2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Begins!

Actually Obama's promises didn't fall flat. He was able to deliver on many and probably more than any other candidate has done in recent history. The American economy has grown every year he has been in office. Jobs have grown every year he has been in office, and the US is now at or near full employment. He inherited a nightmare from his predecessor, a recession which could have rivaled the Great Depression had he not acted appropriately.

If you believe the polling Hillary's supporters run the gamut. She has wealthy supporters as well as poor supporters and everything in between. Some of the richest people in the world support Hillary but they tend to be well known philanthropists like Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet, people who have committed to give most of their wealth away. Buffet is the man who originated and promulgated what has become known as the Buffet Rule which basically says wealthy individuals should not pay less in taxes than the people who work for them.

http://givingpledge.org/

 

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The Real Danger Is How Obvious It Seems

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"I now believe there is a 50 percent probability that GOP nominee Donald Trump wants to lose to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the race for president, and then seek to create an alt-right media conglomerate including players ranging from Breitbart to former Fox News boss Roger Ailes."

―Brent Budowsky↱​

Columnist Brent Budowsky↱ earned his credentials variously, as an aide to conservative Democrats and at the London School of Economics where he earned a Master of Laws. Never mind that latter; this has to do with politics.

The basic thesis seems to derive from a combination of obvious factors; a media venture seems such an obvious idea I popped off about it four months ago↑, and also it seems the obvious idea insofar as it's the only substantial answer↑ I can propose to the phantom candidate proposition↑.

Budowsky's analysis is similarly based on what some would describe as Donald Trump's strong campaigning:

First, Trump has allowed Clinton to dominate him in television advertising. His ad buys have been very limited, even though he began August behind Clinton in ad spending by an historically unprecedented margin for presidential nominees. Why hasn't Trump done much more to compete with Clinton on the airwaves?

One could have argued many months ago that Trump's free saturation television exposure given to him by television execs made for up the lack of paid campaign advertising. But free media coverage has turned harshly against Trump, to the degree that Trump responded to the daily deluge of negative coverage by declaring a virtual war against the media, which the media are winning because the facts routinely contradict Trump's claims and promises.

Second, since Aug. 12, Trump has opened a paltry number of campaign offices in battleground states, continuing his huge disadvantage in the political ground game compared to the grassroots juggernaut assembled by Team Clinton. Why hasn't Trump made any effort to build a ground game, at the same time he has not made any effort to effectively compete with significant paid television advertising?

At this moment, with Labor Day approaching, Trump is at a huge disadvantage in both the ground game and the battle over the airwaves and has made no effort to effectively compete in these two crucial aspects of successful presidential campaigning. Is this the behavior of a candidate playing to win?

Third, despite his claims to vast personal wealth, why hasn't Trump written his campaign a huge check to fulfill his longtime promise to self-finance his campaign? Either Trump does not really possess even remotely the wealth he claims, or he refuses to keep his campaign promise to self-finance his campaign because he really does not want to win.

Fourth, the Trump has handled the immigration issue in a way designed to hyper-galvanize his limited base — a base that would be the foundation for the television venture he is rumored to be gunning for — in a way that alienates Hispanic voters for a generation and repels independent voters and even many Republicans.

Several days ago, Democrats were privately worried that Trump would use his visit to Mexico and his major immigration speech in Arizona to "soften" his position and widen his circle of supporters, which is what a candidate who wants to win would have done. This is exactly what most of his surrogates were hinting in the days before his major immigration speech.

Instead, Trump humiliated many of his surrogates by doing the exact opposite. He began his big day by sounding more elevated in his joint appearance with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, continued his day when the humiliated Mexican president essentially called Trump a liar by stating that he did in fact tell Trump that Mexico would never pay for the wall, and ended his day with a red-meat speech so extreme (a word Trump himself used when describing his proposed vetting process) that even some of his few prominent Hispanic supporters headed for the exits.

A recent story in The Washington Post, "Poll finds rejection of many of Trump's views on immigration," discussed a new Pew Research Center poll, which tracks similar results from a recent Fox News poll. While Trump's hardline immigration policies reap great support from the minority of voters who support him and would form the foundation for a future Trump rightist media venture, they are anathema to far more voters and are seen by huge numbers of Hispanic voters as a declaration of political war against them.

From the time I first raised the possibility on Aug. 12 that Trump could be throwing the election to Clinton, he has acted in a manner that is consistent with a candidate who wants to lose the presidential campaign and segue to a new alt-right media venture after the election.​

In a way, this is kind of undignified; then again, someone of comparative import was eventually going to say it. Budowsky dove into the phantom candidate↱ argument last year, because, quite frankly, it was impossible not to. He recalled that column last month, when first speculating that Donald Trump might be throwing the election↱, and despite the pretentious caution about taking speculation so far, the candidate's purported strong campaigning worked its way into the analysis:

If a candidate genuinely wants to become president, would he repeatedly insult the giant wave of Hispanic voters? Would he insult veterans who were heroic prisoners of war by saying that he "like[s] people who weren't captured"? Would he repeatedly insult the 2008 GOP nominee and great war hero, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)?

