Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Karl Henning]

Judging from all the coverage of Donald Trump's statements and treatment of women one would think that was the most important issue facing Americans today.

Hopefully tonight's debate will cover issues such as the candidate's respective policies on immigration, foreign relations, trade/economy and national security.  Also, maybe Chris Wallace will press Clinton on her security lapses concerning emails and pay-for-play Clinton Foundation activities and her record as Secretary of State, specifically Benghazi. 

I know these topics are not as titillating as rehashing Trump's history with women, but I think they are more important for choosing a president.

You go on convincing yourself that this is a mere matter of titillation.

[Karl Henning]

Well, if El Tupé wrote a letter, we have no reason to doubt he will be true to his word.

[drogulus]

     I never said that.....I didn't mean it like that.....I was joking....Hillary lies......that paper was rigged.....take a look at those right-to-lifers.....a bunch of losers.....Sad!

[Karl Henning]

     I never said that.....I didn't mean it like that.....I was joking....Hillary lies......that paper was rigged.....take a look at those right-to-lifers.....a bunch of losers.....Sad!

And it isn't as if he has ever failed to fulfill his part of any of his contracts.

[Mahlerian]

And it isn't as if he has ever failed to fulfill his part of any of his contracts.

Maybe those ministers should have done a better job if they wanted to be paid what I promised them!

[PerfectWagnerite]

     I never said that.....I didn't mean it like that.....I was joking....Hillary lies......that paper was rigged.....take a look at those right-to-lifers.....a bunch of losers.....Sad! AND I AM GOING TO BOMB ISIS !

[San Antone]

You go on convincing yourself that this is a mere matter of titillation.

No, you're right, it is a matter of distraction.

[Karl Henning]

As I read it, this isn't mere titillation:

•  57 percent of likely voters say his response to the "Access Hollywood" video of him making lewd and sexually aggressive comments about women was insincere. Just 40 percent say it was sincere.

•  52 percent say his comments on tape aren't the brand of "locker room talk" that he and his supporters have routinely claimed. Just 40 percent say they are.

•  Related to that, 68 percent say they believe Trump has made unwanted sexual advances toward women, while just 14 percent say he has not. So, clearly, people think his actual behavior at least somewhat matched the words he claims were bluster.

[Karl Henning]

Marco Rubio: using the WikiLeaks emails against Hillary Clinton would set a dangerous precedent

[San Antone]

So, Karl, do you think this is the most important story of the campaign?  More important than substantive policy questions?  If we're discussing the "character" issue, do you think Hillary Clinton has any flaws?

[San Antone]

Marco Rubio: using the WikiLeaks emails against Hillary Clinton would set a dangerous precedent

Sure, it would expose how the sausage of insider policiticking is made.  Pretty ugly stuff.

[Karl Henning]

As I read it, this isn't mere titillation:

•  57 percent of likely voters say his response to the "Access Hollywood" video of him making lewd and sexually aggressive comments about women was insincere. Just 40 percent say it was sincere.

•  52 percent say his comments on tape aren't the brand of "locker room talk" that he and his supporters have routinely claimed. Just 40 percent say they are.

•  Related to that, 68 percent say they believe Trump has made unwanted sexual advances toward women, while just 14 percent say he has not. So, clearly, people think his actual behavior at least somewhat matched the words he claims were bluster.

So why hasn't he lost much ground — at least in this poll (other polls last week showed him losing much more and down double digits)? Part of it is rank partisanship. About 4 in 10 likely voters appear willing to give him a pass on most of the things described above.

Ayyup.

[Parsifal]

No, you're right, it is a matter of distraction.

I do not find it a matter of distraction. He has exhibited a pattern of failing to respect the rights and human dignity of people who have less wealth or less power than he has. Be it women he wants to sexually abuse, small business owners he refuses to pay, projects he allows to collapse, causing the ruin of his partners while extracting his. He has no honor or morality. This is not the sort of person who I want to see hold the most powerful office in the land.

I don't see Hilary as perfect, but I don't see her as responsible for Husband's behavior because she "enabled" him. Are Ivana, Marla and Melanie responsible for "enabling" Trump? The suggestion that Clinton giving disingenuous answers when asked why she kept her email on a private server is equivalent to the utter lack of morality, honor and honesty that Trump exhibits doesn't ring true to me.

