Sad! https://t.co/103PFRKaz2 pic.twitter.com/NzKNNfzSJj
— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) June 8, 2016
This wouldn’t be a problem for Trump if his $10 billion personal fortune weren’t fake. https://t.co/dGufp8qL4v
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 8, 2016
Anybody got an anvil handy? The title is from MSNBC:
… Republicans working to elect Trump describe a bare-bones effort debilitated by infighting, a lack of staff to carry out basic functions, minimal coordination with allies and a message that’s prisoner to Trump’s momentary whims.
“Bottom line, you can hire all the top people in the world, but to what end? Trump does what he wants,” a source close to the campaign said.
In reporting on Trump’s operation, NBC News talked to three Trump aides and two sources working closely alongside the campaign, all of whom requested anonymity in order speak freely.
Veteran operatives are shocked by the campaign’s failure to fill key roles. There is no communications team to deal with the hundreds of media outlets covering the race, no rapid response director to quickly rebut attacks and launch new ones, and a limited cast of surrogates who lack a cohesive message…
Making things difficult is the ongoing rivalry between Trump’s top adviser Paul Manafort, who was brought in to professionalize the campaign in March, and longtime staff like campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and press secretary Hope Hicks, who is essentially the lone media contact for reporters…The lack of organization is becoming more and more glaring as Trump faces a tough stretch that’s included a fight over his donations to veterans, renewed scrutiny of fraud allegations against Trump University and a withering offensive from Hillary Clinton over his fitness to be president. In each case, Trump has been left to respond almost entirely on his own via social media and interviews, with little obvious support from his campaign, his party or his top backers…
If @realDonaldTrump loses by 20 points and wipes out @GOP majorities he's still a billionaire. Scores of electeds r just out of work losers
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) June 8, 2016
Assuming he's, you know, an actual billionaire. https://t.co/XUozUuXZF2
— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) June 8, 2016
I'm getting the sense that @realDonaldTrump is jealous of how much money the Clintons have earned.
— (((Daniel Drezner))) (@dandrezner) June 8, 2016
Trump to Dudebros: "We welcome you with open arms." He even has a "movement."
— Al Giordano (@AlGiordano) June 8, 2016
And it’s a big ‘un!
@jbendery nothing new happening with "Trumps Wall" pic.twitter.com/UA2h4Ss4HG
— HICKORY (@claydirtman) June 5, 2016
J R in WV
Good Morning, Anne Laurie! G Morning All!
Woke up to use the facility, thought I would see who won CA… Do we know who won California yet? All I could learn was that voting was F’ed up in CA which usually means big turnout, which is usually a good thing.
Splitting Image
I have no objection whatsoever to Trump not filling key roles, failing to stay on message, or not cutting his campaign a cheque from his non-existent billions.
Anne Laurie
@J R in WV: Google sez 74% reporting, 56.6% for HRClinton. The vote-by-mail people seem to have gone more heavily in her favor (no surprise) because Bernie’s been gaining all night. Not enough to give him a win, I suspect.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Anne Laurie: Bernie’s been gaining in percentages, but not in absolute number of votes, where the difference has consistently been about 400,000 all night. That doesn’t constitute gaining on Clinton.
Damien
You know what sucks, though? I can just see some assholes, when Hillary wins, saying “it doesn’t count, she didn’t face off against a real opponent!” Especially if Trump’s broke and his campaign is just an absolute shitshow through to November, there’s going to be a real push of this meme *coughcough*Bernie*coughcough* that if she has to fight a serious Republican, then she’ll lose.
I would like to offer a pre-emptive fuck that.
Rathskeller
@Anne Laurie: The people at Benchmark Pol (startup? kickstarter?) said around 9pm that the margins from mail in were so high that Bernie would have to do better than 62% for the same-day voters in order for him to be able to win.
AnderJ
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Indeed. If that difference holds up (and why not), Clinton will end up with about 55% of the vote. Wise choice of Clinton to invest time in California, while Trump was busy demolishing himself
Betty Cracker
Saw a few clips from Trump’s speech on CNN and MSNBC. The yapping head consensus seems to be that this was a spiffed up, teleprompter-reading Trump doing his best “presidential” imitation, but he sounded like a slightly more stilted version of a puffed-up bully to me. Trump promised to deliver a “major speech, probably on Monday” attacking “the Clintons.” My guess is it will be a regurgitation of discredited Ed Klein fanfic.
@Damien: I’ll second your preemptive “fuck that.”
