Learning from a Local Issue : Alan DeBoer versus Tonia Moro

A closer look at a State Senate campaign in southern Oregon.  Upstate money to burn.   A lesson on fouling your own reputation.

Local governments work in part because citizens, both Democrats and Republicans who fit a profile of civic minded concerned citizens willing to get things done, participate for little or no pay out of a sense of civic pride and a personal desire to provide leadership.  

There is an disconnect that shows up in Republican politics.  I observed publicly active Republicans who would cheer a presidential candidate who says that regulations are bad and that government is the problem with America.   But the next evening he or she sit might sit in a long boring City Council meeting and review and pass a city budget and after hearings agree to a city regulation to ban use of leaf blowers or lawn mowers after ten p.m. 

The Republican ideology of government as ham-handed tyrant applies to the federal government.  Many Republicans lead the government at the local level and work well with Democrats to do so.

From one of her TV ads: hard worker 

The Southern Oregon campaign for State Senator.   The sudden death of State Senator Alan Bates, a Democrat, caused a vacancy and a sudden need for an election to fill it.   The active Democratic Party participants picked Tonia Moro, an attorney, as their candidate.  She has been active in Party work and was a natural pick.  She has a political profile that the Sanders-oriented activists liked.  She has been generous with her time and energy on civic improvements of the sort Democrats like: a bus system and libraries.

Her opponent, chosen without observable opposition, was Republican Alan DeBoer, a long time civic minded car dealer, active in helping the local historical society, the YMCA, and a leader in the liberal college town of Ashland as a member of the School Board and on the City Council, then Mayor.  

DeBoer at a nonprofit fundraising event

He fits the profile perfectly for the civic minded Republican I referenced as the kind of person who makes local government work.  So, too, does Tonia Moro the civic minded Democrat.

Their contest is confounded by the fact that Alan DeBoer has the resume of a Democrat--pro-public-service in the region's most liberal city.  The two candidates generally support the same kinds of things: good schools, transit systems, libraries.  They disagree on ballot measure, measure 97, a 2.5% tax on sales by publicly owned corporations.  

In a September post I explain the tax in detail:
 Click Here for the blog post on Measure 97

The contest is also confounded by the fact that the two state parties care deeply about the partisan affiliation of the seat.  Each party is sending money to try to win the open seat.  So there are hundreds of thousands of dollars available for advertising--far beyond the amounts that could be raised locally, especially for the Democrat.   DeBoer's campaign had raised over $400,000 as of a week ago and Moro's nearly as much.

So many resources, so many opportunities to go for the kill.

Tonia Moro launched a negative ad on TV.  I have personally seen it about 6 times in the past week on TV news shows, so I assume it is a big ad buy.   Here it is: 
 Corrected Link to see the ad

How the ad begins: Table Rock and to the right, my farm.

By the low standards of presidential ads this ad is not all that ugly. But the ad takes place in a context.   Alan DeBoer does not present like a Tea Party talk radio nihilist; quite the opposite.   He presents like the bi-partisan cooperator similar was the tone the late Senator Bates projected.  (As does Moro.)   It characterized DeBoer in a way that does not particularly fit his public reputation as a civic do-gooder and philanthropist.  It shows him to be a self-interested abuser of the public trust, under the influence of his campaign contributors.   DeBoer has independent wealth.  The charge seems misplaced.  The direction of the ad seems more to address a typecast stock villain rather than DeBoer's actual political vulnerabilities.  It would be easier to characterize him as yet another rich white male Republican seeking office, a man whose situation makes him hopelessly out of touch with the problems of struggling workers.  After all, a man who can give away thousands of dollars to charities is unlike most people.  How can he represent us if he isn't really one of us?   That argument might or might not work, but it would have the solid grounding of being based on the reality of his background and current situation.  Instead, the ad attempts to show him to be self-interested--an implausible case to make given his public life.

