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‘Trump Is Cratering’: New polls show Republican nominee losing support

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Merrill Auditorium today in Portland, Maine.

A raft of new national and battleground-state polls released Thursday found Donald Trump slipping well behind Hillary Clinton one week after the end of the Democratic convention, and as the Republican nominee reels from a public feud with the parents of a slain Muslim American soldier.

“There has clearly been a significant movement toward Clinton in the last week,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and polling analyst for Bloomberg Politics. “Some of it is a Clinton post-convention bounce, but more of it seems to be a Trump deflation or implosion.”

A new poll in Pennsylvania, seen by Trump’s top strategists as a crucial bellwether, finds him trailing Clinton by 11 points (49 percent to 38 percent) among likely voters surveyed by Franklin & Marshall College.

An electoral vote-rich state that 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney lost by just 5 points, the Keystone State is arguably a must-win for Trump due to demographics that are uniquely suited to his appeal. It is 20 percent whiter than the U.S. as a whole, and has a large working-class base that is coping with the loss of manufacturing jobs and sympathetic to Trump’s anti-trade views.

The survey found that Trump’s advantages among white men and voters without a college degree are erased by his larger deficits among white women and college graduates. He’s down by 69 points among non-white voters, the poll found.

“Given the fact that his assault on Hispanics has made it far more difficult to win many of the other swing states—like Colorado, Nevada, and Florida—then Pennsylvania becomes ever more critical for Trump to put the pieces together to get to 270 electoral votes,” said Whit Ayres, a leading Republican pollster.

“It’s the kind of place that you’d normally think would be fertile ground for Trump,” Ayres said, before contending that “absolutely nothing has happened” to suggest Trump can be the first Republican since 1988 to paint Pennsylvania red.

As Trump moved today to correct course by acknowledging a misstatement about Iran and by naming economic advisers ahead of a Detroit Economic Club speech Monday, other battleground-state polls of likely voters were also signaling trouble.

In Michigan, another Democratic-leaning Rust Belt state that Trump is trying to put in play, he trails Clinton by 9 points (41 percent to 32 percent) in a survey by Detroit News and WDIV-TV.

In Florida, an electorally rich and closely divided state, Trump trailed Clinton by 6 points (48 percent to 42 percent) in a Suffolk University poll.

In New Hampshire, a purple state that was the site of Trump’s first blowout victory in the Republican primary, he’s down by a whopping 15 points (47 percent to 32 percent) against Clinton, according to a WBUR poll.

Even in Georgia, a southern state that has voted Republican for president since 1996, a poll released by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday showed Clinton up 4 points on Trump, 44 percent to 40 percent, in a two-way race, within the poll’s margin of error of about 4 points.

Nationally, the picture isn’t much better.

A McClatchy/Marist national poll found Trump down 15 points among registered voters (up from his 3-point deficit last month), a bigger gap than Romney trailed by in any 2012 poll recorded by RealClearPolitics, which closely tracks presidential election surveys.

“Real talk: Trump is cratering,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz tweeted in response to the McClatchy survey. “He needs to overhaul his general-election strategy if he wants to have any hope of winning in 95 days.”

Luntz said Trump “lost his big leads with independent voters” in prior surveys.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal national survey found Trump trailing Clinton by 9 points (up from 5 points last month).

Ayres cautioned that polls at this early juncture may yet be fluid.

“The general rule is that you wait a couple of weeks after both conventions finish before you start assuming that polls are particularly predictive,” he said. “Around the middle of August we’ll start to get a sense of where the race stands after the dust settles from the Democratic convention and the Trump convention.”

Goldstein said polling averages are more instructive than any one poll, but that a steady Clinton lead of 7 or 8 points could harm Republicans down the ballot.

“Fifteen points is more than Ronald Reagan won in his landslide victories,” he said. “If you’re in a world where it’s over 10, then this is a landslide of historic proportions.”

177 responses to “‘Trump Is Cratering’: New polls show Republican nominee losing support”

  1. lespark says:

    When the going gets tough the tough get going.
    Obamacare losses spur HMSA to seek higher rates.
    She’s going to raise taxes for the rich so the poor doesn’t have to find jobs. Why? Because there are no jobs.
    She’s going to insult Putin one more time and he’ll call her bluff. It’s going to get bad. You saw what she did to the Middle East.
    65,000 more Syrian refugees? Are we blind? We can’t take care of our own citizens.

    • OldDiver says:

      The polls are evidence America is not ready for the child candidate.

      • NITRO08 says:

        A spoiled child candidate.

        • primowarrior says:

          A wailing spoiled child candidate.

        • thos says:

          The purpose in publicizing these nominally “scientific” polling data is to discourage voters who might otherwise turn out and vote in November.

          The “news” media are waging an intense, even unprecedented, psy-war propaganda campaign and, because they know down the soles of their feet that Hillary is a crook, a cheat and a liar, they are pulling out all the stops to make sure she wins.

          The last time this happened was 1964. Had Goldwater been elected, he would have done just as he promised: tell the JCS they have six months to win and get us the heck out of Vietnam. Then he would have done what Nixon in fact did in 1972 and actually WIN that war.

          Instead, because of the fear mongering we got another 4 years of LBJ, ultimately almost 60,000 dead Americans.

          Do we REALLY want to put our country through THAT again?

          Maybe it is time we quit taking the counsel of our fears and make a responsible decision: Hillary is utterly UNFIT for ANY office, much less POTUS.

        • sarge22 says:

          Amen.

        • saveparadise says:

          The US is in need of change. The status quo will lead us into more homelessness, racial divide, and war. You must realize that we are already at war with terrorism. Extreme measures must be taken before our homeland becomes the battleground. Mass killings will become the norm. Take heed.

        • W15 says:

          primowarrior — were you saying these things when trump had pulled even with clinton, and even had pulled ahead in some polls back in june? it’s seems — in the mode of trump’s typical attitude — these things are never a “conspiracy” until the polls reflect results you don’t like…

        • lespark says:

          Whoever votes for Hillary don’t expect her to be with you in Heaven.

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Then I’ll meet y’all in hell..

        • sarge22 says:

          The Twitter hashtag #HillaryAccomplishments went viral on the social media network Thursday and became the No. 1 trending topic.

