# Clinton v Trump - The Stretch Run Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 30, 2016, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277 "2016-09-30T11:21:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 79
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1563 "2016-10-11T05:10:38Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Any statement from the intelligence community would be denounced as partisan interference in the political process. If I were a US intelligence official, I’d worry a lot more about the possibility of a hostile foreign power’s puppet getting this close to the White House than people accusing me of partisanship. Although, supposing the Russia stuff is a real concern to the intelligence community and not just paranoia, they can reasonably hope not to have to say anything about it at all, now that it really, really looks like he’s going to lose. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1564 "2016-10-11T05:14:35Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > If I were a US intelligence official, I’d worry a lot more about the possibility of a hostile foreign power’s puppet getting this close to the White House than people accusing me of partisanship. Agreed. > [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > Although, supposing the Russia stuff is a real concern to the intelligence community and not just paranoia, they can reasonably hope not to have to say anything about it at all, now that it really, really looks like he’s going to lose. I just hope that they’re following Trump _very_ closely, including who he talks to and what they are saying to him. For his own protection, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1565 "2016-10-11T05:16:03Z")
More general creepiness from Trump, this courtesy of [transcripts of unaired Apprentice footage;](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-apprentice-comments-singer-skin) > [@](#): > > In the episode, contestants were tasked with making over a country musician, and at one point Trump focused his attention in on singer Emily West and her skin. > > “I assume you’re gonna leave this off, don’t put this shit on the show, you know. But her skin, her skin sucks, okay?” he says in the transcript, according to the Huffington Post. “I mean her skin, she needs some serious fuckin’ dermatology.” > > At another moment in the transcript, Trump said that singer Luke Bryan was more attractive than West. > > "Personally, I am, as you probably heard, not a gay man, but I think he’s better looking that [sic] Emily okay?” Trump said, referring to Bryan, per the Huffington Post. > > And when another judge praised the brochure produced to promote West, Trump said, “You’re obviously not a skin man,” according to the Huffington Post. Who the hell calls themselves a “skin man”? That sounds like something Buffalo Bill says to his victims. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1566 "2016-10-11T05:46:42Z")
Trump: “I mean her skin, she needs some serious fuckin’ dermatology.” I hope the Republican Christians are so very, very proud of the man they plan to vote for. Very high moral character, right? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1567 "2016-10-11T05:46:47Z")
From another right winger pundit, this time from George F. Will who had dismissed Trump early: [Donald Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-vile-candidacy-is-chemotherapy-for-the-gop/2016/10/10/73e40f30-8f05-11e6-9c85-ac42097b8cc0_story.html?utm_term=.ba97ae6b6cd1) > [@](#): > > What did Donald Trump have left to lose Sunday night? His dignity? Please. His campaign’s theme? His Cleveland convention was a mini-Nuremberg rally for Republicans whose three-word recipe for making America great again was the shriek “Lock her up!” This presaged his banana-republican vow to imprison his opponent. > > The St. Louis festival of snarls was preceded by the release of a tape that merely provided redundant evidence of what Trump is like when he is being his boisterous self. Nevertheless, the tape sent various Republicans, who until then had discovered nothing to disqualify Trump from the presidency, into paroxysms of theatrical, tactical and synthetic dismay. > > Again, the tape revealed nothing about this arrested-development adolescent that today’s righteously recoiling Republicans either did not already know or had no excuse for not knowing. Before the tape reminded the pathologically forgetful of Trump’s feral appetites and deranged sense of entitlement, the staid Economist magazine, holding the subject of Trump at arm’s length like a soiled sock, reminded readers of this: “When Mr. Trump divorced the first of his three wives, Ivana, he let the New York tabloids know that one reason for the separation was that her breast implants felt all wrong.” Would not be surprised to find that those breasts ended that way because he demanded that his wife got them, and then he was a cheapskate when paying. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1568 "2016-10-11T05:52:45Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > If I were a US intelligence official, I’d worry a lot more about the possibility of a hostile foreign power’s puppet getting this close to the White House than people accusing me of partisanship. Yes but ultimately they all report to the Director of National Intelligence, who then reports to the Commander in Chief, Obama. Do you think any lower level official would have the decision about whether to go public or not with evidence that the RNC’s nominee was controlled by Russia? Assuming Obama does have additional evidence, wouldn’t the smart thing to do be to leak it to the media exactly at the time calculated to cause the most damage? Maybe that’s what is happening, hmmmm. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1569 "2016-10-11T07:07:41Z")
