The Commentariat -- October 24, 2016

Afternoon Update:

"The Election Is Rigged, So Don't Bother to Vote." Sincerely, DJT. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "It's hard to suss out whether Trump's 'the vote is rigged' message is already tamping down the enthusiasm of his base, but in ABC's new poll, the number of Republicans who reported being likely to vote fell seven points since the Post-ABC poll released earlier this month.... Trump is...relying heavily on strong turnout from a group of voters that generally doesn't turn out that much...Telling them instead that the vote is rigged and, implicitly, that their votes may not count seems like the exact opposite of what he should be doing." ...

     ... Akhilleus: Trump's primary calling card has been his contention that he is a business and organizational genius on an order rarely seen, that there is nothing he can't fix. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. He's going Chapter 11 on his own campaign. This guy is so incompetent, he can't even do what is most necessary to win, GOTV. His big idea is to imply that votes won't matter. Loser or idiot? You make the call.

How to Make a Much-maligned Institution Even Scummier. David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back. Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses -- and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse -- after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the -- wars last decade." ...

     ... Akhilleus: The Bush Cheney Debacle keeps on screwing Americans. Hey, if the Pentagon is demanding that soldiers who signed up to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan pay back sign up bonuses, why can't those soldiers demand that the Pentagon give them back their legs, arms, eyes, and mental health they forfeited to make George W. Bush forget that he was a deserter?

Early Voting in Nevada Goes to Democrats. James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "The media tends to focus on the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton relative to President Obama, which is real, but a few thousand more ballots were cast in Nevada on Saturday -- during the first day of early voting -- than during the kickoff day four years ago, when there was a similar flurry of activity to propel Democrats to the polls. And that was before Air Force One touched down yesterday afternoon."...

     ... Akhilleus: Block parties for Voto Latino, door to door canvassing, hitting the unions and the churches, Getting.Out.The.Vote. This is how it's done, Donnie, not whining about how it's all so unfair and screaming "rigged election"! Another example of how he does business. He shoots his mouth off but the only action you'll see is him trying to grope strange women. But this is yet another reason anti-democratic Confederates want to kill expansion of electoral opportunities like early voting.

*****

Presidential Race

Gary Langer, et al., of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton has vaulted to a double-digit advantage in the inaugural ABC News 2016 election tracking poll, boosted by broad disapproval of Donald Trump on two controversial issues: His treatment of women and his reluctance to endorse the election's legitimacy. Likely voters by a vast 69-24 percent disapprove of Trump's response to questions about his treatment of women. After a series of allegations of past sexual misconduct, the poll finds that some women who'd initially given him the benefit of the doubt have since moved away. Fifty-nine percent of likely voters, moreover, reject Trump's suggestion that the election is rigged in Clinton's favor, and more, 65 percent, disapprove of his refusal to say whether he'd accept a Clinton victory as legitimate. Most strongly disapprove, a relatively rare result. All told, Clinton leads Trump by 12 percentage points among likely voters, 50 to 38 percent, in the national survey, her highest support and his lowest to date in ABC News and ABC News/Washington Post polls. Gary Johnson has 5 percent support, Jill Stein 2 percent." -- CW ...

... Nate Silver: "The problem for Trump is that taken as a whole, his polls aren't very good -- and, in fact, they may still be getting worse. An ABC News national poll released on Sunday morning -- the first live-caller poll conducted fully after the final presidential debate -- showed Clinton leading Trump 50 percent to 38 percent. Clinton's 12-point lead in that poll is toward the high end of a broad range of results from recent national polls, with surveys showing everything from a 15-point Clinton lead to a 2-point Trump edge. But the ABC News poll is interesting given its recency and given why Clinton has pulled so far ahead in it -- Republicans aren't very happy with their candidate and may not turn out to vote.... Overall, Clinton's chances of winning the presidency are 87 percent according to our polls-only model and 85 percent according to polls-plus." -- CW

Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: Hillary Clinton spent "a full day in North Carolina on Sunday, with stops in the Raleigh-Durham area and in Charlotte. Recent polls in the battleground state place her between one and four percentage points ahead of Trump.... Clinton is concentrating much of her efforts in the state on addressing predominantly African American audiences, including at churches and at historically black universities such as St. Augustine's, where she spoke Sunday." -- CW

