Events Matter

This Election Campaign is Far From Over

Right now Hillary partisans are feeling pretty good.     They should be wary, not confident.

 They look at Nate Silver and Real Clear Politics polls and feel good.   They love the idea of a blowout win in New York and try not to think about how close the polls are in Ohio and Florida by thinking back to the national polls.  And what is undoubtedly true is that Trump has had a bad week, hitting the anti-Muslim theme awkwardly by taking on the Khans and looking unreliable when insisting Obama was a "founder" of ISIS.

News Today

But these mistakes were not necessarily mistakes.   Trump was in the news for a week making the point that he doesn't like Muslims and that Obama probably is one.   Yes, that feeds the Trump-is-crazy idea that Hillary is pushing.    But it also feeds the Trump hates the scary and murderous Muslim idea that is Trump's brand.

Events matter.    Right now, in Milwaukee, black people are rioting.  Fox News is showing video of black youth carrying looted boxes.   Newt Gingrich is saying that this rioting is destroying the very fabric of civilization."    This is top news on Fox, breaking news.

This isn't just news on Fox.   NPR has the same story.

This is very bad for Hillary and it makes Trump's case.   Trump is the law and order candidate, the one who says that black people are dangerously violent and therefore it is only reasonable to give them wide berth and to police them closely.   Black riots--especially when the man shot was armed and had multiple arrests--feeds the notion that black protests are unreasonable.   This changes the subject from Trump being crazy to Trump being correct.

Somewhere out there in America some other crazy religious zealot is planning to do something violent.   Or maybe he or she will do it on the spur of the moment.  Whatever happens is bad, even if the perpetrator of the violence is a white churchgoing Christian.  Even in that case the violent act will document that a liberal cannot "pull the country together."  And if the violent actor is black, Hispanic, an immigrant, or a Muslim then it is purely and without complication bad.   It is a big country.  Bad things happen.   Police get killed on the job. 

News today.  Police killed

When bad things happen, especially breaking news bad things, Trump will have more evidence that his version of America is more real than is Hillary's version.

A major flaw in the Hillary Clinton coalition Love Trumps Hate campaign theme is that newsworthy events tend to show that Hillary is unrealistic--dead wrong.  Someone in her coalition of the oppressed, some black or brown or gay or woman will make news.   Almost all "Breaking News!" events help Trump.

Hillary is helped enormously by Trump's need to make news--as long as the main story is that it is crazy-Trump making the news.  The media is fully cooperative in this and Trump makes it easy--inevitable even--that they cover the story as crazy Trump.

Some of what Trump says is clearly, demonstrably untrue.   It is newsworthy because of its flamboyance but it is flamboyant because it is untrue.  The news media has decided to "balance" Trump by noting that it is untrue, either doing it themselves in interviews or finding someone to contradict Trump, a process that is documenting the crazy-Trump meme.

It is not clear to me if Trump's behavior is net-negative for him.  Trump remains the center of attention.  Trump can complain about the news media's conclusion that he is "crazy-Trump" but Trump remains the top of every newscast and his message is getting out there.   Muslims are scary and he is against them.   America is getting screwed and he will fix that.   Politicians are corrupt and he will replace them.   Those are popular ideas and he says them plainly.

Trump has victory within his power.   He has popular xenophobic nationalistic populist ideas to sell.  He has the ability and venue to seem a presidential peer on the campaign trail and in the debates, thus curing the crazy-Trump meme.  And breaking news events will tend to prove him right. 

A black male youth finishing an apprenticeship in Heating and Air Conditioning repair, setting himself up for a well paying job, isn't breaking news.  A Muslim working every day as a Ob/GYN physician isn't breaking news.   The good, normal, banal life of carrying out the work of the world isn't news.   A street riot is.   Events help Trump.

Hating the News Media

It is politically very safe to dump on the News Media.   Everyone does it.  

I used to be daily in the public eye, as a County Commissioner.  Back in the early 1980s, before the news thinned out, there was a news story or two every day in the two local newspapers, the 3 TV stations, and the 6 or so radio stations.   (Now the radio stations just summarize what they read in the one remaining paper and that paper has fired nearly all its reporters.)

