This. Ding ding ding! We have a winner. I will add one more reason why Romney’s comments better qualify as political malpractice. The category of people he was referring to is precisely defined. If anyone wants to know whether Romney was talking about them, all they need to do is find a photo copy or print out of their most recent tax return. Hillary’s comments were more nebulous; therefore, if any individual person was offended, she could always say “oh, well: I wasn’t talking about you – you are in the other half”.
I think this would, unfortunately, be a fair characterization of the reaction to her hiding her pneumonia. But you are asserting it as regards the “basket of deplorables” comments, and that is just ridiculous.
Now this is something that Hillary could use to her advantage. Remind voters of the Clinton years and that she’s a continuation of Obama. If nothing else, it looks like the economy is going to hold up in her favor through the end of the year.
And the one-two-punch should be reminders of how lousy a businessman Trump is.
He’s a decent thief and a fairly-effective extortionist and quite a skilled exploiter of bankruptcy laws. But that’s not what his fans believe–they believe that he is good at building and running a business. It’s the top rationalization people give for supporting him. (Some actually believe it and others just use it as a fig-leaf for their attraction to Trump’s bigotry.)
Of course efforts to expose Trump’s incompetence are hampered by his determination to hide his tax returns. We need more calls from prominent people for disclosure of Trump’s debts, lenders, and investments in general.
I think the next week or so will be very telling. If the people of this country are seriously going to throw away 8 years of steady, if sometimes slow and modest, economic growth and a gradual return to prosperity in favor of some bloviating buffoon, just because they find Hillary boring and aloof, then I give up.
I actually find myself hoping more of them are in that latter category. It’s just too much for me to take, to think that so many people actually believe he is a successful businessman, whereas being a bigot is a classic American tradition, nothing new or notable there.
I don’t know–there are so many comments out there from people who are impressed by all the gold leaf used in his apartment and whatnot. They probably genuinely believe He’s A Rich Guy So That Means He Knows How To Run The Economy.
I happened to have the TV machine on when there was the interview of Ms Trump in their home. “Garish” and “tasteless” don’t even begin. Like he bought it from the estate of Auric Goldfinger.
What in the world would one more week tell you? We already know that somewhere in the mid-40% of the country supports Donald Trump. Whether that percentage ends up 2 points less than the number that supports HRC or 1 point more, is that really the telling fact?
Actually, it only asked what Trump’s WHITE supporters thought. I’d be very interested in what Clinton’s Latino, Asian, and African-American supporters think.
Certainly, in the grand scheme of things, we already have more than enough data to know that there are serious problems with our democracy, and that’s a situation that will fester past the election.
What I meant was that the next week will probably give us some indication as to how voters are beginning to perceive the state of the country, the candidates, and the takeaways from this race. The next 30-40 days is when the voters finally start making up their minds. The way I see it, we now have a very clear choice between a real candidate and a reality TV candidate.
Statement: Program A will help 80% of the the people.
Reality: Program A will help 60% of the people.
Statement: I landed under sniper fire and had to run for cover.
Reality: There was no sniper fire. A little girl gave me flowers.
Normal people expect a certain amount of exaggeration, spin, and creative interpretation from politicians. They have a distaste for for ridiculous, bald-faced outright lies, especially when there’s no real advantage to doing so.
Examples off the top of my head:
Bosnian airport sniper fire.
Named after Sir Edmund Hillary.
Husband not guilty, it was a vast right wing conspiracy.
Turned down by the marines.
The Clintons were flat broke when they left the white house.
Numerous documented email lies.
The last one was at least defensible, but the blaming of her staff (“I followed the recommendations of my subordinates”) clearly shows a moral decrepitude and a failure of Good Leadership 101. The rest pretty clearly indicate she is a compulsive liar. Nothing to gain, lots to lose, but she does it anyway.
Really. She lies more ridiculously than the drunk guy at the bar who keeps telling me he smoked weed with Kurt Vonnegut while working for the CIA. It’s terrible.