“Hillary Clinton has many paths to 270 electoral votes, more than any candidate in a generation,” said Jeff Berman, a paid consultant to her campaign....Meanwhile, also according to Politico, "Inside Trump Tower: Facing grim reality/Three weeks until early voting, the campaign scrambles to pick a path and stay on it."
So, let me get this straight: Hillary has "plenty of paths," but Trump is struggling to "pick a path and stay on it."
Is it good to have different paths or is it bad? Good for Hillary, bad for Trump? Would it be pathological to want some logic in all this talk of paths?
I'm thinking the Hillary side figures it serves their cause to make people feel that it's all over, that there's no way to fight them off, because they've got another way and another way. It's like how you can't build a wall, because if you build a wall, they'll dig a tunnel and then another tunnel, and you'll never find all the tunnels. Ha ha! Give up!
From the Trump article:
Late last week... Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Republican National Committee brass... Those present for the meeting... said Kushner’s questions reflected a growing realization within Trump’s team that for all the party’s talk about implementing a major swing-state deployment plan, it hasn’t yet materialized.... The absence of a clear plan has spread to something even more fundamental — the campaign’s path to 270 electoral votes....That's it. Antipathy! The opposition to paths.
Making matters tough for Trump has been the ongoing reluctance of the party’s biggest contributors to open their wallets.... The billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch also have refused to come around.
The antipathy has had far-reaching consequences....
Posts
82 comments:
"let me get this straight: Hillary has "plenty of paths," but Trump is struggling to "pick a path and stay on it."" Correct, and yes, that is correct.
How 'bout Trump just walks straight to the target?
My assessment continues to be that baring any crazy October surprise (Wikileaks of damning Hillary emails, economic collapse ect.), Hillary Clinton has got it wrapped up. However the victory will be somewhat Pyrrhic for the Democrats since nobody trusts Hillary now. A president without the trust of the people behind it is doomed to failure. She won't be able to push any kind of agenda without public support.
What's more the Republican party will be irreparably fractured, so we're in for some weird times in the coming years.
You forgot to link to Scott Adams talking about how this is all part of Trump's genius persuader plan.
Also, Trump is definitely not an idiot and all the people who support him are definitely not idiots either.
So this morning it was revealed that Trump has 1, yes one, numero uno, field offices in, wait for it...FLO-RIDA. Trumpophones will blame the never trumpers, which is ludicrous.
Yeah, Trump will lose, and badly. It looks like he's trying to lose.
"Three weeks until Early Voting..."
Wow. Is that really true?
Does it bother anyone else that we've now got Early Voting starting before the first Presidential Debate even takes place?
What, exactly, is the point of having the polls open more than a month ahead of Election Day? (Aside from making it much, much harder to monitor the integrity of our elections, that is.)
It was clear from Trump's introductory campaign speech when he called Mexicans rapists that he did not have a path to victory. It's a shame the Republicans nominated him anyway.
The path IS for the most corrupt person to win, and she is distrusted and disliked by most Americans. Pretty astounding.
I get what Trump offers and promises. I get it. I never bought it. Not this time.
This time we needed to win.
Sad.
Hillary has two paths to the oval office that I can see: she has the "win it fairly" path and also the "steal it" path.
Hillary has 51 offices in FL to Trumps 1, what genius
Early voting is overrated as an election problem. Does anyone think early voters would change their minds? As Trump said, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose the votes he already has. A lot of Clinton supporters feel the same way.
If conservatives ever want to win a Presidential election, they need to stop lying to themselves. It will be interesting to see after the election if the dominant conservative message is that Hillary stole the election or if Republicans admit that by early September Trump didn't have a path to victory.
Interestingly, the state with the largest number of field offices is WI. Where Cruz beat Trump like a cheap drum after Trump savaged the sitting Gov Walker.
Like I said, it looks like he is trying to lose. I thought he loved winning. Maybe that was Charlie Sheen.
If the media covered Hillary Clinton and her corruption - with the rigor her corruption deserves, she would be laughed off the stage. The media keep her afloat. Now, with the democrat moderators on board, and not a peep from Trump - it's over.