This meant that I participated in events live, and was the subject of the events frequently, and then that evening on the TV news or the next morning in the newspaper I would see how the event was covered.   The stories seemed "off"--familiar but more or less "wrong"--every time.  They fleshed out a story by filming or quoting who was instantly available to give a comment, not what "really" happened.  They would balance a knowledgeable informed person with a bystander with no knowledge or understanding of the issue but who had a contrary point of view, as if the opinion of a professor of mathematics or statistics on the meaning of a 0.004 parts per billion in a water sample was "balanced" by the opinion of a 9th grader who said they were sure the water was "totally full of bad stuff and poison."

Prior to my time as a newsmaker I used to believe the news.   Once I participated I realized that the news was created by young people in a terrible rush to get a story and move on to the next one and that the news was haphazard at best and frequently flat out wrong.   The "news" had little credibility.

The "news" wasn't "what happened".  The news was a product, manufactured by a busy and underpaid young person, trying to fill a space slot in a newspaper or a time slot on a TV news show.  

Click here

Yesterday I included a short video clip of Trump, for the purpose of demonstrating the crowd involvement.  Trump was not speaking to a crowd, he was within the crowd, feeding off its mutual energy.    Watch it again, this time noting that he was expressing skepticism of the news media and listen to the audience.

Why are people so open to media bashing?

One reason is easy and straightforward:  they hear repeatedly from politicians that the media cannot be trusted.

A second reason is that trusted news sources tell them it cannot be trusted.   Fox News constantly criticizes every other news media as being biased, and a significant number of American get their "Fair and Balanced" news from Fox.   Liberal media sources routinely show how Fox covers the news, noting their bias.   The Daily Show with Jon Stewart used as a primary source of humor the hypocrisy and inconsistency of politicians and news sources, and indeed Stewart's primary target was the failure of the news media.

But a third reason is the conflict between what people witness themselves and what they hear.    In March of this year I posted on the mis-match between the media's hunger to show Trump rallies as a place of violence versus my observation that the Boca Raton rally was the safest place in North America, inundated by visible police presence.   Yet the stories the next day were not about the overprotected venue but about--amazingly--all the fear of violence.  Here is a link to my full March blog post:  

Click here for a look backl

Social media is giving people their own, independent supposedly-eyewitness view of things. A person with only one watch thinks he knows what time it is.   A person with two or three watches doesn't know the time because the watches are inevitably a little different.  Having multiple watches doesn't make a person more confident; it makes the person less confident of the time.

A citizen getting news from Facebook friends hears a different story than a person who simply gets their news from a mainstream media source.    Moreover, CNN and Fox and MSNBC are likely to show very different takes on the same story.   (Fox, for example, cut away from the Khan speech at the Democratic National Convention.  It wasn't newsworthy, to them.)

Some guest commenters on this blog--particularly Thad Guyer--insist that the news media is biased, downplaying Trump's electoral strengths and the power of his message, plus overplaying his eccentricity and lack of discipline as a messenger.   There is no question that the Breitbart.com and Fox News view of the world--plus the AM talk radio views of Limbaugh and Hannity and Alex Jones and Glenn Beck--are very different from the views of the NY Times.    This difference creates the "three watches" effect.

The new news landscape of multiple very different news sources, plus widespread amateur news via social media, create an environment where people--quite reasonably--doubt everything.

And who are you going to believe?   A Twitter or Instagram or Facebook feed from Trump (who has 20,000,000 followers) or somebody you see on TV?   The social media and direct feeds from Trump are a primary source, direct from the horse's mouth.   It may not be unbiased, but it is unfiltered, and seems directly real.

Frequent Guest Post writer Thad Guyer has a comment on one key area of supposed media bias:   how they report the polls.  Guyer thinks the mainstream media (i.e. the high status media of the NY Times and Washington Post) have it quite wrong.  He looks at a different watch than does Real Clear Politics.   Here is Guyer's take:

Discounting Media Hype, USC Polling Institute Reaffirms Trump and Clinton are Still Tied”

Media hype about Trump pushing “nuclear proliferation”, “espionage”, “assassination”, and “ISIS founder” effects narrow polling windows concurrent with 48-72 hour news cycles, but it lacks durability. Voters needed no media spin on Romney’s “47 percent” because Romney himself was clear in what he meant during the secretly recorded donor meeting. Nor do voters need media spin about Hillary’s email; the FBI director provided rich factual context for that. So too with Trump University and casino bankruptcies. Fact driven durable media coverage has durable polling effect—media proclaimed “game changing gaffes” don’t. (See Nate Silver, “The Impact of the 47 Percent”, Sept 9, 2012, http://goo.gl/lrc5VP 9/28/2012).