          The responses, some funny and some scorching Clinton, include:

          Lying about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia to impress voters
          Theft and deception
          Being the most corrupt politician ever, and yet Americans will still be stupid enough to vote for her
          Evading prosecution by the FBI
          Being a world-class liar
          Great job at covering up [allegations of] Bill Clinton’s rape
          244 days without holding a press conference
          First woman to delete 33,000 emails in one sitting
          Raising hundreds of millions of dollars for Haiti relief and keeping 90 percent of it for herself
          Being responsible for 4 dead in Benghazi
          68% of Americans say she’s untrustworthy
          Convincing Democrats she didn’t push NAFTA, which cost 1,000,000 Americans their jobs
          Hired the woman who was exposed for rigging the primary election against Bernie
          Avoiding scrutiny by the completely unbiased press
          Able to castrate tall FBI directors with a single phone call
          Taking money from foreign governments in exchange for favors that go against American interests
          Making Democrats believe she stands for LGBT rights while importing homophobic Muslim refugees
          Keeping minorities dependent on government assistance so they’ll vote Democrat
          Viewing rape & harassment victims as liars unworthy of being heard
          Armed and funded Syrian rebels, calling them “moderates”
          Watergate chief counsel fired her at age 27. She was blacklisted
          Convincing zombie Democrats that Trump is the one who’s unfit
          Stole the Democratic Party nomination through unjust means
          Manipulating black people and minorities for votes
          Successfully convinced the Russians to give her millions for 20 percent of USA uranium
          Monica Lewinsky is one person Hillary Clinton didn’t get killed
          She’s managed to stay out of prison

        • mitt_grund says:

          A spoiled brat, stomping the feet, kick the nanny, profanity-spouting, back-stabbing, bullying, arrogant, as****ne, vainglorious, juvenile delinquent pretending to be grown-up, whose initial fortune was bequeathed to him by doting parents.

        • mitt_grund says:

          Oh, I forgot bigoted, racist, and catering to the white supremacist crowd, having sent his son,Junior, down to the Mississippi township where they celebrate the killing of three civil rights workers in the hey day of white supremacy at the annual county fair, to speak on making America “great” (read white supremacist again. KKK and other whites who hated being under the “monkey” for 8 years, and see being under a WOMAN who served under the “monkey” just as degrading.

          Drumpf Trump is the worst kind of opportunist who is willing to recruit that sort of people into his “winning” coalition. The sad part is all the Asians, Hispanics and Black Americans who are swallowing his cr*p, being proper Uncle Tomas, Tomasios and Toms, and singing kumbayas to his self-aggrandizing, grandiose self-praise.

          Everyone knows his campaign manager’s and his own personal business interests that lie with placating Vladimir Putin, for which Drumpf Trump is willing to sacrifice the Balkans, the Crimea, the Ukraine, and NATO. If the spoiled brat wins, you will see him instantly kowtow to Putin, and give him the keys to the Balkans, and the shackles of betrayal to NATO.

          Don’t rely on my words. Just look at his own glib words.

      • aiea7 says:

        more like a white supremacists – those are his core supporters.

        • hawaiikone says:

          There’s several posters here that inevitably throw race into a variety of arguments, some others prefer to discus the actual issues and other nuances that influence a position, and then there’s the output fixated, input challenged remainder.

        • thos says:

          Before you get too carried away, slinging around terms like ‘white supremacists’, you would do well to recall that the ONLY reason anyone voted for the current occupant of the White House was the color of his skin.
          Doubt that? Here, then. Try this readily available thought experiment:
          Imagine a guy showing up at the 2008 Iowa Caucus who spent a good part of his political ‘career’ voting “present”, who never held a real job in his life- – let alone an executive job- – but who nonetheless had written TWO “memoirs” and who stated his desire to become our 44th President.
          Got the picture?

          Good.
          Now imagine this pretentious twerp were WHITE.

          Can you seriously doubt that that such a pretentious half wit – – who could not be elected dog catcher, let alone POTUS – – would have been driven from the room with catcalls, hoots of derision, and the loud hideously shrill cackle of Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, convinced beyond doubt her January 20, 2009 coronation was inevitable?

          See, voting FOR someone because of his skin color is every bit as racist as voting AGAINST someone for the same reason.

        • amela says:

          Sarge22 seems more knowledgeable then Trump and what is that saying?

      • amela says:

        True and sorry for lespark that his candidate Trump is going to get crushed. America may be gullible at times but they ain’t stupid. They say the under educated white voters are for Trump and I can see why but some of them are coming to their senses and jumping off the ship that is sinking fast. To pick someone who’s so unprepared and who says things that are so insulting you’ve got to be way below under educated.

    • HawaiiCheeseBall says:

      Les your boy Chump just sent sent out a tweet admitting he lied when he said he saw video of pallets of cash being sent to Iran. News agencies kept calling on him to put up that infamous video he claimed to have seen that was sent to him. Well once again he tripped over his own fables. What a loser.

      • sarge22 says:

        Trump admits he lied. HiLIARY never admits she lied and she “TRIES” to tell the truth. She isn’t trying hard enough.

        • keaukaha says:

          She isn’t as dumb as he is. Like I said his mouth is faster than his brain. He lies knowing that the whole world is watching him. They should send him back to kindergarten. If he is the kind of person that you want as POTUS then you must be as screwed up as he is. Time for the Chump to tap out.

        • bsdetection says:

          I think that Trump is something worse than a liar. A liar knows the facts when he tells a lie; it’s a rational decision to tell the lie. Together with the fact that he repeated the lie about seeing a “top secret” video of a planeload of cash being unloaded in Iran (a lie that you fell for) even after his campaign confirmed that no such video existed, you have to consider Trump’s reliance on the National Enquirer and conspiracy theory websites and talk shows as a primary source of “news” to see that there is a pathology even more deeply disqualifying than being a liar. He’s delusional. He saw Fox News B-roll footage of released hostages arriving in Switzerland and believes he saw something else. Like a schizophrenic who hears voices, Trump sees things that don’t exist. His aren’t calculated lies; they’re the ramblings of an unhinged mind.

        • localguy says:

          Hillary is a pathological liar. It’s what she does.

        • Boots says:

          Probably because Hillary has never lied. She may have shown poor judgement such as supporting GW’s wars but that is different from lying.

        • keaukaha says:

          Local guy everybody lies. The problem is that the Chump does it on national television with millions of people watching him. When most of us lie we attribute the false information to a second hand source. In other words, we have a way out if we are called on it. The Chumps ego is so big that he doesn’t want credit anything, even his lies to anybody else. Absolutely nuts.

