I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS • US presidential elections part VIII

I predict Trump goes to Louisiana and praises the noble flood victims for not looting stores like the you-know-whos

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards' office said Trump had not called to discuss plans to visit, but that the New York businessman was welcome to volunteer or make a sizable donation toward helping victims.

"We welcome him to (Louisiana), but not for a photo op," the statement said. "Instead we hope he'll consider volunteering or making a sizable donation to the LA Flood Relief Fund to help the victims of this storm."

Yeah... we'll see.

he's going to promise a bunch of money and then not deliver

He's going to build a roof over Louisiana.

He's still gonna eat KFC there instead of Popeye's.

gross

I'm waiting for Cohen to weigh in on Manafort's resignation.

So, it WAS a shakeup.

Says who?

News outlets.

Which ones?

All of them. Manafort is out.

So?

updated: http://cookpolitical.com/senate/charts/race-ratings

That man is the very act of someone flipping you the bird as they use a turn only lane to go straight personified.

xp

Don't usually see cable news, but shots of Obama golfing against flooding in LA both bad visual and creepy déjà vu.

don't cry, Pat

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/08/19/us/19DOWNBALLOTjp2/19DOWNBALLOTjp2-master768.jpg

updated: http://cookpolitical.com/senate/charts/race-ratings

I don't see how the Feingold-Johnson race isn't "Lean D"

please god let rubio somehow lose to complete his political humiliation

I do think the whole Louisiana situation at present in terms of approach was a pretty poor own goal on the part of Obama et al, and I haven't liked it. It's been the first canny thing Trump's team has done in a while, though it was more a case of them exploiting the optics well after the fact.

Sargent makes an interesting comparison in today's WaPo that hadn't previously occurred to me (obviously Wilson was a savvier political operator than Trump and v different in a lot of ways but still):

Fun, revealing footnote: The new Trump ad, like the one he ran during the GOP primaries, has unmistakable parallels with the immigration ad that GOP Governor Pete Wilson ran in California in the mid 1990s that also depicted our borders overrun with dark hordes. As E.J. Dionne reports in his book on American conservatism, some Republicans see eerie parallels between the California GOP’s decline amid a failure to adapt to the state’s ongoing demographic changes, and the national party’s current failure to adapt to similar demographic changes sweeping the whole country — not to mention the impact they are having on national elections.

xpost -- This is worth reading and considering, for instance.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-on-the-bayou/

Governator anomaly aside, Prop 187 basically destroyed the GOP in this state

xp

xpost -- This is worth reading and considering, for instance.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-on-the-bayou/

― Ned Raggett,

I agree that Obama should have been there offering the symbolic emollients that are presidential specialties, but I scowl at the idea that many Clinton-leaning voters are suddenly voting for Trump because he showed up.

Rod Dreher is always wrong. He's Bill Kristol + Jesus.

I see it less as suddenly changing minds as it is shoring up support -- which is what I think the last week has been about. Even small moves are moves. And if you don't think there's going to be an ad with this finally making the rounds now they say they ARE doing ad buys, well, color me surprised.

Mind you, I do love the crassness here, and I hope someone has THIS on video too:

https://twitter.com/reluctantzealot/status/766617092426698752

It just adds free fuel to lazy anti Obama fire. "See, he's as bad as Bush!!!'

please god let rubio somehow lose to complete his political humiliation

― carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries),

he's not gonna lose it looks like

:(

baffling. Dude is a total nullity with zero accomplishments.

and a demonstrated total lack of interest in his job

florida.. so much to answer for..

one of the two times I was in miami I chatted up some angry republican cuban guy at the hotel bar.. on the way home I saw an awesome billboard at the airport criticizing obama for bowing down before the saudi king.. kind of like this one

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/pac-pastes-blunt-message-on-anti-obama-billboards-/nSpdG/

that same billboard appeared about 5 miles from me. I used to get so angry driving by it.

there was a "WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?" billboard near the intersection of two major highways in north dallas (75 and 635) for years and years. even after the long form cert was produced. i think it was finally replaced maybe 1-2 years ago?

baffling. Dude is a total nullity with zero accomplishments.

