“Most people don’t care about it. I’ve had very, very little pressure.”
— Donald Trump, telling Fox News he won’t released his tax returns.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “is feeling good enough about the battle for Senate control to essentially predict he’ll be majority leader next year. Not only that, the veteran New York Democrat believes his party is on the cusp of something much bigger: An era of electoral dominance,” Politico reports.
Said Schumer: “We’re going to have a Democratic generation. President Obama helped create it. But it’s just where America’s moving demographically, ideologically and in every way. We’ll have a mandate to get something done.”
Politico: “Clinton’s team accomplished many intermediate goals during their four days in Philly: The Obamas delivered a husband-and-wife tandem of historic speeches; Bernie Sanders went from being a renegade to a team player – helping to stamp out the last glowing embers of the revolution he sparked in New Hampshire; Clinton was applauded by several dozen speakers (led by her husband) who sought to reverse her negative image.”
“And none of that matters, not one bit, if Clinton can’t reverse Trump’s recent surge in the polls with a discernible convention bounce. She won’t get the 14-point boost her husband got in 1992, but she’ll take anything that moves the dial, that is to say roughly the recent average uptick of three or four percent.”
Politico: “But as the 102-day general election sprints to a start, the reality is that both parties, saddled with two of the most unpopular presidential nominees ever, are bracing for one of the ugliest and most divisive races in modern history. And with Trump’s penchant for the unpredictable, a contest that has already stretched the boundaries of traditional American political discourse is unlikely to become any more civil.”
“For all the talk of hope and optimism in Philadelphia, fear remains the most potent emotion stirring the base — of both parties.”
“The country’s two major political parties, emerging from their conventions to square off in the general election, are speaking to Americas unrecognizable to each other in voices that sound like a political and ideological role reversal,” the Washington Post reports.
“For Republicans, the country is a place of near-apocalyptic gloom whose best days are fast receding.”
“The nation of the Democrats who met here this week to nominate former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is a vibrant and diverse place.”
Politico: “Hackers apparently affiliated with Russian intelligence have launched a cyberattack targeting donors to the Democratic Party’s House campaign arm, sources and news reports said Thursday night, adding to the troubles unleashed by last week’s disclosure of embarrassing internal emails from the Democratic National Committee.”
Reuters: “Many voters on both sides have been ambivalent in their support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, complicating the task of the pollsters trying to track the race.”
“That sentiment may help explain an apparent skew that recently emerged in the Reuters/Ipsos poll results. Given the choice, a relatively large group of voters opted for “Neither/Other” candidate compared with other major polls, leading to an underreporting of several percentage points for one or other of the two major contenders at times in the race.”
“As a result, Reuters/Ipsos is amending the wording of the choice and eliminating the word ‘Neither,’ bringing the option in line with other polls.”
In the run up to Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, it’s clear that Democrats are trying to make this election not about Clinton vs. Trump but America vs. Trump.
A series of very powerful speeches showed a wonderful mix of patriotism, diversity and love for country.
This one by Khizr Kahn, father of a fallen Muslim soldier, was truly extraordinary.
The main event: Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic presidential nomination after being introduced by her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
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Jonathan Chait: “Since the start of the Reagan era, American politics has revolved around a war over the role of government in the economy. The Republican Party is set apart from major conservative parties across the world in its intensely ideological rejection of the state. And, despite his past rhetorical inconsistency, Donald Trump has faithfully adopted those positions. Yet that war has been largely absent not only from the rhetoric in Cleveland, which revolved around nationalism and identity, but in Philadelphia, too. The Democratic speakers have almost entirely ignored Trump’s proposals to deregulate carbon pollution and the finance industry, lavish tax cuts on the very rich, and snatch health insurance from 20 million people.”
“This is not because Democrats lack the confidence in their ability to win an election centered on these issues. (They did it in 2012.) It is because they have chosen to reframe the election as a contest over the much larger question of the sanctity of American democracy.”
Huffington Post: “Even as Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has denied press credentials to news organizations throughout the 2016 election season, journalists generally have had another option: Get a ticket, like anyone else, and walk in.”
“But in a disturbing interaction Wednesday night, private security, in tandem with local Milwaukee law enforcement, detained and patted down Washington Post reporter Jose DelReal while searching for his cellphone at a public event featuring GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence. DelReal, who had already been denied entry with the press, was then also prohibited from attending as a member of the public.”
Charles Pierce: “On stage a young black man, the president of the United States, warmly embraced an older white woman in front of god and all the world. It is now an iconic photograph. If it had occurred on a weed-choked street in Mississippi within the lifetime of many of the people who were cheering the moment, the young man might have been beaten, burned, hung, thrown into a river with a cotton fan tied to his neck. A song began to rise through the history of the moment:
Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze/Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees…
“But it was not those days any longer. The young man was the President of the United States and he has rung his changes on that song, and on an occasionally baffled democracy. Surely, he has done that.”
Think Progress: “This isn’t the first time Trump’s talked about his compliance with a federal law like it’s an act of charity.”
Joe Klein: “And so the crucial question for the Democrats in Philadelphia was the one posed, implicitly, by Sanders: accept reality or retreat into utopian fantasies. This is a particular problem for liberals, who dream of a better world, chockablock with better people; they tend, therefore, to be unduly optimistic about government’s potential to get things done. At its worst, this belief expresses itself in free-range griping. There are always grievances, and too often, the grievance-mongers take center stage; there is always racism and sexism and homophobia and economic inequality to rail against, and there always will be. One reason why Republicans took to wearing American flag lapel pins in the 1970s was to counter, and mock, the Democrats’ sense that the country was going to hell in a limo.”
“Now we have Trump trafficking in gloom, and the Democrats have an opportunity. The real story of the controversial opening day of their convention was not the resentment of the Sanders voters; it was that–for once–the party celebrated the progress that’s been made over the past 50 years. Before prime time, a parade of ‘other’ Americans–blacks, Latinos, gays and the disabled–took the stage and, rather than laying out micromanaged agendas (the Democratic platform did that), told stories of uplift and inclusion.”
A new Suffolk University poll in Pennsylvania shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by nine points, 50% to 41%.
Said pollster David Paleologos: “Hillary Clinton is flirting with fifty thanks to Philly. At this point Clinton’s large lead in the Philadelphia area is offsetting losses to Trump in other parts of the state. She also is amassing the support of women and thus drowning out Trump’s marginal lead among men.”
In the U.S. Senate race, Katie McGinty (D) leads Sen. Pat Toomey (R), 43% to 36%, with a considerably high 20% still undecided.
“President Obama’s prime time speech lifted the Democratic convention to its third straight night of ratings wins over the Republican convention last week — and now the Trump campaign is exhorting supporters not to watch the Democrats’ final night,” CNN reports.
“Overnight Nielsen ratings indicate that Wednesday night’s DNC viewership was about 15% higher than last Wednesday night’s coverage of the RNC… The Democratic ratings advantage has come as something of a surprise, given Donald Trump’s reputation as a ratings magnet.”
“The professional website of Melania Trump, wife of the Republican presidential nominee, has apparently been deleted from the internet as of Wednesday afternoon,” the Huffington Post reports.
“The disappearance of Trump’s elaborate website comes just days after news outlets raised serious questions about whether she actually earned an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Ljubljana, which is in Trump’s native Slovenia. Her online biography claimed she had, but a book about her life published earlier this year says she left the university after one year so she could pursue a modeling career.”
Taegan 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.