        • hawaiikone says:

          Another classic by bootie, “Hillary has never lied”….

        • thos says:

          keaukaha says: his mouth is faster than his brain.

          Were that true, he could not possibly triumphed during the primary season, much to the disappointment and fury of our know it all political elite’s of both parties ~~ who were roundly humiliated with all sorts of egg on the face when their grand predictions of Trump’s demise went up in smoke.

          It is no wonder that the elite of both parties are in a frenzy to make sure Trump meets the same fate as did Goldwater 52 years ago … and devil take the hindmost.

        • aaronavilla says:

          It isn’t so much that Trump lies – it’s how he lies. He will say anything to get the crowds at his rallies fired up in order to create the appearance of a successful campaign… and then his campaign staff will later issue an apology when the moment has passed and the story has fallen out of the news cycle because they know that his blind supporters won’t care either way. Trump is a strategic liar who will lie often and intentionally. And the only way for a Trump supporter to rationalize this is by saying “…but Hillary lies!”.

          The Trump supporter strategy: Ignore the lies, rationalize his glaring lack of qualifications, accuse anyone who reports a negative story about Trump as being biased or too liberal, and have a story about the election being rigged ready to go when he loses.

          I can make all of these observations without ever mentioning one of the other candidates to support my argument.

        • keaukaha says:

          Thos the primary was a republican event. The people with egg on their faces were the established republicans whose favored candidates did not make it. Fox News are reporting as we comment that they’re shocked by the most recent polls. Trump is trailing Clinton by double digits in Philadelphia. A state that the Chump overwhelming won in the primaries. This is the general election where all who are interested will be voting. Minorities, Muslims, lbgts, and the list goes on will be voting in masses. These are the people that the Chump has insulted over and over again. That and his obvious stupidity is why he is getting slammed.

        • thos says:

          the primary was a republican event.

          So then in your opinion, anyone no matter how brain dead could prevail among a bunch of easily defeated nobodies which as the best the GOP could field during the primaries?

          Really?

        • amela says:

          He’s the only person who can tell a lie one day and on the next say he was only kidding, sarcasm. Hilary should have used the same tactics. Wonder if that would be acceptable, just kidding about the email.

      • kuroiwaj says:

        HCB, now it’s Iran that is releasing photo’s of the cash received for the American detainees.

      • Ronin006 says:

        Not so fast, HawaiiCheeseBall, Trump may have access to sources of information he does not want to reveal. Iranian television has broadcast what some say is purported footage of the $400 million pallets of cash that officials claim was part of the “expensive price” paid by the Obama administration to free several U.S. hostages.

        Iran: $400 Million in Cash Was Part of ‘Expensive Price’ to Free U.S. Hostages
        New Iranian television footage shows stacks of cash

        http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-400-million-cash-part-expensive-price-free-u-s-hostages/

        • HawaiiCheeseBall says:

          Dream on. Chump admitted all he saw was the stock footage of the Americans returning. There is no other footage. You can wait until the cows come home, Chump has no other footage or he would have released it.

        • lespark says:

          The Iranians are boasting how they brought America to their knees. They captured an American ship,$400,000,000 ransom and $150,000,000,000 for a Nuclear program that didn’t exist.
          Stupid is as stupid does.

        • hawaiikone says:

          So cheese, are you then saying there is no 400B ransom payoff?

        • keaukaha says:

          How in the world can you mistake a smaller private jet with hostages disembarking with a cargo plane with pallets of cash being unloaded. The guy is a liar and a lousy one at that.

      • NanakuliBoss says:

        Cratering. That’s a new one. Crapering. How that? Crotchering. Crockering. I got all day.

    • MillionMonkeys says:

      TOLD YOU SO!

      GET EDUCATED! TRUMP UNIVERSITY DOESN’T COUNT.

      • lespark says:

        I think Ike took the course and tripled his net worth or was that Klastri?

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Nope, as Warren Buffett said when he crucified Trump..” A monkey throwing a dart would have more money on his fathers original inheritance than the Donald”

          Me–I just placed most of holdings in a couple of index funds starting in 2008 and voila…..less than eights years later my stock assests tripled.

        • hawaiikone says:

          And when Hillary gets in be ready to fork over around a half of it..

    • krusha says:

      The GOP pretty much sold their souls to Trump and will pay for it tenfold later. They warned about falling for the great deceiver in the bible (Revelation 12:9) and Trump pretty much fits the profile perfectly. “There was a great war, and the dragon was defeated. The great deceiver (Trump) was cast out of the Earth, and all his angels (GOP minions) was cast out with him.” 🙂

      • saveparadise says:

        Only because the Anti Christ has you totally fooled. Hellary will not bring positive change. Our borders will be opened to terrorists and our enemies will put us to the test.

        • lespark says:

          Hillary is not going to Heaven.

        • oxtail01 says:

          Thought your sect preached forgiveness, acceptance, faith. Guess your faith is in hate, wishing for bad things to happen to anyone that’s not to your liking. Wow, is that what supporting Trump is all about?

        • saveparadise says:

          Who me? Sect? Is that a new drink? Accept? I accept you as you are. Faith? Faith that there will be surf and the sun will rise tomorrow. Wish for bad things? You need a reading comprehension class. Forecasting what will come and wishing are very different. Support? You should vote for who you feel is the best candidate for the job.

        • Keolu says:

          Funny how Obama blasted Hellary in 2008 and now he’s campaigning for her. Both of them should never have been elected to any office.

        • mitt_grund says:

          Neither is Trump. For that matter, any politician. It’s as likely for a politician, lawyer, business magnate to get to heaven as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

      • NanakuliBoss says:

        4 tortured Americans dragged thru the streets of benghazi. 4 Americans saved from being tortured and dragged thru the streets of Tehran. Huh? No witch hunt? Huh? No fox “atta boy Obama hero”? No USA,USA,USA….?

    • Allaha says:

      Even a most ardent hater of present democrat political correctness like me has to shake his head over Trumps foolish talk.

      • thos says:

        Shake your head, fine, but please for heaven sake don’t put a liar, a cheat, and a crook ~~ namely: Hillary ~~ in the position of raw POWER for which she has long lusted.

        She CANNOT be trusted with power.

        • amela says:

          Hillary didn’t lie she was just joking couldn’t you tell? And by the way the ransom money you’all talking about was negotiated in January get your facts checked.

