ratify the 14th Amendment and to modify Conn. law to give African-American men the vote. He also fought the Railroad cartel.

He went on to be the Mayor of Bridgeport, Conn working to outlaw public drunkenness, lower utility bills, and close houses of ill-repute. Fascinating man.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/10/1568848/-The-Politics-of-PT-Barnum

Phineas Taylor (PT) Barnum was not only a show business producer and early mass marketeer but also a politician. He was elected to two terms in the Connecticut state legislature (1865 and 1866) representing the town of Fairfield as a member of the Republican Party. A decade later, he was elected by acclamation as mayor of Bridgeport, CT. His political career was very different from the candidate he is being compared to this 2016 Presidential season.

At the end of the Civil War, Barnum ran for the state legislature expressly to ratify the 14th Amendment to the USA Constitution and extend Connecticut state voting rights to African-American men...

...

"In March, 1875, the nomination for Mayor of Bridgeport was offered Barnum, but he refused it, until assured that the nomination was intended as a compliment, and that both parties would sustain it.” The city of Bridgeport usually voted Democratic but Barnum ran on the Republican ticket and was easily elected. He campaigned against public intoxication, closed the bars on Sunday, and crusaded to lower utility rates, improve water supplies, and eliminate the city’s houses of prostitution.