Friday talking points — GOP anti-Trump rants
This column has always loved a good rant. Most of the time, we provide our own rant at the end of the column, on a subject too big to be contained in talking points. This week, we provide a number of rants from Republicans about their very own partys presidential nominee. Yes, its only August and the Republican Party is coming apart at the seams. Which, of course, makes for great summertime reading for all!
Before we get to all the Republican-on-Republican violence, though, weve got to cast an eye over the week that was. If theres one thing that is unmistakably true about Donald Trump it is that he just cant help himself. You can read that literally nothing he seems to do ever improves his standing with the general electorate or as a metaphor for Trumps inability to stop saying silly and outrageous things in public. Either way, Trump certainly does pack a lot into a single campaign week, and can probably be expected to continue doing so right up to Election Day.
This was (as were many other previous weeks in the campaign calendar) supposed to be the week when Donald Trump successfully pivoted and turned everything around. To say that didnt happen would be an understatement. Hillary Clinton had a mini-scandal break that even involved emails, and yet it was barely a story in the political world (the emails werent all that damning, even to anti-Clinton types) because Trump was, once again, sucking up all the oxygen.
Trump started the week off with a serious, read-from-a-TelePrompTer speech on the economy. This was the big pivot, folks! Everyone look Trumps being serious. Right up until he mispronounced the word cities, inexplicably replacing the c with a t. So much for being serious.
Later in the week, Trump claimed that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton got together a few years ago and said to each other: Hey, weve got some free time, why not start a jihadist group in Iran and Syria? No, really Trump claimed both Obama and Clinton were not only founders of the Islamic State, but apparently also that the Islamic State has somehow become a sports league who hands out most valuable player awards which would, of course, go to Obama and Clinton. Got all that? When gently asked to perhaps rephrase his statement a bit, Trump (of course) declined.
Trump also proposed during the week that U.S. civilians accused of terrorism either be sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or be tried in military tribunals. This remark, while shockingly unconstitutional, kind of got lost in the whirlwind, though.
Much more attention was paid to Trump using the Second Amendment people dog-whistle to a crowd, suggesting that perhaps guns would be the best answer if President Hillary Clinton ever started trying to appoint federal judges.
Once again, any one of these statements would have been a career-ender for just about any political candidate imaginable, but then Donald Trump is beyond imaginable and always has been. Trump utterly blew his planned pivot to seriousness, pretty much all week long. He even blew a chance to rip into Clinton for having the Orlando shooters father behind her at a rally while congressional-page-enthusiast Mark Foley was sitting right behind Trump. Its like weve all fallen into a bad Hollywood script that would never have been greenlighted for a movie, or something.
While Trump continues to absolutely tank in the polls (including all of the swing states he would need to claim victory), the Republican National Committee is apparently getting a wee bit nervous. Theyre holding what is being described as a come to Jesus meeting with Trump campaign staffers today, so who knows what will happen next? Some prominent Republicans are already publicly calling for the R.N.C. to direct all its money away from Trump and instead towards desperately trying to hold onto some Senate and House seats, but well get to that in the talking points section.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clintons campaign has pulled all advertising out of Virginia and Colorado, because they consider those two swing states in the bag for Clinton. Instead, theyre expanding operations in (are you sitting down?) Arizona and Georgia. No wonder some Republicans are already darkly muttering about the impending landslide thats going to bury Trump. Hillary Clinton even wrote an op-ed for a Utah paper, a formerly reddest-of-the-red state that could also flip for her.
Team Clinton is almost gleeful in their triangulation plans, at this point. Hillary is reaching out to Republican voters everywhere, but in doing so she risks generating some backlash among progressives, who already mistrust her. But the confidence being exuded by the Clinton campaign is palpable, and today Hillary released her 2015 tax return while taunting Trump to do the same (with a new Whats he trying to hide ad).
All that, in one week. Whew! And its only August... things will undoubtedly speed up even further in the coming months. But for now, lets move right along to the awards.
Senator Bernie Sanders gets a Honorable Mention this week, for clearly denouncing the decision made this week by the Drug Enforcement Agency to keep marijuana on Schedule I, a definition that includes the phrase has no currently accepted medical use even though half of the United States have now legalized medicinal use. Sanders is also co-sponsor in the Senate of a bill that would throw the legal issue to the states once and for all. See my column from yesterday for more details about this backward-facing decision, but its good to see a politician who isnt afraid to get on the right side of history in such fashion.
But the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week goes to none other than President Obama. What with everyone intensely watching all the polling surrounding the presidential race, Obamas job approval numbers havent been in the news of late. They should be, however.
This week, on the Real Clear Politics tracking page, Obama sits at 51.9 percent approval from the public, with only 44.2 percent disapproval. Those are better numbers than hes seen since the second month of his second term, three-and-a-half years ago. Obama not only has been rising all year long, but he also got a convention bump in the polls on top of it. This should cheer up Hillary Clinton, because presidential job approval polling is very predictive of who will win in November. If Obama keeps his numbers above 50 until then as now seems entirely possible then Clinton might just be a shoo-in.
Theres a simple explanation for this trend. Its not because of some big legislative victory Obama just won in Congress (Congress has barely done anything this year). Its not because of some dramatic foreign or domestic policy win, either. Obama is rising in the publics estimation because people are now being seriously confronted with the two candidates who might be our next president. In other words, the more the public pays attention to the 2016 campaign, the better they think of the job Barack Obama is doing.
One of the most amusing moments at the Democratic National Convention was hearing, during President Obamas speech, several shouts of Four more years! (even though this is constitutionally impossible). It seems a whole lot of other people are going to miss Obama when hes gone, and his spike upwards in the polls to almost 52 percent approval wins President Obama this weeks Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week.
We almost didnt have anyone to give this weeks Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award, but one really stupid gaffe caught our eye at the last moment.
Congressman Patrick Murphy is running in the Democratic primary in Florida to be the Democrat to take on Marco Rubio. While criticizing Donald Trump (and his hatred and fear-mongering), Murphy had the following to say, to Jorge Ramos:
We are stronger as one, as a united country. Thats what makes this country so beautiful and so unique. You know, you think of the Statue of Liberty, right? And all of us.
Im an immigrant. Were all basically immigrants here. And you think of that beacon of hope, of opportunity, and Trump is tearing that apart. And that is scary to me.
Except that hes not actually an immigrant. From his own official biography page, he was born and raised in Florida, spending most of his childhood along the South Florida coast. Hes also already gotten into trouble about exaggerating his own history during his campaign which would tend to make you a lot more careful about what you say, you would think.
Reasonable people can interpret this as a weak attempt at a sweeping statement. Im an immigrant, Murphy says, in the same spirit that we were all Charlie Hebdo, in other words. Most Americans are, Murphy might have said, if you go back far enough in their family, immigrants. Unfortunately he didnt say that. He said Im an immigrant when he most decidedly is not one. In Florida, where a lot of people care about that particular distinction.
This was a stumble, not an enormous fall. As we said, it almost doesnt even reach the level of the MDDOTW award, but for his political misstatement he was more disappointing than any other Democrat this week, so we decided to go ahead and give Murphy the award anyway.
It is extraordinarily rare for prominent members of a political party to publicly denounce their chosen presidential nominee. Its so rare in normal elections that it becomes big news immediately. This election, however, it has become almost commonplace for Republicans to repudiate Donald Trumps candidacy. As a mark of how commonplace it is, we had not just one scathing indictment of Trump and his campaign this week, but three. Huffington Pos