Rathskeller
@Damien: This will likely happen. The more important thing about the anticipated GOP loss in 2016 is that it helps to fix a long-term aversion to the GOP among the young and among people of color. Sure, I hope that it’s so bad that we flip the House & Senate; but more realistically, I hope for a longer-term alignment against the GOP, in the same way that the Republicans in California started their march to irrelevance by passing Prop 187. Although it passed, the event electrified hispanics in the state, and the GOP is an irreversible spiral here.
TriassicSands
Wow, something good could come out of the Trumpocalyse. If he loses, and loses hugely, and has a gigantic deficit in resources, maybe, just maybe, what is left of the Republican Party (namely a couple hundred representatives and senators) might get behind real campaign finance reform. Admittedly, Republicans have a terrible record of looking at empirical data and subsequently adjusting their policies to conform to reality, but the only thing that seems to mean anything to them (aside from all the bedrock principles they don’t care about) is winning elections. Imagine if Trump had a $500 million dollar deficit to the loathed Hillary Clinton. Would that make a dent in the helmet of idiocy that virtually every Republican today wears even more religiously than their flag lapel pin? I have my doubts, but I hope we can put it to the test.
The downside of that? Having to listen to Donald Trump whining endlessly about how the whole system was rigged against him. He will become the greatest victim in the history of victimhood.
Splitting Image
@Damien:
The Republicans had two years to find a better candidate. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.
Besides, they spent the first half of the primary season bragging about their derp… that is, deep bench. Obviously the free market allowed the cream to rise to the top.
Loviatar
This is so good.
Inside the bitter last days of Bernie’s revolution (Politico)
So its not the comic book guy but Bernie himself.
h/t VOX
Raven
I suggest folks don’t pay a lot of attention to “what some assholes say”.
rikyrah
As far as California Senate Race goes-when I went to sleep it was going to be Harris v. Sanchez : are they still the last 2 standing?
TriassicSands
@Damien:
I wouldn’t worry about that. If Clinton wins there will no end to the negativity. Every one of the HRC haters will have their own pet reason why her victory wasn’t legitimate. Two elections and almost eight years later Barack Obama still isn’t legitimate. If wingers write the history books, Obama will be the worst president ever.
Worse will be if Clinton loses. Then, we will not only have Trump as president, which is unimaginably horrible to contemplate and experience, but we’ll have to listen to the die-hard Sanders supporters whine endlessly about how Bernie would have crushed Trump. What will never be measured is the effect that five months of the right hammering on Sanders for being a socialist would have had on his campaign and electoral prospects. I’ve always felt that Sanders would appear much stronger before getting the nomination. Think of what the right did by Swiftboating Kerry, when there was nothing behind their claims. In Sanders case, it would be hard to deny he’s a socialist, when that’s what he has called himself.
TriassicSands
@Splitting Image:
You’re right, we should never forget that this was the “deepest bench” the Republicans have had in living memory. All the pundits told us so. Too bad they opted for the bat boy. Or is it the guy selling peanuts in right field? Or more like the POS outside the stadium scalping tickets.
Betty Cracker
Democrats (CA) – Precincts Reporting 82.22%
Hillary Clinton 1,685,352 56.3%
Bernie Sanders 1,277,949 42.7%
And FINALLY CNN calls the race for Clinton!
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: According to CNN, yes.
Baud
@Loviatar: I saw that too. That said, it’s Politico and Bernie’s aides also have in interest in covering their own asses, so I’m going to withhold judgment.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Oh good. I’m glad that’s not going to linger too long. It’s going to be an interesting week.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I am also skeptical of anything that comes out of Politico and mindful that the aides are in CYA mode, but some of the allegations seem borne out by the campaign’s actions. For example, the insistence that the DNC remove Malloy and Frank as co-chairs from the rules committee is clearly based on personal animus. What a petty thing to squander limited political capital on!
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Ethan AllenBernie Sanders and the Green MountainBoysNoise.Baud
@Betty Cracker: My guess is that there is plenty of blame to go around.
TriassicSands
@Betty Cracker:
Historically, 55% has been considered a landslide. I hope her percentage lead holds.
It’s also good that Clinton won four out of six primaries on the last big day of the campaign. The long string of Sanders victories didn’t look good even if it wasn’t cutting into her lead in a meaningful way. With the demographics of DC, I would expect her to win big there.
4.34% of Montana Democrats had “No Preference” in the primary election. Really? As hard as it can be to get Democrats to the polls, 4.34% of Montana Democrats got up off the couch, well to the polls, and cast a vote for no one? Interesting. (Or mailed in a ballot with their preference of no one.)
NotMax
@Baud
“If only that fershlugginer candidate hadn’t foiled our cunning plan.”