Clinton’s lead is now past 5 and still rising. It’s starting to look like a done deal. I predict… ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1570 "2016-10-11T08:42:03Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > I see that’s the implication, but that’s not the simplest explanation which is just that someone at the Trump campaign picked up a Russian news article and it made its way into Trump’s tiny hands without proper vetting. Or any vetting. > > Not that that’s good, but that’s pretty much the norm over there. If the Sputnik article had been up for any length of time I might be willing to buy this. If Donald Trump was a noted news hound who was always up to date on the latest articles and ideas, I might buy this. But Donald’s a moron who doesn’t read the news except for what he sees on Twitter and who openly disdains the idea of preparing for a debate. And somehow we’re supposed to believe that he read and remembers an obscure article in Wikileaks, an article which just happens to have piece of Russian doctored intel, and it’s just that one piece of phony Russian propaganda that Trump remembers and repeats in the next day or two. As it stands, the simplest explanation - rather than believing that Donald’s debate prep includes doctored Sputnik articles containing fake “proof” about Clinton’s Benghazi mistakes - is that someone tipped Donald off that this bit of fakery would be in the Wikileaks dump. Eichenwald details the sequence of Donald’s dissemination of the this info and it wasn’t just an innocent factoid that Donald picked up somewhere. > [@Kurt Eichenwald's updated Newsweek piece](#): > > Of course, this might be seen as just an opportunity to laugh at the incompetence of the Russian hackers and government press—once they realized their error, Sputnik took the article down. But then things got even more bizarre. > > This false story was only reported by the Russian controlled agency (a reference appeared in a Turkish publication, but it was nothing but a link to the Sputnik article). So how did Donald Trump end up advancing the same falsehood put out by Putin’s mouthpiece? > > At a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump spoke while holding a document in his hand. He told the assembled crowd that it was an email from Blumenthal, whom he called “sleazy Sidney.” > > “This just came out a little while ago,’’ Trump said. “I have to tell you this.” And then he read the words from my article. > > “He’s now admitting they could have done something about Benghazi,’’ Trump said, dropping the document to the floor. “This just came out a little while ago.” > > The crowd booed and chanted, “Lock her up!” > > This is not funny. It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin? (The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment). Donald had this bit of stagecraft all ready to go within hours of the leak. The easiest answer is - he had time to prepare. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1571 "2016-10-11T08:43:51Z")
“deranged sense of entitlement”! Gee, Mr. Will, I like the way you write. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1572 "2016-10-11T10:33:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Clinton’s lead is now past 5 and still rising. It’s starting to look like a done deal. > > I predict… 🙂 Well played. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1573 "2016-10-11T10:38:46Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > From another right winger pundit, this time from George F. Will who had dismissed Trump early: [Donald Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-vile-candidacy-is-chemotherapy-for-the-gop/2016/10/10/73e40f30-8f05-11e6-9c85-ac42097b8cc0_story.html?utm_term=.ba97ae6b6cd1) > > Would not be surprised to find that those breasts ended that way because he demanded that his wife got them, and then he was a cheapskate when paying. 🙂 The elites have been leaving Trump for a while now and it just strengthens his bona fide radical credentials. I think that’s what’s happening in the polls – he’s still maintaining his core support. It’s not like any of these scandals is causing a massive walkout. He will get a minimum of 28 - 35 percent of the vote no matter what happens. But that’s really where the polls seem to be headed now. He’s down into deplorables territory. Others – even some who despise Hillary Clinton – are basically throwing in the towel and deciding to support Johnson or nobody at all. Perhaps some independents are voting for Hillary as a lesser of two evils. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1574 "2016-10-11T10:40:43Z")
Trump in the debate: “We have to be sure that Muslims come in and report when they see something going on. When they see hatred going on, they have to report it” Moustafa Bayoumi on Twitter: "I’m a Muslim, and I would like to report a crazy man threatening a woman on a stage in Missouri. " ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1575 "2016-10-11T10:59:46Z")