Just two weeks ago, the Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling average had Trump tied with Clinton, but by August 9th, RCP had Clinton +7.9 , down to +6.2 as of today. Only the University of Southern California USC/Los Angeles Times’ poll model has consistently discounted media-driven poll “surges”. USC reports that between August 4 and today there has been no change in the Clinton-Trump tie. Clinton’s lead, USC says, has remained exactly the same-- +1. (See RCP trending table, http://goo.gl/xGX4). Polls showing Clinton with leads of +8 to +13 this week led to liberal media jubilation, even to absurd claims that these polls might force Trump to “drop out”. (See for example, “Could Donald Trump Drop Out?”, NYT, Aug 4, 2016, http://goo.gl/4Y4Pcf). The NYT has attacked the August 4th USC poll as a flawed outlier. (See, “A Favorable Poll for Donald Trump Seems to Have a Problem”, Aug 8, 2016, http://goo.gl/XwN1cD).  

The USC/LA Times “tracking” poll is the work of USC’s Center for Economic and Social Research in “applied political science”. (See, http://cesrusc.org/election/). It is designed “in a way that mutes the impact of bounces and temporary shifts in candidate support”, some of which may be caused by media hype in concurrent news cycles. (See, “Why the USC/L.A. Times tracking poll differs from other surveys”, Aug 9, 2016, http://goo.gl/j6izjr). USC rejects models (1) based on random cold calls to unvetted respondents, and (2) that give no weight to respondents “who say they don’t know or are undecided”. Instead, USC randomly selected 5,000 participants, and following application of demographic and voting history filters, “tracks” 3,200 of them in 5 to 7 day survey cycles.

There is strong evidence that the media’s political hype drives its own sensational polls. The Urban Institute's chief methodologist, Rob Santos, past president and vice president respectively of the American Statistical Association and American Association for Public Opinion Research, says some polling results in forced errors because “the media and candidate campaigns have pressured pollsters to provide results cheaper and faster”. (See, “Why the Polls Get it Wrong”, LA Times, Mar 27, 2016, http://goo.gl/jRjrFt). Sensational poll surveys specifically trying to measure the effects of Trump “espionage”, “assassination”, etc. are churned out fast and furiously for whomever is paying for them. These polls feel really good. But as James Warren of the Poynter Institute, an organization promoting journalistic ethics and higher standards for media “fact checkers”, warns us: Don’t “[f]orget that Trump was written off for months as a joke or that the campaign was seen heading south at multiple times”. (See, Vanity Fair, August 4, 2016, http://goo.gl/GVLd1a).

Question: So what happened after the NYT and other media challenged USC’s August 4th findings that Clinton is only +1? Answer: USC ran the survey again and on August 12th again concluded that she is only +1. 

Thinking like an entertainer

Trump is an entertainer.   He loves his rallies and his audience.  He's good at it.   It is destroying is campaign.

Trump-the-entertainer helps make sense of his campaign.   He isn't acting like a politician.   He is acting like an entertainer, seeking an audience and feeding off it.

I have watched Trump up close in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida.   What we all see on TV is a guy riffing on current events, rather like a stand up comic.  This observation is real and accurate--but incomplete.
   

Media microphones are on the Trump podium and are directed at Trump, so what we hear is Trump.  We hear most crowd noises faintly or not at all, which gives a false impression.   In a live event we hear the crowd clearly.  The audience is engaged and noisy.   Trump is not riffing from stream of consciousness; he is riffing with and in response to the crowd.    Here is a 20 second snippet of a Trump rally in Nevada I recorded myself from within the crowd close up.   As you will observe, Trump is the loudest voice but he is part of a boisterous group, at one with it.   My microphone captures the live reality--something very different from what we see on TV.

   ***He holds events in states he is unlikely to win, e.g. Maine and Connecticut.   If Trump wins Maine and Connecticut his election would be a landslide.   What makes sense is that he is not seeking votes, he is seeking venues.

  ***Amid a drum-beat of criticism and friendly advice to be "more presidential" instead Trump overtly does things which are un-presidential but provocatively attention-getting.   Examples are available daily, but the most recent one is Trump's saying that Obama is, literally and intentionally, the "founder of ISIS" and that ISIS gives Obama its most valuable player award.   In a long interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt Trump insisted that Obama did not just lay the groundwork where ISIS was possible, but founded it, while Hewitt tried to lead Trump to sounding less extreme.   Trump stood firm.  His goal is not to be credible; it is to be noticed.

