Naive, me? You have got to be kidding.

And what exactly in my comment says that "Fred Trump and his money/influence were not an asset". By the way, Fred had no "influence" in NYC. Did the fact that Fred had a good reputation doing housing in Brooklyn and Queens help Donald? Of course it did. But this was Donald's project and he had to do much as I've said to get it built.

Note this from Fred's obit:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/26/nyregion/fred-c-trump-post...

"In the mid-70's, Mr. Trump lent support -- and a small amount of money -- to his son Donald's aspirations of becoming a developer. ''But what he lent was mostly knowledge; Donald really did it on his own, along with whatever boost he got from being Fred Trump's son, of course,'' Robert Trump said."