Wednesday Open Thread [8.17.16]

Filed in National by on August 17, 2016

TEXAS–PRESIDENT–PPP–Trump 44, Clinton 38
NORTH CAROLINA–SENATOR–NBC/WSJ/Marist–Deborah Ross 46, Sen. Richard Burr 44
COLORADO–SENATOR–NBC/WSJ/Marist–Sen. Michael Bennet 53, Daryl Glenn 38
FLORIDA–SENATOR–NBC/WSJ/Marist–Sen. Marco Rubio 49, Patrick Murphy 43
MICHIGAN–PRESIDENT–FOX 2/Mitchell–Clinton 49, Trump 39
MISSISSIPPI–PRESIDENT–Magellan–Trump 54, Clinton 39
FLORIDA–PRESIDENT–Monmouth–Clinton 48, Trump 39

Booman:

At times, I’ve used the analogy of “winning the argument.” In the last several presidential elections, no side has really done that decisively the way that Reagan did in 1980 and 1984 or Nixon did in 1972 or LBJ did in 1964. That led a lot of commentators to conclude that things are different today and we’re stuck in a world where even the losing candidate is guaranteed somewhere between 40% and 45% of the vote. I never believed that.

I always believed we were in that system until one side won the argument again. In 1984, Ronald Reagan convinced the liberals of Massachusetts and Vermont and Rhode Island and Hawaii that he was the better choice than Walter Mondale. I knew that the reverse was still possible and that a Democrat could win in places like Georgia and Arizona. All it would take is one side to lose its strength so that it could no longer push back with equal force.

Trump is uniquely bad, spending no money on advertising, for example. But the crack-up of the Republican Party began in earnest with the reelection of President Obama when they couldn’t pass immigration reform and they couldn’t operate the federal government. Fox News has fallen apart and no longer serves as an organ of the Republican nominee. The National Review, Red State, and other previously reliable wurlitzer-grinders stand in strong opposition to the Republican nominee, but also to the preferences of the party’s base.

These schisms were in evidence years ago, which is why I found it possible to predict that the GOP wouldn’t be able to hold up their side of the wall in 2016 and things would tilt against them in dramatic fashion.

People will blame Trump for this, but it was all there before Trump was seen as anything more than a barking birther tree monkey.

This is not Trump’s fault. He’s making it worse, but it’s not his making.

So Trump gave a speech where he “attempted” to persuade African Americans to vote for him. Yeah, not going to work. Why? Because black people know who he is. He is the person who wrote this tweet:

Only resentful white racists talk and write like that.

Politico: “Biden’s made his mission for the election delivering the Senate back to Democrats, and he’s already made clear three seats that he’s prioritized, and where the party clearly needs help: for Ted Strickland in Ohio, for Patrick Murphy in Florida and for Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania.”

“Conveniently, those happen to be the three states where Clinton needs to block Trump on the electoral map, and where the Republican nominee’s message seems to be resonating in some of the most dangerous ways for the Clinton campaign.”

Trump has shaken up his campaign for a third time. There has been talk that Trump is basically the comments sections of Breitbart and INFOWARS if it took human form. Well, now Trump has hired Breitbart.

Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon will “temporarily step down from his role with Breitbart News” to join the team as the campaign CEO, while Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway will be promoted to campaign manager. […]

While Paul Manafort will stay on as campaign chairman and chief strategist, two Trump advisers who spoke to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity said that his internal role would be diminished as the Republican nominee tries to retake the reigns of his campaign.

The aides told the Post that Trump has felt “controlled” and “boxed in” by staffers urging him to tone down his rhetoric and pivot towards a general election audience. As a seasoned campaign operative, Manafort played a key role in trying to turn Trump’s understaffed, shoestring operation into a more traditional national presidential campaign.

But the notoriously blustery real estate mogul has shrugged off these efforts, continuing to get in trouble for off-the-cuff comments like his claim that “Second Amendment people” could keep Hillary Clinton from appointing liberal Supreme Court justices. As his poll numbers in national surveys and battleground states have fallen, Trump has expressed a wish to return to the kind of combative campaign that fueled his success in the Republican primary.

So…. wait a minute. This staff shakeup is not an effort to run a more disciplined presidential on message campaign It is an effort to get more undisciplined and more uncontrolled. Ok then.

Yeah, that is not going to win Trump the election.

Politico: “It’s a move that would come as a surprise to many. The 44-year-old Priebus, who was first elected in 2011, had led many to believe he would be finished with the high-profile job following a rambunctious campaign season — one that at times has resulted in fierce criticism of Priebus and the committee he leads. Already, several would-be successors, including former Silicon Valley executive Carly Fiorina, have begun de facto campaigns for the chairmanship.”

“But in recent weeks, Priebus has begun telling friends and allies that he’s seriously considering running for reelection.”

As a Democrat, I fully support the reelection of Priebus.

Michael Gerson on why Trump is bombing with Millenials: “I would venture that Trump’s failure among the young has something to do with his assault on the idea of tolerance, particularly racial and religious tolerance. Younger voters are less likely than other age groups to regard racially inclusive language as “politically correct.” They are less likely to believe in “reverse discrimination” and to embrace anti-immigrant attitudes. And, according to the USA Today/Rock the Vote survey, they were not impressed by the GOP nominee’s convention speech. By more than 2 to 1, younger voters said it made Trump seem less human and accessible.”

“While Clinton has an ethics problem, Trump has a humanity problem. His combativeness and lack of political polish could be advantages among younger voters. But these are tied to a discrediting lack of empathy.”

The New York Times says that early voting limits Trump’s chances at a comeback: “Voting actually starts in less than six weeks, on Sept. 23 in Minnesota and South Dakota, the first of some 35 states and the District of Columbia that allow people to cast ballots at polling sites or by email before Nov. 8. Iowa is expected to have ballots ready by the end of September, as are Illinois and two other states.”

“The electoral battlegrounds of Arizona and Ohio are to begin voting on Oct. 12, nearly four weeks before Election Day. And North Carolina and Florida will be underway before Halloween.”

“Early voting has become a critical, even decisive factor in presidential elections: President Obama was sufficiently ahead in the early vote in Iowa and Nevada in 2012 that his campaign shifted resources from those states to others, according to former advisers, who also credited enthusiastic early voting in 2008 for his victory in North Carolina and elsewhere.”

Ezra Klein/Vox:

There is a case to be made that the media created Donald Trump. It was, reportedly, his anger at being dismissed by political pundits that led him to run for president in the first place. And it was, arguably, the media’s wall-to-wall coverage of his every utterance that powered his victory in the Republican primary.

But slowly, surely, the media has turned on Trump. He still gets wall-to-wall coverage, but that coverage is overwhelmingly negative. Increasingly, the press doesn’t even pretend to treat Trump like a normal candidate: CNN’s chyrons fact-check him in real time; the Washington Post reacted to being banned from Trump with a shrug; BuzzFeed News published a memo telling reporters it was fine to call Trump “a mendacious racist” on social media; the New York Times published a viral video in which it simply quoted the most vile statements it heard from Trump’s supporters.

This is not normal. There are rules within traditional political reporting operations about how you cover presidential candidates.

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