Category: National

* Trump translated: “The system is rigged. Believe me, I know. I’m a rigger.”

* For those looking for Trump to modify his approach and look somewhat presidential for the next month: What are you smoking? He’s a scorpion. He’s a brand that without brashness and bigotry would lack a viable, deplorable following. It’s why he tweets at 3 a.m. to mock Alicia Machado.

* For all those disaffected Democrats who are looking at Libertarian or Green Party alternatives as a forum to express disgust with the Hobson’s choice for president, two words: Ralph Nader. Those 97,000 Florida votes won it, in effect, for George W. Bush in 2000. Also, recall that Barack Obama won the Sunshine State in 2012 by less than 75,000 votes–and the disparity between registered Democratic and Republican voters was far greater than it is today. The manifest reality: Electoral overreaction in the name of idealism, disillusionment or just protest–is, in 2016, counterproductive to America’s best interests.

* It’s especially important for Hillary Clinton to push for early voting. We all know, without saying it, that if this country suffers a major terrorist attack closer to the election, the Trump campaign would find a silver lining. It’s an electorate too easily scared and too prone to overreact.

As we’re too often reminded, this is unlike any American presidential match-up in history. The first woman to reach this epic point vs. the first candidate to be unqualified in both experience and temperament.

What’s been particularly frustrating and, frankly, mystifying are the myriad polls that show this race eerily close. As if this were, say, Clinton vs. John Kasich, where differences didn’t include one candidate being an existential threat to the United States and its place in the world.

Exhibit A for a flummoxed electorate may be what we’ve been seeing with younger voters. Polls show Clinton barely over 50 percent with the 18-29 demographic, well below the 66 percent Barack Obama drew four years ago

Part of it is the Bernie Sanders hangover combined with Hillary Clinton indifference–or worse. The other part is that young people more often than not don’t vote anyway. The turnout in 2012 was only 45 percent.  By all accounts, young people will be voting in even smaller percentages in November. The establishment candidate without the spiky-brand, populist appeal of a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren vs. the reality TV celebrity who gives ignorance and bigotry a bad name is not a ballot-box magnet for younger voters.

And, seemingly, whether that demographic is on a college campus or not doesn’t make any difference. A recent Tampa Bay Times article, “Young Voters Cool to Clinton,” was a sobering sampling of students, including at USF, not impressed with either candidate. To the point where not voting or opting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson could be the likely scenario.

I get the Bernie disappointment. I also get the Barack Obama charisma void that Clinton can’t come close to filling. And I get the off-putting choice that Clinton-Trump is to many voters, including those on college campuses.

But let’s be candid–and sane–here. You cannot legitimately equate Clinton and Trump in their unimpressiveness. That’s not fair to Clinton. Or the United States.

A former First Lady, New York senator and Secretary of State–disingenuous, secretive ways notwithstanding–can’t be equated with Dr. Strangelove meets Benito Mussolini.

This is about putting your country first. And voting to keep a narcissistic con artist out of the White House. The reasons are beyond manifest. Or they should be to the next generation smart enough to be enrolled in a university.

BTW, USF will hold a mock presidential election on Oct. 17.

* Imagine if Donald Trump drank.

* So Ted Cruz has now endorsed Donald Trump. He prayed over it, he says. He wracked his conscience over it, he explains. And he will vote for him in November, he adds. But, then again, he is, after all, “Lyin’ Ted.”

* You go, Senator. Refreshing–and riveting–to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren of the Senate Banking Committee go after Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf over Wells Fargo’s unconscionable churning culture of fraudulent bank and credit card accounts. “Your definition of accountability is to push this on your low-level employees,” said Warren, whose brainchild is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “This is gutless leadership.” And a lot more.

Note to Clinton campaign: Get her back out on the stump ASAP.

* Most creative Tampa political sign: “Dogs Against Trump. Pee Here.”

