Trying to make the dump-Trump movement look organic.

On "Meet the Press" today, Chuck Todd asked his panel of commentators, "How real is the Dump Trump movement inside the Republican party?" Mark Halperin (of NBC) said "it's real" — not that it's likely to work, but to make it work...

The key... is to not let this be something seen as led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, but led by the delegates themselves. There is this movement that you mentioned at the top of the show. Their hope is that that catches on, and they're willing to go--

Chuck Todd popped in with the perfect word:

That it looks organic.

Halperin repeats Todd's word:

That it looks organic and it looks like it's grassroots and that the delegates can trump the voters more easily than people in Washington. Trump talks about it being illegal, it's not illegal. If the delegates decide to do this, they can....

Gwen Ifill (of PBS News Hour) — referring to an interview earlier in the show — didn't think it could look organic:

I don't know after watching that interview with Paul Ryan how you can believe that they can make this seem organic. If you want to lead a movement, you've got to have leaders of that movement. I don't think we have leaders in this Congress. I think they all want to not answer, as we saw Mitch McConnell do. I think the idea that somehow, from the grassroots, people are just going to reach up and do what the leadership wants has never proven to be true.

Jose Diaz-Balart (of MSNBC and Telemundo) likened the effort to seem organic to a balding guy's use of a comb-over:

This reminds me of the, and my dad had this, the big comb-over, you know?... The person with the comb-over thinks you think it looks natural. And that it really is that way. But when you're looking at the person, you're saying, "That's a big comb-over." This thing is being organic and that it comes from the bottom up is a big comb-over. It's a big comb-over. We can see it, everybody's going to see it. And you can say what you wish, if it's coming from all these organized groups, it's a comb-over.

Hot of the trail of gender politics.

On "Meet the Press" today, Chuck Todd was talking to Molly Ball (The Atlantic) and Jose Diaz-Balart (Telemundo and NBC News)on the subject of whether some of the criticism Hillary Clinton is based on her gender.

Molly Ball said that the political science research shows that women don't get more comments about their looks than men do and that controlled experiments show people are more likely to trust the woman (mainly because women seem like outsiders). The unstated implication is that Hillary Clinton is a specific woman and the dislike for her isn't about women generally but her specifically.

But there's a difference between what's really true and what is useful. If women — notably older women — believe discrimination against women is a problem, that belief might be leveraged. Chuck Todd asked Jose Diaz-Balart if Hillary would be able to "galvanize women." (Putting the "gal" in "galvanize.")

Diaz-Balart just said: "When was the last time that we heard a criticism of a man screaming too much?" And Chuck Todd said "Howard Dean" (referring to this). I couldn't believe it! How did they suddenly forget the man they otherwise can't stop talking about — Donald Trump? Donald Trump's manner of speaking is continually criticized. He's yelling. It sounds mean. It incites violence! It's coming out of a mouth that looks like Mussolini's mouth!

Diaz-Balart said: "I don't understand why Hillary Clinton has to be said she's screaming, she has to smile more. I don't hear men being asked that in the same way." But the speech styles of male candidates are often the subject of criticism. For example, just a few days ago, Chris Matthews said:

"I find Cruz very hard to listen to. He’s relentless, and he whines... He’s got this same angry edge to his voice all the time... There’s no, there’s no lift in it. There’s no hope in it. It’s just this grinding negativity toward anyone he’s competing with."

Molly Ball said that Hillary Clinton is trying "very hard to turn herself into a sort of feminist-identity politics candidate... has really leaned into the woman thing this year, and it hasn't worked." But there's this idea that if/when she gets to a one-on-one fight with Trump, the gender politics will get "really intense."

Chuck Todd brought up that anti-Trump ad we were talking about yesterday — the one with various women reading out-of-context quotes from Donald Trump (e.g., "That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees"). Todd enthuses: "Can you imagine if they put money behind that ad and ran it for two weeks?"

There's no recognition of any incoherence and hypocrisy. I'm seeing — in Todd and the others on his show — a willingness to use overt gender politics against Republicans whenever it seems it will work, but Republicans are criticized for using gender politics even whenever it's just an argument that some criticism of Hillary could have something to do with her femaleness.

ADDED: Let me put that "dropping to your knees" quote in its proper context, which isn't a general statement about women, but a specific situation in which someone else had used the expression and he was cracking a mildly smutty joke: