“There’s a natural window to communicate in late spring before people tune out for the summer, and presidential [campaigns] have to lay their message groundwork in that limited time,” said David Cohen, a leading member of Barack Obama’s field team in 2008. “But there’s a confluence of events that heighten the opportunity for the Clinton camp: Trump squandered his moment right after he clinched [the GOP nomination], the party is in turmoil so he’s seriously lacking allies, he’s got no general election message and can’t seem to even do message basics, organizationally he’s months behind in building battleground state infrastructure, and the latest finance reports are devastating.”
.. “If your own very good brain is your top consultant, I suppose the unanimous opinion of a diverse group of economists does not count for much,” Brown said of Trump’s wish to return to the gold standard.
New anti-Trump movement grows to include hundreds of GOP delegates
But several delegates said they were buoyed by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “it is not my job to tell delegates what to do, what not to do, or to weigh in on things like that. They write the rules. They make their decisions.”
A win-win strategy for Trump and the GOP
A financial inducement might help. Because the candidate will not release his tax returns or other relevant documents, we don’t know to what extent his candidacy may have been motivated by business troubles — by a desire to run up the value of his brand. But surely there is room for creativity in designing some long-term contracts between the Republican Party and Trump Hotels, Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka.
.. Anyone who has watched the candidate at a rally understands that what this campaign has really brought Trump is what he craves most: an audience.
.. Partly it might require giving him his own radio or television show. In fact, Rupert Murdoch might have to give him a television network.
Four Words: We have no Choice
Of all the words that Donald J. Trump flings into the world, the four most Trumpian are “We have no choice.” It’s a favorite phrase, and one that he used last week in response to the attack at Pulse, a gay dance club in Orlando,
.. The phrase is a dismissal of rational discussion and an intimation of the doom that awaits if Trump is not heeded.
He apparently meant that America cannot endure as a nation of immigrants, or as one that respects the rights of immigrants or even those of their American-born children.
.. Ryan certainly did not believe that helping Hillary Clinton win was an option.
.. The idea that there is no choice has always been an alibi for those who in some sense have given up on democracy—whether to justify a decision to declare a state of emergency or to just stay home from the polls—or on the rule of law.