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 19, 2016 4:49 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and a demonstrated total lack of interest in his job

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 19, 2016 4:50 PM (

so is Patrick Murphy

like it was a big white sign and all it said was "WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?"

i don't remember if there was even anything else on the sign xp to self

thought this was a hilarious pt in the ongoing 'Source of Trump Support: working class economic angst or racism?' debate

Trump supporters aren't racist, they're Altruistic (though their altruism only extends to... white people)

2. Even if Trump supporters aren't personally struggling, they still have good reason to agree with his messages.

Through the narrow lens of self-interest, it's true that the views of Trump supporters can appear irrational. Why do they find his protectionist messages so appealing when most of them aren’t factory refugees or victims of offshoring? Why are they so upset about immigration when so many of them live in white enclaves, insulated from the nation’s changing demographics?

Proponents of the cultural-anxiety theory of Trumpism say that the root cause must be prejudice.

Perhaps. But this kind of voting behavior is not strange at all — in fact, it's quite normal. Political scientists have long noticed that people tend to think beyond their own selfish desires when they form political opinions. Over the years, studies have discovered, for instance, that the unemployed are not more likely to support redistributive tax policies; whites who oppose affirmative action are not more likely to be affected by such policies. And in general, researchers have failed to find much of a connection between people’s personal finances and their opinions on politicians and economic policies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/19/stop-blaming-racism-for-donald-trumps-rise/

Rubio is running to ensure that the GOP keeps at least one Senate seat. That's it. If I were McConnell, I'd have been on my knees too.

well yeah

This Michigan speech from Trump that's going on is typically weird...He's promising to get 95% of the African-American vote four years from now is he's just given a chance to prove himself. I've been in and out of the house, but I swear I heard him say "The automobile industry--or as we like to call it, 'the car industry'..." at one point.

I would like to point out with pride that I have contributed less than 1% of the posts to this thread, which I think tends to mitigate the lack of insightful opinions or useful information in my contributions.

I'm definitely above the 1% bar. So I have no excuse.

I don't know how to check, for which I am thankful.

is being orthodox christian some theamericanconservative dot com rite? are dreher and larison both into that?

OK Trump gave out Play-Doh in Louisiana. I'm not worried about "optics."

"When life gives you mud, make mud pies!"

Trump to black voters: 'What the hell do you have to lose?'

a twofer bad look, both condescending and desperate

Meanwhile . . .

A Massachusetts convoy of Trump supporters drove from Wrentham to Foxboro in their trucks, RVs and SUVs on July 31 and were caught on tape spewing racist epithets and calls for anti-black violence.

I'm not c&p-ing any further than that. If you really want to know what they had to say, click through. Suffice to say it's as vile as anything that ever came out of the Jim Crow South.

Not 100% sure I trust a writer named "Andrea Chalupa" but there you go.

There is apparently a federal investigation into the lobbying work done by Manafort-Davis (the company, rather than Manafort, the individual) on behalf of Ukraine which is also concentrating on The Podesta Group:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/19/politics/paul-manafort-donald-trump-ukraine/index.html

The gist of the allegations is that MD advised a fake NGO to pay $1m+ to TPG to lobby on behalf of Ukrainian government positions. Tony Podesta maintains that he thought the NGO was legit, a number of ex-staff members of TPG have said that everyone knew it was shady and there were arguments over whether the company should have taken the contract on the grounds of legality.

trump *is* having some success reaching out to black voters, though

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160819181700-03-trump-dimondale-mi-0819-overlay-tease.jpg

went to protest/see trump event last night, private fundraiser- basically all the worst people in the world bashfully scuttling in and out of the mpls convention center. choicest moment was when a young woman yelled at me, asking if i was 'poor' and 'one of those student loans guys'

Just found out my wife went to high school with the editor in chief of brietbart

Was he an asshole even then?

He went to Harvard Westlake so I assume he knows no hardship. He's also like 31.

White supremacist trumpling stabs interracial couple:http://m.sfgate.com/news/nation-world/article/White-supremacist-stabs-interracial-couple-after-9172617.php

nice to know the convoy of trucks headed to the trump rally started in my hometown