[Karl Henning]

How weird is 2016? Texas is closer than Pennsylvania. Arizona is closer than Florida.

[El Tupé] needs a miracle

In the four-way average, meaning polls that include the two third-party candidates, Clinton leads in Arizona thanks to a poll released on Wednesday that shows her up by 5.

[San Antone]

I do not find it a matter of distraction. He has exhibited a pattern of failing to respect the rights and human dignity of people who have less wealth or less power than he has. Be it women he wants to sexually abuse, small business owners he refuses to pay, projects he allows to collapse, causing the ruin of his partners while extracting his. He has no honor or morality. This is not the sort of person who I want to see hold the most powerful office in the land.

I don't see Hilary as perfect, but I don't see her as responsible for Husband's behavior because she "enabled" him. Are Ivana, Marla and Melanie responsible for "enabling" Trump? The suggestion that Clinton giving disingenuous answers when asked why she kept her email on a private server is equivalent to the utter lack of morality, honor and honesty that Trump exhibits doesn't ring true to me.

Her lies about the server are bad, but not the entire issue.  For me, it is how the security of the US was compromised by her "mistake" of using a private unsecured server for storing and transmitting confidential government documents.  Wikileaking of the documents shows just how easy it was for foreign actors to gain access to this supposedly secret information. 

Contrary to you, I see this as more troubling for a presidential candidate than Trump's ungentlemanly actions.

The irony is that despite her doing everything humanly possible to destroy the emails, they still found their way to other systems and are slowly being released.

[Karl Henning]

Heck, Pence tried that in the Veep debate, so why not?

Kellyanne Conway isn't even trying to defend [El Tupé] anymore. She's pretending he's someone else.

The funny thing is, he doesn't need to do it. It's totally valid to argue that many Americans think Clinton got off easy. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in July showed that 56 percent disagreed with the FBI's decision not to recommend charges against her. This is fruitful territory for the Trump campaign.

But as with most things involving Trump, he insists upon taking it two steps further. He isn't just calling for a special prosecutor — a move that in and of itself would perhaps reek of politicizing the legal process after the FBI has already investigated — he's saying exactly what the conclusion of that process would be. His words are clear; he believes a process should be set up that would lead to Clinton being in jail.

And the only thing left for Conway to do is argue that Trump's words don't actually mean anything, which is a hell of a spot to be in for your top aide.

[Karl Henning]

Contrary to you, I see this as more troubling for a presidential candidate than Trump's ungentlemanly actions.

You go on whitewashing this as "ungentlemanly."

[Karl Henning]

So, no one here has seen the new Project Veritas video?

snypsss, meet snopes.

[Karl Henning]

Only an op-ed piece, so feel free to disagree . . .

Trump is headed toward a major loss. The GOP can't say it wasn't warned.

Trump is thus on track to run behind Mitt Romney's already-anemic 27 percent tally among Latinos against President Obama in 2012. Romney's Hispanic showing was, in turn, worse than John McCain's in 2008 and much worse than George W. Bush's in 2004 and 2000.

Now it would be one thing if no one had anticipated what a Trump-like candidate would do to the party's chances, or if the GOP had been united around a go-for-broke strategy among white voters. But some of the most intelligent analysis of why Trumpism would be a disaster for Republicans came from inside the GOP itself.

The March 2013 report for the party's Growth & Opportunity Project (widely known as "the autopsy" of Romney's 2012 defeat) deserves revisiting at this moment. It was unflinching in offering words that — unless Trump has a miraculous recovery by Election Day — will merely have to be cut and pasted into a post-2016 autopsy.

[Karl Henning]

Clinton will want to go high as Trump finishes low

Most campaigns like to finish on a high note on the theory that voters want to feel good about their vote. At this point, Clinton is all too aware that she remains a controversial, untrusted figure. Her ad nevertheless offers an alternative feel-good message: Even if you don't feel good about voting for Hillary Clinton, you can feel good about an America that bears absolutely no resemblance to Trump's vision of the country. That's not a bad closing argument.