        • sarge22 says:

          The Department of Justice objected to the cash transfer of $400 million from the US government to Iran — delivered on an unmarked cargo plane at the same time the Iranian regime released four American hostages.

          The State Department, the Wall Street Journal reports, overruled the Justice Department’s objections, sending wooden pallets filled with euros and Swiss francs.

          “People knew what it was going to look like, and there was concern the Iranians probably did consider it a ransom payment,” a Justice Department source told the Journal.

      • saveparadise says:

        His political incorrectness is what brought him this far. Maybe this political incorrectness is what it would take to stand up and change the establishment. Gotta look beyond the words and interpret the intentions. The media is powerful and they will demonize any candidate that does not agree with their own agenda.

        • gmejk says:

          And how is Trump not part of the “establishment”? He’s a corrupt businessman who has used the system (bankruptcy) to his benefit. Just because he’s not a politician doesn’t mean he’s not part of the establishment. Heck, he invited Bill and Hillary to his wedding and up until the time he was running was telling the world what a great president Bill was and what a great secretary of state Hillary was. He is a typical politician–say anything to get what he wants. C’mon now.

        • saveparadise says:

          Calling it the way I interpret it. A leader is not a kiss a$$. Do you see one candidate kissing a$$ and the other thumbing his nose at the establishment which are those that wish to remain in power? “You can’t do this and you can’t do that!” “The hell I can’t!” What are the goals of these two candidates and how far will they go to accomplish them? YOU don’t have to like them but you must choose who you feel will give it their best to get it done. Personally I don’t “like” either but I prefer one over the other.

        • NanakuliBoss says:

          He wants Ivanka to be a woman Financial Advisor for the USA. WOW.

        • keaukaha says:

          It’s going to be very interesting because you will see a new Chump. One that is more subdued and tame. His advisors are forcing him to shut up. However most of his supporters the rude, arrogant and vulgar Chump and that’s because they think like him. They don’t give a sh-t about anything else. They will be very disappointed with the Chump on tranquilizers and demand for the return of the old Chump. When that happens it will be the last chapter of a very weird tale.

    • HanabataDays says:

      Not even the world’s lamest cliches will rescue your flatlining candidate now.

      • thos says:

        Political counter punchers like Trump do not go into battle armed with cliches.

        Only gutless weaklings think that the map is the territory or that merely SAYING something makes it so.

    • kuroiwaj says:

      LesPark, the true polls are the ones the end of next week, following the Convention bounce from each Party. Also, Ms Hillary yesterday said that she is going to raise taxes on the Middle Class.

      • sarge22 says:

        Real life experience not MSM–Went to see Trump yesterday in Portland. Biggest rally I’ve ever seen in Maine. I saw him in FL, too. These pollsters don’t even have a word for him. The word is “excitement!” More than 50% were women. The critics said the audience was “all white.” Well, maybe so, but all the protesters were white, too!

        • aaronavilla says:

          there’s already a word it: “vocal minority”

        • amela says:

          Yeah Sarge and Fox & Friends said that Trump is up by 5%. Wonder where they get their information from. Also their credible sources say Melania scored a A and Michelle Obama a C on their speeches. on the same speech. What’s wrong with those people. I hope those reporters never land on any other network their credibility stinks or are they forced to talk like that?

        • sarge22 says:

          Glad to see you watching Fox News the number one rated cable news network. Keep up the good work. I know it’s next to the cartoon channel so you must have pressed the wrong button.

      • keaukaha says:

        It is not a bounce. It is an earthquake that was strong enough to knock him on his as-.

        • keaukaha says:

          100 people is a big audience in Maine. Also if the protesters were also white doesn’t it tell you something?

      • primowarrior says:

        Reporters who had the transcript of Hillary’s speech agreed that it said “we aren’t going to raise taxes on the middle class”, but in her speech she didn’t enunciate “aren’t” well so it sounded like “are.”

        • hawaiikone says:

          Got to agree. It would have been totally uncharacteristic for a democrat to ever announce a hike on the middle class.

        • kuroiwaj says:

          IRT PrimoWarrior, funny and it’s a very nice try. Even I thought that I heard her wrong, and the replay had her saying she was going to increase taxes on the middle class. She missed her class in this part.

        • hawaiikone says:

          Kuro, I would have given her a small degree of respect had she actually said she was going to raise taxes on half of her target audience.

      • lespark says:

        20,000,000,000,000. Debt.
        She’s going to raise taxes on everybody except the poor because they only know how to take.

    • thos says:

      The in-the-tank, pro-Hillary no matter what “news” media uses polls like harpoons to wound their prey.

      Give me the money, tell me the “scientific” polling results you want and I’ll design a “sampling” instrument that will do just that.

    • Kealaula says:

      But when trump opens his mouth he can barely keep a train of thought.

      “Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.” Donald Trump, July 21, Sun City, North Carolina

  2. klastri says:

    What great news! Finally – and this took way too long, obviously – Trump supporters (some of them anyway … some on here will hold on all the way down the inevitable landslide) are waking up to the fact that he is spectacularly unfit for the office. Finally.

    • krusha says:

      This is all according to plan for Trump since he doesn’t want to be president anyway and is thinking he’ll go out in a blaze of glory and take the entire GOP down with him like sinking the Titanic. It was no coincidence Trump met with Bill Clinton right before declaring his nomination for President. I bet the conversation went like “Remember that plan we worked out earlier to destroy the Republican party for good? Time to put that into action.” 🙂 Trump is an expert showman and has appeared on WWE pro wrestling shows before, so he knows how to act the part of the villain and stick to the script no matter what.

  3. Ikefromeli says:

    There you go Les, with the anecdotal sports saws from high school–the tough get going! The irony is Les you never played a sport in your entire life and was always the guy always left on the sidelines to twiddle your thumbs. Moreover, Trump, is the opposite from a tough guy, he bullies only when he knows can get away with it or someone is not looking–e.g. he is a punk coward.

    As for these most recent polling findings….to the far R crew, Les, Sarge, ronin, Keoni,Thos, Winston, Kuro, Cricket….buahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • sarge22 says:

      ike–.Keyboard broke? Les the athlete–Ike obviously the cheerleader. We are in the third inning/first quarter and it’s an away game.

      • Ikefromeli says:

        Actually went to college on a D1 scholarship for football…..but, just saying. If Les, did anything past playing Pokemon and Kikada it would be front page news.