Hewitt:  I think I would say they created, they lost the peace.  They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn't create ISIS.  That's what I would say.

Trump:  Well, I disagree. . . . They wouldn't talk about your language and they do talk about my language, right?

Only 27% of Republicans agree that Obama is American

   ***When choosing between creating a bridge to undecided voters or seeking to please a present audience, Trump makes the entertainer's choice not the political choice.   He chooses to please his audience.   

Trump has been massively successful in sowing seeds of doubt among Republicans over Obama's legitimacy.  Only 27% of Republican voters agree that Obama is actually a legitimate American citizen born in the United States.  NBC poll   Trump is America's founding "birther" and Trump's language feeds that meme, a meme that serves a large, but minority, audience.  Trump birtherism is a turnoff for non-Republicans, but he persists in tweaking the birtherism idea, referring to Obama yesterday as "Barrack Hussain Obama" and presenting Obama as an ISIS partisan.    It makes Trump interesting and newsworthy, but puts a ceiling on his support.   Trump persists, choosing to be noticable rather than presidential

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A major theme has developed:  Trump temperamentally unsuited to be president.   Hillary's campaign ads are not talking policy.  They are talking Trump temperament.    Trump's entertainer personality--the temperament that brought his this far--is now the centerpiece of opposition to him.

This exemplifies one of the ongoing themes of this blog:  that a politician's strength is the politician's weakness.  Every trait that is strong enough to be appealing and a source of strength has a flip side, an element of weakness.   Trump has dominated the news by saying outrageous, interesting things.  He is entertaining. Trump won the primary by dominating the news because of how newsworthy and how interesting he is.   Hillary is moving the focus to how outrageous he is.

Guest Post: A lawyer steps in

Donald Trump should have called Thad Guyer before he tried to explain away the "Second Amendment" comment.

Advice to readers:  When being investigated for doing something illegal or really stupid don't try to talk yourself out if the situation.   Say you want to talk with a lawyer, then keep quiet.  

Donald Trump was speaking casually and extemporaneously about how terrible it would be if Hillary appointed a couple of bad judges.  He made reference to Jeffersonian first principles of revolution, to quote the Declaration of Independence, "that whenever any form of government is destructive to these ends [of good government by the consent of the people] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and form new government."

As I wrote yesterday, he meant that someone (not him personally, and not that they actually should) just might use those Second Amendment rights and take arms against the tyrant president or the anti-gun judges.   Then a hailstorm of criticism.

Guest post writer Thad Guyer says it was unfair criticism.  There was a perfectly good explanation for Trump's statement.  He came up with the response Trump should have used to explain away what he meant.   

It is way better than Trump's own explanation.   Trump tried to talk his way out of it.  He started out by saying that he just meant that gun rights supporters had political power.  Then Trump's people came up with a political doctrine that supposedly informed Trump's thinking, a doctrine of the "power of unification", which doctrine was unknown until it was voiced as explanation now:  "Second Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power. And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won't be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump."

Having put unpersuasive explanations on the record it is hard to step back and say, "oh, what I meant to say was. . . . "

Lawyer Thad Guyer has an alternative explanation.  Trump should have called his lawyer, or better yet Thad.   Thad's argument shows nuance, understanding of the legislative process, respect of the Constitution.   It would show off that Trump is capable of doing his homework and using complex reasoning, plus the explanation is very presidential.

There is one little problem with the explanation but Trump could explain it away and stick to Thad's script.    Thad presumes that the gun rights supporting Senators will assure that no anti-gun judge is seated.    But Trump's premise is that Hillary might be elected and one or two bad judges might need "Second Amendment solutions."   But Trump would know what to do.   Blame the media for intentionally misunderstanding him and then repeat Thad's explanation.   Trump should read it through a few times so he gets the sense of it before he presents it as his idea, but a good lawyer would coach his witness, so I assume Trump would have been ready for prime time before taking this public.

