Say what you will about Putin… He doesn’t care what you think of him. And right or wrong, he rules from a position of unapologetic power.

Vladimir Putin (Photo Source: Kremlin.ru)

It’s the sort of thing we could use much more of in the U.S.
So when he recently called Trump the “absolute leader” in the 2016 presidential race… It put Democrats on alert.
Via The Washington Post:

Russian President Vladimir Putin found a moment during a wide-ranging news conference to offer a strong endorsement of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, calling the billionaire presidential candidate the “absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Putin consecrated a budding international bromance between the two men as he commented on the U.S. campaign for the White House, saying that Russia would work with “whomever the American voters choose” but expressing special praise for Trump.
Trump said in October that he would “get along very well” with Putin and applauded the Russian leader for his intervention against the Islamic State in Syria. But until Thursday, Trump’s praise had gone unreciprocated.
“He’s a very lively man, talented without doubt,” Putin said when journalists approached him after the news conference and asked about Trump. “He’s saying he wants to go to another level of relations — closer, deeper relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that.”
It was a moment of levity during a more than three-hour news conference that touched on Russia’s battered economy, Russia’s intervention in Syria, tense relations with Turkey over the downing of a Russian warplane, and the smoldering conflict in Ukraine.
There was no grandstanding. No threats. Instead, it was all business. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what we need? A strong businessman who can repair our broken relationship with Russia and the rest of the world.
One thing is certain: The 2016 election may be the most important in our country’s history.