Friday Open Thread [8.26.16]

Filed in National by on August 26, 2016

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Quinnipiac–Clinton 51, Trump 41

Said pollster Tim Malloy: “We are starting to hear the faint rumblings of a Hillary Clinton landslide as her 10-point lead is further proof that Donald Trump is in a downward spiral as the clock ticks. Trump’s missteps, stumbles and gaffes seem to outweigh Clinton’s shaky trust status and perceived shady dealings. Wow, is there any light at the end of this dark and depressing chapter in American politics?”

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–PRRI–Clinton 48, Trump 35

chart

MICHIGAN–PRESIDENT–Suffolk University–Clinton 44, Trump 37

Here is Matt Flegenheimer’s write-up at The New York Times on Hillary’s speech yesterday, which I consider to be one of her best speeches ever:

In a 31-minute address, building to a controlled simmer, Mrs. Clinton did everything but call Mr. Trump a racist outright — saying he had promoted “racist lie” after “racist lie,” pushed conspiracy theories with “racist undertones” and heartened racists across the country by submitting to an “emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right.” […]

​With Mr. Trump’s rise, Mrs. Clinton has often struck a have-you-no-sense-of-decency theme in her critiques — warning sternly and repeatedly that the arc of his candidacy transcended standard political attack. But her effort on Thursday was remarkable for its exhaustive accounting of Mr. Trump’s controversial racial history in business and in his presidential campaign.

Jamelle Bouie at Slate:

Her most important move in the speech was to contrast Trump’s behavior with that of past Republican presidents and nominees. Clinton favorably cited Bob Dole’s admonition against racists during the 1996 Republican National Convention, praised George W. Bush for his outreach to Muslim Americans after 9/11, and highlighted John McCain for his pushback against racist conspiracy theories during the 2008 presidential election.

As analysis, Clinton’s argument about Trump’s distance from the rest of the GOP is wrong. At various points in their campaigns, those Republicans gave their winks and nods to the most toxic elements in their party. And broadly, the Republican Party has long appealed to the white racial resentment and hostility that now fuels the Trump campaign in explicit form.

As strategy, however, Clinton’s approach is shrewd. She could tie the entire GOP to Trump, but at the risk of embattling Republican voters and activating a tribal loyalty to the party. By distancing Trump from the Republican mainstream, she offers those voters another choice: You can vote for me, or if that’s too much, you can just not vote at all. Either way, Trump’s margin shrinks.

Patrick Caldwell at Mother Jones:

Clinton’s pitch seemed aimed at two separate audiences: people of color—who are perhaps most likely to be outraged by Trump’s ties to white nationalists and his previous calls for mass deportations—and moderate Republicans who might support Trump but haven’t ever waded into the Breitbart swamp. “This is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump,” Clinton asserted. She hailed former Republican standard-bearers—Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain—who each disavowed racism in their party. The message to other Republicans was clear: It’s not too late for you to do the same.

Ed Kilgore on Hillary’s decision to go big:

From the very beginning of the 2016 general election, it has been obvious that Hillary Clinton’s campaign would go after Donald Trump with a claw hammer. He presented too ripe a target to ignore even momentarily, and given Republican misgivings about him it made obvious sense to exploit Trump’s weaknesses in order to both detach potential supporters and to frighten the Democratic base into showing up to vote. Beyond that, it seemed logical in a contest between two relatively unpopular pols to do everything possible to ensure that media coverage revolved around the other candidate.

But while a negative (or if you wish, “comparative”) campaign was a no-brainer, HRC’s campaign still had to decide on its scope and focus. They could simply underline Trump’s out-there rhetoric and unpopular issue positions again and again. They could instead make him out as a conventional Republican with a conventional Republican’s weaknesses — as a sort of rough-hewn and profane version of Mitt Romney. They could execute a combo platter of the above strategies.

Or they could Go Big and attack Donald Trump the way shocked elites in both parties tend to think of him: as the representative of a new and scary departure in conservative politics that replaced the usual litany of limited-government priorities with ethno-nationalism and a violent reaction to cultural change.

With the new ad Clinton unveiled yesterday and her speech in Reno, Nevada, today, it’s clear that for the moment at least her campaign is indeed Going Big.

Tara Golshin says Clinton’s speech is designed to give Republicans an out:

Traditional conservatives have had difficulty accepting Trump’s bombast. He’s forced lifelong Republicans to either support a party leader known for openly making racist, discriminatory claims and who has seemingly no allegiance to conservative values, or break ranks with the Republican Party altogether. To date, we have seen upward of 41 prominent Republicans say they will not support Trump in November, including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz.

Others, like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have forced themselves into a political pretzel, distancing themselves from Trump by denouncing his claims but supporting his candidacy for the sake of party unity.

Clinton highlighted this dilemma in her speech, even citing Ryan’s disavowal of Trump’s attack on Judge Curiel and calling out Bannon for railing “against Paul Ryan for, quote, ‘rubbing his social justice Catholicism in my nose every second.’”

Those were key moments Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti pointed out. Clinton “invoked” Ryan, and respected Republican leaders, to widen the gap between Trump and the Republican Party.

More Kilgore: if Hillary wins, the Dems will have an historic presidential winning streak.

When you think of the great political coalitions of the past that were dominant for long stretches of time, you’d probably include the Democratic “New Deal” coalition, the Republican “Gilded Age” majority, and maybe the antebellum Democratic and post–Civil War Republican winning streaks. More recently, you might consider the Republican-dominated period from Nixon to Poppy Bush with its suggestion of a GOP “electoral college lock” pretty notable.

But as Ron Brownstein notes today, the contemporary Democratic Party is on the brink of exceeding them all by one key measurement. If Hillary Clinton wins this year, the Donkey Party will have won the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections.

Scot Lehigh’s piece on Hillary Clinton’s health over at The Boston Globe is a hilarious sarcastic must read:

I know, I know, Clinton’s doctor actually says she is in good health. But she hasn’t been out on the Internets the way I have, to learn from people who don’t know her and haven’t examined her and so are more objective about these things.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Clinton suffers from weird seizures, psychotic facial tics, and strange lesions on her tongue — and the question is whether it’s all caused by brain damage or narcissistic personality disorder. Or even drug abuse. Or syphilis.

Now you can say, Scot, that’s the sort of cross-eyed crazy stuff you hear from Alex Jones and Infowars and Paul Joseph Watson, but I’m telling you, this is serious! Why, some of it has even been explored on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, and if there’s anyone who understands odd behavior that can result from intellectual impairment, it’s Sean.

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  1. Dorian Gray says:
    August 26, 2016 at 8:40 am

    From last night’s reading. It made me reflect on political campaigns, and my involvement (or not) in them.

    “We believe that we can change things around us in accordance with our desires – we believe it because otherwise we can see no favourable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favourable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible it has become.” —Marcel Proust, ‘In Search of Lost Time’

  2. mikem2784 says:
    August 26, 2016 at 9:05 am

    That “Briefing” spot is damning. She should invest the money to flood the airways with it until Americans get it through their skulls how bad Trump really is.

    In the meantime, his complete flip-flop on immigration will alienate the very same people his racist talk was meant to draw in. Together, hopefully this will be the beginning of the end for Trump and this horrible campaign.

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