The ad has drawn attention because a negative ad of this kind was avoided by Senator Bates in his own previous campaigns and Moro presents herself as his successor.   Bates' opponents in 3 previous campaign had run very negative campaigns against him, campaigns that in each case backfired on Bates' opponent because they appeared so personal and excessive.  Bates' Republican opponents claimed in the aftermath that the ads were on their behalf, yes, but were actually prepared by the upstate Republican caucus, not them, and they tried to disassociate themselves from them.   The local newspaper said that one of his opponents' campaign carried "sleaze" and it "sullied the reputation" of both the target and the supposed beneficiary, concluding the campaign was "beneath contempt".   Click here for perhaps the strongest local editorial I have ever encountered:   A tough editorial

Moro's ad stepped into this context and is getting instant criticism, partly because it is negative but more because the ad attempts to conflate two actions DeBoer took as mayor with destruction of southern Oregon livability, the ad starting with an iconic view of the locality, the Rogue River coming upon the Table Rocks.  Moro's ad does not actually criticize either mayoral decision on its merits--a downtown multiuse building with affordable housing and a plan to use warm phosphate rich wastewater for irrigation rather than build a $30 million treatment facility.  The ad associates those actions, however, with getting campaign contributions from "developers", with an implication of there being a sleazy connection and an implication that developments under consideration had some relationship to the natural beauty of the Rogue River and Table Rock, 25 miles away from Ashland.   

The ad is generating negative comments from Democrats, including ones who attended a fundraiser at my home on behalf of Tonia.  The ad disclaimer does not reference an upstate Democratic caucus source.   The ad is directly from the Moro campaign.  

(Full disclosure:   I attempt for this blog to be objective rather than partisan, but it is true that I usually vote for Democrats, as well as in favor of tax levies for schools, libraries, and transit districts.  I held a fundraising event for Tonia Moro at my home in September.  I also donated $2,500 to her campaign.  Therefore, some fraction of the money that pays for this ad comes from me.)

The history of campaigns in this state senate district is for candidates to have access to so much money that it gets them in trouble.  The temptation is to make something out of nothing, and to run as an advertisement something they would not personally stand on the courthouse steps and say in their own voices.  TV ads appear to have distance and anonymity, so they allow candidates make put things side by side in an tv ad--creating a mood and message--that they would not choose to defend as a point by point argument they take full ownership of and stand behind.   Such ads can backfire.   

In 2006, 2010, and 2014 the repetitional damage was done to the Republican attacker.   This time the damage is to Moro.   The local newspaper endorsed her opponent and voiced something being said by many others to me, that her ad is misleading and her decision to go negative with such an ad is "dismaying."  From the Mail Tribune newspaper:  DeBoer Endorsement Editorial

The story is not over yet, nor is the election.  Alan DeBoer has money to spend and he has allies with money.

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Wait!   There is more:  a podcast on the Presidential Election.   Thad Guyer and I discuss the poll data  and whether or not Trump is self destructing. (I think he is.)  I assert that he is stepping all over his message.  Thad has strong views on the USC/LA Times poll, which show Trump ahead.   Yes, ahead.   I get angry about Trump's Gettysburg Address. Thad makes the observation that there are some good things to come out of this long, long campaign.      Click Here for the Podcast

Opinions have jelled

New Wikileaks?   New Trump Accusers?   It doesn't matter.

So What?

Every day there is some new set of announcements from WikiLeaks.   They have become a blur.   Donna Brazille maybe got some sort of heads up on a debate question.   John Pedesta did something that someone said was shady.  Campaign people made suggestions to each other and to Hillary.  Bill and Chelsea Clinton met with people in Morocco soliciting a gift to the Clinton Foundation soon before Hillary announced for president.

The people announcing these stories on page one, and introducing them as "shocking new revelations!" are the usual suspects in the conservative press:  Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, The Daily Caller, the Wall Street Journal.   The leaks are headlined as scandal, which means that the revelations are framed as misbehavior.    Is politics itself scandalous?