        • kekelaward says:

          This explains quite a bit.

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Yup, indeed. Some guys like the to man the saimin stands, others rather be on the field.

        • sarge22 says:

          What? Was your helmet too tight?

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Tight enough to go to the college of Eli.

        • sarge22 says:

          Surprised they had a helmet big enough for you in the first place. Was it a special order?

        • lespark says:

          Whatever you say Ike. You and I know the truth.

        • Ikefromeli says:

          What truth is that Les? You living with Momma still? Or you never really did anything with your life? That you got a mediocre education if anything? Or that you are not so secretly hold rather racist and bigoted views? So, which one….?

        • sarge22 says:

          Come on Les ease up on the poor fellow you know he went to school with Eli Manning. Trump endorses Ryan and McCain.

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Sarge, you might be far duller than I previous anticipated. And, no I did not go to Mississippi, which I am sure is a fine regional school in the south.

          Google, the college of Eli Whitney……

    • thos says:

      It has been observed that ” A Yale University student or alumnus is known informally as either an Eli or a Yalie.”. So are we to believe that Ike From Eli is one of the Poison Ivy Elite, acting very like a young duke among the fishmongers in casting false pearls before genuine swine.

      It is your arrogance and condescension that give you away.

      Now that you have been categorized, a proper context has been established in which to judge your pompous dreck.

      You now have my permission to carry on.

  4. paradisetax says:

    Trump is handing the election to Hillary. Sad. I might have voted for him. Not so much now. However, I will not vote for Clinton either. How come out of 340 million Americans it’s come down to just these two losers.

    • keaukaha says:

      The republicans picked the real loser. Look at his audiences. All white and look like Archie Bunker wannabes. Profane and vulgar people who have followed the Chump to his cesspool. A fitting ending for the king of Sh-t.

    • Boots says:

      There are other candidates but you are right. It is down to two main candidates. One candidate has experience and class vs a candidate that has zero experience with no class. It shows. Not a Hillary fan, but she should be a decent president and hopefully she has learned from her past mistakes. One can always hope. I think the Donald is incapable of learning.

      • paradisetax says:

        Hillary might have the experience but totally no class.

        • readergirl says:

          IRT paradisetax you’re seriously not saying Trump has class are you? Insulting everyone under the sun and putting his foot in his mouth every time he speaks? He can’t tweet fast enough to keep up with is coming out of his mouth.

        • hawaiikone says:

          Slow down, girly, are you saying Hillary is not a documented liar?

        • paradisetax says:

          readergirl, you make a valid point. Trump not much better. Two losers…

  5. noheawilli says:

    The primary system failed us this year and gave the 2 worst candidates ever seen, you couldn’t make this stuff up its sick. But now if the Repub’s are wakeing up and looking for other options then good for them. What’s odd is that so many demo’s do not care what manner of reprobate they vote for as long as they wear a D on their cape. Wake up!
    Go Gary Johnson!

    • sarge22 says:

      “Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me.”

      Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation

    • Boots says:

      Hillary was not my candidate but she can hardly be considered a worst candidate. The Donald can be considered among the worst of the republican candidates but frankly he was the best republican running. Certainly he was better than that Cuban Canadian anchor baby. Now that would have been disgusting.

      • saveparadise says:

        I just cannot trust or embrace anyone that will do a – I’ll kiss your butt and say whatever you want to hear to make you vote for me. The camera is running so here is my best crocodile smile.

      • inverse says:

        No, Kasich would have been a better Republican nominee with Rubio as VP candidate. They would have had a much better chance of defeating Hillary than Trump who has already lost the election.

      • amela says:

        Trump endorses Ryan and McCain? What a 2 face I ain’t voting for him. Eh I wasn’t going to anyway I went to college and must have learned something.

        • sarge22 says:

          HiLIARy sure looks wrinkled today. The lies are putting serious pressure on her. Hope the meds don’t do her in. Trump has only just begun.

    • mitt_grund says:

      They say a vote for Libertarian Johnson is a vote taken from Trump.

      A vote for the Green Party woman candidate takes from Clinton.

  6. kekelaward says:

    Too bad more people disbelieve the media nowadays than the amount of people who believe them.

  7. lespark says:

    Recently, Charles Krauthammer alluded that he had no doubt some of the 30k
    emails Hillary deleted from her private e-mail server very likely had
    references to the Clinton Foundation, which would be illegal and a conflict of
    interest.

    The Clinton Foundation is “organized crime” at its finest.

    Here is a good, concise summary of how the
    Clinton Foundation works as a tax free international money laundering scheme.
    It may eventually prove to be the largest political criminal enterprise in U.S. History.

    This is a textbook case on
    how you hide foreign money sent to you and repackage it to be used for your
    own purposes. All tax free.

    Here’s how it works:

    1.
    You create a separate foreign “charity.” In this case, the Clintons set it up
    in Canada.

    2. Foreign oligarchs and governments, then
    donate to this Canadian charity. In this case, over 1,000
    did – contributing mega millions. I’m sure they did this out of the goodness
    of their hearts, and expected nothing in return. (Imagine Putin’s
    buddies waking up one morning and just deciding to send untold millions to a
    Canadian charity).

    3. The Canadian charity then bundles these
    separate donations and makes a massive donation to the Clinton
    Foundation.

    4. The Clinton Foundation and the cooperating
    Canadian charity claim Canadian law prohibits the identification of individual
    donors.

    5. The Clinton Foundation then “spends” some of this
    money for legitimate good works programs. Unfortunately, experts believe
    this is on the order of 10%. Much of the balance goes to enrich the
    Clintons, pay salaries to untold numbers of hangers on, and fund lavish
    travel, etc. Again, virtually tax free, which means you and I are subsidizing it.

    6. The Clinton Foundation, with access to the world’s best
    accountants, somehow fails to report much of this on their tax filings. They
    discover these “clerical errors” and begin the process of re-filing 5 years of
    tax returns.

    7. Net result – foreign money goes into the Clinton’s pockets tax free and
    untraceable back to the original donor. This is the textbook definition of
    money laundering. Oh, by the way, the Canadian “charity” includes as a
    principal one Frank Giustra. Google him. He is the
    guy who was central to the formation of Uranium One, the Canadian company that
    somehow acquired massive U.S. Uranium interests and then sold them to an
    organization controlled by Russia. This transaction required U.S. State
    Department approval, and guess who was Secretary of State when the approval
    was granted.

