Donald Trump is justifiably proud of securing his win on a very low budget. He got top billing in the news for much of the campaign season due to his masterful manipulation of the mainstream media. As a consequence, he did not have to spend much money to get his message out.

A lot of the money that the Trump campaign spent was to pay for services provided by the Trump empire: the campaign paid him for the use of his plane, for renting office space in his buildings, etc.

In the last week before the election Trump announced that he would chip in $10 million of his personal money to his campaign, but it is not clear whether he ever did that and whether it was a contribution or a loan.

Someday, someone will run the numbers, but there is a good chance that after the loans are paid back and the amount earned by Trump’s companies is added up, it will turn out that Trump ended up earning more money from the campaign than he personally spent on it.

The election results bring to mind the famous Canadian editorial cartoon published just after the separatist party surprised everyone and won elections in Quebec in the 1970s. The party leader, cigarette in hand, spoke directly to the panicked electorate, while his vanquished rival looked on, completely stunned.

As predicted, Donald Trump is already moving to the courts to challenge the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. However, there are still a few things that are not certain:

• Will Trump personally spend more on the legal challenges than he spent on his campaign?
  Probably, but he will get others to chip in.
• Will Trump fund-raise to recoup the legal costs?
  The Republican party and Republican donors will step up to fund these challenges if it looks like they can affect down ballot races. Normally they might not make some of these challenges lest they be labeled ‘sore losers’, but Trump will give them cover.
• How long until this thing is over?
  Beyond the inauguration as it will affect down ballot races.
• Will Trump get sued, perhaps by some of the women he accused of being liars?
  Good chance. My guess is that Gloria Allred cannot wait to slap a defamation suit on him.

WikiLeaks has played an important role in the US presidential campaign, timing releases of hacked emails embarrassing to Hillary Clinton with great effect.

Julian Assange, who  runs WikiLeaks, has an intense personal dislike of Clinton and is directing the effort from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been holed up for four years. The blond-haired Assange was accused of sexual assault in Sweden and has been hiding out in the embassy to avoid facing charges by the Swedish authorities.

Interestingly, WikiLeaks has not published any hacked mails regarding Donald Trump. Is this simply a case of two blond-haired sexual assaulters sticking together?

If Donald Trump wins the election next week, the two words that will sum up his presidency will be “executive power”. Trump may ask Congress for approval for what he wants to do, but my guess is that he will ask for the approval after he has already done it using his executive powers.

In his career, Trump has always been the sole decision maker (at least since his Daddy stopped being involved). His campaign for the presidency has been more of the same – he says what he feels like saying when he feels like saying it. It does not matter if he does not agree with his vice presidential running mate or his campaign staff.

There is no reason to expect he will suddenly become a different kind of manager once he becomes president. He will push the limits of executive power like the country has not seen before. Before a year goes by, there will be a case in front of the Supreme Court challenging his use of these powers.

Even if the Republicans maintain control of the House and the Senate, Trump will not find it easy to get his way. Congress is going to be upset with his use of executive power, and Paul Ryan, unlike Ted Cruz, may just put principal before politics and push back on Trump’s interpretation of what the Constitution lets him do. Of course, Paul Ryan might not keep his job, but that is another story.

In 2007 there were a number of Democrats gearing up to succeed George W. Bush in the White House. The overwhelming front runner was a senator from New York named Hillary Clinton. But her campaign team got overconfident and by June of 2008 another senator, this time from Illinois, had beat her in the primaries. His name was Barack Obama.

The past few days have brought reports of Clinton’s team building a transition team and shifting their focus from the presidential election to ‘down ballot’ contests like senators and representatives. Meanwhile her opponent has doubled down on the presidential contest.

Clinton would be well advised to not make the same mistake twice. Even though the polls are not looking good for Donald Trump, nothing can be taken for a given in this election cycle. The bad polls might actually help Trump as this news tends to subdue his more inflammatory remarks. A less volatile Trump has proven to be more attractive to voters.

Meanwhile, Clinton needs to keep the pedal to the metal and herself and her campaign on message for another 12 days, otherwise she could again find herself snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

Donald Trump must be perplexed. The techniques that made him a successful reality TV star and won him the Republican nomination are not working anymore. He doubles down on them and it makes things worse, not better.

Trump got where he is by being brash and outspoken, saying whatever he felt, even when it was politically incorrect. Even voters that didn’t support him appreciated his bluntness. Unfortunately for him, he has conditioned people – and the press – to tune out anything he says that is not outrageous.