The notion that office holders and donors and friends and political allies help each other out is not surprising to me.  Assistance is offered, little debts and courtesies are accumulated.   This is how humans co-exist.

The local US Congressman Greg Walden (a Republican in leadership responsible for electing Republican candidates) is running TV ads right now showing a veteran thanking Walden for going to bat for him, and has up another ad saying that he helps veterans.  This means that he used his influence to move them up in attention and priority in the VA system.  This isn't considered bad.  It is considered commendable, although in practical terms it means that the veterans Walden helped got to skip in front of veterans who Walden (or some other congressman) did not step in to help within the priorities of the VA.   Click here   He goes to bat for special people: veterans

I am not condemning his involvement in the priorities of the VA, although in fact I would resent being in a long line at Social Security or the DMV if I had to watch my congressman escort someone from the back of the line to a space in front of me.  The people moved further back in priority do not normally see their disadvantage.  The people helped do see it.   Welcome to politics and Congressional Office "case work."   Politicians help people who have appealing stories and situations.  This includes campaign donors. 

TV ad: "Greg Walden stepped in to help"

I am not shocked by Bill and Hillary Clinton doing politics.  That is what it is.   That is what every human does. Favors, courtesies, assistance, gratitude, debt, repayment, acknowledgement, solid short and long term relationships.

Humans do favors for one another, including preferred access to tell their story.  This is "the personal touch".   This is "going to bat."   This is politics.   Remember, the opposite of this is not "good government"; it is "faceless bureaucracy". 

I expect political people to be political, which means put an overlay of humanity and personality and cultural nuance onto what would otherwise be coldly objective and mechanical.  We have a variety of names for this: social graces, courtesies, being situationally aware and poised.  Rules are bent or ignored or exceptions made or selectively enforced to make the world work better.  (Police do not pull over as a "speeder" people driving 5 miles an hour above the speed limit if they are in the flow of traffic.)  

Politics and the multitude of little favors and rewards and requests take place constantly but they are typically out of sight of the people harmed.   No Congressman would waltz a person publicly in front of others, jumping the line.   This is done behind doors.  The WikiLeak discussions were never intended to be public.   But since the emails were hacked and are being revealed, the public is seeing politics being done.   It looks unlovely to the partisans who favor the other candidate.  Fortunately for Hillary WikiLeaks revelations are exposed primarily in sources that may be credible but are overtly partisan and relentlessly critical of her.  This diminishes their impact because their audience is self-selected, both in and out.  

Moreover, the revelations are overwhelming in number.   One or two "scandals" I can absorb.  Three or four leaks a day enter a fog of:  I just don't care and I cannot absorb it.  Hillary is probably guilty of being a politician.  So what?  No big deal."

Meanwhile, Trump supporters have gotten the message.  Trump is a Hugh Hefner-like playboy womanizer who likes the company of beautiful women, which is why he has married three of them and has had intimate time with many more.  Mainstream news outlets report these.   They seem not to move the polls any further.  I am inferring that Trump supporters just don't care and they conclude: There is too much to absorb.  Trump is probably guilty of being a rich playboy womanizing businessman. We knew that.  So what?  No big deal.

So What?

WikiLeaks and abused women occupy the media but I think have no real effect on voters.

The issue is the direction of the country.   Trump has a message of draining the swamp reform, of encouraging job growth through trade protection, and defending the country by keeping out undesirable people, so vote for him to return to American greatness.  Hillary has a message that even if one thinks there are some good things about Trump's message--and she does not-- Trump himself is simply too undisciplined to be trusted as president, so vote for her.