It’s an all-too-familiar refrain that the American electorate doesn’t always hold up its end of the democratic bargain.

It’s more than susceptibility to pandering and disingenuous campaigning. It’s more than being under-informed about important stuff. It’s more than being “undecided” in elections that feature ideological and temperamental opposites.

It’s, frankly, not voting.  Recall that fewer than one in five registered voters turned out for Hillsborough County primaries recently.

Now there’s this. The online news site Slate has announced that it plans to work with a group of entrepreneurs to project likely results of races for president and U.S. Senate in seven states–including Florida–starting early in the morning of Election Day, Nov. 8. It’s called VoteCastr.

In other words, winners would be projected before some people actually vote. In further words, yet another rationale for part of an already disillusioned or disengaged electorate not to vote. Call it VoteCastration.

And, no, a “projection” is not a synonym for official tabulation, but it’s impactful and typically on the money–unless it’s a “too close to call” situation. There’s a reason that Florida law requires election supervisors to wait until the polls close in their county to publish results. It can have undue influence. That’s why it’s a third-degree felony to release election results early.

Calling winners while voters drive to the polls or wait in line is not felonious. It’s merely a self-serving disservice to voters.

Voting should be about participatory democracy, not some entrepreneurial grasp at media publicity and faux relevance. For the record, Slate’s editor has described VoteCastr’s projection of winners before polls close as a service, one that ends a “news blackout” on voting day. This gives disingenuousness a bad name.

For pertinent insight, there is the take of Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley. “I think of three words: “Dewey Defeats Truman,'” says Corley. “People will think, ‘Why should I vote when they’re already calling it?’ Nothing good can come of this.”

Somebody, inevitably, has to be first in the rush-to-inform business. But everybody has to be fair first. Calling winners before everyone has voted is unfair–to the candidates and the democratic process.

Some take-aways from NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum.

* I still miss Tim Russert. Sorry, Matt Lauer, but his was not a job for the host of the Today Show. And it showed.

* No forum topic is more important than commander-in-chief/national security. Yet only an hour? That meant a net of 25 minutes apiece per candidate. If this had been a forum on, say, “Campaigning in a Social Media Culture,” that would have been appropriate, but not on the ultimate existential issue.

* If the idea is to help voters compare and contrast, why not ask each candidate the same questions? Nearly a third of Hillary Clinton’s time was spent on the email matter.

* And how the hell do you host a Commander-in-Chief Forum without delving into–or even referencing–NATO or nuclear policy?

* After this disappointing forum, it should be obvious to the Clinton campaign that its candidate can assume nothing about the role and effectiveness of the moderators in the upcoming debates. Even Jim Lehrer underscored that “fact-checking” is not “the function of the moderator.” The onus will be as never before on Clinton to hold Trump accountable for what he actually says and for what he manifestly doesn’t know. I still miss Tim Russert’s follow-ups.

All things are relative in politics. The subplots, the polls. Week to week. Day to day. Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” gaffe–now being compared to Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” zinger–doesn’t look so bad contrasted with the awful optics of a sick woman stumbling into a van.

The “deplorables” remark, while acknowledged by Clinton as “grossly generalistic,” was aimed at the “half” of Trump supporters who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic–you name it.” Clinton shouldn’t have said it. It’s not helpful–but it’s not exactly untrue. You couldn’t cull a more off-putting following if you were doing a casting call for Deliverance II. It’s also probably more than half.

As to the health issue, this is all transparent hands on board. The electorate is more understanding of pneumonia than campaign subterfuge–especially for a candidate with trust issues.

Antibiotics can address pneumonia. But they are of no use in combating campaign-staff brain cramps. The release of more medical records is mandatory–yesterday. The public has the right to know, categorically, if Clinton, 68, is healthy enough for the world’s most taxing job. Moreover, it then turns the focus to Trump, 70, the epitome of opaque–from tax returns and detailed health records to specifics for improving the economy, defeating ISIS and paying for “the wall.”

