Saturday Open Thread [8.27.16]

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Reuters/Ipsos–Clinton 42, Trump 35
FLORIDA–PRESIDENT–Mason Dixon–Clinton 44, Trump 42

Josh Marshall says Trump has no campaign manager.

This is far from the biggest problem plaguing Donald Trump’s campaign. But as we get into the thick of the fall campaign, it’s worth noting. Kellyanne Conway now carries the label campaign manager. But that does not appear to be what she’s doing. Campaign Manager’s seldom make many press appearances. Frequently they’re almost totally invisible to the public. In part that’s because it’s a different skill set. But the bigger issue is that being campaign manager requires a huge investment of time. You simply don’t have time to do the job well making constant TV appearances – especially self-destructive, or at least campaign self-destructive appearances like Conway’s appearance on Rachel Maddow’s show.

In effect, Conway appears to be functioning as some mix of national press secretary and chief surrogate. In the later case, that person will sometimes have a title like “strategist” of some such. Indeed, ‘strategist’ does seem like the role she’s taken on. […]

So who’s serving as Campaign Manager? Steve Bannon has the title of CEO. It’s worth noting, political campaign’s don’t have “CEOs”. In a political context it’s a made up title – presumably made up because “campaign manager” wasn’t available and they released the Bannon/Conway news before they got around to telling Paul Manafort he was fired. Maybe he is de facto campaign manager? Maybe. But probably not. […]

What does this all mean? There are many campaign titles that are fuzzy and potentially meaningless. But there are many tasks that are specific, concrete and critical. Whatever label is applied to them, they are jobs that need to get done or else things go wildly wrong. That’s where the Trump camp is right now. So beyond the impulse control deficit and other deficiencies of the candidate, critical parts of running a national campaign aren’t being tended to – having a person in charge of running the campaign, a coordinate communications strategy, organizing field operations. As we get into the meat of the campaign, that will start showing up in running disasters, mishaps and discovery that various tasks were simply never done. […] This is how you end up announcing a major policy address on the campaign’s central issue, abruptly canceling the address, then having the candidate pull the plug on a central campaign agenda item and then a couple days later try to plug it back in.

So Trump campaign chief failed to paid taxes, was charged w/ domestic violence, & may be the rare person to commit voter fraud. That's 2016.

— John Stoehr (@johnastoehr) August 26, 2016

Jeet Heer says Hillary Gave the GOP a Mafia Kiss:

To put it another way, Clinton is trying to heighten the contradictions in the Republican Party by making it clear that there is a stark choice: Either you are with Trump (and everything he stands for) or with me. As it happens, framing the decision in this way puts McCain and Ryan in an impossible spot, since they can’t win without Trump’s base even though Trump is also an anchor pulling them down.

The praise she doled out to Republican politicians may seem magnanimous, but it was also designed to make their lives a hell, since it drives a wedge between Trump’s white nationalist base and suburban college-educated Republicans. It might look like Clinton is kissing the Republican leadership, but as she heads towards victory in the fall she’s also giving them the kiss of death.

She’s full of shade these days and it’s delicious.

how did we get trump? asks party with lepage, palin, sessions, gohmert

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) August 27, 2016

NBC News has tracked down Dr. Harold Bornstein, the doctor who signed the completely bizarre letter of health for Donald Trump. It turns out that Dr. Harold Bornstein does exist, and he is like a character out of the Sopranos or Breaking Bad, who treats patients in the back of a strip club. He wrote the letter in 5 minutes while a Trump limousine was waiting outside to pick it up.

EXCLUSIVE: @realDonaldTrump doc says he picked up Trump's language in health letter & 'interpreted it into my own.' pic.twitter.com/wb3pMPmO2C

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 26, 2016

“Republicans in Western states fear that Donald Trump could imperil their party for years to come in the country’s fastest-growing region as he repels a generation of Hispanics, Asians and younger voters who have been altering the electoral map,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump, with his insult-laden, culturally insensitive style of campaigning, is providing fuel for the demographic trends that are already reshaping the political composition of this once-heavily Republican territory. And now many Republicans are contemplating the possibility that states like Colorado or Nevada could soon become the next California: once competitive but now unwinnable in presidential contests.”

And this from Arizona: “Recent polls show Hillary Clinton is close to tying Mr. Trump here. And her campaign has responded by teaming up with local Democrats on a statewide get-out-the-vote operation, which has grown to 160 staff members across 20 offices.”