There are still a lot of undecided and wavering voters.   The race will not be decided on the basis of new leaks or new women.  It will be decided on the basis of whether Trump can make his message clearly without muddling it so badly with distractions that Trump ends up proving Hillary's point, not his own.
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Wait!   There is more:  a podcast.   Thad Guyer and I discuss the poll data and whether or not Trump is self destructing. (I think he is.)  I assert that he is stepping all over his message.  Thad has strong views on the USC/LA Times poll, which show Trump ahead.   Yes, ahead.   I get angry about Trump's Gettysburg Address. Thad makes the observation that there are some good things to come out of this long, long campaign.      Click Here for the Podcast

Suicide in Gettysburg

Hillary Clinton is very, very lucky.  Or skilled.

Trump in Gettysburg:   This wasn't "four score and seven years ago. . ."

Trump documented the Hillary message of Trump distraction and personality rather than the Trump message of jobs, trade, and corruption.

Trump at Gettysburg

Trump has done things that pundits and commentators and people who would never vote for him consider crazy.   But on second thought they may have been genius.  The statements kept him interesting and in the news and they communicated a connection to the feelings a great many voters share.  This week I have attributed farsighted strategy--or at least surefooted instinct--to his decision to say he would contest as fraudulent a Clinton victory and his decision to persist in telling jokes that got him boos at the Al Smith dinner.

I have been harder on Hillary Clinton, who seems to me to be punching below her weight.  She has the experience to do politics and campaigning very well but has failed to excite even people who expect to vote for her.  

But she did something very clever or very lucky in the first debate.   She brought up Trump's woman problem with Miss Universe.  She surprised Trump.  She got him wanting to defend himself.  She did it in the face of open and credible threats by Trump not to raise the issue.   She did anyway.

NY Post, the very pro-Trump tabloid

It has driven Trump crazy, and apparently kept him awake at night, tweeting.   And worse for Trump, it has driven him off message.  It had him talking about Miss Universe and weight gain rather than jobs and trade and the revolving door of politics and special interests--the issues where he has wide bipartisan support, as Sanders documented.

Donald Trump announced a major address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a site whose name elevates a speech to something special, the site where a new national purpose was announced. (History reminder:  Lincoln said the vast battlefield sacrifice meant that the Civil War could not be fought just to preserve a Union but instead to fulfill the even greater destiny of preserving a country dedicated to the proposition of equality for all.)

Trump spoke.  He used a teleprompter.  His tone was earnest and his voice was controlled and purposeful.  He looked and sounded presidential.   He talked about jobs and trade.   Click here: Trump starts at 1:36

But he couldn't stop there.

Even Fox:  Trump closing argument is a lawsuit.

Hillary Clintons campaign was reminding voters about Trump having forced himself onto women.  Trump's pussy-gate tape had him bragging about being irresistible to women, about how desirable he was, how when you are famous they will let you do anything, he said.  Hillary's parade of women were saying he was unwelcome and undesirable. 

Trump could not let this stand.  Unwelcome?  Undesirable?

So, amid a speech about a new direction for America, one that addresses the need for governmental reform, job growth, stronger American manufacturing, and greater safety in a troubled world, Trump included a section on a private lawsuit against his female accusers.  It was astonishing in its self destruction.   Trump knows that the media would feature sex lawsuits over job policy--but he did it anyway.   It was as if Lincoln, surveying the battlefield and with a national audience said that America had a new challenge worthy of our heritage and the sacrifice of thousands, and, oh yes, he was going to sue somebody for slandering him for an unflattering letter to the editor.

Breitbart today:  more sex.  No policy.

As I have illustrated with splash pages from Fox, Breitbart, and the NY Post, Trump stepped on his story so badly even his allies lead with sex stories for the next two days.   This is not media bias.   This is Trump's doing.   

Trump promoted this speech in advance saying this was a major look at the Trump agenda--then used it to present himself as a man more interested in playing out a personal legal strategy of intimidating women with his lawyers into staying silent than he was in doing the things to make America great.   

This was Trump being suicidal--or Hillary very strategically doing murder.  