    As an aside, imagine how former Virginia Governor
    Bob McDonnell feels. That poor schlep is in jail because he and his wife took
    $165,000 in gifts and loans for doing minor favors for a guy promoting a
    vitamin company. Not legal but not exactly putting U.S. Security at risk.

    Sarcasm aside, if you’re still not persuaded
    this was a cleverly structured way to get unidentified foreign money to the
    Clintons, ask yourself this: Why did these foreign
    interests funnel money through a Canadian charity? Why not
    donate directly to the Clinton Foundation? Better yet, why
    not donate money directly to the people, organizations and countries in need?

    This is the essence of money laundering and influence
    peddling. Now you know why Hillary’s destruction of 30,000
    e-mails was a risk she was willing to take. Bill and
    Hillary are devious, unprincipled, dishonest and criminal and they are Slick!

    Warning: They could be back in the White House in January 2017.

    Don’t let it happen.

    Remember, most people are not well informed. We must inform and educate them.

    • Ikefromeli says:

      Charles, is the Harvard trained psychiatrist who ialso just proclaimed Trump as having a clinical personality disorder and patently unfit for office—period. So, which is it??

    • keaukaha says:

      Yawn,yawn, yawn.

    • bsdetection says:

      Since you cite Charles Krauthammer as a source, consider this statement by Krauthammer, who is a board-certified psychiatrist:

      “Trump’s hypersensitivity and unedited, untempered Pavlovian responses are, shall we say, unusual in both ferocity and predictability. This is beyond narcissism. I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped schoolyard bully. I was off by about 10 years. His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value — indeed exists — only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.”

    • HanabataDays says:

      If you’re gonna reference Chuckie Cabbagepounder, at least reference his MOST RECENT column.

      http://wapo.st/2aZ8h5e

    • creative721 says:

      @Charles: So you mean like most Mega Churches that collect Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a year to enrich themselves on the backs of their members? LOL!

    • HawaiiCheeseBall says:

      Consider the source les

    • yhls says:

      Good work. Misinformed and/or brainwashed sheeple demand to know what Hillary and the Clintons have done wrong that’s so wrong. The Clinton Foundation is a farce and a perfect example of their insatiable greed for riches and power. And they have gotten and are getting away with it.

    • Kealaula says:

      There’s no evidence of that.

      Trump however conducts “fundraisers” for charities for vets and keeps ALL of the money until he’s practically forced by relentless journalists inquiring about it.

      He gives very very little, over his whole life, to anyone else. He’s a selfish greedy ignorant arrogant gasbag hothead who can barely keep one thought in his head, certainly not one that isn’t about himself. Those few thoughts he does have rolling around up there that bump into each other result in statements such as his assertion to George Stephanopolis: (New York Times July 31 David Sanger and Maggie Haberman)
      “He’s not going into Ukraine, O.K., just so you understand,” Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, said when the issue came up. “He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want.”

      “Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?” Mr. Stephanopoulos interrupted.

      “O.K., well, he’s there in a certain way,” Mr. Trump replied. “But I’m not there. You have Obama there. And frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama with all the strength that you’re talking about and all of the power of NATO and all of this. In the meantime, he’s going away. He take — takes Crimea.”

      Interpreting Mr. Trump’s statements — what he understands about the current status of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, and how it would change in a Trump administration — is difficult given the fractured nature of the exchange. But they were significant because Mr. Trump has seemingly embraced Mr. Putin, repeatedly called for better relations with Russia and shown an unwillingness to condemn Mr. Putin for his aggressive actions against Russia’s neighbors and its crackdowns on freedoms at home.”

      • sarge22 says:

        The Twitter hashtag #HillaryAccomplishments went viral on the social media network Thursday and became the No. 1 trending topic.

        The responses, some funny and some scorching Clinton, include:

        Lying about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia to impress voters
        Theft and deception
        Being the most corrupt politician ever, and yet Americans will still be stupid enough to vote for her
        Evading prosecution by the FBI
        Being a world-class liar
        Great job at covering up [allegations of] Bill Clinton’s rape
        244 days without holding a press conference
        First woman to delete 33,000 emails in one sitting
        Raising hundreds of millions of dollars for Haiti relief and keeping 90 percent of it for herself
        Being responsible for 4 dead in Benghazi
        68% of Americans say she’s untrustworthy
        Convincing Democrats she didn’t push NAFTA, which cost 1,000,000 Americans their jobs
        Hired the woman who was exposed for rigging the primary election against Bernie
        Avoiding scrutiny by the completely unbiased press
        Able to castrate tall FBI directors with a single phone call
        Taking money from foreign governments in exchange for favors that go against American interests
        Making Democrats believe she stands for LGBT rights while importing homophobic Muslim refugees
        Keeping minorities dependent on government assistance so they’ll vote Democrat
        Viewing rape & harassment victims as liars unworthy of being heard
        Armed and funded Syrian rebels, calling them “moderates”
        Watergate chief counsel fired her at age 27. She was blacklisted
        Convincing zombie Democrats that Trump is the one who’s unfit
        Stole the Democratic Party nomination through unjust means
        Manipulating black people and minorities for votes
        Successfully convinced the Russians to give her millions for 20 percent of USA uranium
        Monica Lewinsky is one person Hillary Clinton didn’t get killed
        She’s managed to stay out of prison

        Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/08/here-they-are-35-of-hillarys-biggest-accomplishments/#2ak9AxHzvHVuoCe6.99

  8. st1d says:

    always said, trump is one dimensional. the best hope for the republicans was a brokered election that nominated another candidate.

    neither party, democrat or republican, had the courage to nominate alternate candidates for president.

  9. Boots says:

    The poor Donald. He frankly had no business running for president. He did prevent the republican party from nominating some bum who could stand a chance of winning. Remember GW? Came in and promptly undid everything Clinton did and soon we had 9/11. So thank you Donald.

    While Hillary is not my candidate, I am looking forward to the Clinton’s returning to the White House.

  10. lespark says:

    The Clinton Spintron continues.The FBI said I told the truth?
    Whoever votes for her must be just as crooked.

    • magicman1433 says:

      …and whoever votes for T-rump must be just as stupid and delusional as he is…

    • HanabataDays says:

      Whoever votes for the Drumpfster must be just as big an inveterate liar.

      Did I say “inveterate”? Gee, maybe I meant “invertebrate”.