Loviatar
@Baud:
I’m a big believer in, you’re known by the company you keep. Bernie Sanders couldn’t get his Congressional colleagues to support him after being in Congress for over 25 years (16 as a Rep, 9 as a Sen) in fact the rumors were that he was petty and difficult to work with. Well guess what, now that his campaign is leaking information it comes out, he is petty and difficult to work with.
He is who he is and at 74 he is not going to change.
dogwood
@Loviatar:
I’ve watched this campaign very closely, and it is obvious that Bernie isn’t much liked or respected by his colleagues. And it really isn’t surprising. But what people never bring up is the fact that Bernie doesn’t seem to like or respect many people in return. What you put out is what comes back to you.
trnc
@Damien:
Yup, I’ve been saying the same thing. No margin will be enough for the saboteurs to recognize a mandate. My only hope is that he brings down enough republicans to flip congress, but the house is still going to be tough.
Aimai
@TriassicSands: if their response to the politico scrutiny is any example Sanders supporters would have rioted in the streets or melted down into sobbing heaps at the kind of brutal coverage hillary has received for one day of her thirty years in politics.
Applejinx
@Damien: She did too. Us Bernie supporters fought way harder and better than any stinking Republican. That was always the real fight and she beat Bernie in every sense (probably won’t even end up needing superdelegates). It doesn’t need to be a landslide blowout, in fact it’s better that it wasn’t because it shows it was a real fight and never, ever a ‘coronation’ in spite of anything the mainstream media wanted to say.
It doesn’t matter if the Republicans fall apart. They deserve to fall apart after this shitshow. The real fight was for the Democratic nom.
Terry chay
@Aimai: 40 years.
@Damien: of that I have no doubt. But you are being uncharitable to Bernie and his supporters. He will eventually do a half-hearted endorsement of Clinton and then retire in his cushy position as senate chair of appropriations, the vast majority of his supporters will be With Her with a few dead Enders abstaining or looking for the next candidate they can latch onto and throw bombs in the name of.
Applejinx
@TriassicSands: Oh, he totally is, and that’s why it’s a mercy he didn’t win.
It’s one thing to accurately call out the problems with 2016-grade freemarket capitalism. He’s been right all along, that our economic system is catastrophically bad and ready to collapse (indeed, it is already collapsing in functional terms).
It’s QUITE another to call yourself a socialist and vow that you’re going to jack up everybody’s taxes so that we can have schools and roads and stuff, after decades of propaganda in the opposite direction. We need Hillary to get this stuff actually done, and she has to finesse it, which Bernie would never ever do. Someone has to lie and say that everybody will pay less taxes and the rich will earn more than they lose in their own tax hikes (worked in the 90s). Bernie would have just said it was for our own good, there would’ve been endless ‘under Trump, your taxes go down by $23’ (his go down by $230,000) and ‘under Bernie, your taxes go up by $2300’.
Ain’t nobody winning a popular election like that.
Hillary won’t be making that mistake.
Fester Addams
It is an indignity, though, that someone with as much historical significance as the first woman president of the United States has to run for the office against an incoherent bafoon.
yellowdog
@TriassicSands: DC has a lot of White millennials busy gentrifying all over the place. It may be a bit closer than you think. DC is no longer a majority Black city (Black 49%, NH White 36%, Hispanic 10%, Asian 4%).
sm*t cl*de
@Fester Addams:
Someone tell the RNC that it behooves them to come up with a more worthy opponent.
r€nato
@Applejinx: I get what you’re saying, but Hillary is not going to accomplish Bernie’s agenda by subtle, craftier means.
We’re going to get four to eight years of GOP-lite, hopefully somewhat to the left of her husband’s GOP-lite since the country has moved left somewhat in the intervening 24 years.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope that Hillary wins a big enough mandate that she uses it to cow the opposition and adopt some of Bernie’s platform as her administration’s agenda. I don’t want any more attempts to pre-emptively meet the GOP in the middle; we had nearly eight years of that with Obama. The GOP had their chance and, if anything, became more recalcitrant when extended one olive branch after another.
I’ll gladly take Hillary’s GOP-lite if it means that a pro-choice woman is appointing the next few SC justices, if it means that instead of facing a gutting of regulatory bodies and Frank-Dodd we have to instead lobby her hard to appoint tough regulators and fight against the inevitable weakening of post-2008 financial reform.
NonyNony
@r€nato: We’re going to get a continuation of Obama’s presidecy. If you think that’s GOP lite then whatever, but that’s what we’ll be getting.
