Trump obviously has no discipline as far as the campaign goes. He can do okay (by Republican standards) as long as it's well rehearsed or a teleprompter is involved. Give him any opportunity to to add lib though and it all goes to hell.
Trump obviously has no discipline as far as the campaign goes. He can do okay (by Republican standards) as long as it's well rehearsed or a teleprompter is involved. Give him any opportunity to to add lib though and it all goes to hell.And the worst of it, the bar is so low for him that even knowing that, if he could restrain himself to only doing rehearsed/teleprompter speeches, that would be enough. He'd be treated as a respectable, serious candidate. It would hailed as a real change, despite everyone knowing it's just him being kept on a tight rein by his handlers.
Do we assume everything he might do or say as President would be dictated by his handlers as well?Remember a couple years ago when one of the big talking points was how bad Obama was speaking without his teleprompter. We're not even in the same world here.
Well I don't think most people here think...a week without a major gaffe/inflammatory comment means he is presidential. He is not fooling us
The thing is if he can keep it up, we are far enough from the actual election that at least some swing state voters, who don't really want to vote for Hillary, might forget some of the scandals and be satisfied to vote for him. Not to mention firm up some Republican support.
Granted I am skeptical this will last more than a week tops. even if campaign appearances become more scripted there are still press interviews and potentially the debates, all of which will be hard to keep Trump reigned in during.
CNN article on a Pew Research Center poll from yesterday afternoon.
Perhaps, but then why not do it all at once? Surely they'd want to get changes in campaign staff out of the news as quickly as possible, rather than stretching them out over days?Paul Manafort - the campaign chairman who was recently tied to what looked like under-the-table payments and pro-Russia activities in Ukraine - has officially resigned from Trump's campaign.Obviously coming and obviously this is what the Bannon & Conway hires were setting up for, no matter how much the campaign denied it.
To soften the blow.
Using the bandaid analogy, if you rip it off it hurts more but for a potentially shorter time. If you do it slowly and carefully, you experience less pain, but the pain you do experience lasts longer.
The question then becomes, is the short and severe pain worse than the long and dull pain?
In this case, I think they're actually going for the rip it off strategy, while trying to present it as if nothing was ever wrong in the first place.
This is all very "inside baseball", but they should have hired a new campaign manager weeks ago. During the DNC would have been a great time, as that was a perfect moment to say "Hey, the convention is over, we're focusing on the general election and this is our person to do it!" Adding two high profile people in one week while another resigns really does make it look like Trump can't figure this s%@% out.
The part I'm having trouble looking up now is the staff by state. A few months ago is was woefully small, most states having literally one person on staff (even large, contestable states). Trying to see if I can get a new count on what kind of ground game they're running.
Well I don't think most people here think...a week without a major gaffe/inflammatory comment means he is presidential. He is not fooling us
He may well be fooling himself. Despite all the signs that might hint otherwise, I'm fully convinced that he's serious about attempting to win the election.
This doesn't change the fact that he's operating inside a reality distortion field that would have done Steve Jobs proud.
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CNN article on a Pew Research Center poll from yesterday afternoon.
The current electoral map from real clear politics paints an interesting picture of the next election
By my count, if Hillary is only able to win blue states that are solid or lean blue, she gets 252 electoral votes. At that point, she only needs one or two toss up states to win (Ohio alone would get her to 270).
In contrast, Trump has about 137 electoral votes locked down by the same measure. Not only does he need to keep those, but to win he also has to win EVERY SINGLE CURRENT TOSS UP STATE and steal a few blue states from Hillary.
It does sort of really hammer home the demographic problems Republicans are facing. They maintain significant influence over a good chunk of the country, but its mostly less populated rural areas with few electoral votes. with shifting demographics associated with change in population, without rebranding, Republicans are soon going to be incapable of winning the presidency.
CNN article on a Pew Research Center poll from yesterday afternoon.
The current electoral map from real clear politics paints an interesting picture of the next election
By my count, if Hillary is only able to win blue states that are solid or lean blue, she gets 252 electoral votes. At that point, she only needs one or two toss up states to win (Ohio alone would get her to 270).