    • creative721 says:

      @lespark: Did you ever think that maybe people that aren’t voting for Trump are voting for another candidate because they don’t want a crazy dictator holding the office of President of the United States? I personally don’t like Clinton or Sanders either, but basically it becomes a game of pick your poison since all of the candidates suck this year. LOL!

  11. Waokanaka says:

    He’s gonna lose, he’s gonna lose SOOO big, believe me, believe me…………..
    Gonna get slaughtered by Hillary, the biggest liar to run for President, believe me,believe me !!!

    • thos says:

      To save your self from being overwhelmed by a sudden tsunami of shame, grief and embarrassment in early November, you might be wise to start practicing saying now: “President-Elect Trump”.

      The more the “news” media savage Don Trump, the more resolute his backers are to see that these media grifters do NOT prevail, that they understand this time around we will not be played for credulous marks as in the past.

      • gmejk says:

        How is the media “savaging” Donald Trump? He milked it for all he could, providing the sound bites, the insults (crooked, lying, wimp) and with all the elegance of a WWF title bout. He got more coverage than all the candidates, Dem and Repub, combined. Now that he’s putting his foot in his mouth daily with his his stupidity it’s the media’s fault? Gimme a break.

      • Ikefromeli says:

        Wow, I thought you were just marginal thinker that is covertly racist, but you are also a comedian and a magician….

  12. yhls says:

    It’s amazing how one-sided and irreparably biased the liberal news media has become. Freedom of the press was supposed to ensure that the people had access to the news — both sides, for better or worse. Not today. It’s just one side: liberal. End of story. They continue to spin their propaganda by quoting statistics compiled from pro-liberal sources and call that news. What a travesty.

  13. Maipono says:

    Really amazing how much the AP wants such a weak candidate as HilLIARy win by bashing Trump as much as possible. HilLIARy should get a bounce after the corrupt Democrat Convention, but you would think that there goes the whole election. Admittedly, Trump is trying his best to lose the election, but even then, the weak HilLIARy is only ahead by single digits in some polls. She must not win, she will continue the policies of the terrible President Obama, further weakening America, surrendering our autonomy. As flawed as Trump is he is still our best hope to correct the mistakes of the Obama/HilLIARy administration.

  14. mctruck says:

    The word is, the true indicator or who is favored to win will be how the polls lean come the middle of August.

  15. Ronin006 says:

    Beware of looking down into the Trump Crater created by the news media based on the latest poll, because that glow you see at the bottom is going to rise to the top and erupt like nothing seen before.

  16. lespark says:

    Crooked Hillary might be the next POTUS but she isn’t going to Heaven.

    • HawaiiCheeseBall says:

      Geez Les, things have gotten so bad for you that now you have to opine on who actually goes to heaven. I wonder if there’s room in heaven for someone who got married three times, filed for bankruptcy multiple times while not paying his contractors and vendors, got caught lying multiple times during his campaign, and has a knack for attacking minorities judges and women.

  17. wrightj says:

    Might as well not have the general election; we all know who’s going to win anyway.

  18. lespark says:

    I , ah, um, ah, ah well, I Um, ah, ah, well, ah, um, ah, in a interview today regarding emails.

  19. Ikefromeli says:

    Most politicians seek approval. But Trump lives for the adoration. He doesn’t even try to hide it, boasting incessantly about his crowds, his standing ovations, his TV ratings, his poll numbers, his primary victories. The latter are most prized because they offer empirical evidence of how loved and admired he is.

    Trump’s greatest success — normalizing the abnormal — is beginning to dissipate. Prized also because, in our politics, success is self-validating. A candidacy that started out as a joke, as a self-aggrandizing exercise in xenophobia, struck a chord in a certain constituency and took off. The joke was on those who believed that he was not a serious man and therefore would not be taken seriously. They — myself emphatically included — were wrong.

    Winning — in ratings, polls, and primaries — validated him. Which brought further validation in the form of endorsements from respected and popular Republicans. Chris Christie was first to cross the Rubicon. Ben Carson then offered his blessings, such as they are. Newt Gingrich came aboard to provide intellectual ballast. Although tepid, the endorsements by Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were further milestones in the normalization of Trump. But this may all now be jeopardized by the Gold Star gaffe. (Remember: A gaffe in Washington is when a politician inadvertently reveals the truth, especially about himself.)

    It has put a severe strain on the patched-over relationship between the candidate and both Republican leadership and Republican regulars. Trump’s greatest success — normalizing the abnormal — is beginning to dissipate. When a Pulitzer Prize–winning liberal columnist (Eugene Robinson) and a major conservative foreign-policy thinker and former speechwriter for George Shultz under Ronald Reagan (Robert Kagan) simultaneously question Trump’s psychological stability, indeed sanity, there’s something going on (as Trump would say).

    The dynamic of this election is obvious. As in 1980, the status quo candidate for a failed administration is running against an outsider. The stay-the-course candidate plays his/her only available card — charging that the outsider is dangerously out of the mainstream and temperamentally unfit to command the nation.

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438692/donald-trump-gold-star-family-can-trump-cross-fitness-threshold

    Buanahahahahahahahhahahah…

    • sarge22 says:

      No doubt, you’ve seen the documentary or read Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash. The latest edition, Clinton Cash: A Graphic Novel (Yes, it’s all still true.), should be the final nail in the Clintons’ overflowing coffin of corruption. The book brought the evidence, and the movie has been watched more than two million times. The graphic novel, now available at Amazon and other retailers, brings the story of corruption to life by delving into the Clintons’ systematic and lucrative schemes with fantastic art and a huge dose of humor.
      Chuck Dixon and Brett R. Smith tell the story of Clinton Cash in a completely new, compelling way. It’s a testament to how powerful a message can be when backed with A-list talent. Everyone involved on the creative team has worked in the comic book industry for years, including the big two. Marvel and DC Comics. In addition to Smith and Dixon, others on the creative team include Sergio Cariello, Don Hudson, Graham Nolan, Paul Rivoche and Taylor Esposito. Be sure to see their bios at the end of the book and support their other works. You’ll be blown away by their experience and be grateful they had the courage to work on this project.

  20. Lindall says:

    Hah, way to go voters. Keep it up! Good job.

  21. 808Cindy says:

    Most of us enjoy watching a BULLY being taken down and humiliated! Justice!