If we selected anyone but Trump, we might stand a chance. We are gonna miss the Romney loss. He missed it by a little.
Not that I believe in the accuracy of any of the polls, but today's polls at Real Clear Politics show Trump with a small lead. If not amazing certainly interesting.
I do agree that Clinton has the easy road to the electoral college if you accept that this election will approach "normal". We won't know that 'til the fat lady sings (I don't mean Hillary either).
Other than the Supreme Court impact, Hillary's ineptitude will highlight Obama's. So it will be an even uglier scenario going forward. Fuck the Koch Brothers.
@David said" If conservatives ever want to win a Presidential election, they need to stop lying to themselves." There you have it, absolute truth. The purer-than-thou conservatives are doomed unless they learn to understand the world as it is today and most important: that unless you win the elections you are doomed to the wilderness. Frankly I think a lot of them just like to wear their hair shirts so they can prove to themselves how pure they are. I think most of them are hypocrites.
Sorry, Real Clear Politics has it as a tie. My enthusiasm ran away with me. However Clinton's lead in VA is now +1 or +2 depending on last two days polls. I thought she was ahead by 16 in VA and was going to stop running ads. Am I wrong?
Hard to imagine either one as POTUS, particularly the brain damaged felon.(unindicted)
I'm surprised so many republicans are so glum. With each wikileak and judicial watch discovery she looks more and more damaged to the point she will collapse on the way to the white house. Like Blagojevich all that corruption will finally do her in. Its just a matter of time. The republicans should be planning on a campaign to provide a firewall by keeping the congress and promising to protect america from "crooked Hillary".
@320Busdriver. I agree with your comments about Trump's FL operation yet in the latest polls I can find he's up by one or two points. That means nothing compared with the potential GOTV effort. My reading indicates that Trump has delegated GOTV etc. to the RNC. We'll see how that works!
This is not a Democrat vs Republican race. It's Trump vs the establishment, and that includes the media and Republicans that cling to the fruits they enjoy with the status quo. Look at that prick Mitt Romney. A Mormon calling someone else a racist. Really.
Trump threatens all of that. Especially the GOP Big Money that thrives on importing cheap labor to be exploited. I wouldn't expect the GOP to put up any big push for Trump. He's on his own with his current support team...Sessions, Giuliani, Gingrich, Pence, now Scott Walker to some degree.
Maybe after the debates if Trump starts leading in the polls, the GOP might see his win coming and then they'll hop on board, to say they were always on board.
One last comment then I have to go do chores: If Trump is going to lose ( and each day I think that is less of a possibility) I would really like to see him go down fighting. He has certain beliefs and certain traits and I hope that he doesn't try to mask them. Clinton is a disgusting given. Trump, at his best, promises the opportunity for this country to begin to heal some of the atrocious problems that have been brought on by several administrations of less than capable leadership.
@320Busdriver One last thought RNC doubling field staff from today's WaPo.
Hillary is now solidly behind in the polls and everything's coming up roses? Her advisers are liars, too, I see.
Trump voters don't trust pollster and don't trust the confidentiality of the process. They don't want to be hassled by Lefties after they talk to a pollster.
Trump is the "fuck you" candidate. If we ever needed one it is now.
Gusty Winds correctly asserts that: This is not a Democrat vs Republican race. It's Trump vs the establishment, and that includes the media and Republicans that cling to the fruits they enjoy with the status quo.
Exactly! Too bad the establishment hasn't yet figured it out but they have their heads up their asses too far to see much of anything.
Usual disclaimer in this up this week down next week campaign, but this week Hillary is in full collapse. Support is dropping across the country--even "safe" states are looking rickety. People who think she's got an easy win on her hands aren't paying attention.
But Trump isn't doing a bunch if stuff he's had great success not doing and that's supposed to be a problem. The amateur pundits are as FOS as the professionals.
