Open Thread for Monday, October 10, 2016

Open Thread for Monday, October 10, 2016

9 Comments
Taegan Goddard: "Trump was completely unprepared. His body language was terrible. He showed he doesn’t even know how a bill becomes a law. He admitted he hasn’t paid federal income taxes for years — and that won’t the headline from tonight. Considering that backdrop, Clinton did a decent job. She was very smart to stick to audience questions and try to understand their concerns. Rather than needle Trump as she did in the first debate, she mostly tried to ignore him. Clinton wasn’t perfect. Her answer on her emails was extremely weak. She left many of Trump’s attacks unanswered. But there’s only one candidate seriously running for president at this point. She won the debate hands down. It’s hard to imagine Trump won over even a single voter tonight."

Open Thread for Sunday, October 9, 2016

20 Comments
Taegan Goddard says the House is now in play.
The bombshell video in which Trump brags about sexual assault forces every Republican candidate to take a stand on Trump. They can either denounce Trump or rescind their endorsements of him. But Republican candidates are in a no-win situation. If they withdraw their endorsements, they risk losing the GOP base that supports Trump. If they continue to endorse him, they risk losing swing voters. Trump has already pushed away many independent and suburban women who are never coming back. The potentially bigger impact of the Trump video is that it will convince many Republicans the election is lost. Turnout of GOP voters may plummet. Many Republicans already thought Trump was going to lose, but if it were close enough the downballot races wouldn’t suffer. Those hopes are blown if Republican voters stay home.
And if Trump withdraws or is somehow removed as nominee, you think Trump voters are turning out? LOL. No. And all these defections from establishment Republicans like John McCain and Condi Rice and Jeb Bush are already pissing off the Trump voter, otherwise known as the Republican base. For example:

Not Good Enough

13 Comments
Nemski posted this on our Facebook feed: The Delaware GOP put out this statement:
The Chairman of the Delaware Republican Party released the following statement this evening in response to comments made by Donald Trump: "I was shocked and sickened upon hearing the 12 year old comments made by Mr. Trump prior to an Access Hollywood video shoot. Our Party is better then what we heard today, and we need to demand better from our standard bearer." "Delaware Republicans have worked tirelessly to show all citizens that they have a place in our party. We believe that every human being, man or woman, has inherent dignity. We stand by our efforts to promote individual liberty and economic freedom. We will continue our battle to return Delaware to the successes and growth it had under Republican leaders like Pete du Pont and Mike Castle.”
Not good enough, damn it. Simple condemnation is not good enough. It's not good enough if the party and all its candidates named above are still going to vote for this man for President. The statement must include a withdrawal of support from Donald Trump and pledges that each Republican candidate up and down the ballot in Delaware will not vote for Donald Trump and they encourage every single Delawarean to do the same. Condemning him and then voting for him is accepting and endorsing him. Remember Republicans, all of you, you are not victims and Donald Trump's behavior is not shocking. You voted for and nominated this racist, this fascist, this sexist, this misogynist, knowing full well he was all of those things. You did this to yourself and you did this to our country. You all should be ashamed and you all should suffer the consequences, with the consequences being defeat at the ballot box.
Open Thread for Saturday, October 8, 2016

Open Thread for Saturday, October 8, 2016

Charlie Cook: “Let’s start with the caveats: A lot can hap­pen in the 34 days be­fore the elec­tion. The polls are not as re­li­able as they used to be. People act in un­pre­dict­able ways in the polling booth. All that said, this race has fallen in­to a fairly pre­dict­able pat­tern. When Don­ald Trump veers off mes­sage and Hil­lary Clin­ton per­forms well, her lead swells to 6, 7, or 8 points. When Trump sticks to his script and Clin­ton goes through a bumpy patch as she did with her bout of pneu­mo­nia, her edge drops down to 1 or 2 points, and some­times she winds up dead even. Most of the time, Clin­ton is up by 3 to 5 points.” “When pres­id­en­tial can­did­ates are ahead by 3 points, they tend to lead by at least a little in a lot of states, and the Elect­or­al Col­lege in­flates their mar­gin of vic­tory. When the pop­u­lar-vote gap gets to 4 or 5 points, more states fall in line and the race turns in­to an elect­or­al rout. It’s only when a race is ef­fect­ively even or with­in a point or so does the Elect­or­al Col­lege be­come truly com­pet­it­ive.”