Alexander Burns & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton moved to press her advantage in the presidential race on Sunday, urging black voters in North Carolina to vote early as Republicans increasingly conceded that Donald J. Trump is unlikely to recover in the polls. With a strong lead in national polls, Mrs. Clinton has been pleading with core Democratic constituencies to get out and vote in states where balloting has already begun. By running up a lead well in advance of the Nov. 8 election in states like North Carolina and Florida, she could make it extraordinarily difficult for Mr. Trump to mount a late comeback. On Sunday, Mrs. Clinton appeared at a church in Raleigh, N.C., with mothers who have lost children to gun violence or clashes with the police. Addressing the congregation, she sounded like a candidate looking past the election to a presidency in which she would have to address a deeply divided nation." -- CW

If I had my life to relive, I'd do it all again. But this time, I'd be nastier. -- Jeannette Rankin, first female member of Congress, shortly before she died at the age of 92

Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "Hillary Clinton told [Tim] Kaine one of the reasons she felt a connection with him was because his faith, his missionary service in Honduras and his Jesuit education matched with her Methodist upbringing, the Virginia senator told Chuck Todd on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday. 'Hillary Clinton's feeling about faith and about Catholicism in particular is most demonstrated by the fact that she asked me to be a running mate,' Kaine said. 'That is the most direct evidence about what Hillary thinks about Catholics.' -- CW

Isaac Arnsdorf: "Tim Kaine said Sunday he's concerned about the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner, suggesting a Hillary Clinton administration might be skeptical of the deal if she wins the election. 'I share those concerns and questions. We've got to get to the bottom of them,' the Virginia senator told host Chuck Todd on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'Less concentration, I think, is generally helpful, especially in the media.' Clinton hasn't commented on the deal but has previously called for strong regulatory scrutiny of major mergers." -- CW

Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Robby Mook said Sunday that the women accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct have not been in contact with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. 'These accusations are not coming from our campaign,' Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, told CNN's Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union.' When pressed by Tapper, Mook said there has not been any contact 'that I'm aware of.'" -- CW

Isaac Arnsdorf: "Democratic operatives aren't inciting violence at Donald Trump rallies, a senior Clinton campaign strategist said Sunday in response to last week's sting videos by Project Veritas. The two subcontractors shown in the videos have resigned, and there aren't other people doing the same thing, Joel Benenson told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' 'This Week.' Benenson said the person who released the footage, James O'Keefe, has doctored his videos in the past to cast people from Planned Parenthood and NPR, among others, in the worst possible light." -- CW

Katie Glueck of Politico: "Donald Trump on Sunday insisted that he remains competitive in the polls, particularly with women, even as a host of recent surveys show the Republican nominee's numbers plummeting. Trump kicked off a rally in Naples, Fla., by bashing polls as 'inaccurate,' especially the myriad results that show him struggling with women." -- CW

Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "... Donald Trump on Sunday slammed Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. 'This guy Podesta is a nasty guy,' Trump said Sunday evening during a campaign rally in Florida, echoing an insult he hurled at the Democratic presidential nominee during last week's debate. 'Man, I wouldn't want people speaking ... about me behind my back. But he said "bad instincts." Bernie Sanders said about Hillary Clinton, "bad judgment." So, she's got bad instincts, she's got bad judgment,' the GOP nominee continued, quoting from emails allegedly stolen from Podesta's email account and published by Wikileaks. 'You take a look at all of the harm and all of the things she's done, it's a mess.'" -- CW

Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Just four years ago, Donald Trump took a drastically different position on what is now his central issue: deporting undocumented immigrants in the United States.... Asked about his views on immigrant labor, Trump said, 'You know my views on it and I'm not necessarily, I think I'm probably down the middle on that also. Because I also understand how, as an example, you have people in this country for 20 years, they've done a great job, they've done wonderfully, they've gone to school, they've gotten good marks, they're productive -- now we're supposed to send them out of the country, I don't believe in that..., and you understand that. I don't believe in a lot things that are being said.'" -- CW

Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Republican pollster, admitted Sunday that her candidate is currently losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton." -- CW ...

... David Edwards of the Raw Story: "CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday reminded Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway that she had been against her bosses 'rigged' election claims in April before he paid her to to start defending them. On Sunday's State of the Union, Tapper noted that there was 'no real evidence' to support Donald Trump's claim that the election is being 'rigged' against him. 'Back in April when you were working against Donald Trump, when you were working for Ted Cruz and advising his super PAC, you had some tough words for Mr. Trump when he was lashing out at the time against the system being rigged,' Tapper told Conway before refreshing her memory with a video clip. 'We hear from the Trump campaign, the rules change, it's not fair,' Conway had said in April. 'He can whine and complain all he wants that he didn't know the rules.' 'Is this a pattern with Mr. Trump?' Tapper wondered. 'If he starts losing, he starts lashing out and calling the system corrupt and calling it rigged?' 'We love watching that clip together,' Conway quipped." -- CW

