Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Oh, Please.

The Democratic National Committee brought on a new chief of staff Thursday: Brandon Davis, the former national political director of the Service Employees International Union. The move is a sign Hillary Clinton is moving to consolidate control of the DNC now that she is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Davis was introduced as the […]

Paul Waldman conflates two entirely different things about media coverage: media coverage of and about Trump himself and media coverage of Republican congressional policy proposals. He’s right about one of those things, but clearly wrong about the other.

[The left’s] belief that Trump’s success is primarily a media failure has a parallel in the way conservatives have always explained their own defeats. We would have won, they insist, if only the media hadn’t been against us! If only they had told the voters just how much Barack Obama hates America, or if only […]

The Clinton Campaign Continues to Help Trump Ensure That Policy Won’t Matter in This Election

Time Magazine serves up a fascinating look at Donald Trump’s evolving campaign strategy, in which Trump and his top advisers leave little doubt that they think they can win mainly by dominating the media environment, in a way that will smash all the old rules of politics. The piece recaps several recent episodes in which Trump […]

It Takes a Triangulator to Think This Is a Good Idea

Here’s a video from the Clinton campaign full of Republicans criticizing Trump for his attacks on the judge in his fraud case. — Greg Sargent, Washington Post, this evening Why, of course it’s a good idea, in a campaign that should be based largely on the likelihood that if elected, Trump would serve as Paul […]

Why did the Clinton campaign say earlier this month that Trump’s statement that he plans to partially default on the national debt could work? (And, yes, that, as the NYT mentions today, is what the Clinton campaign said.)

Debates have broken out in Mrs. Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters over the best approach to take. Some advisers worry that by running against Mr. Trump as she would a traditional Republican candidate, Mrs. Clinton is actually making the reality­ television star appear more legitimate. This month, when Mr. Trump suggested he would reduce the national debt […]

Another day, another indication that the Clinton campaign remains dangerously clueless about what will matter most in the general election. Ho-hum.

Clinton’s aides say they have settled on the big story they want to tell about Trump: He is a business fraud who has cheated working people for his own gain, and his ideas, temperament and moves to marginalize people by race, gender and creed make him simply unacceptable as commander in chief. — Clinton thinks […]

Trump Falls to His Knees PLEEEADING for Republican ESTABLISHMENT Donors to Fund His Campaign—Offering Them the Ultimate Gift: Supreme Court Proxies. Toldya.

Tomorrow, behind closed doors with Paul Ryan & Friends, he will swear fealty to Mitt Romney’s platform.  And not just the part written literally, it turns out, by the Heritage Foundation and CNBC!  Also the part written by the Federalist Society. Including on Supreme Court and lower-court appointments.  Suffice it to say that his promise to […]

My response to Run’s and Barkley Rosser’s analogies to the 1980 election

Run’s post here discusses and elaborates on a comment by Barkley Rosser in the Comments thread to this post of mine.  I posted the following reply to Barkley’s comment, and reposted that comment as a comment to Run’s post: Barkley, I certainly share your fear that Trump actually could pull this off, but I don’t […]

The Most Successful Trojan Horse Since the Trojan War

A key to beating Trump is to point out that on fiscal and other domestic policy at least, the election contest will not be to determine whether there will be another President Clinton or instead a President Trump.  There will be either a new President Clinton or a President Manafort. Every time Trump tries to […]