De-legitimizing Hillary Clinton

We can see the future.   It isn't pretty.   It is "birtherism" all over again, only this time it is Hillary who Trump calls a fraud.

Post election reconciliation is unlikely.   Yesterday I asked a middle age man who works for a nonprofit organization on a college campus if he knew anyone personally--one single person--who was going to vote for Trump.  He paused and thought.  He said he knew a lot of people, a whole lot.   "No," he said.  "I know some Sanders people who aren't going to vote for Hillary because she is too corporate, but, no, nobody who would vote for Trump.  How could anyone possibly vote for Trump?"

De-legitimization is underway and it is working.

We live in bubbles of like minded people.  My college town friend lives in a bubble.   So do Trump supporters.

 My Hillary supporting readers tell me they check on Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight once or twice a day.   Let me remind them that their current reading do not say that Hillary will win 84% of the vote.   They say that--based on current polls which might be way off--she would win 84 out of 100 simulations, which means that one time out of six Trump will win, even based on current polls.   

Polls could change.  There is bipartisan desire for change.   Voters are restless and want a new deal, a new frontier, a new something.   That is what Trump is selling when he is not distracted:  new something, and it is good and it involves winning.

De-legitimizing Hillary helps Trump's chances to win.  The de-legitimization also helps him if he loses.   It is win-win for Trump.

Trump is freezing out Hillary as a vehicle for change.  

Trump is warning that if we elect Hillary there will be total dysfunction and gridlock.   

70% of Republicans say election is "rigged" already

It is a credible threat.  Senator John McCain has already announced that the Senate policy of not confirming a Democrat's nomination to the Supreme Court was not temporary, but permanent.  Trump's threat of popular rejection of a Hillary Clinton mandate has already gotten traction and support.

Here is the future if Hillary wins:

  1.  Huge numbers of people will be dumfounded that the impossible happened.   People who get their news from Fox, talk radio, conservative news sites, and their conservative Facebook friends are convinced Trump will win. Everyone they know is going to vote for Trump. If Hillary wins there must be something fishy.

2.  Republicans in the House and Senate would not just have permission to obstruct the government, it would be demanded of them.   Republican officeholders would have the mandate of the voters but Hillary would not.   It would be their civic duty to obstruct.

3.  Republicans in the House and Senate would have a mandate to clean up the rigged election mistake by constitutional methods.  Don't pass budgets to force a crisis.  Do investigations to distract the executive and to root out corruption.   Prosecute.  Impeach.

Here is the future if Trump wins:

Lead story in Breitbart this morning

1.  Democrats will be horrified but accept the election results.

2.  Trump and the two houses of Congress will unravel some parts of Obama's legacy and the Supreme Court will go back to full strength, and the normal checks and balances of the legislative and executive branch will be in place.  Government will work, in the normal contentious manner that it works.

Elect Trump or else.   By saying he will not necessarily accept the election results Trump energizes the populist Trump majority of the Republican party.  The primary election threat they pose to the establishment Republicans will keep them in line.   

Republicans who are willing to compromise to keep the government working are already defined as the enemy in Breitbart, the semi-official media outlet of the Trump party.  Ryan-supporting Republicans might look for areas of bi-partisan cooperation.  Budgets might get passed.   Voters who perceive the presidential election as fraudulent need not stand for that.  Why compromise with a person who won by cheating?

Elect Hillary and get gridlock and disfunction.  Elect Trump and something might get done.

     

Al Smith Dinner Disaster. Not so fast.

Trump's Speech Bombed.   He is crazy like a fox.

I start with a premise:  Whether one likes what Trump says or does or his policies, Trump is a natural political genius.   He has the performer's gift of reading an audience and channeling their true feelings, and he knows how to stay the center of attention in a new media world.  With those two gifts he discovered what professional politicians did not--that a significant group of Republican primary voters opposed the traditional Republican orthodoxy.  They wanted patriotic populism, protectionism, and nativism.  They resented being told to "get along" with diversity and they resent a powerful social-economic-political class that they are not part of.    They feel America is being taken advantage of, and that they personally are being taken advantage of.   

