A little tiny tweak to the Republican platform. No biggie. All the important stuff is still just fine. You don’t like it, Crimea river!
Actually, if some of the allegations are true, it would be the sort of thing that’s very easy to prosecute…if there is an actual paper trail and if the Ukrainian government can point the FBI in the right direction to gather evidence. That remains to be seen.
It’s not a bigger deal mainly because Hillary is perceived as not being all that much better herself. She has not helped herself by her responses to the e-mail scandals which a more skilled crisis response team could have managed to bury pretty quickly. I’d add that America’s perception of Russia now is not the same as it was in the 1980s or 90s. The Internet is loaded with fascinating and humorous memes involving Putin, seemingly out of admiration of his prowess in dealing with political opponents. In the climate we’re in, with so much grinding obstructionism, some Americans probably wish they had a superman who could just come in and make congress go to work.
A week ago I was thinking that Trump was sunk, and it still looks pretty bleak, but I think we’re also seeing that Hillary has a pretty low ceiling herself. And part of her floor is dependent not only on how Americans view her but also how they make their final assessment of Obama’s second term. As I have mentioned before, this election reminds me of one of those wild college football bowl games in which both teams keep letting the other team score. It could be that whoever has the ball last probably wins.
I guess it is fair to say that Trump is short-handed. 
Horse race election coverage is so lame, so obviously I agree with you that football election coverage would be far more informative. 
But really, except for a very short period Hillary has been in the lead. Since the conventions, there’s been a pretty big boost in her advantage. Great leads in the swing states. Just because the media has bounced between good/bad stories doesn’t mean the election chances were bouncing that much.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton-vs-johnson
Hillary made one or two mistakes, which keep on getting rehashed to the point of boredom, and which don’t say anything new about her. Trump makes new mistake after new mistake. Clinton is smart enough to avoid news conferences - Trump does one teleprompter speech, often just normal Republican bad, but then can’t resist in putting his foot in it again.
Saying he regrets some things he said - without saying what things they are - is just a great excuse for the media to list his gaffes once again.
And with someone who probably thinks an election can be won by appealing to Breitbart fans, it is just going to get worse for him. Plus, Manafort had at least some experience in doing campaigns.
The new guy is Andrew Breitbart but without so much warm generosity and charm.