I presume that we are all familiar with the liberal bubble and the liberal narrative, their having been around and written about for so many years. I guess it only makes sense that there is a rino bubble too, even though I haven't seen it documented. It would exist for the same reasons that created and maintained the liberal bubble. Reading comments from folks who fail to recognize that Wallace dislikes Trump and who are convinced that Trump has no chance...
I volunteered to make phone calls and walk neighborhoods passing out yard signs at the local GOP campaign office. Based on that experience, I believe that anyone not directly involved in the Clinton Campaign who says Trump has no chance is ...seriously mistaken.
Bullshit..if Trump wins it'll only happen as a result of Hillary giving it to him. Not impossible.
That is such a great song. Breakfast in America was a super album.
I note the word Criminal is in the Logical Song. Highly appropriate for a post involving Hillary.
One can hope that Hillary will be taking the long way home.
Could we have kippers for breakfast? Mummy dear, mummy dear?
I cannot say I'm a fan of Trump. But next to corrupt and inept Hillary, he'll get my reluctant vote.
Hillary has been running ads against Trump for how many months now? Trump has only begun running ads against Hillary, so that'll do her some damage. Not good for her if they're currently tied.
And each day brings more news of Hillary's corrupt dealings with Foundation donors, more classified emails that she sent that she failed to turn over (that should never have been sent over the internet to begin with!), and now we learn she cannot remember some really important briefings because her brain was damaged.
So Trump can fly around the country, fill stadiums, hold press conferences, make appearances on the Sunday political shows, while Hillary is too busy hiding from reporters afraid she'll get asked a tough question for which she doesn't have a good answer.
Trump can spend the next weeks appearing presidential, flying to disaster areas, visiting foreign heads of state, and making policy speeches, while Hillary can't.
And these are the reasons I recently begun to believe that Trump can win this, if he can stay focused on Hillary (forget Kaepernick you dumb ass, you're not running against him, and that goes for every other shiny object that comes into view - STAY FOCUSED) and keep from stepping on his own dick.
This election is pathological in the following sense: Clinton is probably about the only Dumbocrat that Trump can beat, and Trump is probably about the only one of the candidates at the first Republican debate that Clinton can beat.
I really like Crime of the Century. I know Rodger Hodgson is playing Potowatomi northern lights in Nov. I would pay to see that show.
more visually-loaded brainwashing: just close your eyes and think of all hillary's paths.
is she even going to make it to election day fit to stand+speak?
probably trump should organize vote-getting-out without assuming GOP establishment will lift a finger.
With all Hillary's memory problems, will she remember what to say at the debates? Or will all questions on the emailgate be met with, "I don't recall", "not to my knowledge", "I cannot remember", and "I did not have sex with that server!"
Supertramp had some excellent albums. Breakfast in America and Crime of the Century very much so. I always liked the cover of Crises? What Crises? though.
Over the river and through the woods, to grandmothers White House Trump goes.
I love that, in the Logical Song, if you don't "watch what you say," you might be labeled a "liberal" or a "radical." Hilarious!
Politico expects her to receive the anti-native, progressive war, class diversitist, female chauvinist, selective exclusion, and pro-abortion vote. Clinton hopes to ride Obama's coattails to The White House. She will always be second place.
Now that it's obvious that the racist sunset isn't even trying to win, this blog is back to being funny
As the Democrats continue with their Long March to make America a turd world country they may finally make us Brazil. First elect a corrupt woman as president then impeach and remove her. Poor Hillary, she can't even be first with that.
David said...
If conservatives ever want to win a Presidential election, they need to stop lying to themselves.
Yep. Be more like the Democrats and lie to the voters all across the county.
By all means, including hypnosis, keep hope alive.
"It was clear from Trump's introductory campaign speech when he called Mexicans rapists that he did not have a path to victory. It's a shame the Republicans nominated him anyway."
So true. That's why he didn't run as a Democrat, he would've been drummed out of the race after that first speech. However, it resonated with the right. They made their bed, now they have to lay in it.
I think we know that the path Hillary picks won't be the straight and narrow path.
"So, let me get this straight: Hillary has "plenty of paths," but Trump is struggling to "pick a path and stay on it."