Brian Beutler: "... the bleakest possible scenario for Republicans isn't that Trump loses badly and refuses to admit defeat. It's that he rejects the notion that a fair election is even possible with him on the ticket, and announces he's boycotting it. His supporters, only a small fraction of whom would have refused to vote for Trump turncoats down the ballot, stay home en masse instead.... He would think of it as a final demonstration of power and vindictiveness, bringing his political career, his stewardship of the Republican Party, to a maximally destructive conclusion.... The Democrats take back the House. This is, I should stress, probably not going to happen." CW: I could live with that.

Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times: "There's a pattern in Trump's behavior whenever he's asked to make a promise -- a pattern of coy evasiveness honed, presumably, in his years as a real estate mogul. He pulled the same stunt a year ago when Republicans asked for a pledge to support whomever became the GOP nominee. Trump said no, then yes, then rescinded his promise. The suspense didn't end until he won the nomination himself. This time, though, the stakes are much higher. If Trump continues to tell his followers that the election system is 'rigged' and accuses Hillary Clinton of stealing the White House on Nov. 8, the result could be months of chaos and years of bitterness." -- CW

Julia Ioffe in Foreign Policy: "When Trump accuses others of what he's doing himself -- or what the Russians are doing on his behalf -- I hear Vladimir Putin's voice. When Trump talks about regulating the 'dishonest' press or about jailing Clinton, these echoes become deafening.... Trump is trying his hand at another Putin trick: if you can't inherit the land, sow it with salt.... It wasn't hard for Putin to destroy democratic institutions that had been around for less than a decade. We are lucky to have roots deeper and stronger than that. But it doesn't mean he can't poison the soil they grow in for a long time to come." -- CW

E. J. Dionne: "To compare what Gore did in the aftermath of the contested 2000 election with what Trump is doing is like analogizing a fire marshal investigating the cause of a blaze to an arsonist.... Gore's call to George W. Bush after midnight conceding the race actually showed how much respect he had for the electoral process. It was only after news organizations withdrew their calls of Florida for Bush, depriving him of an electoral-college majority, that Gore decided a recount was called for. To this day, many Democrats view the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision abruptly halting recounts and awarding Florida to Bush by 537 votes as partisan and even lawless. Yet despite this, and even though Gore won the national popular vote by more than 500,000, he nonetheless conceded with exceptional graciousness. 'What remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside,' Gore said, publicly congratulating Bush and urging the country 'to unite behind our next president.'" -- CW

They Have Great Respect for Women. Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "Several Trump campaign staffers attended a strip club with news staffers from multiple television networks the night before the Las Vegas presidential debate, according to a report in Page Six. The report claims that Trump senior communications director Jason Miller and two other campaign advisers attended Sapphire Las Vegas Strip Club with employees of CNN, ABC, and NBC." -- CW

Kevin Drum offers instructions in how to write a Clinton e-mailgate story. He's fed up with them. ...

     ... CW: Drum's how-to manual seems a little arduous to me. It requires a bit of reporting. Also, it's limited to just e-mail scandals. So let's expand that:

A. If you're as lazy as I am, try the Burns Plan: 1. Scan the papers till you find a story about something bad a Democrat did, or something bad that happened to a Democrat. Any Democrat will do; obscure Congressional staffer is good. (If you're an internationalist, you can use the same tack by substituting "foreign dignitary" for "Democrat," but American readers tend to like American-based stories better, especially if they involve some easy-to-understand sleaze.) 2. Make up a connection between the obscure Democrat/dignitary & Hillary. Hell, they've probably met; there may be a photo-op. 3. Print it.

B. If you're as lazy as Donald Trump is, say, "People tell me __fill in conspiracy theory__."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "The Las Vegas Review-Journal became the first major newspaper to endorse Donald Trump for president this election season, stating that, while the candidate has flaws, he'll bring needed disruption and change to Washington.... The paper was bought by Sheldon Adelson last year, a major Republican donor who is also another billionaire linked to casinos." -- CW

She literally has the smile on her face of every woman that's been talked over by a man who has no idea what he's doing. -- Sara McAlpin, a Republican woman describing Hillary Clinton at the last debate ...

... Michelle Goldberg of Slate: Republican women feel their party has betrayed them. Why are party leaders defending Trump instead of them? -- CW

Congressional Races

"Issa Was Trump Before Trump." Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "Laughing as he spoke..., [President] Obama said he couldn't believe that [Rep. Darrell] Issa [R-Calif.], now locked in the hardest race of his career, had sent out [a] mailer, which brags, 'I am very pleased that President Obama has signed into law the Survivors' Bill of Rights -- legislation I cosponsored to protect the victims of sexual assault.' [The mailer includes a picture of President Obama.] 'That is the definition of chutzpah,' Obama said, adding later, 'that is shameless.'" Issa has called Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in history, [said] he should be impeached and question[ed] whether he was telling the truth about his birth certificate...." -- CW

Gutless Joe. Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Sunday savaged Representative Joe Heck, Republican of Nevada, for failing to reject Donald J. Trump earlier in the presidential race, seeking to tarnish Mr. Heck and other Republican candidates across the country by association with a standard-bearer he called indecent and unfit for the presidency. Speaking at a high school [in North Las Vegas] as he began a three-day campaigning and fund-raising trip, Mr. Obama portrayed Mr. Heck, who is in a competitive Senate race that could determine control of that chamber, as having helped enable Mr. Trump's rise by endorsing his breed of divisive politics. Only now, with Mr. Trump's campaign foundering, is Mr. Heck willing to abandon him, the president said." -- CW

Paul Krugman: "Everyone who endorsed Mr. Trump in the past owns him now; it's far too late to get a refund. And voters should realize that voting for any Trump endorser is, in effect, a vote for Trumpism, whatever happens at the top of the ticket. First of all, nobody who was paying attention can honestly claim to have learned anything new about Mr. Trump in the last few weeks.... You can ignore all the efforts to portray Mr. Trump as a deviation from the G.O.P.'s true path: Trumpism is what the party is all about.... The modern G.O.P. is Mr. Trump's party, with or without the man himself." -- CW

Gubernatorial Races

Reid Wilson of the Hill: "A new round of surveys in states electing governors this November show Democrats poised to pick up seats and gain some ground on Republicans in governors' mansions. Democrats were initially uncertain about their chances to make strides at the gubernatorial level, given the number of conservative states -- Missouri, West Virginia and Montana among them -- the party had to defend. But the recent polls have given them a reason to be more optimistic." -- CW

State Legislatures

Monica Davey & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama, who has endured gridlock in Washington as Republicans in the states took direct aim at his vision and legacy, is stepping in to assist more than 150 state legislative candidates, by far his biggest effort to bolster local Democrats since he took office. 'You are going to see a level of engagement down to the state representative level that I don't think you've seen too many presidents engage in,' said David Simas, the White House political director.... Republicans effectively control 68 of the nation's 99 statehouse chambers, compared with 36 at the start of 2010. For years, Democrats complained that Mr. Obama and his political operation paid too little attention to the health of the party, and during his tenure, more than 800 Democratic state lawmakers have been voted out of office, among the worst losses for the party under any president in more than 100 years." -- CW

Other News & Views

Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "For the first time since the days of poll taxes and literacy tests a half-century ago, the Justice Department will be sharply restricted in how it can deploy some of its most powerful weapons to deter voter intimidation in the presidential election. Because of a Supreme Court ruling three years ago, the department will send special election observers inside polling places in parts of only four states on Election Day, a significant drop from 2012, when it sent observers to jurisdictions in 13 states.... The pullback worries civil rights advocates, who say that Donald J. Trump's call for his supporters to monitor a 'rigged' electoral system could lead to intimidation of minority voters at polling places." -- CW

Eric Levitz of New York: "If you are a median, full-time American worker, then congratulations: Your inflation-adjusted weekly earnings hit an all-time high in the third quarter of this year, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...[O]ver the past 18 months, America has seen rising weekly wages amid low unemployment, with paycheck growth powered by a tight labor market that bestows bargaining power on workers -- and a global oil glut that provides them low inflation. That sunny BLS data comes one month after the Census Bureau's annual report found that household-income growth hit an all-time high in 2015.... Now, economic growth is still tepid. Inequality is still massive. Many homeowners remain underwater on their mortgages.... Still, there is a dissonance between the economy's recent performance and the common view that 2016 -- even more than 2012 -- is an election in which an angry electorate longs for a change in executive leadership." --safari

Elaine Woo of the Washington Post: "Tom Hayden, the preeminent 1960s radical who roused a generation of alienated young Americans, became a symbol of militancy by leading riotous protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and added Hollywood glamour to his mystique with an activist partnership and marriage to film star Jane Fonda, died Oct. 23 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 76. Mr. Hayden's wife, Barbara Williams, confirmed the death to the Associated Press but did not provide an immediate cause. He had heart disease and was hospitalized for a stroke in 2015." -- CW ...

