Saturday Open Thread [5.21.16]

“Business has boomed in Donald Trump’s financial empire during the time he has run for president, according to an analysis of his federal disclosure forms,” the Washington Post reports.

“The documents, including a lengthy filing released Wednesday and one from last July, show that revenue has increased by almost­ $190­­ million, with gains coming from golf courses to branded merchandise to book royalties.”

“The flood of cash highlights one of the most unusual aspects of Trump’s candidacy — the potential that a private businessman can benefit financially from a run for the White House. And it shows how his fortunes have evolved since last year, when his controversial comments about immigration and Muslims threatened to tarnish his business brand even if they boosted his political campaign.”

Matt Bai: “In case you were wondering what Bill Clinton’s pet cause might be in his wife’s administration…Bill, she said, would be in charge of rebuilding the national economy… Economic policy isn’t something for which you name a czar… It’s kind of a central plank of the presidency. It’s the reason we elect you, more or less.”

“If Hillary wants to keep inspiring the little girls of this country, she probably shouldn’t go around saying she’ll turn over the big stuff to her husband… Because the larger problem with Clinton’s statement is that it exposes what’s really missing from her campaign — the vulnerability she’s left herself, even against a candidate as flawed as Trump…However admired a politician Bill may be, Americans don’t elect presidents with the expectation that their spouses will do the governing. She of all people should understand that.”

Jack Shafer: “[T]he media didn’t create the Trump political phenomenon. The real origin is far more interesting: Trump artfully created the media that in turn created Trump the presidential candidate.”

“There’s something truly original in all of this. Trump may yet turn out to be a fairly conventional American populist when it comes to his policy views, but he’s already proved revolutionary in his ability to create—and then manipulate—the media platforms that enable his politics. His breakthrough idea was to cash in on his four decades of media exposure with a political message that uniquely combined victimhood, bragging and patriotic obfuscation. To invert Marshall McLuhan’s most famous dictum, when it comes to politics, it’s the message—not the medium—that matters most in pushing a candidate to the top. But you can’t deliver the message unless you have the medium at your disposal.”

“Hillary Clinton, seeking a governing coalition if she wins the White House, is pumping millions of dollars into key battleground states at the heart of her presidential map and Democrats’ quest to regain control of the Senate,” the AP reports.

“The Democratic National Committee and state parties are spending about $2 million initially to build coordinated campaigns in eight battleground states with competitive Senate races. The money is being raised by Clinton’s campaign through her Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that allows Clinton to raise large checks of more than $350,000 from wealthy donors.”

“Democrats say the coordinated effort, now a staple in presidential campaigns, will try to build up the party’s network of field organizers earlier in the election and work more closely with Senate, House and state and local campaigns than in previous election cycles.”

Norm Ornstein: “In this highly charged election, it’s no surprise that the news media see every poll like an addict sees a new fix. That is especially true of polls that show large and unexpected changes. Those polls get intense coverage and analysis, adding to their presumed validity.”

“The problem is that the polls that make the news are also the ones most likely to be wrong. And to folks like us, who know the polling game and can sort out real trends from normal perturbations, too many of this year’s polls, and their coverage, have been cringeworthy.

I am ignoring the polls right now, and have been for two weeks since Trump clinched. Why? Because it is an uneven and inaccurate playing field right now. Trump has clinched. And that means all the Republicans doing what they do: fall in line. So Trump is getting a boost in the polls. At the same time, we are seeing the Democratic primary race go through a final dying against the light phase, where the losing candidate’s supporters are upset and are venting publicly, so some of them are telling pollsters that they will not vote for the Democratic nominee in the falls. Hence, you have polls that show a close race or even Trump leading. We should let the dust settle before paying attention to them again.

“Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nations founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.”

— The Texas Republican Party platform, which Reuters notes includes an errant comma suggesting that the majority of Texans are gay.

“As tensions were escalating between Bernie Sanders and Democratic Party leaders over the chaos caused by his supporters at a Nevada convention, Dick Durbin got an unexpected call from the Vermont senator,” Bloomberg reports.

“Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, came away from the conversation on Wednesday convinced that Sanders, who has all but lost the presidential nomination battle to Hillary Clinton, understands the need for party unity and will do his part to defeat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.”

“In an attempt to head off an ugly conflict at its convention this summer, the Democratic National Committee plans to offer a concession to Sen. Bernie Sanders — seats on a key convention platform committee — but it may not be enough to stop Sanders from picking a fight over the party’s policy positions,” the Washington Post reports.

“Allies of both Clinton and Sanders have urged Democratic leaders to meet some of Sanders’s more mundane demands for greater inclusion at the Philadelphia convention. Their decision to do so is expected to be finalized by the end of the week, according to two people familiar with the discussions. But growing mistrust between Sanders supporters and party leaders have threatened to undermine that effort.”

“Just months before the U.S. housing market started to crash, beginning the downward spiral that sent the globe on the road to the massive 2008 financial crisis, Donald Trump was advising Trump University students that he didn’t think there was a bubble in the real estate market,” BuzzFeed reports.

“The comments from Trump in an October 2006 audiobook were one of numerous times Trump said through Trump University that he didn’t think there was a housing bubble. In another Trump University audiobook released earlier that year, Trump said to take talk of real estate bubble talk with a ‘pinch of salt.’”

“The last time information from Donald Trump’s income-tax returns was made public, the bottom line was striking: He had paid the federal government $0 in income taxes,” the Washington Post reports.

“The disclosure, in a 1981 report by New Jersey gambling regulators, revealed that the wealthy Manhattan investor had for at least two years in the late 1970s taken advantage of a tax-code provision popular with developers that allowed him to report negative income.”