NY Times notes it was the elite who snubbed Trump

They found Trump and Trump found them. 

It helped Trump to bomb at the event.  I watched Trump in New York at the Al Smith dinner.   His performance was painful.  He had one excellent joke--where he complained that the media praised Michelle Obama's speech but that when his wife Melania gave the same speech they panned it.  It got genuine laughs It was a funny joke.  It was consistent with his message of media bias in a self deprecating way.  

Many of his jokes were mean and resentful and not funny even to his most fervent supporters.  He could not have selected those jokes and read them back to some insiders and gotten a reaction of humor and delight.   He planned this.   He planned to get boos.   Watch it yourself: Click Here    Or read the transcript:  Click Here

With a face communicating anger and resentment Trump's jokes included lines like:

     "Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission."  [Boos.]

     "We've learned so much from WikiLeaks.  For example, Hillary believes that it's vital to deceive the people by having one public policy [booing starts] and a totally different policy in private.  That's okay.  [acknowledging the booing] I don't know who they're angry at, Hillary, you or I.   For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.  [boos.]

     "Now some of you haven't noticed, Hillary isn't laughing as much as the rest of us.  That's because she knows the jokes.  And all the jokes were given to her in advance of the dinner by Donna Brazile.   Which is--everyone knows, of course, Hillary's believe that it takes a village, which only makes sense after all in places like Haiti, where she's taken a number of them."  [boos throughout]

Some readers may view this performance as unforced error:  Trump being inappropriate.    Maybe not.   Think was was useful to Trump.  After all, the performance was scripted and practiced.

Fox reports this as an error for Trump

Trump was talking to his base.  He demonstrating that he, too, is snubbed by the glitterati and special interests.   

Trump was communicating that he was not going to dress up in a white tie tux and amuse the overdressed rich and powerful.   Hillary gave a well received speech, because this was her crowd, not his.   Trump got boos, and those boos showed his base that he won't be the jovial puppet of the special interests to be accepted.  He is an outsider.   They see his resentment at being snubbed.

A great many Americans feel exactly the same way, socially insecure and resentful at being excluded from greatness and wealth.  Sanders understand this, and spoke to the students with debt, the workers watching profits go to the top of the one percent.   Sanders attacked the billionaires.   Trump just got boos from them.

Curiously, the New York Times coverage helped Trump more than did that of Fox News.  The Times understood this as being a snub.   Fox saw this as an error by Trump, a failure to understand how to behave.   Trump understands the sting of exclusion.  So do most Americans, who resent being excluded from the the parties of the "preppies" at high school, who resent the entitlements of the boss or the boss' son, who resent the politicians with their town cars and privilege and who resent American prosperity that trickles up, not down??   

See?  Trump is a victim, too.

Trump channels the public's feeling of economic and social resentment.  Trump gave a gauche, unfunny, inappropriate speech, which made certain that he would be publicly snubbed and humiliated.   Trump is crazy like a fox.

Trump has made so many other errors that his campaign may not be salvageable, but this speech, and its boos, was on message.   

Trump could still win this.   This morning, on Fox News, I watched Trump in North Carolina, taking about job losses in North Carolina, saying NAFTA, signed by Bill Clinton, was a one way highway of our jobs to Mexico.   "They get our jobs, we get the crime and drugs."   The message is oversimple, but it is not being contradicted, and the message has appeal, when Trump makes it.

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There is more.   Once a week I upload a podcast of a conversation and commentary created by me and Thad Guyer, an attorney who specializes in representing whistleblowing employees.  We talk about the current state of the race, the mainstream polls, the outlier poll, Trump's message, Hillary's weaknesses, Bill Clinton's past sins, former Sanders voters, the ghost of Nader, and more.   Check it out.

