We don’t have a general thread on the Trump campaign, unlike the equivalent one for Kamala Harris, so I thought I would start one, to try to put as much campaign stuff as possible into one thread.
I’ll start with a WaPo article on the campaign which I don’t think is paywalled:
Opinion | Trump’s ‘disciplined’ campaign is unraveling
It then goes on to review issues that have come up on the campaign.
There’s also this article, about how the GOP senators are reacting to the Trump campaign of the past two weeks (Hint: by ducking and running anytime they see a journalist) (with the exception of Senator Tom Cotton, of course):
Senate Republicans forgot Trump’s recklessness. It’s back to haunt them.
The Trump campaign felt pretty comfortable going up against Biden and now Harris presents a host of new challenges they never planned for. While Harris has some weaknesses, I think she will aggressively attack Trump more so than Biden seemed to be able to. Whether that backfires and Trump is able to rebuff her attacks, only time will tell, however attacking your opponent’s race doesn’t seem like a very good strategy for any candidate, even if it was Trump just going off script. I think that’s the key to Trump winning. If he can stay on point and attack Harris on pocketbook issues and the southern border he still has a good chance of winning, but Trump is his own worst enemy, and refuses to keep his mouth shut when everyone knows he should. His team must cringe at the idea of him answering open questions or speaking without notes.That may well be his downfall if loses again.
Biden is an old school politician, like McCain, where candidates are polite and don’t scream while the other guy is speaking. Like Eisenhower asking Truman’s opinion, and JFK consulting Eisenhower during JFK’s term. One of the excuses for poor debate performance was that Trump was screaming, hear by the stage but not microphones.
The idea of a disciplined Trump campaign is amusing to me. Nice try but there is clearly no way to keep this guy on message. All he can do is attack attack attack. And lie.
To me this is why Harris continues to build momentum - with the exception of the hardcore MAGA voters, people are exhausted by the politics of grievance and are open to a positive message.
Plus, DJT just can’t shut up. The appearance at the black journalists convention was a disaster and last night at his rally in Atlanta he attacked the Republican Governor and Secretary of State yet again. Kemp at least is still popular in Georgia so not a good look.
Donald is his own worst enemy and will continue to undercut any professional campaign staff. The more his numbers fall the more frantic he will become.
And now he’s pretending there’s another one scheduled on Fox. I saw somewhere Fox hadn’t confirmed it was real but you know he’s going to try to turn it around on Harris to try to say she’s scared.
And Trump’s campaign can’t play the “It’s not against Biden, so no deal!” card because the agreement with ABC News is not specifically for a Trump-vs-Biden debate. No candidate is mentioned by name (heck, no party, either). Further, the qualification parameters allow for three or more candidates if certain polling benchmarks are met (which was also true of the 6/27 CNN debate).
I really don’t think those “You’re fired” signs that the Trump campaign has rolled out are very effective. The “You’re fired” is in a strong blue that shows up in tv shots and pix, while the “Kamala Harris” is in a very light blue that doesn’t show up well at all.
Looks like his supporters behind him are holding up “You’re Fired” signs aimed at Trump.
Carter lives in Georgia. He can mail an absentee ballot as early as 78 days before the election, according to the sos.ga.gov web site. That won’t be until August 19 according to my math.