Go check out some Donald supporter forums. They’ve turned on the mainstream GOP and are trashing Paul Ryan. It’s over, with the GOP base fragmented not only Trump is toast but the GOP is going to have to scrabble to protect itself in both the Senate and the House. If Trump supporters refuse to vote for down ticket races GOP candidates it’s going to be a blood bath. I’m counting on Trump to keep his pointless feud with the mainstream GOP going right until election day… you go Donnie boy ! ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1576 "2016-10-11T11:13:06Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Go check out some Donald supporter forums. They’ve turned on the mainstream GOP and are trashing Paul Ryan. It’s over, with the GOP base fragmented not only Trump is toast but the GOP is going to have to scrabble to protect itself in both the Senate and the House. If Trump supporters refuse to vote for down ticket races GOP candidates it’s going to be a blood bath. > > I’m counting on Trump to keep his pointless feud with the mainstream GOP going right until election day… you go Donnie boy ! I’m waiting to see if some of those who have abandoned Trump fold. The republicans are absolutely spineless, so it’s entirely possible that some have a ‘change of heart’. The smart republicans (tactically smart) took a ‘wait-and-see’ approach before committing either way. I think Ryan tried to do that but being Speaker, he looks at the big picture and sees Trump as a toxic candidate. He probably hoped that the RNC would pull funding and that Trump (or more likely hoped Pence) would drop out. That didn’t happen. So it remains to be seen if Ryan starts sounding more conciliatory in the days ahead or if he really does intend not to stump for the Donald. I think the GOP civil war has just begun. As I’ve mused before, I think Trump, his wide network of surrogates, and his millions of supporters will actually try to contest the election results, not because they truly believe that their candidate won, but because they will refuse to admit that he lost. In other words, I think they will contest the results because they can. They will deliberately object to the results of battleground states – and maybe even states that aren’t even close – and they will file lawsuits and try to have another Rutherford B Hayes outcome. These people don’t believe in democracy. They are undemocratic. We have yet to see them at their worst. But I fear we will. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1577 "2016-10-11T11:23:50Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > If I were a US intelligence official, I’d worry a lot more about the possibility of a hostile foreign power’s puppet getting this close to the White House than people accusing me of partisanship. > > Although, supposing the Russia stuff is a real concern to the intelligence community and not just paranoia, they can reasonably hope not to have to say anything about it at all, now that it really, really looks like he’s going to lose. There’s a danger here, though, that if the military becomes involved in a political controversy that we’ll have a situation in which factions take sides. We’ve already had unprecedented levels of partisanship within the military, albeit with mostly former military officers. I’m in favor of keeping the military and law enforcement activity and responses out of sight. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1578 "2016-10-11T11:24:19Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > So it remains to be seen if Ryan starts sounding more conciliatory in the days ahead or if he really does intend not to stump for the Donald. Perhaps if Trump has not one new scandal in the next seven days that might happen, but you and I both know that both the media and the Clinton campaign has been holding back their best stuff for the last few weeks of the election. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1579 "2016-10-11T11:33:21Z")
I am surprised and saddened that the party that pledged just this last Spring to protect my little girl from being groped in a Target bathroom in any random city in North Carolina… Would refuse to protect her from their Presidential candidate, saying after he assaulted her that “boys will be boys” Hey, Republicans! FUCK YOU! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1580 "2016-10-11T11:52:18Z")
Blowing up on Twitter with the above meme: " Republican party vows to protect my daughter in NC bathrooms; refuses to protect her from their Pres candidate!" 10k impressions past hour alone. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1581 "2016-10-11T13:12:25Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Donald had this bit of stagecraft all ready to go within hours of the leak. The easiest answer is - he had time to prepare. Nobody is claiming that Trump himself found the news article. But if it was public, I’m sure he has someone on his staff capable of doing an internet news search. I hate defending him, and I’m not ruling out this direct connection, but this, unfortunately, is not a smoking gun because personally, the easiest answer is that his staff found this and ran with it. ---
**Author:** ![Crybaby\_Boobie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crybaby_boobie/32/545_2.png) [@Crybaby\_Boobie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crybaby_Boobie)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277/1582 "2016-10-11T13:12:41Z")
> **[For G.O.P. Candidates, Renouncing Donald Trump Carries Dire Risks (Published...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/us/politics/republican-reaction-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)** > > In interviews, many Trump supporters in Arizona and New Hampshire spoke witheringly of incumbents who have withdrawn their support for the party’s presidential nominee. I know all year we’ve been talking about split-ticket voting, where Republicans would not vote Trump but still go GOP the rest of the way. This is the first time I am noticing that it works both ways, and there are people who are now actually ONLY voting Trump, and spiting the rest of the Republican candidates for not supporting him. I’m amazed, and a little giddy at the idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277.md?page=78) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-v-trump-the-stretch-run-thread/767277.md?page=80)