In contrast, Trump has about 137 electoral votes locked down by the same measure. Not only does he need to keep those, but to win he also has to win EVERY SINGLE CURRENT TOSS UP STATE and steal a few blue states from Hillary.
It does sort of really hammer home the demographic problems Republicans are facing. They maintain significant influence over a good chunk of the country, but its mostly less populated rural areas with few electoral votes. with shifting demographics associated with change in population, without rebranding, Republicans are soon going to be incapable of winning the presidency.
It's one of the reasons our Republican friends are looking to have electoral votes handled by congressional district instead of by state, as well as break up California and Texas.
[W]ithout rebranding, Republicans are soon going to be incapable of winning the presidency.
And this, of course, isn't news to them.
Further from that source:
Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. States in which our presidential candidates used to win, such as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Florida, are increasingly voting Democratic. We are losing in too many places.
It has reached the point where in the past six presidential elections, four have gone to the Democratic nominee, at an average yield of 327 electoral votes to 211 for the Republican. During the preceding two decades, from 1968 to 1988, Republicans won five out of six elections, averaging 417 electoral votes to Democrats’ 113.
Public perception of the Party is at record lows. Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country. When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us.
At the federal level, much of what Republicans are doing is not working beyond the core constituencies that make up the Party.
Oh I am quite aware that the republicans themselves have noticed this. Which just makes it all the more hilarious when they don't seem to have the will do make the changes or that their base has not interest in the party changing.
[W]ithout rebranding, Republicans are soon going to be incapable of winning the presidency.And this, of course, isn't news to them.
Further from that source:
Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. States in which our presidential candidates used to win, such as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Florida, are increasingly voting Democratic. We are losing in too many places.
It has reached the point where in the past six presidential elections, four have gone to the Democratic nominee, at an average yield of 327 electoral votes to 211 for the Republican. During the preceding two decades, from 1968 to 1988, Republicans won five out of six elections, averaging 417 electoral votes to Democrats’ 113.
Public perception of the Party is at record lows. Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country. When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us.
At the federal level, much of what Republicans are doing is not working beyond the core constituencies that make up the Party.
What is also interesting to note is that in the one election of the last six where they did win the popular vote, John Kerry won more votes than any other presidential candidate in the history of the US up to that point, except for GWB in that same election. So, there is a ground swell.
Oh I am quite aware that the republicans themselves have noticed this. Which just makes it all the more hilarious when they don't seem to have the will do make the changes or that their base has not interest in the party changing.
They don't have a choice really.
Their real goal is "all money and power to those with money and power". That's... not a goal you're going to win elections on.
You can dress it up as FREEDOOOM! from the government but that lie only gets you so many people
So over the years they've had to stir up fear, anger and hatred against different groups and make them the scapegoat. you're not broke because your CEO is making 268 times your salary and half your money goes to taxes because he's not paying any, you're broke because that black welfare mother has food medicine and a cel phone! GET her!
And because that's not enough on its own, they need to appeal to the christians who think the government should promote christianity. This dovetails nicely with their anti science that tells us we shouldn't be making this much money this way push, because they're about the only large group that hates science.
So they're stuck with what they have. They've (hopefully) swung the pendant as far that way as it will go and it's time for it to tip back, hopefully this time hard.
Hey, the freedom to exploit and pillage free of interference is a freedom, too. ;-)
Hey, the freedom to exploit and pillage free of interference is a freedom, too. ;-)
Okay, but it's not a constitutional right, is it?
Oh I am quite aware that the republicans themselves have noticed this. Which just makes it all the more hilarious when they don't seem to have the will do make the changes or that their base has not interest in the party changing.They don't have a choice really.
Their real goal is "all money and power to those with money and power". That's... not a goal you're going to win elections on.
You can dress it up as FREEDOOOM! from the government but that lie only gets you so many people
So over the years they've had to stir up fear, anger and hatred against different groups and make them the scapegoat. you're not broke because your CEO is making 268 times your salary and half your money goes to taxes because he's not paying any, you're broke because that black welfare mother has food medicine and a cel phone! GET her!