Is it good to have different paths or is it bad? Good for Hillary, bad for Trump? Would it be pathological to want some logic in all this talk of paths? "
Strategy is not choosing the right path to victory, it's choosing such that all paths lead to victory. Being forced to focus on a single path is a sign that you're about to lose.
Koch Bros are happy with Hillary.
If I didn't know better, I would think this is Ann's first election.
Breaking: Supertramp sends Trump ceased and desist letter regarding the unpermitted use of their hit song The Logical Song.
Ha ha! Give up!
We have you completely surrounded.
Very good Althouse.
Trump's mistake is he isn't selling enough favors. If he would just throw a rich donor a bone every now and then like the grifter he is running against he would get money from rich people. This is especially effective with foreign donors. If he would just sell the little people out now and again the plutocrats wouldn't give all their money to Hillary. Then he could afford 51 field offices.
All this whining about money in politics is sounding a little hollow right now.
The Republican Party and their "thought" leaders are committing suicide. They just do not know it yet.
All this whining about money in politics is sounding a little hollow right now.
Oh Trump knows just how the process works. Just from the other side. Thats why he sent off a check to FL AG Pam Bondi, at her request, as she was considering whether to join in the Trump Univ lawsuit. Surprisingly, she demurred.
Trump still got caught for using his non profit to make a political contribution. He knows the game all too well.
Anti-path-y.
That's awesome; nicely done.
She's buying
a Pathway
to President.
Thank you, Taurus.
I am Laslo.
(Does anyone remember laughter?)
I am Laslo.
The Democrats have built an edge the last decade, but that edge is the same one Obama had in 2008 and 2012. Clinton does not have more paths than he did in either of those elections, and certainly fewer than Obama had in 2008. The election this year will come down to the same states it did the last time- Florida, Ohio, and Virginia- Trump has to win them all, and if he does win them all, he is all but guaranteed to hold all the other states Romney won. However, that still doesn't get him to 270, but if he can hold Clinton to one in NE or 3 in ME, he will deny her reaching 270, too.
This idea that states like PA or MI will flip to Trump, or Georgia or Utah to Clinton is fantasy thinking of the highest order.
All your path are belong to us.
"It was clear from Trump's introductory campaign speech when he called Mexicans rapists that he did not have a path to victory. It's a shame the Republicans nominated him anyway."
I'm in Saint Croix Falls at the moment. The big story is that the mexican illegal alien cook hired by a local chinese restaurant was just given 8 years + deportation because he raped the twelve year old daughter of his employer. The Mexican told her he would kill her and her parents of she said anything. I suppose he would have killed her right there if he had known that she would talk.
So Trump was telling the truth to power; Illegal aliens rape Americans.
Reality sucks, even for people who call themselves 'Unknown.'
Democrats are all liars and crooks. See Obamacare and Hillary and Loretta and Bill.
and Harry Reid, and Barney Frank and Soros and Bernie Madoff and Jon Corzine.
Crooks and liars, all.
Don't forget Rostenkowski and Blagojevich.
Yes the Koch brothers are the villians.
When whiny Trumpkins become whiny Democrats.
"Blogger Phil 3:14 said...
Yes the Koch brothers are the villians.
When whiny Trumpkins become whiny Democrats."
One interpretation.
Another would be trump supporters have noticed that wealthy people are buying the government and the politicians are selling out the stupid people.
Another is that as long as the government gives you a little of somone else's money you will vote for them no matter how corrupt they are.
Another interpretation is that Hillary is one more neocon, but nobody is supposed to notice because the billionaires lined up behind her early, cleared the Democratic nomination for her, and are going to drag her across the finish line and there is no questioning their judgement!
At some point in a presidential campaign, Democrats accuse every Republican candidate of racism and consorting with the KKK—to say this smear isn’t a standard Democratic campaign ploy is to wage war on honesty. Hillary once called Democratic Senator and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Robert Byrd “a friend and mentor.” His Mexico City trade show blunts the smears. He gets a win in the trade deal.
"Yes the Koch brothers are the villians. When whiny Trumpkins become whiny Democrats."
