Los Angeles Times: “Trump has long sought to divert attention from own misjudgments and mistakes by blaming his enemies. Now, as he struggles to overcome Biden’s lead in the polls, the president has turned familiar schoolyard taunts like ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ into a campaign strategy.”

“Deflecting criticism is a normal part of politics, but Trump stands out for how frequently and reflexively he redirects his opponent’s attacks. In psychology, the tactic is known as projection — a defense mechanism to deny one’s faults and attribute them to someone else.”

Said GOP strategist Rick Tyler: “I suspect he’s been doing it since the third grade, and I suspect it’s always worked for him. It’s a difficult technique for grown adults to counter.”

McClatchy: “Beset by deep restrictions on how they can campaign during the outbreak, an alliance of more than a half-dozen left-leaning organizations said Thursday that they would begin a massive letter-writing campaign to urge low-frequency voters to turn out for the November elections.”

“And unlike most messages in modern campaigns, these partially handwritten letters will be sent not over email but by the U.S. Postal Service — packaged in an envelope with a stamp attached as if people were communicating in a pre-internet age.”

“Mike Bloomberg has contracted some of the biggest meme-makers on the internet to post sponsored content on Instagram promoting his presidential campaign,” the New York Times reports.

“The Bloomberg campaign is working with Meme 2020, a new company formed by some of the people behind extremely influential accounts.”

Here’s one example.

New York Times: “Catchy debate lines alone rarely determine the outcome of a race. But there is a skill to landing the perfect zinger, the kind of quick remark that can reinvigorate a campaign, boost fund-raising, allay concerns about a candidate or even sink an opponent.”

“Ahead of the CNN/New York Times debate, here is a guide to the art of the zinger, from veterans of the practice.”

Boston Globe: “Though almost all the presidential candidates take photos with potential voters, Warren has become famous for her ‘selfie’ lines, which can last hours and involve hundreds or even thousands of people. She has said that if she wins the nomination, she will continue to do them. But right now, with Warren climbing in the Democratic primary polls, these photo lines have a kind of intimate, now-or-never feeling to them, like meeting Taylor Swift when she was still strumming her guitar at a bar in Nashville.”

“Warren’s campaign sees the photos as a form of grass-roots canvassing, offering individuals a chance to talk to their candidate face-to-face. They also, of course, offer Warren the opportunity to appear in potential voters’ Snapchat stories and Instagram feeds without paying a cent. The ritual showcases the 70-year-old candidate’s stamina, too: She really will stay until the last person who wants one gets a photo. Recently, after a rally of 20,000 people in Manhattan, Warren snapped selfies for four hours.”

Also interesting: “Far from the existential despair and rage that one usually encounters among people who are waiting in a very long line, the people sticking around to meet Warren at Keene State were eager, rule-abiding, optimistic — matching almost perfectly the tone of the event. Occasionally, shouts of spontaneous joy would erupt.”

Washington Post: “From straws to wind turbines to socially conservative issues, Trump is deliberately amplifying public tensions by seizing on divisive topics to energize his base, according to campaign aides and White House advisers. The president is following much the same strategy that he pursued in 2016 — inserting himself into the issues his supporters are already discussing, and using blunt us-against-them language without regard to nuance or political correctness.”

“As Democrats debate policy, Trump has sought to force his potential rivals to defend the most far-reaching cultural ideas circulating within their party.”

“While Trump’s campaign aides have proactively pushed his politically incorrect message with creative and at times tongue-in-cheek marketing, the president has caught some of his advisers off guard by crudely inflaming culture wars on heavier topics such as race, abortion and immigration.”

Washington Post: “After Washington Gov. Jay Inslee released a $9 trillion climate plan last month, his staffers noticed the plan had been parodied twice in one week by the Onion, a popular satirical website. They began brainstorming a ‘clever and self-deprecating’ response in case it happened again.”

“Sure enough, a week later the Onion again poked fun at Inslee, parodying his youth-friendly message by saying he had decided to run for president only after five teenagers ‘pressed enchanted rings together to call him into existence.’ Inslee responded quickly with a deadpan tweet: ‘That was supposed to be off the record.’ It instantly became one of Inslee’s most popular Twitter posts; aides followed it up with a fundraising appeal, which helped push the candidate across the 65,000-donor threshold to qualify for the first Democratic debates.”

Joshua Spivak: “In the general election, it is not clear that a vice presidential pick ever helps or even hurts the candidate. Studies have found that voters do not take running mates into account. Richard Nixon, who was on the Republican national ticket five times, believed that the vice presidential choice could serve only to damage the president. While the VP has occasionally seemed to provide momentum to the ticket, there is no evidence of a VP making a different in the race—with the possible exception of Lyndon Johnson in 1960.”