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Clinton’s Drop Has Magnified Trump’s Gain

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Wall Street Journal: “May has been a very merry month for Donald Trump, with recent polls showing him narrowing the gap with Hillary Clinton, or in some cases overtaking her, in a general-election matchup. But while Mr. Trump has seen his support tick up recently, it’s the more dramatic slide in Mrs. Clinton’s numbers that has been a driving factor in her diminishing lead.”

“To some degree, there has been a rallying effect for Mr. Trump since he effectively wrapped up the GOP nomination… But there’s also some evidence that the extended Democratic nomination battle is weighing down Mrs. Clinton’s numbers.”

Washington Examiner: How committed are Trump’s voters?

Clinton Has a New Partner Against Trump

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“Hillary Clinton has a new partner in her battle against Donald Trump: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who gave a speech Tuesday mirroring Clinton’s own talking points accusing Trump of profiting from the housing crash of 2008,” the Washington Post reports.

“Warren has stayed out of the ongoing Democratic primary race between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — she is the only Democratic woman in the Senate who has not endorsed Clinton — but she recently has become more aggressive in taking on Trump on his favorite medium, Twitter.”

More Provocateur Than Politician

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New York Times: “With Mr. Trump as the Republican standard-bearer, the line separating the conservative mischief makers and the party’s more buttoned-up cadre of elected officials and aides has been obliterated. Fusing what had been two separate but symbiotic forces, Mr. Trump has begun a real-life political science experiment: What happens when a major party’s nominee is more provocateur than politician?”

“That the Republican Party has embraced someone willing to traffic in the most inflammatory of accusations comes as wish fulfillment for an element of the right that is convinced that the party lost the past two elections because its candidates were unwilling to attack President Obama forcefully enough.”


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Clinton and Trump Win In Washington

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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton “rolled to wins in Washington’s relatively low-stakes presidential primary Tuesday night,” the Seattle Times reports.

“In the Republican race, Trump was dominant, taking more than three-quarters of the vote and continuing his now-unobstructed march to the GOP nomination.”

“On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She had nearly 54 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s returns in a major reversal — though purely symbolic — from March caucuses, in which Sanders dominated.”

Democrats Mull Dropping Wasserman Schultz

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“Democrats on Capitol Hill are discussing whether Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz should step down as Democratic National Committee chairwoman before the party’s national convention in July,” The Hill reports.

“Democrats backing likely presidential nominee Hillary Clinton worry Wasserman Schultz has become too divisive a figure to unify the party in 2016… Wasserman Schultz has had an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the party’s other presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, who argue she has tilted the scales in Clinton’s favor.”

Time to Pay Attention to Gary Johnson

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FiveThirtyEight: “Gary Johnson might be on the verge of becoming a household name. At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”

“Given that Trump and Clinton are sporting historically high negative ratings, Johnson’s polling makes a fair bit of sense; Gary Johnson is neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton. He might not win a state, but he could make some noise.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

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“I think we should just kind of lay off Bernie Sanders a little bit.”

— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by The Hill, after being asked whether he was concerned about Sanders’s “tenuous loyalty” to the Democratic Party.

Sanders Wants Votes Reviewed In Kentucky

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Wall Street Journal: “Would it change anything if Bernie Sanders actually narrowly won Kentucky’s presidential primary instead of narrowly losing it to Hillary Clinton?”

“Hoping to find out, the Sanders campaign is requesting a recanvass from the state, where he trails Mrs. Clinton by less than half a percentage point. The recanvass involves asking elections officials to review electronic voting machines and absentee ballots in the state’s 120 counties. State law allows him to request this at state expense. Unlike a recount, which he’d have to pay for, individual ballots will not be examined.”

GOP Mulls Complete Overhaul of Primary Process

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“Leaders of the Republican Party have begun internal deliberations over what would be fundamental changes to the way its presidential nominees are chosen, a recognition that the chaotic process that played out this year is seriously flawed and helped exacerbate tensions within the party,” the New York Times reports.

