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.

The important thing to remember about hacking the upcoming presidential election is that the hacks don’t have to be successful, they just have to be visible. Attempted hacking is just as good as actual hacking and a lot easier.

Why? Because the reason for the whole hacking conversation started by Donald Trump is simply to give him a way to put the election results in doubt. A news story about cyber attacks on polling stations is all he needs, and the press is going to play right into this. If the cyber attacks are not visible, they won’t be of much use.

Never mind that the only hacking so far in the election has been in support of Trump by the Russians. If he looses due to the actual vote, he will claim that the electoral system has been hacked.

If he wins, he will say that he would have won bigger had there not been any hacking, even if the truth is the opposite. He has not really been overly concerned with the facts during this campaign.

If Donald Trump starts sinking in the polls, look for him to step up the hacking references. And look for the Russians to do some clumsy hacking on election day to help him out.

I asked a friend last week how she liked the debates. “Did you see Hillary shimmy? She did a move like this!” and shows me. This was the first thing out of her mouth. I asked, “Was it good or bad?”. “I think it was bad,” she answered.

Now I missed the shoulder shimmy so I looked it up. It came after a long rant by Donald Trump on Hillary Clinton’s temperament that did not reflect all that well on his own. Clinton just smiled and when it was over she took a deep breath, said “woo, okay”, did a shoulder shimmy and got a big laugh from the audience. The internet loved it and it was a clear ‘winning moment’ for Clinton.

This is why Clinton is in trouble. My friend is a middle class senior citizen and lifelong Democrat. One would think she would be a supporter, but instead she has a visceral dislike of Hillary Clinton. She won’t even give Clinton credit for something that was clearly a win for her. Will she vote for Trump, I asked? “No way!” But later she says, “It wouldn’t be so bad if Trump won. The country would still be here.” I mentioned that the country still existing was a pretty low standard for a successful presidency, and she reluctantly gave a bit of ground there.

There are many Americans like her. Their hatred of the Clintons, and Hillary in particular, is amazingly powerful. Why? Here are a few reasons:

• Bill Clinton was a popular president in a time when partisanship skyrocketed. A popular president is a threat, and he, and his wife, were constantly under attack and when the search for substance failed the attacks went personal. They have stayed that way.
• If you repeat something often enough and long enough, people will start to absorb it. The attacks on the Clintons have been going on for 25 years now. Never mind that Politifact scores her as one of the most truthful politicians
• The Clintons, and particularly Hillary, have built up defensive walls around themselves and therefore appear to be hiding something and dishonest.
• Hillary is a woman and she is trying to break the ultimate glass ceiling. People of a certain age / background / culture still feel more comfortable with a man in the top spot. Hillary is not the woman we picture when we think of a president, mostly because we don’t think of a woman when we think of a president.
• And finally, if a woman is to break the glass ceiling, is Hillary the best representative of womanhood to do this? She is far from perfect and every one of her real and imagined flaws have been spotlighted for so long that to many people it seems wrong that she should be the first woman president.

 

During the debate Monday night Hillary Clinton told the viewing audience that she had set up her web site to fact check Donald Trump’s assertions in real time. Good idea, although it does not seem like anyone expects Donald Trump’s pronouncements to actually be factual. The bar he is being held to is that his ‘facts’ need to make a great sound bite, not actually be true.

In any event, if you bothered to check out her website during the debate you would have been greeted by a splash screen asking you to provide your email address and join her campaign. It was only after you studied the page for a minute or two that you would figure out that you could enter the site by clicking on the stylized ‘H’ in the upper left corner. One more click and you finally got to the fact checking page.

What kind of overpriced nincompoop consultant designed that navigation?

Why not have the fact check page be the splash screen during the debate?

Why make it hard on people?

The answer is that her campaign is probably run by a committee, and no one had the authority to use a little common sense.

Maybe Hillary Clinton will get a small bump in the polls after yesterday’s debate and maybe she won’t. Either way the candidates are likely to remain neck and neck until election day. If Clinton is to win, she will need the help of a big segment of voters that are not all that enthusiastic about her: Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

Bernie said he would campaign for Hillary but he is not making any headlines doing so. One reporter had to chase him into an elevator where Bernie finally said that he would be campaigning “as hard as I can” for her.

But there really is not a lot of evidence for this. Bernie is talking to the political press and saying the right things, but none of his supporters pay any attention to that. Is he organizing rallies? Is he spending a lot of time on the road? During the debates he posted a “sad Bernie” selfie that made him the center of attention and his wife tweeted an message that could be interpreted as Bernie suggesting that his supporters vote their conscience.

There is one school of thought that says that Sanders should work really hard to help push Clinton over the top because if she wins, she will owe him and he and his movement will gain influence in her administration and the Democratic party.

If he does not work hard and she still wins, he won’t be owed a thing and that will not be good for his movement.

On the other hand, Bernie may feel that the only thing that will really propel his movement into power is the popular backlash that would come if Donald Trump were elected president. This might be true, but he would be setting the country up for four years of what he considers to be awful government to get that. And in four years, Bernie will be 79 years old.

If he does push as hard as he can and she wins, maybe he can negotiate for Secretary of Commerce or Treasury. That would be interesting!

 

 

Adding Breitbart News chief Stephen Bannon to his campaign team has proven to be a very wise move by Donald Trump. Expected to reinforce Trump’s tendency to bombastic and incendiary remarks due to his heavily right wing, Tea Party political orientation, Bannon has instead presided over a, well, more presidential candidate. Under his management, Trump has reigned himself in and actually appeared more centrist. It is almost like the idea of giving a hyper active child a stimulant to get her to calm down (hello Ritalin).

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton needs the opposite. She is sinking in the polls and cannot seem to mount a catchy and effective attack against her opponent. Does she have an anti-Bannon on her campaign team? Maybe she needs one.