The Next President of the United States

[booder]

Sooooooo good.

[TightEnd]

interesting article

One office building is dependent upon the Bank of China as a lender and Goldman Sachs, 2 supposed Trump enemies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/donald-trump-debt.html?_r=0

[TightEnd]

National GE:

Clinton 45 (+8)
Trump 37
Johnson 8
Stein 4

2-Way:

Clinton 50 (+10)
Trump 40

End Citizens United Poll

[TightEnd]

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

Trump and Farage are playing the same dangerous game | Lucia Graves

https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2016/aug/25/donald-trump-nigel-farage-nationalism-bigotry-ukip?CMP=twt_gu

[MintTrav]

Team Trump

So, Trump has had another shake-up of his top team and has just appointed his third campaign manager. For someone who prides himself on picking good staff, Trump has struggled to establish a settled successful top management of his campaign.

The campaign was originally led by Corey Lewandowski, a thug who publicly assaulted two people during the campaign, including a Trump-supporting female reporter. Trump was also advised during this period by Roger Stone, one of the most infamous dirty-tricks operatives in US politics, beginning with his antics when working for Nixon's re-election. Lewandowski's stated strategy was 'Let Trump Be Trump', which worked spectactularly well throughout the Primaries, but it was felt that a more sophisticated approach was needed for the general election. Also, Lewandowski was seriously unsuccessful at fundraising and campaign finances were dangerously low. Trump had three main problems as the Primaries came to an end - low poll numbers, no ground organization and no money.

So Paul Manafort was added to the team in April this year in an attempt to make the campaign more professional. By June, Ivanka finally persuaded Trump to act decisively and Lewandowski was sacked, with Paul Manafort taking over the campaign. Like Lewandowski and Stone, Manafort has previously been involved in the operations of a succession of Republican Presidents and nominees. He has also worked for many questionable foreign leaders, with his firm being named as one of the top lobbying firms receiving money from human-rights abusing regimes. The list of his clients has to be seen to be believed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort.

Manafort was successful in improving the financial position of the campaign and Trump got some post-Convention bounce in the polls, though he still made crazy statements and senior strategists continued to turn over at an alarming rate, some only staying with the campaign for two or three weeks. Then, in the first two weeks of August, Trump went off the rails. There were several Trumpesque incidents in succession, the most damaging being the row he got into with the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in action, which has lost him untold amounts of Republican support. Shortly after this, the campaign manager became the story when Manafort's continued links with Victor Yanukovych started hitting the headlines and it was clear that the campaign was in trouble again.

Trump acted remarkably quickly this time. Kellyanne Conway had joined the team as an advisor during the Manafort period and she has now been promoted to Campaign Manager, with Manafort leaving. Steve Bannon, head of right-wing anti-establishment news website Breitbart, has been appointed CEO of the campaign. Breitbart has strongly supported Trump throughout, even to the extent of siding with the campaign against its own reporter when she was assaulted on camera by Lewandowski. Bannon, described by Bloomberg last year as "America's most dangerous political operative" has an unpleasant history in many aspects, including claims of sexual harassment and domestic violence.

Click to see full-size image.

Even more extraordinarily, Roger Ailes is now coaching Trump for the upcoming debates. As CEO of Fox News for the last twenty years, Ailes was one of the most powerful (and hated) people in broadcasting, the overlord of all the propaganda and distortions, boss of broadcasting stars like Bill O'Reilly, Megan Kelly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and many others. A few weeks ago, he was accused of sexual harassment (by over twenty women, including Kelly) and quickly dismissed by the Murdochs, instantly becoming persona-non-grata and, at 76, his career apparently over. Two weeks later, unbelievably, he was on Trump's team.

One of the most important skills of a President is the ability to pick good staff. Trump's top team through its various iterations (Lewandowski, Stone, Manafort, Bannon, Ailes) has been a proper rogues gallery. In fairness, some of them are extremely capable. Ailes, in particular, worked wonders at Fox and both Bannon and Manafort have been extraordinarily successful at what they do. However, it is also fair to say that Conway seems to be the only one who isn't a nasty piece of work. These are the type of people that Trump surrounds himself with and who will be influencing Presidential policy if he wins.