... Hayden's Los Angeles Times obituary, by Michael Finnegan, is here. -- CW

Way Beyond

Annals of Journalism, international edition. Michael Safi in the Guardian: "Unlike in 1999 (the last time India and Pakistan went to war), this most recent ramping up of tensions between the two is being beamed into Indian homes on dozens of 24-hour news channels, most barely a decade old.... But the eagerness of many networks in the past weeks to assume a war posture has sparked soul-searching among some Indian journalists over the direction of the country's fast-growing, but still relatively young TV market. 'Journalists have come to see themselves as warriors,' says Shekhar Gupta ... of the India Today Group.... The man often credited with bringing what has been dubbed the Fox News style to India is Arnab Goswami, an spectacled Oxford graduate whose debate programme, The Newshour, is often lampooned, but easily commands the country's largest English-speaking audience.... On the Hindi news networks, whose ratings are more than fifty times larger than their English counterparts, the dynamics are much the same." --safari

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Guardian is live-blogging the beginning phases of the week-long dismantling of the notorious "Jungle" refugee "camp" (more like a slum) in Calais, France, home to around 7,000 refugees awaiting a ticket to the UK. This is in the context of a week-long police demonstration against the government of François Hollande for a lack of proper resources and support. Alain Juppé, the current favorite to win the presidential nomination, has even proposed renegociating the Le Toquet accord and pushing the border back to Kent in the United Kingdom, so the UK would have to deal with the asylum-seekers (the Brexit vote wasn't supposed to change this arrangement). Hopefully things go smoothly.--safari

When You Don't Get the "Joke"

Jokes depend upon subtext. When you "get" the joke, it's because you know the subtext. Jokes are funny because the subtext both gives the joke its meaning & creates a momentary bond between teller & hearer. For instance, when Hillary Clinton said at the Al Smith dinner last week, "Usually, I charge a lot for speeches like this," most hearers knew this was a joke at her own expense, and referred to speeches she made to Goldman Sachs & other big corporations and for which she was paid seemingly huge sums for what appeared to be, in each case, about an hour's work. The speeches became campaign issues in both the primary and general elections, particularly because Clinton would not release transcripts or tapes of her remarks. Clinton used fewer than ten words to spoof herself and her critics. We knew that backstory, so we got the joke. Ha ha.

Donald Trump told one "joke" at the dinner I just didn't get: "... here she is tonight — in public — trying to pretend she doesn’t hate Catholics.” Why would anybody even think that, much less say it? I wondered. Other than a few rabid StormTrumpers, who "hates Catholics"?

As Amy Davidson of the New Yorker writes, the excuse for that shocking remark was this: "Trump’s joke was about an e-mail in which Jennifer Palmieri, a Clinton aide who herself is Catholic, referred to Catholicism as 'the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.' The Trumpian translation turned this into evidence that Clinton was a religious bigot — an anti-Catholic in a room full of Catholics." Mighty obscure, and scarcely a trope worthy of an insult directed at Clinton instead of Palmieri, but maybe that was it. It wasn't.

Near the end of the evening, Hillary Clinton, in what I assumed were more-or-less traditional remarks at Al Smith dinners, said,

And when I think about what Al Smith went through it’s important to just reflect how groundbreaking it was for him, a Catholic, to be my party’s nominee for president. Don’t forget – school boards sent home letters with children saying that if Al Smith is elected president you will not be allowed to have or read a Bible. Voters were told that he would annul Protestant marriages.

And I saw a story recently that said people even claimed the Holland Tunnel was a secret passageway to connect Rome and America, to help the Pope rule our country. Those appeals, appeals to fear and division, can cause us to treat each other as the Other. Rhetoric like that makes it harder for us to see each other, to respect each other, to listen to each other. And certainly a lot harder to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Okay, I thought, she was working Al Smith's misfortune into a criticism of Donald Trump and his whole campaign. Even so, it was quite appropriate, in context. But once again, I think I missed the subtext. 

Michael Daly of the Daily Beast reminded me: Donald Trump's father Fred "was arrested on Memorial Day in 1927 for participating in a Klu Klux Klan riot in his home borough of Queens. The riot was fueled in part by the prospect that Al Smith might become not just the Catholic governor of New York but the first Catholic president of the United States. 'Americans Assaulted by Roman Catholic Police of New York City' read KKK leaflets that went up in Queens the day after the arrest of Fred Trump and others."