So when he makes a serious speech about what he will do in the first 100 days of his administration, all people hear is an aside about suing his female accusers. He shouts out that the “election is rigged” and then notes that Barack Obama also spoke about election fraud in 2008, but all anyone hears is the first part.

The unfortunate truth for Donald Trump is that he has become an Alec Baldwin caricature of himself. The outlandish things he says to get his points across are all we pay attention to anymore – the points themselves fall by the wayside. He has no one to blame but himself for this, but he probably does not understand this, and even if he did it would not make him feel any better about it nor would he accept responsibility.

As the polls have turned against Donald Trump his objective has shifted from winning the election to not losing it. Trump desperately wants to be able to hold his head up at the end and say, “I would have won but for  . . .”

That is why he is pointing to rigged polls, press bias, the backstabbing Republicans and everything else arrayed against him. It gives him an excuse. Trump must realize that he has already damaged his brand. If he goes out a clear loser, it may be damaged irreparably.

In the past, Trump had a three pronged strategy for challenging situations.

• Intimidate – Bully the other side. Disparage them, hold back money, threaten to sue.
• Litigate – Sue them with high profile lawyers, adding to the intimidation.
• Settle – When that does not work, quietly work out a settlement. It is usually a pretty good one for him because the intimidation and litigation have softened up the other side. This is where Trump really cuts his artful deals.

So far in the presidential race, we have seen the intimidation (of Hillary Clinton and his fellow Republicans), but it does not seem to be getting the desired results for him. If he remains true to form, next we will see him launch some lawsuits to challenge the election results.

If his court strategy doesn’t go well, he can turn to congress, and he might find some folks to settle with there. He might think that he can cut deals with individual senators (Ted Cruz) and congressmen to challenge the electoral college results from key states and then cut a deal with congress to win the presidency.

It is far fetched, but even if it does not work he can say they he would have won if the process had been ‘fair’. For Donald Trump, it is more important to not lose than to win.

Donald Trump’s inner child is emerging in full force. He is exhibiting all of the qualities that you see in young children.

“I know you are, but what am I?” – If you call me something like a liar I will call you the same thing back

“That’s shiny, I want it. Give it to me.” – If I am attracted to a woman I will grab her and kiss her.

“This game isn’t fair” – If the Emmy’s, election, etc. go against me it means they were rigged.

These are not exactly qualities that you want in a president, although they are probably present in a number of politicians, just not as forefront. But for Trump, they present a different sort of problem. His supporters are very familiar with this type of behavior and I don’t think they particularly like it.

Trump’s supporters want to see him stick it to the system. They like that he has f-you money and can say whatever he pleases. For example, calling other politicians liars, which of course is true – what politician is not a liar?

But Trump’s supporters want him to represent well as he challenges the system. When he calls Hillary Clinton out for her attitude towards women just after he is accused of sexual assault, it sounds like a schoolyard tiff.

And while many of Trump’s supporters might like to think that it would be great to be irresistible to women, I suspect that they are starting to perceive the difference between acting like a four year old and grabbing any woman they fancy and being the big man and having the women just roll on up to them seductively.

Now he is complaining the game is rigged. His supporters know this tune. They have been stuffed by the system and understand that it is not always fair. But Donald Trump was supposed to be the big man who knew the system, the insider who knew how to work it to his benefit. Look at how he won the Republican nomination. What a player.

With his whining about things being rigged, he is telling his supporters that he isn’t that guy. He can’t beat the system. His fingers aren’t that long after all. It has got to be pretty disappointing to them.

Ted Cruz endorsed Donald Trump a few weeks ago and conservative commentator Glen Beck was beside himself. He had Cruz on his show and asked him why he changed his mind. Cruz really could not give him a satisfactory answer and Beck kept hammering him. Finally, Cruz said that he changed his mind when Trump added Senator Mike Lee to his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat. Lee is a friend and supporter of Cruz.

Trump fancies himself a dealmaker, so one suspects that he made one with Cruz, especially since Cruz also made his donor list available to Trump. Maybe there is another new name on Trump’s Supreme Court list that we have not heard about: Ted Cruz. Whatever the deal was between Cruz and Trump, it had to be something very compelling for Cruz, because just 14 days after the endorsement, CNN released the tape where Trump bragged about harassing women and got a lot of bad press. Despite this, Cruz would not back off of his commitment to Donald Trump.

But considering that Cruz has called Trump a ‘sociopathic liar’ I’m not sure any deal that Cruz did with him is all that solid.