[Marky147]

Going to be interesting viewing when they start the debates

[DaveShoelace]

Going to be interesting viewing when they start the debates

Genuinely gonna stop up for all of them. Clinton knows her stuff, Trump knows how to use blunt force trauma. IMO Trump will 'win' the debate (not debate better, but win with the better ad hominem attacks).

[TightEnd]

PPP finds 31% of Trump supporters want a wall in the middle of the Atlantic

Click to see full-size image.

[DMorgan]

How many televised debates are we going to get?

Thanks for the updates guys, great stuff

[AndrewT]

How many televised debates are we going to get?

Thanks for the updates guys, great stuff

Last time I think there were three, plus one VP debate.

[DaveShoelace]

How many televised debates are we going to get?

Thanks for the updates guys, great stuff

Last time I think there were three, plus one VP debate.

Same again I believe this time, end of September I think for first un.

[Marky147]

Going to be interesting viewing when they start the debates

Genuinely gonna stop up for all of them. Clinton knows her stuff, Trump knows how to use blunt force trauma. IMO Trump will 'win' the debate (not debate better, but win with the better ad hominem attacks).

Sam Harris was on Rogan a couple months back, and his thoughts on it were very good.



Never seen him before, but he really is good, and obviously super smart.

He has a podcast, so going to go through all his now.

[MintTrav]

Today is going to be one of the most important dates so far. Trump is making a major speech tonight on immigration, and all the signs are that he is about to go back on his most of his previous statements and come in line with standard Republican policy (and Democrat practice). He is about to become the no-change candidate. Even more, his new position includes allowing people who owe back-taxes to make good and stay; in other words, the amnesty that he crucified Bush and Rubio for suggesting.

Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon took up their positions on 17 August and have had a dramatic impact on the campaign. Since the day they took over, Trump has been a different person, far more disciplined, using autocues and sticking to the script. He has apologised for any pain he caused with his previous comments. It didn't come across as sincere, but he did it.



He made a belated pitch for previously-ignored Black votes. It started crudely - "You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs........what the hell do you have to lose?", but has improved since.



The most significant change, though, has been on immigration. The official line is that he has "softened" his position but, in fact, his new stance fundamentally contradicts all his previous rhetoric on the subject. His new opinion is that illegal immigrants who have committed crimes should be deported, but that those who have lived in the US for years, without breaking the law, should be allowed to stay. In other words, no different from Bush, Romney, Obama, etc. We'll see what detail tonight's speech brings, but it seems clear that the softer position is essential for Trump to have any chance of winning.

It runs the real risk, though, of alienating his previous supporters. He now has the classic problem of balancing the pitch between holding on to the hardliners in his own party and attracting the moderates in his own party, the independents and the moderate supporters of the other party. This is the standard conundrum faced by all nominees, who are forced by the system to move right or left to secure the nomination and then back to the centre for the general election. It may be cynical, but you can't become President unless you compromise your principles (we haven't heard much from Hillary about inequality since the Convention).

But Trump was supposed to be different. Many of his supporters were won over by his assertions that he was the one who wouldn't do this kind of thing. Not only may they struggle with softer policies, they may be stung by his change of approach. There is a danger that his credibility will be destroyed and he will lose on both sides. He has had pushback already from some conservatives. One of his most vociferous media supporters, Ann Coulter had a book released last week In Trump We Trust, which includes an assertion that Trump could change any policy and his believers would come along, so long as he doesn't change his position on immigration.

But they don't have an option other than taking this risk - the polls tell us that the campaign was heading for a landslide defeat otherwise. One thing that is clear is that he now has a really good management team in place. By convincing him to change, Bannon and Conway have, at least, given him a chance of winning when there seemed to be no possibility before.

[MintTrav]

Sarah Palin: “If Mr Trump were to go down a path of wishy-washy positions taken on things that the core foundation of his support has so appreciated, and that is respecting our Constitution and respecting law and order in America, then yeah, there would be massive disappointment. Parts of that message we heard in the last week are clearly not consistent with the stringent position and message that supporters have received all along.”