Well, that's one way to look at it. Stupid, but certainly one way. The other way is to ask if the people who you assumed were allies will have your back when you need it or if they have their own agenda and it isn't yours.
The Koch brothers are reputed to be Libertarians; ideological free traders who don't care that open borders and free trades has been shown to hurt less skilled working people by depriving them of less skilled jobs; jobs that were exported to low wage countries. In some respects Libertarian (and Conservative NR type) ideologues are like Communists. Communists throughout the world have demonstrated a willingness to murder millions of people on the way to a perfect society. I'm not saying that Libertarians and the crew at NR are advocating killing people, but they are capable of viewing the destruction that their policies have caused as the necessary collateral damage to a better world. NR's Kevin Williamson was most explicit on this.
At some point the rational person, the moral person, the compassionate person sees the way that entire industries, the jobs they offered and the towns that they supported have been destroyed at the altar of "comparative advantage." They have seen the people that have had their jobs, their dignity and their hope for the future taken away and even if they were fortunate enough not to be personally affected begin to ask themselves is this way is the right way.
Phil 3:14: Yes the Koch brothers are the villians. When whiny Trumpkins become whiny Democrats.
If you didn't have your head stuck in a "Democrats v. Republicans" bucket, you'd have known that there's a large chunk of "right" side thinking and sentiment out there that hasn't been down with the Koch brothers' brand of "conservatism" for, oh, decades now. Some of them have become "whiny Trumpkins" for well-considered reasons that long predate the arrival of Trump.
Moneyrunner @7:31 has kindly made an attempt to clue you in here, but it's a bit disturbing that this feature of the political landscape of your own nation has to be explained to you, at this late date.
taco trucks on every corner?!?!
Hello Madame President.
@Anglelyne
Oh bullshit. Every conservative I have ever brought up the Koch's to, went into hyperdrive defending them. It's easy to claim now that some of you folks rejected the Kochs and a portion of the conservative base didn't buy into their politics all along. Such bullshit. Y'all loved you some Koch.
Unknown: Every neoliberal neocon/cuckservative I have ever brought up the Koch's to, went into hyperdrive defending them.
FTFY.
One day, when you grow up and mommy turns off the net nanny, and you can go to the library, have your own book-buying account at Amazon, or even sneak out and rub shoulders in the scandalous demi-monde inhabited by people who don't think God instituted America's current 2-party clown show, you'll find a whole wonderful world of grown-up political thinking waiting for you.
But are you sure you're even supposed to be looking at Althouse right now? Or did she say it was OK as long as you only played with Chuck?
Oh bullshit. Every conservative I have ever brought up the Koch's to, went into hyperdrive defending them.
One can not be "the scourge of Satan" and still not be somebody I agree with at all times. The Kochs are appreciably less shitty than George Soros.
The Kochs are brought up as this shoadowy group who uses money to turn elections --- ignoring that the spend far, far less than Soros and Tom Steyer do on the Dem side. I'll defend them there because the Progressive criticism of them is utter bullshit.
It's easy to claim now that some of you folks rejected the Kochs and a portion of the conservative base didn't buy into their politics all along. Such bullshit. Y'all loved you some Koch.
Do you support everything Soros has done? Do ALL Progressives agree with what he's done? Because he's A LOT closer to most Prog movements than the Kochs are to conservative ones.
Taco trucks? That came from a random supporter. Do you think candidates are responsible for what their supporters say? That would be an impossible standard. I say it's a false-flag operation anyway--the guy's doing it to help Hillary while calling himself a Trump supporter.
If he calls himself a lifelong Republican, well . . .
Taco trucks? That came from a random supporter. Do you think candidates are responsible for what their supporters say?
I'd say make them responsible.
"So, Hillary, you had the father of the guy who shot up the gay club in Orlando..."
just like the lady fingered racist sunset, latinos for trump founder marco gutierrez turns out to be a real estate scammer and a serial visitor to bankruptcy court. the jokes just write themselves.
Basically Trump blew it the moment he called Mexicans criminals and rapists.
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