If Trump had called Thad this is what he and his people would have said:

Guest Comment by Thad Guyer

Advice for Trump: Never Say “Nuclear Option”

Headlines like these are tough acts to follow: “Trump suborns Russian espionage in seeking Clinton’s deleted email!” “Psychologist suggests Trump is mentally ill! “Trump calls for Japan to get nuclear weapons!” And now “Trump incites assassination of Hillary Clinton!” They lack persuasive factual basis and fade quickly. Factually sound headlines have staying power, as the Clinton email scandal shows, so it never leaves the headlines.  

The “Second Amendment people” as Trump calls them, consist of the NRA and its 5 million members, and its solid NRA-supporting Republican Senate and House. (See, “N.R.A. Victories in Congress Grow’, (NT Times, Jan. 16, 2016) http://goo.gl/3nSggn). Even if our hopes are realized with a Clinton win, the “Second Amendment people” will ensure that no openly anti-gun Supreme Court nominee will ever get confirmed in the Senate. Although it’s way more fun to take Trump’s words out of context, Time published a full transcript of Trump’s speech for those who want context. (See, Time, http://goo.gl/7kXYxq). Here’s the context: 

“I guess it’s a scenario where this president could pick five Supreme Court Justices. *** Your Second Amendment, the National Rifle Association endorsed and they endorsed me early, a long time ago. And they’re great people, Wayne [LaPierre, NRA president] and Chris [Cox, NRA executive director] they are great people. *** If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. *** Now, speaking to the NRA folks – who are great – when you – when you — and I’ll tell you, they endorsed me.”

If Clinton wins, Trump is right that she gets to pick her judges, but all would not be lost to Trump’s “Second Amendment people”. Trump was right to quickly question his dark assessment that there would be “nothing [they] can do”. Indeed, it would have been an insult to the NRA had Trump not then and there qualified his pessimism. If Clinton wins, and even if Democrats gain a majority in the Senate, the NRA and its people will not do nothing. The will do something about any judge she nominates who has a weak record on Second Amendment rights. There will be no “nuclear option” against the NRA in blocking gun-unfriendly nominees. 

“The nuclear option” is a reference to the rule change in the Senate on November 21, 2013, when on a 52-48 vote, Democrats eliminated Republican abuse of the filibuster against the confirmation of Obama’s 59 executive branch nominees, and17 judicial nominees. (See, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option). Henceforth, judges would be confirmed on a simple majority vote. But exempted from that “nuclear option” are Supreme Court nominees, which continue to require 60 votes. The “Second Amendment people” will not be left with “nothing [they] can do”. They will insure that President Clinton never musters those 60 votes. And that is the message that the NRA expects Trump to honor. And that is the message he gave.

There is a “pari materia” rule in logic, forensics and law that holds the relevant context for a spoken or written passage is presumed to come from the same speech or text in which the passage is found. Yet, not a word in Trump’s speech referenced violence, assassination, or illegality. Why then would commentators and the media ignore the explicit NRA and Supreme Court context of Trumps words, even after he promptly explained them? Because it sells, just like “espionage” and “mental illness”. There are indeed “dog whistles” involved in this Trump assassination meme. But it was the media blowing them, not Trump. And it was eager never-Trump listeners hearing those whistles, not NRA members, and not “Second Amendment people. Those people heard the context Trump's words were made in. (See, “Gun Owners React To Donald Trump's 'Second Amendment People' Comments”, Aug 10, 2016 http://n.pr/2aH3ktH).  

Note to Trump—never say the words “nuclear option”, or we can imagine the headlines.

Trump: Someone might just up and shoot her

People in a group have a special language of their own.  Gun Rights advocates know the Second Amendment is not about hunting.  It is about the right and power to stop a tyrant.

Donald Trump was being careless and extemporaneous when he spoke of the "Second Amendment people" but he wasn't talking about political organizing.   He was talking in the language of gun right supporters.   When he said it he was talking about citizens stopping a tyrant with a gun.  

Everyone has experienced private language within a group.    Professions have defined meanings to words.  In my former work as a financial advisor there are special meanings for an open order, to close a position, to being stopped.   These terms have specific legal meaning, known and understood by people within the group of investment advisors and experienced investors.   Similar special language happens among lawyers, medical people, everyone.

People on the outside of the group often do not understand the special language or they consider it irritating jargon or they simply do not catch the meaning.   Donald Trump's suggestion about what to do if Hillary Clinton won the election and attempted to appoint an anti-gun rights judge was ambiguous when heard by a listener who did not understand the internal language, but it was crystal clear when heard from inside the group: someone might have to shoot her, or the judges, or someone.