    • sarge22 says:

      Most of us enjoy watching an underdog surviving personal attacks by the BULLIES and rising to victory. It ain’t over til November..MLB announces postseason schedule, World Series bleeds into November

  22. llpof says:

    There is a theory that Trump and Hillary conspired on a plan that Trump run for president to mess with the Republicans and help Hillary. A short while ago he was ahead in the polls, but instead of pressing his advantage, he sabotaged his own campaign, handing the lead back to Hillary. I would like to think this theory is true and Trump is actually a brilliant actor instead of a heartless, bullying buffoon and narcissist, or agent of Putin.

  23. lespark says:

    Hillary today touted her time in Legal Service.
    Here is a fact check.
    Bill says: “President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its chairman.”
    The facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill’s support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter’s choice to be chairman.
    Slippery Hillary. She’ll do anything and change nothing. Obama 2008.

  24. den says:

    so much hostility…

  25. 64hoo says:

    don’t believe the polls the liberal press is spinning lies again, they are scared of trump, he is doing fine.

  26. Blunt says:

    Trump does care if he wins or loses. He loves free publicity and is getting huge tax deductions. What did PT Barnum say?

  27. Ikefromeli says:

    There’s no longer any doubt that the party conventions have shifted the presidential election substantially toward Hillary Clinton. She received a larger bounce from her convention than Donald Trump got from his, but Trump has continued to poll so poorly in state and national surveys over the past two days that his problems may be getting worse.

    The recent Fox News, Marist College and NBC News/Wall Street Journal national polls show Trump trailing Clinton by 9 to 14 percentage points, margins that would make for the largest general election blowout since 1984 if they held. Clinton’s numbers in those polls are on the high end of what we’ve seen lately — Marist, for instance, has generally had a Clinton-leaning house effect in its polls this year. By contrast, a series of polls released earlier in the week generally put Clinton’s advantage at 5 to 8 percentage points.

    The new polls are noteworthy, however, because they postdate the earlier surveys — Marist’s poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday, for instance. That opens up the possibility that the spiral of negative stories for Trump, such as his criticism of the family of a Muslim-American soldier killed in action and his renewed feud with GOP leadership, are deepening his problems above and beyond Clinton’s convention bounce. Not only have Clinton’s numbers risen since the Democratic National Convention, but Trump’s numbers have fallen back into the mid- to high 30s in polls that include third-party candidates. And Trump’s favorability ratings, following modest improvement after his convention, are now about as bad as they’ve ever been.

    Meanwhile, polls of Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — three swing states with demographics that, in theory, could be friendly to Trump — showed Clinton with leads of 9 percentage points, 11 points and 15 points, respectively. Those are big leads for Clinton, but they shouldn’t be all that surprising: The margins look a lot like the ones by which Barack Obama defeated John McCain in those states in 2008, an election he won by 7.3 percentage points overall. According to our now-cast, Clinton would defeat Trump by a similar margin nationally, 7.9 percentage points, in a hypothetical election held today. Compared with that new, higher baseline for Clinton, a Suffolk poll showing her “only” 4 points ahead of Trump in Florida, which would have looked like an excellent result for her a week ago, is middling.

    Overall, the now-cast estimates that Clinton’s electoral vote total, in an election held today, would be similar to the 365 electoral votes that Obama won in 2008. Although she’d be unlikely to carry Indiana, which Obama surprisingly won in 2008, she could make up for it by winning Arizona or Georgia, states that the now-cast has as tossups. Utah might even be competitive in an election held today — and the now-cast thinks that Texas would produce a closer finish than Pennsylvania.

    538- Nate Silver

  28. Ikefromeli says:

    Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday reversed himself and said there was no “top secret” video that showed the U.S. giving $400 million in cash to Iranians, after spending two days claiming to have seen the footage and mocking the the Obama administration

    WSJ….not a liberal rag.

  29. Ikefromeli says:

    Sure, Donald Trump had a disastrous week on the campaign trail, but at least he may have made history: Longtime political veterans say they cannot recall a candidate who has similarly and needlessly damaged himself quite so badly.

    “I have been around politics for 40 years, as a journalist and a participant, and I have never seen anything like this last week,” said David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s longtime aide and now a CNN commentator.

    It’s not just Democrats who are amazed by the collapse. Underscoring the extent to which Trump’s campaign has bewildered political professionals, Republicans are also shaking their heads at their candidate’s indifference to basic campaign norms ― a strategy that worked in the primaries, but is proving disastrous in the election’s closing months.

    “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything quite like this,” said David Kochel, a former strategist for Mitt Romney and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s presidential campaigns. “To have a candidate who reflexively takes the bait on any perceived slight, picks needless fights with his own party after the convention, constantly punches down and obsesses with his own cable news coverage is something we’ve never seen before.”

    Trump has always been an asymmetrical candidate, flouting conventional wisdom in favor of a political style befitting a free-wheeling TV showman. But his past week has been a show featuring mainly self-immolation. He suggested that a Gold Star mother was not allowed to speak because of her Muslim faith, refused to endorse the speaker of the House ― a member of his own party ― for re-election, placed the onus on resolving the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace on the recipient of the harassment, and concocted, apparently out of whole cloth, a video of money being airlifted to Iran.

    David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, called these moments “being in the barrel”: a point in a campaign where a candidate simply cannot get beyond a cascade of bad press and controversy.

    But to apply that aphorism to Trump’s past week might not do the barrel justice, veterans of past campaigns argue. Stuart Stevens, a top aide to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and a frequent Trump critic, noted that other candidates have imploded before. No one, he argues, has done it quite as spectacularly and with such a large potential for damage as Trump.

    “Donald Trump is Todd Akin. He is Richard Mourdock and Sharron Angle,” he said, referring to three infamous Republican Senate candidates who committed fatal verbal miscues. “But that is really not fair to Akin, Mourdock and Angle. They weren’t nuts. They had political views and others that made them unelectable. With Donald Trump, it is instability. He is an absurd candidate for president. He is a neutron bomb that has gone off in the Republican Party that is destroying anyone near him.”

  30. Ikefromeli says:

    The all-together bad businessman Trump, who has lied about everything in business world—
    see:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/opinion/sunday/trump-the-bad-bad-businessman.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

  31. Shotzy says:

    I’ll take Trump any day over the last person on earth we need as President. Beholden is the nicest word that describes her to a T. There are many others that cannot be mentioned here. She is a train-wreck, period. ABC 2016

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