In that tiny newspaper story, published nearly 90 years ago, lies Donald's "Rosebud." Religious, racial, ethnic, cultural and gender animus form the core of his twisted belief system. The views Fred Trump held in the 1920s explain why he and Donald didn't mind discriminating against blacks in their housing developments, even when they were operating under a consent decree; why Donald calls Mexicans rapists & criminals; why Donald thinks Americans of Hispanic descent are unfit to serve in high public office; why Donald would discriminate against Muslim men, women and children; why Donald would stereotype Jewish "folks"; why Donald would profile all people of color as part of his "law & order" platform; why Donald -- and his own sons -- would cultivate white supremacists; why Donald would see nothing wrong with getting into a fight with Pope Francis; why Donald would blithely suggest that his opponent "hates Catholics."

Donald Trump has run a hate campaign because hating others -- all others, no matter who -- is a family tradition. Hillary Clinton remarked on that at the Al Smith dinner. Maybe we didn't get it then, but we know it now.

The Commentariat -- October 23, 2016

Presidential Race

Maurice Tamman of Reuters: "... Hillary Clinton maintained her commanding lead in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the U.S. presidency, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project results released on Saturday.... Clinton leads Donald Trump in most of the states that Trump would need should he have a chance to win the minimum 270 votes needed to win. According to the project, she has a better than 95 percent chance of winning, if the election was held this week. The mostly likely outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump." CW: This analysis is based on the same poll, also linked yesterday, that shows Trump cutting Clinton's national vote lead in half. ...

... Maurice Tamman: "Only half of Republicans would accept Clinton ... as their president. And if she wins, nearly 70 percent said it would be because of illegal voting or vote rigging, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. Conversely, seven out of 10 Democrats said they would accept a Trump victory and less than 50 percent would attribute it to illegal voting or vote rigging, the poll showed." -- CW

Hope Yen of the AP: "Hillary Clinton appears to be displaying strength in the crucial battleground states of North Carolina and Florida among voters casting ballots before Election Day, and may also be building an early vote advantage in Arizona and Colorado. Donald Trump, meanwhile, appears to be holding ground in Ohio, Iowa and Georgia, according to data compiled by The Associated Press. Those are important states for Trump, but not sufficient for him to win the presidency if he loses states like Florida or North Carolina." -- CW

Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Hillary Clinton is so over Donald Trump. Using some of her most dismissive language of the campaign, Clinton said aboard her campaign plane on Saturday that, 'I don't even think about responding to him anymore' after their third and final debate earlier this week. Leading in the polls both nationally and in battleground states, Clinton signaled that she and running mate Tim Kaine instead would be focused on making gains for congressional Democrats in the closing stretch of the campaign." -- CW ...

Pat Toomey heard Donald attack a grieving Gold Star family who lost their son in Iraq, he heard Donald called Mexican immigrants rapists, he heard him say terrible things about women, he heard him spread the lie that our first black president wasn't really born in America. Now how much more does Pat Toomey need to hear? If he doesn't have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump after all this, then can you be sure he'll stand up for you when it counts against powerful interests? -- Hillary Clinton, in Pittsburgh, Pa., Saturday, ragging on the state's Republican U.S. Senator ...

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Emboldened by polls predicting an electoral-college landslide in the presidential race, Clinton is shifting her strategy to lift up other Democrats coast to coast. She and her party are rushing to capitalize on a turbulent turn in Trump's candidacy, which has ruptured the Republican Party, to make down-ballot gains that seemed unlikely just a month ago." -- CW

Hillary's Latest Election-Rigging Scheme. Reid Wilson & Joe DiSipio of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has built a field team in swing-states across the country that is larger than a U.S. Army brigade, giving her a huge advantage over Republican Donald Trump on Election Day. Between Clinton's presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state party operations, campaign finance reports show Democrats employ 5,138 staffers across 15 battleground states. Clinton is funding the army through tens of millions of dollars raised for state Democratic Parties across the country.... By contrast, Trump's campaign, the Republican National Committee and state parties employ just 1,409 staffers in 16 states. Lindsay Walters, an RNC spokeswoman, said the RNC has paid staffers in 24 states across the country. Trump's campaign has shown little interest in investing in a ground operation." -- CW

New Yorker Editors: "On November 8th, barring some astonishment, the people of the United States will, after two hundred and forty years, send a woman to the White House. The election of Hillary Clinton is an event that we will welcome for its immense historical importance, and greet with indescribable relief. It will be especially gratifying to have a woman as commander-in-chief after such a sickeningly sexist and racist campaign, one that exposed so starkly how far our society has to go. The vileness of her opponent's rhetoric and his record has been so widely aired that we can only hope she will be able to use her office and her impressive resolve to battle prejudice wherever it may be found." -- CW

** Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "People ask why [Clinton is] winning, and the usual answer is that Trump is such a catastrophe. And he is, obviously. But I say she's winning mainly because she's one tough dame. She's made of steel. And not Trumpian Chinese steel. And even though she's going to face a wall of total resistance from Congress if she's president, I say history tells us not to sell this woman short.... Donald Trump, who lies when he says 'and' and 'the,' has said one true thing in these last 16 months. She is tough. Tougher than he is. And tougher than all the men who've tried to thwart her, and those about to attempt the job." ...

     ... CW: I do think that what Republicans/many men hate most about Hillary Clinton is that all her life she has been defying their image of the little woman who needs big, strong, manly men to protect her. Particularly in the chivalry-soaked South (ask Mark Twain!), many men depend upon this fiction to assert their patriarchal dominance. The very idea of women being in control, even of their own bodies, is anathema to these imaginary "protectors" of the weaker sex. The fact that Clinton herself s much tougher than the "broad-shouldered" (ask mike pence!), scatter-brained Trumpelthinskin makes them crazy.

Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign -- total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over. -- Donald Trump, attempting to emulate Abraham Lincoln ...

He actually called it 'hollowed ground.' -- digby ...

... Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump came to [Gettysburg's] historic battlefield town Saturday to offer his vision for America's future, saying he hoped to 'heal the divisions' of the country as President Lincoln tried to do here seven score and 13 years go. Yet in his own Gettysburg address Mr. Trump ... did not offer much in the way of race-changing oratory and did not seem to embrace Lincoln's unifying ambition. Instead, the Republican nominee used the first third of what had been promoted as a major new policy speech to nurse personal grievances, grumbling about 'the rigging of this election' and 'the dishonest mainstream media,' and threatening to sue the nearly dozen women who have come forward to accuse him of aggressive sexual advances." -- CW

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "An adult film actress on Saturday accused ... Donald Trump or someone acting on his behalf of offering her $10,000 and the use of his private jet if she would agree to come alone to his hotel suite at night after a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006. Jessica Drake, who spoke at a news conference alongside attorney Gloria Allred, said she met Trump while working a booth at the tournament for her employer, Wicked Pictures. Trump then invited her and two other women to his suite in the evening, where, while wearing pajamas, Drake said he kissed the women each in turn without their permission. According to Drake, after the group left his suite, a man called and asked her to return alone. When she declined, Drake said she was then called by Trump, who asked to her to come to his suite for dinner and a party. 'What do you want?' she said he asked. 'How much?' Later, she said Trump, or a man calling on his behalf, called again, this time with the monetary offer, which she said she declined.... At the news conference, Drake, which is the actress's stage name, held up a picture of her and Trump from the event and said she had told several friends about the proposition immediately after it occurred." -- CW

Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "The Pennsylvania Republican Party filed a complaint late Friday night asking a federal court to allow out-of-county poll watchers to monitor voting stations on Election Day. Filed on behalf of eight Keystone State voters, the suit alleges that state law restricting poll watchers to the county in which they're registered violates the First Amendment and denies them their right to equal protection under the law. Donald Trump has raised unfounded fears that the Nov. 8 election will be 'rigged' by illegitimate ballots cast by undocumented immigrants, people voting multiple times, and 'dead people.' All of them, he claims, will vote for Hillary Clinton. He has called on his supporters to go 'watch' voters in 'certain areas'..., directing them to communities with large black populations like Philadelphia and Chicago." Election-law expert Rick Hasen calls the First Amendment claim "exceptionally weak." -- CW

Daniel Politi of Slate: "The country's best known LGBT group that is affiliated with the Republican Party will not be endorsing Donald Trump for president. But the group made clear it is not withholding its endorsement because of Trump himself but rather because he 'surrounded himself with senior advisors with a record of opposing LGBT equality, and committed himself to supporting legislation such as the so-called "First Amendment Defense Act" that Log Cabin Republicans opposes.' It marks the first time the group has not endorsed the Republican candidate for president since 2004, when then-President George W. Bush was running and campaigned in favor of a Constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. The group spends a lot of time in its non-endorsement to praise Trump's views." -- CW

Senate Races

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Surprisingly, Democrats have improved their [U.S. Senate] chances in places like Missouri and North Carolina, where they seemed to have no shot just six months ago, while they have all but given up in Ohio and pulled their money out of Florida, where prospects had seemed bright. Republicans continue to cling to hope in New Hampshire, Nevada and Pennsylvania, despite what looks like faltering support for Mr. Trump in those states.... [In Missouri, Democrat Jason] Kander has benefited from being a sui generis blend: At once, he is a gun-wielding Democrat, a veteran, a Georgetown-educated lawyer who wears the outsider label, and the opponent of an incumbent [Roy Blunt] who is the embodiment of Washington longevity." -- CW ...