Second Amendment Remedies:

There is, within conservative, Republican, and gun rights people a special meaning for "Second Amendment remedies."    It is the right of the people to stop tyranny by taking arms against a tyrant.  It is the fundamental right of revolution carried out by the people who can take arms to stop a tyrant.

Sharon Angle, a candidate for Senate in Nevada, said it this way in a radio interview:   "I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry.  This [is] not for someone who's in the military.  This [is] not for law enforcement.  This is for us.  And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny.   This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical."  

Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, speaks of gun rights as a matter of individuals taking arms to protect freedom and stop tyrants.  Speaking of a proposed Arms Trade Treaty he said: "Our Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment so Americans would never have to live in tyranny. . . . Our Second Amendment is freedom's most valuable, most cherished, most irreplaceable idea."

The Conservative Daily website says, "Today, many politicians treat the Second Amendment as if it is synonymous with hunting.   It has absolutely nothing to do with hunting and even its association with self-defense has been diluted!   The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects your right to keep and bear arms not so that you can grant the government consent, but so that, if necessary, you can act on your dissent!"

Watch what he said yourself. 

Click here for the NBC story and video

Watch the reaction of the man in red, to the right of Trump on the screen.  He knew exactly what Trump was saying. 

It is entirely likely that some readers will watch the comments and believe it credible that Trump was talking about political organizing or generally that supporters of gun rights would vote for him instead of Hillary.   That is the story being advanced now in order to "clean up" and repair the damage.    The position is arguable and indeed credible when heard from the outside, by a person who misses the specific jargon and meanings from within the group.  After all, an "open order" or a "stopped one" could mean a lot of things to the uninitiated while in fact it means something very specific and legally binding within the brokerage industry.

In the language of gun rights supporters, Donald Trump was not ambiguous: he was suggesting that someone would exercise the Second Amendment right of revolution and take action to stop a tyrant, presumably with a firearm the Amendment allows.   

It was not ambiguous.  It was an offhand, foolish comment suggesting that someone would shoot Hillary or the judges.  I do not think that Trump was openly advocating assassinating Hillary Clinton or the judges.   He was just making an offhand comment that someone just might decide to do it. 

His offense was not that he actively solicited assassination.  He did not.  Trump's offense is that he is so careless that he normalizes assassination by so casually and in offhand manner suggests it is something that would make sense to a major party nominee as a way to effect policy change.   It was not an attack on Hillary and the judges.   It was an attack on Constitutional process.

The response of GOP leadership and Fox News is to pretend he did not say and mean what they heard him say and mean.   Trump has deniability and he is employing it and at this moment it is working for him.   But watch the man in red.   He heard it.

Lawsuits

Lawsuits are a political weapon.

Lawsuits elevate an accusation--possibly entirely speculative and groundless--into a news story and an area of legitimate question and inquiry.   And lawsuits give people the right to subpoena documents and to require testimony under oath.

Remember back:   Paula Jones' accusation that Bill Clinton had sexually harassed her allowed her lawyers to question Bill Clinton under oath on the entirety of his sexual history relating to female employees, which is what set up the perjury trap.   They asked him questions about Monica Lewinsky.

There are accusations that Hillary Clinton maybe/surely used her position as Secretary of State to enrich the Clinton Foundation.  It is a powerful idea to raise questions about.   That puts the accusation on record as "questionable" behavior.   In politics "questionable" is nearly as good as "proven" and found guilty, and to be "questionable" all that is needed is someone motivated to ask questions.

A new lawsuit by the RNC demands to look at Bill Clinton's email and schedule record for the period when he was a former president.  Surely there will be some emails written or received that will be embarrassing or at least raise questions.  There are some 5,400 pages of records that exist.  Bill Clinton has release a 14 page summary of what they want, which introduces yet another controversy: why won't Bill Clinton release everything, immediately.  He must be hiding something.   The lawsuit gives legitimacy to the demand for opening up what had previously been personal.  Here is a story on the new lawsuit:  Click here for the Politico story.

This one comes on top of a lawsuit by the Sanders people.   Apparently Bill Clinton was politicking too near a Massachusetts polling place, shaking hands and saying nice things about his wife.   The lawsuit demands that the Massachusetts primary election results be voided and Sanders receive the Massachusetts delegates.