And because that's not enough on its own, they need to appeal to the christians who think the government should promote christianity. This dovetails nicely with their anti science that tells us we shouldn't be making this much money this way push, because they're about the only large group that hates science.
So they're stuck with what they have. They've (hopefully) swung the pendant as far that way as it will go and it's time for it to tip back, hopefully this time hard.
Eh the party could rebrand themselves and still maintain a lot of friendliness towards big business. If anything, the current base's extreme stance on things like immigration are probably against their interests.
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Today's bit of (unintentional) Trump humor:
"Doubling down on appeals to black voters that have become a mainstay of his stump speech this week, Donald Trump made a bold prediction about his ability to attract the support of the African-American community if he gets the chance to run for reelection in 2020.
"At the end of four years, I guarantee you I will get over 95 percent of the African-American vote. I promise you," Trump said to a largely white audience Dimondale, Mich., a town where in 2010 just 9 of the town's 1,234 residents were black, according to census data."
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On the other hand, what a tidy town population number!
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I wonder how many African-American people they didn't count to get that number. :-D
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I wonder how many African-American people they didn't count to get that number. :-D
As a totally random guess I would say exactly six...
Somewhat surprisingly, I think I lost that bet - I haven't heard about Trump leaking classified information yet (although I did hear about Congressional Republicans doing so - go figure).
We did, however, get a nice review by the Washington Post, asking what, exactly, Trump "regrets" saying, complete with a mostly-complete list of his missteps over the last few months.
I might be a bit of a cynic about his campaign now, but at a guess, I think he regrets things that push him towards losing (not that he said them - no, he liked the applause - but that they didn't really turn out the way he wanted).
anyone else want to hermetically seal hillary in an unused bomb bunker until november 3rd just so she doesn't do anything to upset the balance? Just because trump is immune to gaffdar doesn't mean that it's out of the race.
He's actually not immune to gaffdar. He was . . . in the primary. By all accounts, however, the general election patterns have been refreshingly predictable.
How do we know that the rest of the electorate isn’t craving a Trumpier Trump? Because in contrast to the primaries, the general election has followed a fairly predictable course. Incidents that people expected to hurt Clinton’s polling numbers, such as the FBI’s repudiation of her use of a private email server as secretary of state, in fact hurt them. The same is true for Trump. Voters strongly disapproved of Trump’s criticism of Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in the Trump University lawsuit, and his later criticism of Khizr and Ghazala Kahn, the parents of a Muslim-American soldier killed in action, and these incidents were associated with declines for Trump in the polls. And voters continue to doubt whether Trump has a presidential temperament, a vulnerability the Clinton campaign has continuously exploited in advertisements and speeches.
No, gaffes don't hurt Trump among his target demographic, but his target demographic is "angry uneducated white dudes". He can get 100% of those people, but it alone is not going to save him.
An interesting opinion article I read: Trump is a bore.
From the same site, why a former CEO who's always voted Republican is supporting Clinton this year.
And... yeah, it looks like Trump's efforts to appeal to African-Americans haven't gone over particularly well. But then, neither has almost anything else he's said in the last few months to anyone outside of his rallies, so that's not new.
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Ana Navarro, a Latina Republican strategist, wrote: "Trump's 'Black outreach' so tone-deaf & condescending, his 'Hispanic outreach', (eating a taco bowl), suddenly not that bad & stupid."
LOL
Hard to believe that anyone could poll worse among African-Americans than McCain and/or Romney vs Obama, but Trump is doing it. His 'ceiling' seems to be about 4% and some polls have rounded down to 0%. Basically, he's within the margin of error on not having any African-American support at all.
Though... it is also hard to believe that he really IS doing a little better with Hispanics. Only ~85% of that demographic hate him.