Click here for the current podcast

Trump Failed

Trump forgot this message

Trump insisted on making the debate--and the after-story of the debate--about him.   He could have made it about jobs, homeland safety, and clearing the swamp.   But he didn't.   Trump has winning issues.   He doesn't present them.  

Trump's campaign and his friends at Breitbart know what is important.   When a person clicks on Breitbart.com up pops this advertisement.   It takes over the screen.   One has to find the "x" in the upper right to get to the website.   It is a unifying theme that would make sense of Trump's positions and resume and even his behavior.   Only an "out of the box" politician can question the whole system.   But Trump did not stick to draining the swamp of special interests, revolving door politicians, campaign finance, pay to play, and how that has created policies that damage regular Americans with bad trade deals, bad immigration policies, and bad foreign policy.   He could have won this election.

Instead, he made his temperament, once again, the issue.    He continued to sound like a bickering child.  He interrupted with "wrong" five times.   He interjected "such a nasty woman."  When Hillary said his reaction to every disappointment is to claim the contest is rigged, from the Iowa caucuses, to this election, and even to losing the Emmy.  Trump confirmed the point by interjecting, "I should have won it."   

MSNBC anchor:  "The big headline:  Will Trump contest the election."   

But this isn't just MSNBC, it is everywhere:  CNN, ABC, CBS, NY Times, and even the conservative press.   Trump made news, but it was the worst possible news for himself, a message of destruction rather than reform.   He said he might not consider an election loss legitimate.  Asked if he will accept the election results Trump said,  "I will look at it at the time."   And, "I will keep you in suspense."  

The story dominates the after-story.   Every other issue in the debate is secondary.

Even Trump's media friends lead with the story of "orderly and peaceful transfer of power".   Brit Hume of reliable Fox News in the spin room Wednesday night admitted it would be the lead.   Fox News panels after the debate discussed it from the point of view that the comment was controversial and it obscured the otherwise suburb Trump debate.   

Thursday morning Hume was proven right,  Here is the Fox News website splash page.

Meanwhile, Breitbart covers the story from the point of view of criticism of Trump by establishment Republicans who said Trump was destroying bedrock American values.

The after-debate story is all about Trump's temperament.  This is the centerpiece of Hillary Clinton's argument, that whatever problems may exist in America it remains that Donald Trump is not a plausible solution. 

Trump had a chance to make his message central and instead Trump made Hillary's message the central one.   It was a self-inflicted wound.

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There is more.   Once a week I upload a podcast of a conversation and commentary created by me and Thad Guyer, an attorney who specializes in representing whistleblowing employees.  We talk about the current state of the race, the mainstream polls, the outlier poll, Trump's message, Hillary's weaknesses, Bill Clinton's past sins, former Sanders voters, the ghost of Nader, and more.   Check it out.

Click here for the current podcast

Crazy Like a Fox

What if Trump actually has a winning issue?

My Hillary-supporting friends look at the various polls and are starting to relax and feel good about the October weather.  Life is good.  Whew.   Miller Time.

Not so fast.

I have seen enough horror movies to know that in horror movies this is the predictable setup to a shock.  The movie has bright sunshine lighting, a serene music score, the little girl is innocently picking flowers or petting the puppy.  Then ka-POW.  

In romantic comedies, this is the setup for a misunderstanding, but it all works out in the end.   At this moment Hillary supporters think it is a comedy, not a horror movie.   What could go wrong?  That Trump makes a persuasive case.

Trump has shown few signs of deep planning strategy, but he has shown multiple and repeated signs that his instincts about what voters care about is spot on.  He has the entertainer's gift of audience rapport and he learns from it.  He is essentially dead even in enough battleground states to win the election notwithstanding astonishingly self-destructive behaviors, present and past.

If this is the movie set-up, and the innocent protagonist is happily reading the polls,  blithely unaware of the upcoming hazard, what surprise makes this a horror movie, not a romantic comedy? 