It isn’t 1996 anymore. The center of the Dem coalition has shifted and Clinton seems perfectly happy to govern to that center.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TriassicSands:
It will be even more bizarre than that, If Hilary is elected she will become the Worst President EVER(tm) and we will find out Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, was sekretly a Republican all along. Everything bad is liberal and everything good is conservative in the Wing Nut mind.
Raven Onthill
(deleted pending further thought)
gratuitous
The finance chairman for the Republican Governors Association is Fred “Count the Jews” Malek?! Sweet creamery butter, there is nothing any Republican can ever do that knocks him out of the establishment once and for all.
Stan
“It is an indignity, though, that someone with as much historical significance as the first woman president of the United States has to run for the office against an incoherent bafoon.”
I look at that fact a little differently: Hillary is so formidable that no serious republican was willing to take her on. They knew (the smart ones anyway) damned well that she would be the nominee; that she’d be good at it; and that Obama would back her.
This is part of the reason why we got the GOP clown show and part of why Gauleiter Trump won.
I look forward to President Hillary, Senate MAJORITY leader Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi next year ;)
artem1s
@Stan:
I love that Hillary will, quite efficiently, show all the also-rans of the GOP how easy it is beat a buffoon if you have actual ideas and policies.
Uncle Cosmo
@dogwood: Tom Lehrer — not in a song, for once, but in the intro to a song, don’t recall which — once memorably quipped,
Neldob
It always amazes me how tribal the Repubs are, how loyalty to the party is stronger than loyalty to their country.
Carolyn Kay
@Loviatar: Or it’s the same old story of the consultants blaming the candidate so that they can move on to their next lucrative position, maybe even working for Hillary.
karen marie
@TriassicSands: What would campaign reform do for them given their shit-storm “principles” and platform?
Barry
@r€nato: “We’re going to get four to eight years of GOP-lite, hopefully somewhat to the left of her husband’s GOP-lite since the country has moved left somewhat in the intervening 24 years.”
We will get 4 years of getting a fair amount accomplished, while Greens, BernieBros and Naderitescondemn her for not getting us all Magic Unicorns.
karen marie
@gratuitous: That was my response too. Funny that he was put in charge of money given his involvement in a successfully prosecuted fraud scheme, but I guess Republicans see that as a plus.
TriassicSands
@Barry:
Oh, I don’t really think the GOP would get on board with campaign finance reform. Their record of avoiding inconvenient truths and ugly realities (like climate change, trickle down economics, and austerity leads to a health economy) is remarkably consistent. In addition, I think if Trump loses big, the GOP will disavow him, claim he never was a real Republican, and it was his own fault he didn’t have enough money.
However, if a big electoral loss (say the Dems take the presidency and the Senate and come close in the House) could ever shock them into sanity, maybe having a presidential candidate be outspent 2 or 3 to 1 would do the job. Of course the key to that is have big losses in the Senate and House; they’ll well conditioned to lose the presidency. Based on their record, it’s very unlikely, but, hey, we can hope. Remember, most Republicans probably think, or thought, that Citizens United was their ticket to eternal campaign finance dominance.
In the end, ultra-billionaire Donald Trump will just sell off one of his buildings for a few trillion dollars in the biggest real estate deal in the history of the galaxy, and fully fund his campaign leading to a 70-30 victory over Clinton. Later, he’ll slip the Mexicans the money to build the wall and then claim “See, I told you I would get them to pay for it.” Or maybe that’s just one more fantasy is the diseased mind of Trump, who knows he doesn’t have the wherewithal to finance a presidential run, and even if he did, he’s probably much too cheap to ever pay for something he could get someone else to pay for it. Besides, he may not even want to be president that much — not if he has any idea how much work it will be to delegate every function of his office to unqualified underlings who earn their jobs by kissing his butt. After all, once he’s president, he’ll undoubtedly sign the largest TV contract in the history of the universe to produce and star in a reality show filmed in the White House. The man has that much class.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Splitting Image:
They had better candidates (Bush, Rubio, Kasich, fuck, even Cruz), and the Republican base rejected them in favor of Trump. The problem isn’t the candidates; the problem was never the candidates. The problem is the Frankenstein’s monster of an ignorant and scared voting base they created by constantly yanking on its lizard brain for the past five decades.
If it wasn’t the shifty Negroes, it was the Commies, and when it stopped being the Commies, it became the Terrorists, the Gays, the Mexicans, whatever, and in their world THE SKY IS FALLING EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME. These people are being told by Fox Fucking News to be scared of their own shadows all the time.
Trump is the symptom, not the disease.