Meanwhile, two parents of men who died in Benghazi are suing Hillary Clinton personally, charging that her use of a private email server caused the deaths of their sons and they want damages paid.   This lawsuit is a "wrongful death" suit filed by Lawrence Klayman of Freedom Watch, a conservative legal organization which has been suing the Clintons for years.   Here is a Fox News story:  Breaking News Story on Fox

Clinton controversy exhaustion

People have a right to sue  Clients of lawyers, doctors, financial advisors have a right to file complaints.   The complaint itself goes onto their record, even if it is utterly frivolous.  It is a black mark.   Anyone anytime has a right to sue, and lawsuits become a matter of public record.   In politics, unhappy people have a right to sue and then to go on camera an make a newsworthy assertion.   After all, there is an active lawsuit.  

This is very good strategy for the Republicans.   The Clintons have been in the news for 25 years and they have been subjects of lawsuits repeatedly.   Indeed, Hillary was questioned repeatedly about whether she killed Vince Foster, whether she had help making money in cattle futures, whether there was some deal regarding a failed real estate development called Whitewater, whether she abused power changing venders for a travel office and more recently there were multiple investigations regarding Benghazi.   The voters are exhausted by Hillary being questioned, and questionable behavior is now, once again, put onto the Breaking News clang of the media.

Where there is smoke there is fire.   Maybe.   But what is not in doubt is that legal questions raised of Hillary Clinton is exhausting and tiresome and it raises the voters desire to "move on."   But Hillary can never move on from lawsuits being raised.   The filing of the lawsuits themselves helps make the case that the country needs to press re-set, that Hillary continuity does not just mean the continuity of government. It also means the continuity of endless lawsuits and questions.

If voters feel "Enough, already!!" that is exactly the intent of the lawsuits.  It is ugly politics at its worst, but it is very good political strategy.

"Swift Boat" attacks work. But they can be defended.

George Bush "Swift Boated" John Kerry.  It worked.  And it gave a name to a campaign technique.    We are seeing it again right now.

To "Swift Boat" means to attack an opponent at the point of their most obvious strength.  It would be to attack Albert Einstein for being, actually, rather stupid and forgetful and bad at physics.   Or it would be to attack Arnold Schwarzenegger for being, actually, physically weak and underdeveloped.   Say, what?!  Does that work?   Yes.  

Bush's people called John Kerry a coward for his actions when he won purple hearts and a bronze star.  It "brought into question" whether he was a hero or a fraud.  It turned something from a settled fact into an uncertainty, and it gave skeptical people a mental toe-hold on which to ignore something good about a candidate.   John Kerry showed one way of dealing with the attack: to scoff at it for being ridiculous.   That way doesn't work.  The attack stuck.

Today Hillary Clinton is making a major point that Donald Trump is temperamentally unsuited to be president.   This is not a swift boat attack.   It is a major campaign theme, one  that every GOP candidate raised, that Trump's friends raise, that Donald Trump openly discusses.  As recently as Friday, in Des Moines, Trump said, "I always thought I was extremely fit.   In fact, all my life I've been told I have the greatest temperament."

Trump kept talking, saying Hillary Clinton was "unhinged", "unbalanced".  "She cannot handle pressure.  I handle pressure."   As I wrote yesterday, I consider this a campaign mistake and an artifact of Trump's lack of message discipline.  He is making mental stability an issue, when Trump's entire brand is about extemporaneous shoot from the hip truth telling, which makes stability Hillary's strength (cool competence) and weakness (status quo.)  Trump, I argued, needed to stay on message on his major point, his assertion that he can change things to make Americans more rich and more safe.

Wall Street Journal urges Trump to "reboot" by staying on message.

Thad Guyer asserts that this isn't a mistake, that the Hillary-unhinged, Hillary-crazy idea is well thought out and planned, to be pursued in tweets, in speeches, in ads, and in social media.   If so, it goes against logic and a candidate's obvious personalities, and that is what makes it a "swift boat" attack. 

Will it work?  

The meme is being picked up by Trump supporters and talk radio.   Local talk radio hosts are talking it up on my AM dial and nationally syndicated ones are as well.  Michael Savage, Author of "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" calls her a "sociopathic liar."  Fox News has stories on it.   The Hillary is short-circuited crazy unbalanced unhinged is now out there as a charge.

Hillary is no John Kerry.  

Hillary's reputation is to be a street fighter hawk who hits back--the trait that her Sanders-supporting detractors dislike about her.   Cokie Roberts defined the attack as another example of Trump misogyny, blood coming out of her whatever, an attack on women.