... Harry Enten of 538: "Thanks to big shifts in several key races, Democrats now have a 73 percent chance of winning the Senate, according to the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast, and a 72 percent chance according to polls-only. Both those numbers are up by more than 15 percentage points from last week, when the polls-plus model gave them a 56 percent chance and the polls-only model 54 percent." -- CW

Other News & Views

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Can You See Me Now? Michael de la Merced of the New York Times: "AT&T has agreed to buy Time Warner for more than $80 billion..., a move that would create a new colossus in the worlds of media and telecommunications. The proposed transaction could be announced as soon as Saturday, barring last-minute changes.... Putting together AT&T, a sprawling video and internet empire that encompasses cellphone and cable service along with DirecTV, and Time Warner's media holdings, which include HBO, CNN and the movie studio Warner Bros., would create a formidable new player and potentially spur even more deals. In recent weeks, the family that controls CBS and Viacom has urged the two companies to consider a merger." -- CW ...

     ... Update: "AT&T ... agreed on Saturday to buy Time Warner, the home of HBO and CNN, for about $85.4 billion, creating a new colossus capable of both producing content and distributing it to millions with wireless phones, broadband subscriptions and satellite TV connections." ...

... Where Trump & Franken (Sort of) Agree. Margaret McGill & Tony Romm of Politico: The AT&T/Time Warner deal "is set to become a political battleground for the next U.S. president given the size and scope of the deal.... Already..., Donald Trump has excoriated the deal.... 'As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,' Trump said in Gettysburg.... Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn), for one, said the acquisition 'raises some immediate flags about consolidation in the media market.' 'I'm skeptical of huge media mergers because they can lead to higher costs, fewer choices, and even worse service for consumers,' Franken said in a statement, promising to seek more details about the transaction." ...

     ... CW: Notice how Trump just declares that he will unilaterally cancel the merger (and while he's at it, other past media mergers). It's a lot more complicated than that, & in the end, the administrative agencies must get court approval. The rule of law is meaningless to Trump. His intention is to become a dictator.

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "Jason C. Finan, a 34-year-old chief petty officer, is the first American killed in the current battle for Mosul, a military push to reclaim the city in northern Iraq from the Islamic State, the Defense Department announced Friday. Finan is survived by his wife, Chariss, and their 7-year-old son, of Imperial Beach, Calif., the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The Pentagon said Finan died Thursday, after sustaining wounds in an improvised explosive device blast. He was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve in its fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria." -- CW

Paul Krugman: "There was a time, not long ago, when deficit scolds were actively dangerous -- when their huffing and puffing came quite close to stampeding Washington into really bad policies like raising the Medicare age (which wouldn't even have saved money) and short-term fiscal austerity. At this point their influence doesn't reach nearly that far. But they continue to play a malign role in our national discourse -- because they divert and distract attention from much more deserving problems.... You saw that in the [presidential] debates: four, count them, four questions about debt from the CRFB, not one about climate change. And you see it again in today's Times, with Pete Peterson (of course) and Paul Volcker (sigh) lecturing us about the usual stuff.... My message to the deficit scolds is this: yes, we may face some hard choices a couple of decades from now. But we might not, and in any case there aren't any choices that must be made now.... Your fear-mongering is distracting us from these real problems. Therefore, I would respectfully request that you people just go away." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Protesting GOP Vote-Rigging = "Race-Baiting." Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: After Republicans gerrymandered black North Carolinians into one long, squiggly district, they accused a good-government group of "race-baiting" for running an ad that highlights the state's effort -- approved by an elected state supreme court judge -- to segregate black voters into one district. "Reporting on the map, however, backs up the ad-makers. This summer, ruling in Covington v. North Carolina, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James A. Wynn, Jr. wrote that Democrats were correct to challenge 28 districts that had packed in black and liberal voters, thereby creating a larger number of safe districts for Republicans. 'Race was the predominant criterion in drawing all of the challenged districts,' Wynn wrote. The case became infamous, and a major part of the Democrats' effort to get black voters to the polls." -- CW