Nancy LeTourneau:

It is interesting to watch Trump squirm and dive when Anderson Cooper tried to tie him down on what that means. But there is a reason why people like Rove and Trump employ this tactic [of calling Hillary the racist]: the media buys it. For example, here are some of the headlines emanating from yesterday:

ABC: Clinton, Trump Tangle Over Racism
Washington Post: Clinton, Trump exchange racially charged accusations
CNN: Clinton says Trump leading ‘hate movement’; he calls her a ‘bigot’
Politico: Trump and Clinton throw more blows in bigotry fight

In other words, projection isn’t just a psychological defense mechanism anymore. It is a political strategy used to ensure that the media reports moments like this as a “he said/she said” that is the basis of bothsiderism. It works. And the media can simply fall back on saying that they are simply reporting the facts of what happened.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) “used the familiar metaphor of war Friday to describe Maine’s efforts to curb drug addiction, but he once again framed the battle in racial terms and effectively endorsed racial profiling of suspected drug dealers,” the Portland Press Herald reports.

Said LePage: “Look, the bad guy is the bad guy, I don’t care what color he is. When you go to war, if you know the enemy and the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, then you shoot at red.”

He added: “You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy and the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in, are people of color or people of Hispanic origin.”

No, the Republican Party is not racist at all, and no one in the GOP is responsible for creating Trump. LOL.

Rick Valelly of the HuffPost with a political science view of Trump and the election:

But think about it. He has threatened his opponent’s life, said that if he is President he will try to prosecute her and jail her, asked a foreign power and dangerous adversary to intervene in the election on his behalf, encouraged violence at his rallies, urged a massive assault on the civil liberties of a group of Americans, offended an historic ally and neighbor, the Republic of Mexico, in the most unhinged way, threatened to rip up stable treaty alliances that protect our security, lied constantly about policy questions of fact, engaged in smears and conspiracy thinking, flirted with anti-Semites and white nationalists, suggested that he will encourage nuclear proliferation if he is President, and he has urged his base to treat his electoral defeat, if it happens, as a case of illegitimate and rigged defeat.

Yet this rhetorical barrage has been effectively normalized. We have gotten all too used to this kind of menacing, deranged talk. The basic reason for that is his own party. It has refused to disown him. There is no line that he cannot cross. The Republican cohabitation with Trump is understandable. It’s not admirable, but it has a clear organizational logic. Given the enormous gains that Republicans made in 2010 and 2014, in Congress and among the states, they have a lot to protect. Most of the party’s office-holders have obviously decided that they must live with Trump and ride out the election to wherever it may lead. That has given him a license to say things that should have cost him his campaign long ago.

I think that he is going to lose the election – but I also think that more and possibly very damaging mischief is possible… So here is my suggestion. The moderators of the first presidential debate, scheduled for September 26th, should ask both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump the following simple question.

If you lose, do you commit to telephoning your opponent and to publicly congratulating him ― or her – on winning the election fair and square?

“Donald Trump’s campaign CEO Stephen Bannon was branded an anti-Semite by the same ex-wife who claimed he choked her, court documents reveal,” the New York Daily News reports.

“Mary Louise Piccard said in a 2007 court declaration that Bannon didn’t want their twin daughters attending the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles because many Jewish students were enrolled at the elite institution.”

Said Piccard in a court statement at the time: “The biggest problem he had with Archer is the number of Jews that attend. He said that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”

No, the Republican Party is not racist at all, and no one in the GOP is responsible for creating Trump. LOL.

A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 71% say undocumented immigrants living in the United States mostly fill jobs citizens do not want, while just 24% say they mostly take jobs citizens want.

About three-quarters of Americans (76%) say undocumented immigrants are “as honest and hard-working” as U.S. citizens, while 67% say they are no more likely than U.S. citizens to commit serious crimes.

“I try and tell myself it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. If you tell yourself it doesn’t matter, like you do shows, you do this, you do that and then you have earthquakes in India where 400,000 people get killed. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. That’s how I handle stress.” — Donald Trump, when asked how he manages stress on Larry King Live in 2004.

“Hillary Clinton has managed to win support from Republicans without conceding any part of the progressive economic agenda she outlined during the Democratic primary,” Politico reports.

“But with fall approaching and momentum on Clinton’s side, Democrats and Republicans alike are looking over the horizon to a thornier reality: if elected, Clinton would likely become the first Democrat since Grover Cleveland to enter office without control of both houses of Congress.”

“If she wins the presidency, Clinton would likely enjoy the shortest honeymoon period of any incoming commander-in-chief in recent history, according to Washington strategists, confronting major roadblocks to enacting her ambitious agenda, as well as Republican attacks that have been muted courtesy of the GOP nominee.”

“My worship for him is like the people of North Korea worship Dear Leader — blind loyalty. Once he gave that Mexican rapist speech, I’ll walk across glass for him. That’s basically it. Unlike the crazy Cruz supporters, I’ll criticize him, and I have, but it’s all minor stylistic stuff. We all want to shoot him at various times.”

— Ann Coulter, quoted by Bloomberg’s Josh Green on her support of Donald Trump.