But if Hillary herself has struck back it is not quickly apparent from a Google search, so it is evident that her personal response is not yet widespread, public, and loud.  My readers should watch for this.  I am assuming it will happen, but I haven't seen it yet.   If it happens it will be new data on how one can respond to a swift boat attack.  

Wait and see. 

Guest Comment:      Thad Guyer thinks the Trump attack was intentional and sound campaign technique:

Off Message? Trump Frames Viral Media Messaging of “Unhinged Hillary”

The Trump campaign was ready in the war room to launch its official new video campaign ad, initially to his 22 million social media followers, entitled, “Is Robot Hillary Melting Down?” (You can view it everywhere across the social media spectrum, but here’s a Youtube links. http://goo.gl/gxycq1). With messaging timed to his rallies in a 48 hour news cycle, Trump pulled the media trigger by somberly stating in an Obama-like statesman’s voice that Clinton “may be unbalanced ***, unhinged”. The video showcases electrical arches from her mouth uttering “I may have short circuited”. 

We’d expect frenetic coverage of “Hillary unhinged” by conservative media, but the test for messaging effectiveness is crossover. The New York Times published “A ‘Short-Circuit’ on F.B.I. Inquiry? Hillary Clinton Seeks to Explain” (NYT, http://goo.gl/6tObn3). Dovetaling in Trump campaign’s messaging that Hillary is afraid of news conferences, the NYT quoted RNC chair Reince Priebus: “It’s not hard to see why she hasn’t held a press conference in 244 days. Hillary Clinton is once again proving herself incapable of telling the truth.” NBC went with “Trump Calls Clinton 'Close to Unhinged,' Assures He's Pro-Baby” (NBCNews, http://goo.gl/avnTdE); Politico decided on “Trump portrays Clinton as mentally unfit for the White House” (http://goo.gl/N8iIko); and Yahoo News posted “Trump's New Attack against Clinton Uses 'Short-Circuited' Line Against Her”, embedding the “Robot Hillary” video. 

(https://goo.gl/QjRCkY). The Washington Post posted a news article—not a pundit piece—titled “Trump, in Series of Scathing Personal Attacks, Questions Clinton’s Mental Health” (WP, https://goo.gl/PSNP9V), and with advertising force you can’t buy, embedded a link to the Trump campaign’s “Robot Hillary Unhinged” video

“Hillary unhinged” has thus become legitimate debate. CNN’s “Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton is Unbalanced, Unhinged” (http://goo.gl/iy3k6q), deepened the context by reporting that to support his Hillary’s unhinged theme, “Trump quoted a book written by a Secret Service agent”, a reference to Gary Byrne’s controversial book, “Crises of Character”, recounting Hillary’s White House screaming, throwing things, and paranoid ranting about a “vast right wing conspiracy” stalking her. See, “Hillary Clinton 'Threw Bible at Secret Service Agent's Head'”, (Telegraph, June 21, 2016, http://goo.gl/XiePfs). 

“Hillary unhinged” is part of an orchestrated Republican campaign message, started in 2015 by Thomas Kuiper’s book, “Hillary Unhinged: In Her Own Words”, (see Goodreads, http://goo.gl/f08AiQ), marketed innocuously at first as “a raw and humorous collection of quotes” by Clinton. But its not funny anymore. Clinton advisors are taking it seriously, and are trying to deflect it with anti-sexism stereotypes about men calling women crazy, reminding voters about Trump’s sexist references to Megyn Kelly’s menstrual “blood coming out of her whatever”. Thus, NPR’s Cokie Roberts used a CNN roundtable last night to launch the sexism counter-attack, resulting in today’s post, “ Cokie Roberts: Trump Calling Clinton ‘Unhinged’ Is Code For "We Shouldn't Elect A Woman" (Real Clear Politics, http://goo.gl/gxycq1). 
 
I leave it to others to decide if elevating “Hillary unhinged” to the debate mantle of the “first woman president” is a good idea. But I have little doubt that unlike “Trump’s insane”, “Hillary unhinged” is going to have staying power. It is part of the campaign’s developed messaging, and will be no less durable than “Crooked Hillary”, but hopefully not as effective as “Lyin’ Ted”, “Little Marco”, or “Low Energy Jeb”. 

Never underestimate Trump marketing.