If a candidate actually wants to become president, would he and his advisers plan a strategy that includes praising the mass-murdering communist dictator of North Korea? Which voters did Trump believe he would win with that one? If a candidate truly wants to become president, would he and his foreign policy advisors plan a strategy that repeatedly praises Vladimir Putin, the strongman dictator of Russia, and say he is not sure he would defend Europe nations from a Russian invasion? Does Trump believe there is a pro-Putin vote in America?

‡​

Did Trump and his campaign managers develop a strategy to attack a Gold Star mother and father? Could any presidential candidate who wants to be elected seem to publicly support Russian espionage against America, and take positions so extreme that a former acting CIA director calls him "an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation"? Would any candidate who actually wants to win make comments about the Second Amendment and a political opponent so that the Secret Service is not happy, the same kind of comments that helped Harry Reid pulverize his Republican opponent into dust in his last reelection campaign?​

Ailes, Bannon ... didn't Trump just hire Bossie?

If this is the feint, though, I wonder what the real thrust would be?
____________________

Notes:

Budowsky, Brent. "Is Trump a Clinton plant?" The Hill. 6 August 2015. TheHill.com. 3 September 2016. http://bit.ly/2c1Wz8G

—————. "Is Trump deliberately throwing the election to Clinton?" The Hill. 12 August 2016. TheHill.com. 3 September 2016. http://bit.ly/2b0lObP

—————. "More evidence Trump wants to lose to Clinton". The Hill. 2 September 2016. TheHill.com. 3 September 2016. http://bit.ly/2chpi7Y

 

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Yep. There is no contradiction in a strong campaigner throwing the election. Especially a strong campaigner with a seriously dark agenda - setting up a real mess.

I'm afraid of this guy. The people mocking him seem to be flailing, by and large - missing the point. That Mexican president he defied is not popular, for instance.

Ten weeks to go. Cross your fingers.

 

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Now it's been revealed Trump has been Fined for illegal campaign donations in an apparent quid pro quo. He illegally used funds from his charity to make the donation.

 

This should be a big problem for The Donald, but thus far it has received very little coverage. The Donald bribed an attorney general and he did it as a charitable donation which is in itself illegal and Trump tried to disguise it.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article82563867.html

Add to that, Trump has often bragged about paying to play.

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...illary-clinton-robert-menendez-solomon-melgen

 

Hint: if the candidate is bragging about something, it's probably not going to be a problem for him. And if you don't want him elected, it's probably a mistake to give stuff he brags about lots of airtime.

 

Hint: That's exactly how The Donald has gotten himself in so much trouble. That's why The Donald is now always accompanied with a minder to watch over him and prevent him from saying the stupid things he is renowned for saying.

 

The Donald is not in trouble. The Donald has never been in trouble in this entire election. The Donald is closer to being elected President of the United States than anyone else on the planet except Hillary Clinton, and meanwhile appears to be making a profit on the campaign. The least favorable of the media give him a 10 - 15% shot of winning the whole thing in November - and it's only that small a chance because of the electoral vote map. That's not trouble.

At least, not for him. We're in trouble. https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...458832-7152-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html

Given a trend-line voter suppression effort by the Republicans (will those rich guys actually go dark to that extent, just to pad the bank?) we are facing the possibility that even in winning the electoral vote Clinton may lose the popular vote. She's lost half her maximum lead since the Conventions.

Nine weeks. Cross your fingers.

 

Trump says he will replace our flag officers with officers more to his liking. That's not how it works. We have a professional officer Corps. The POTUS doesn't get to choose his flag officers. What Trump proposed is very disturbing. I think most Americans want the military loyal to the Constitution and the nation and not the POTUS.

 

Most of the military guys differ on that point. They like what Trump is saying: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/201...clinton-among-military-veteran-voters-n643501

W&Cheney got a boost from the military voter, as well. As did Reagan - even Romney. Disturbing as it may be, Clinton probably cannot afford to make a big deal out of Trump's plans for the flag officers.

 

Susan Sarandon has gone from supporting Bernie Sanders to Trump

 

And yet another supposed "principle" of the self-styled "conservative" goes under the bus.

 

Has she?

 

Yes, and for good reason too.

As have I.
(for some of the same reasons)
Over 13 million of us that caucused or voted for sanders-------------
One wonders, how many more will switch
%?

 

I think that's more hope than reality.

 

Perhaps:
It seems that less than 90% of sanders supporters will go with HRC---------------so maybe Trump gets the other 10% =1.3 million?

I only know of 2 of us(so far).

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Where is the evidence to back that up?

 

2 of us?

Man, that was probably conservative.

 

You are being more than a little disingenuous. Where is the evidence for the 90% of Bernie's people joining the Trump Train?

 

joe, you read that backwards.

give HRC the almost 90%
which leaves 10% in doubt