Trump's message, to drain the swamp.  It has appeal.

Yesterday a Trump voter sent me an email joke.   Many of the jokes I have received from him have an anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant premise.  This one was different.  It opened with the headline:

The "Washington Redskins" drop the offensive name.  They dropped the word "Washington" because the word suggests corruption, mismanagement, cheating, lying, graft and it set a bad role model for youth.

Trump, the patriotic reform candidate.  Trump has winning issues on trade, on jobs, on factories going overseas, on campaign funding, on fear of Muslims, on border security, on reducing the power of the special interests.  Bernie Sanders said much the same thing on special interests, campaign funding, factories, trade, and reform.   

Perhaps too late--because we are in the final reel of the movie--Trump has raised a unifying theme that makes sense of his criticism of Paul Ryan.  It links Hillary Clinton not just to liberals (which gives Sanders voters a reason to cast a reluctant vote for Hillary) but to Republicans and special interests and Wall Street and the careerism and cronyism that corrupts Washington.

Trump, the Patriotic Reform Candidate

The drain-the-swamp theme means it isn't crazy for Trump to attack Paul Ryan.  It may be genius.  Trump is positioning himself as the spokesman for hope and change, not conservative rigor.   He is going to shake America up, not shake it to the right.  That widens his appeal.   Congress has a 15%-20% approval rating and it is safe and popular to condemn them.

It makes sense for Trump to call for term limits and 5 year bans on lobbying by former legislators or White House personnel.   Professional political observers understand that term limits have real problems because they destroy institutional memory and respect for norms, but voters don't feel that way.   Trump is voicing the Andrew Jackson populist democratic notion of "rotation in office" an idea that has eternal appeal.  People serve then return home.  They are citizen legislators, thus avoiding careerism.   Careerism corrupts.   Hillary Clinton is a career politician.  Trump is a businessman.  It links biography to campaign theme.  It is true and undeniable.  It has appeal.   It could work.

The Trump and Sanders insurgencies demonstrate that a significant number of voters want "hope and change."  Hillary's resume forced her to be the voice of continuity.   Trump was on the right side of history and he has the extraordinary talent to command the attention of the media.    He is now asking Americans to let him--in the name of patriotism and reform--drain the swamp and sweep away all the bad actors who have made Washington a joke.

He has an issue and theme that can elect him president.  Can he stay on message?  

President Obama is sending up a distraction of the kind Trump has been unable to resist--a challenge to Trump's manhood.

Distracting Trump from his message

Obama is suggesting Trump is a weak "whiner", already complaining about a rigged election even before the election--an attack on Trump's alpha status.

Women are saying he assaults him.  Trump responds not just with a denial but an assertion that the women aren't attractive enough for a hunk like him. 

Meanwhile, Wiki-leaks give him tempting negative things to say about Hillary.   When Trump is talking about Hillary and Bill he is talking about comparative fitness for office, which is Hillary's best issue.   

Can Trump resist the distractions?   It appears not.  Tonight Trump is bringing  Barrack Obama's half brother to the debate to make some unclear point--perhaps that Obama's father was from Africa, as if that is a relevant and powerful message against Hillary and as if it doesn't resurrect birther claims.  

Trump is distractible .  Trump cannot resist temptation.  It takes him off message and documents her message, that Trump is temperamentally unfit.

Trump has a winning theme to hammer home.  Based on recent experience, he will fail to pursue it.  That would make this a comedy after all.

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There is more.   Once a week I upload a podcast of a conversation and commentary created by me and Thad Guyer, an attorney who specializes in representing whistleblowing employees.  We talk about the current state of the race, the mainstream polls, the outlier poll, Trump's message, Hillary's weaknesses, Bill Clinton's past sins, former Sanders voters, the ghost of Nader, and more.   Check it out.

Click here for the current podcast