* By all accounts Sen. John McCain is still doing his Arizona balancing act so that he doesn’t alienate Trump voters and make his re-election bid more problematic than necessary. Thus, he won’t flat-out denounce the unqualified presidential candidate who insulted his war record. The irony is that by putting the brash, uninformed Sarah Palin on his 2008 ticket, he helped grease the skids for the unconscionable candidacy of Donald Trump. Political karma, Senator.

* No one can deny the scope and professionalism of the Clinton campaign’s grass-roots organization. It’s impressive–even if not contrasted with the frenetic, seat-of-the-pants efforts of its competition. But a couple of strategic moves still mystify.

It may not be the most direct response to charges of a pay-for-play Clinton Foundation, but why not make a well-documented, endorsement-heavy case that the Clinton Foundation does some very, very important–including life and death–work in the world? Moreover, it’s work that watchdog organizations have given high ratings for low overhead.

Press conferences are over-rated forums for candidate agendas and preening, gotcha media. That said, you don’t go a campaign eon without doing one? Especially if you are well-informed and fast on your feet. Hillary Clinton knows better.

* Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto inadvertently did what he could to enable the Trump campaign recently. His open-ended invitation for a visit provided a candidate without geo-political bona fides the opportunity to strut onto a stage across from a world leader in Mexico City. Cropped photos to die for. Then Donald Trump denied in a high-profile, public forum with Nieto that payment of “the wall” just, well, didn’t come up in their private discussion.

Nieto, however, said it surely did come up. Only he didn’t say that in public. He waited until later and tweeted that he had said Mexico wouldn’t pay for it. Awful timing, but it’s what a political prop does. Meanwhile, Trump made any diplomatic veneer totally moot by reverting to scorpion form a few hours later by arrogantly doubling down on wall payment. “They don’t know it, but they’re going to pay for it.”

This is not about one-upsmanship over a casino or hotel deal. This is international relations with a border neighbor and major trading partner–and an insulting demeanor. This–yet again–can’t be happening.

Is there a more reviled person in America–who isn’t running for high political office–than Heather Bresch, the dissembling, disingenuous, outrageously over-compensated CEO of Mylan N.V, the maker of EpiPens? There’s price-gouging and then there’s holding the life-and-death, allergy-vulnerable–plus insurers, employers and taxpayers–hostage to Mylan’s obscene profit-making.

Just when you think you might have seen it all in the personal-becomes-political part of this made-for-HBO presidential campaign, we get another Weinermobile sexting update. That would be Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman from New York who’s married to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s cling-on adviser for 20 years and the vice chairman of her presidential campaign. Yes, the couple are separating, but it’s still more bar-stool material for Donald Trump.

No you can’t make this sordid stuff up, but the truth, even of the political stripe, should not be stranger–and more deviant–than fiction.

* The media that is so loathed by Donald Trump has once again enabled his candidacy by characterizing a recent “pivot” as an apology. I don’t think it’s undue parsing to note that regretting something is not the same as apologizing.

Here’s Trump’s “apology”: “Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and believe it or not, I regret it–and I do regret it–particularly where it may have caused personal pain.”

In short, he actually meant: “After another staff shakeup, I’ve been advised to back off on my penchant for insults–from a certain POW to the handicapped to immigrants to Gold Star parents. It makes me look insufferable to all but my base, who don’t give a rat’s ass (oops, I actually said that) about anything I say as long as we all know we really hate the same things.”

* Trump has been going out of his way (with white audiences) to sound inclusive and court the African-American vote. He reminds them how bad they’ve always had it, so why not back him?

Well, here’s a response I can’t top. It’s that of Michele Smith, an African-American yoga teacher and an acquaintance. “‘What the hell do you have to lose?’ My dignity, personal safety, respect, civil rights, reproductive rights, the last 50 years of racial equality advancement, domestic security, international respect, democracy … shall I go on?”