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The honest answer is that "Hispanic" covers a pretty broad demographic and some of them hate Mexicans too =P
Ana Navarro, a Latina Republican strategist, wrote: "Trump's 'Black outreach' so tone-deaf & condescending, his 'Hispanic outreach', (eating a taco bowl), suddenly not that bad & stupid."LOL
Hard to believe that anyone could poll worse among African-Americans than McCain and/or Romney vs Obama, but Trump is doing it. His 'ceiling' seems to be about 4% and some polls have rounded down to 0%. Basically, he's within the margin of error on not having any African-American support at all.
Though... it is also hard to believe that he really IS doing a little better with Hispanics. Only ~85% of that demographic hate him.
For context, here are exit polling numbers for the last 36 years:
1980 Jimmy Carter, 56% Ronald Reagan, 35% +21
1984 Walter Mondale, 61% Ronald Reagan, 37% +24
1988 Michael Dukakis, 69% George H.W. Bush, 30% +39
1992 Bill Clinton, 61% George H.W. Bush, 25% +36
1996 Bill Clinton, 72% Bob Dole, 21% +51
2000 Al Gore, 62% George W. Bush, 35% +27
2004 John Kerry, 58% George W. Bush, 40% +18
2008 Barack Obama, 67% John McCain, 31% +36
2012 Barack Obama, 71% Mitt Romney, 27% +44
If he gets 15% of the Hispanic vote, that'll be half of what Republicans normally get.
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RE: Extreme vetting Trump's supporters
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
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RE: Extreme vetting Trump's supporters
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
It's why the right hates islam so much. It's like watching a rooster fight its own reflection convinced that their reflection is the cold soul of evil.
In fairness, stuff like that tends to cherry pick the "worst"/"best" answers from the people they sample, so it shouldn't be taken as representative of the whole, but... yeah.
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No, I live in Wisconsin, that's his average supporter here, trust me.
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If anything they filtered out the really crazy people.
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anyone else want to hermetically seal hillary in an unused bomb bunker until november 3rd just so she doesn't do anything to upset the balance? Just because trump is immune to gaffdar doesn't mean that it's out of the race.
You don't run a campaign by burrowing into a hole and hide out until Election Day. Clinton needs to keep herself visible and active, because the battleground states are exactly that... a battleground. And you don't win battles by staying put.
In fairness, stuff like that tends to cherry pick the "worst"/"best" answers from the people they sample, so it shouldn't be taken as representative of the whole, but... yeah.It's true, but sometimes they don't have to do as much filtering as other times, and this feels like one of those times.
I know it's just anecdotal, but I have family (by blood and by marriages) and some friends who are either unabashed Trump supporters or NeverHRCers who have talked themselves into supporting Trump. Every position I heard in that Daily Show clip could easily have been said by at least one person I know, some positions by several of them. :(
You don't run a campaign by burrowing into a hole and hide out until Election Day. Clinton needs to keep herself visible and active, because the battleground states are exactly that... a battleground. And you don't win battles by staying put.anyone else want to hermetically seal hillary in an unused bomb bunker until november 3rd just so she doesn't do anything to upset the balance? Just because trump is immune to gaffdar doesn't mean that it's out of the race.
fortunately she is campaigning, she's just sidestepping the news reports and doing local style campaigning and tv ad blitz (is that the plural of blitz too?).
OTOH, it might be Trump's best plan. :)anyone else want to hermetically seal hillary in an unused bomb bunker until november 3rd just so she doesn't do anything to upset the balance? Just because trump is immune to gaffdar doesn't mean that it's out of the race.You don't run a campaign by burrowing into a hole and hide out until Election Day. Clinton needs to keep herself visible and active, because the battleground states are exactly that... a battleground. And you don't win battles by staying put.
No it's not. He has to raise himself out of the pit he's been digging with women and minorities. Nixon may have won with the Angry White Male vote, but Trump can't count on that being the victory strategy this far into the 21st century.
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No it's not. He has to raise himself out of the pit he's been digging with women and minorities. Nixon may have won with the Angry White Male vote, but Trump can't count on that being the victory strategy this far into the 21st century.
I don't think he has any options but to get the angry white males out in neigh supernatural numbers. That's not a pit he's dug with women and minorities it's a salt mine.