“In a significant shift, Republican officials said it now seemed unlikely that the four states to vote first would all retain their cherished place on the electoral calendar, with Nevada as the most probable casualty. Party leaders are even going so far as to consider diluting the traditional status of Iowa and New Hampshire as gatekeepers to the presidency, by pairing them in one proposal with other states holding nominating contests on the same day as a way to give more voters a meaningful role much sooner.”

Kasich Instructs Delegates to Remain Bound

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“Gov. John Kasich, who suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this month, is instructing the 161 delegates he won to remain bound to him through the party’s June nomination convention,” the Washington Post reports.

“Kasich sent personal letters Monday to Republican officials in the 16 states and the District of Columbia where he won delegates, requesting that they stay bound to him in accordance with party rules. Kasich has not thrown his support to Donald Trump, who became the presumptive nominee in early May after he and Sen. Ted Cruz left the race.”

‘The Most Mortifying Movie Ever Made’

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Vanity Fair: “An extraordinary and flabbergasting documentary film opened last week: Weiner, directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg. An intimate, unblinking look at Anthony Weiner’s disastrous 2013 campaign for New York City mayor — which was derailed by revelations that he had continued sexting multiple young women even after a previous sexting scandal had forced him to resign from Congress in 2011 — Weiner might well be the most mortifying movie ever made, even including Mortdecai.”

“My first thought after seeing the film was, like most people’s, What were Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin (longtime Hillary Clinton aide), thinking when they allowed some of the most painful, excruciating moments in their marriage to be filmed? My first and a half thought: What would a shrink make of all this?”

The Opposite of Woe

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Just published: The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Denver Post: “Hickenlooper recounts the first time he smoked pot at age 16. And his attempt to grow marijuana outside his bedroom window in suburban Pennsylvania. His love-sick depression as a freshman at Wesleyan University and the lithium capsules he needed to survive final exams. And the time in college he ‘got a little high’ and took a nude self-portrait in a bathtub.”

Why Trump Could Win

By 124 Comments

Robert Reich: “Trump’s rise suggests a new kind of politics. You might call it anti-politics.”

“The old politics pitted right against left, with presidential aspirants moving toward the center once they cinched the nomination. Anti-politics pits Washington insiders, corporate executives, bankers, and media moguls against a growing number of people who think the game is rigged against them. There’s no center, only hostility and suspicion.”

“Americans who feel like they’re being screwed are attracted to an authoritarian bully – a strongman who will kick ass. The former reality TV star who repeatedly told contestants they were ‘fired!’ appears tough and confrontational enough to take on powerful vested interests. That most Americans don’t particularly like Trump is irrelevant.”

Why Is Clinton So Disliked?

By 217 Comments

David Brooks: “I understand why Donald Trump is so unpopular. He earned it the old-fashioned way, by being obnoxious, insulting and offensive. But why is Hillary Clinton so unpopular?”

“I would begin my explanation with this question: Can you tell me what Hillary Clinton does for fun? We know what Obama does for fun — golf, basketball, etc. We know, unfortunately, what Trump does for fun.”

“But when people talk about Clinton, they tend to talk of her exclusively in professional terms. For example, on Nov. 16, 2015, Peter D. Hart conducted a focus group on Clinton. Nearly every assessment had to do with on-the-job performance. She was ‘multitask-oriented’ or ‘organized’ or ‘deceptive.’… People who work closely with her adore her and say she is warm and caring. But it’s hard from the outside to think of any non-career or pre-career aspect to her life. Except for a few grandma references, she presents herself as a résumé and policy brief.”

Trump Embraces the Fringe

By 34 Comments

Michael Gerson: “As a leader, Trump has succeeded by appealing to stereotypes and ugly hatreds that most American leaders have struggled to repress and contain, His political universe consists of deceptive experts, of scheming, of criminal Mexicans, of lying politicians and bureaucrats and of disloyal Muslims. Asked to repudiate David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, Trump hesitated, later claiming a ‘bad earpiece.’ Asked to repudiate the vicious anti-Semitism of some of his followers, Trump responded, ‘I don’t have a message to the fans.’”

“This is not flirting with the fringes; it is French-kissing them. Every Republican official endorsing Trump should know: This is the company he keeps. This is the company you now keep.”

Erick Erickson: “If the Republican Party wants to go in his direction, I guess I’m not a Republican anymore.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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