Trump

[pogo]

E.g. Priorities USA has a new advert, to fill the gaping hole Trump has left by not paying for his own ads. Like all the best anti-Trump adverts it uses all his own words.

[Little stoned kiwi]

What good would spending money on advertising do? Who hasn't heard of Donald Trump and who doesn't know he's running for President of the USA?
Trump likely has more mainstream and social media coverage than Obama's presidential campaign. All Trump has to do is not fuck himself*, it's unlikely he can sway new votes his way so he can only dissuade people already prepared to vote for him.

*It's more entertaining if/when he does though.

[PumaG]

See, this is what get me. I have no torch for Trump, I can't vote for him and wouldn't even if I could. But between the Orlando massacre and Jo Cox we've have nearly 2 weeks now of GUN CONTROL, TERRORISM THREAT ad nauseam but when it comes to (a) an alleged attempt on the life of He Who Must Not Be Named and (b) in the middle of a packed crowd with the high likelihood of bystander casualties it's all perfectly OK, go for it.

Rank hypocrisy, much?

[pogo]

More on the money. One highlight of the recent disclosures is that a lot of Trump’s campaign spending has been funded by loans from the candidate. $45m of them. This is quite legal, and it’s also legal for Trump to ask for his money back. But anyone donating now might ask how much of their money would go on actual spending, how much repaying the candidate.

The other thing is: Trump is supposedly a billionaire, worth $10 billion if you believe him. If so why is he struggling to raise a few tens of millions? Why is he only loaning not giving money to the campaign? Why is he creaming off money for his own businesses and family, often quite small amounts?

There are only two plausible answers. Either he is not a billionaire, and has not $10bn but only a small fraction of $1bn in assets. Being a successful businessman is his main basis for saying he would be a good president, a claim that is worth a lot less if he is only a millionaire.

Or, even worse, maybe he is a billionaire but has so little faith in his own campaign that he is unwilling to spend even a few million $ of his own money on it. If so why should anyone else, in particular any other billionaire, help him out with donations?

edit; in picture form:

[gravy]

He's paid $10k to Draper Stirling, the fictional ad agency from Mad Men

http://www.mediaite.com/election-2016/d ... ad-agency/

[tufty]

You can't dominate world headlines with your enormous movement tiny, tiny, hands to do exactly that and then not expect to meet with hatred and intolerance yourself.

FTFY. HTH, HAND

[gumboot]

suspected terrorists, i.e. the people banned from flying should also be banned from buying guns.

Bit of a giveaway, isn't it? Part of planning your attack involves buying a gun so you can figure out who's on the list. And in the US buying a gun just shows you're a properly naturalised resident.

[pogo]

How Is Donald Trump Going to Quit?

OK, so it’s Gawker, but it’s very plausible. Trump is all about winning, and now he is losing, badly, to a woman. What point is there continuing? Or to continue and have a chance he needs to become a proper, serious candidate. Doing serious fundraising, listening to advisers, moderating his approach. But where’s the fun in that for him?

[Little stoned kiwi]

If Trump 'loses' it will only be because the establishment is so corrupt that not even he can win an election. Sanders will also be praised as a superior candidate (after the Trump, of course) who also didn't stand a chance from the outset.
While it's not a probability, I'm holding on the possibility all the armed yokels then rise up and start a civil-war.

[KlaxonCow]

If Trump were to quit, then how the shit would that even work? What's the protocol?

Everyone else bowed out of the race, he's the Republican's presumptive candidate.

They surely couldn't scramble together another election, as there simply isn't time. Handing the candidacy to whoever was "second best" seems rather lame and, well, they all pulled out of the race, so it's not necessarily guaranteed that they'd all want to step back into it. Particularly as the "vice candidate" who's only getting the job because Trump can't be arsed.

And that's before the convention. After that, he's their actual, not just presumptive, candidate. If he quits then Hillary just automatically wins by default, as she has no competition? (Well, there's the third party candidates but let's be realistic that American politics is very much a two horse race).

I was saying that the Republicans are on the verge of falling apart already. That a Democratic win - keeping them out of office for 12 years and maybe 16, if Hillary gets a second term (it's a rarity that a President going for their second term doesn't get it, historically) - would force them to soul search. Already, many Republicans can't believe nor stomach that Trump has somehow become their man.

But if Trump actually quits before the election - leaving the Republicans without a candidate at all or, in other words, up shit creek without a paddle - then, bloody hell, the explosion within the Republican party will be being picked up by seismographs on the other side of the planet.

[gravy]

If Trump 'loses' it will only be because the establishment is so corrupt that not even he can win an election. Sanders will also be praised as a superior candidate (after the Trump, of course) who also didn't stand a chance from the outset.
While it's not a probability, I'm holding on the possibility all the armed yokels then rise up and start a civil-war.

A racist billionaire not being able to win the role of president is proof of the establishment being corrupt?

EDIT:

Sorry, "suspected billionaire"

[Rubisco]

If Trump 'loses' it will only be because the establishment is so corrupt that not even he can win an election. Sanders will also be praised as a superior candidate (after the Trump, of course) who also didn't stand a chance from the outset.
While it's not a probability, I'm holding on the possibility all the armed yokels then rise up and start a civil-war.

Not a probability? Don't you realise how close we came the other day? If Trump had been assassinated that would have been it.

[pogo]

I think “what’s good for the Republican party” has never been a concern of Trump’s. They are fucked anyway. There is no way now the Republican party does well out of this.

In theory if Trump quits now it’s not a total disaster. The convention can choose whoever they like. Even with a clear winner in pledged delegates it’s only the rules that say those delegates have to support Trump, and they can change the rules. So if he quits they have no problem rejigging things to choose someone else.

The problem is who? The other candidates? Trump beat them for good reason. Other obvious choices like Romney, Ryan, McCain failed in earlier contests. And whoever they choose would start with massive disadvantages, due to their late entry and lack of democratic legitimacy. No sensible person would take on such a poisoned chalice. Anyone competent and electable would be better off skipping this cycle altogether and waiting until 2020.

[pogo]

Trump fund-raising e-mail. Big image so spoiler tagged:

Spoiler: show

What’s interesting is he promises to match every donation with his own money, up to $2m. Why only $2m? Is that all he’s got on hand, despite his $10bn fortune?

But it could be worse than that (as usual). Remember the campaign owes the candidate $45m. This must be increasingly on Trump’s mind as the campaign implodes and fundraising never gets off the ground. I would not be surprised if all of this money will go to repay Trump. In which case matching funds up to $2m costs him nothing, as it just gets paid back to him. It only means he cannot then be repaid by anyone else, but he’s probably given up hope of getting back all of that $45m and will settle for whatever he can get.

[venusian]

"Smalley"? Eh?