Folks:
Trump seems to be doing badly in the polls. Aside from conceding right now, chess-style, what’s his best strategy?
From the second debate transcript, it seemed to me that his most powerful message was that a status quo politician such as Hillary Clinton generally rides to power (and, in her case, wealth) on a magic carpet of broken promises. Trump, in response to Clinton saying he had “targeted immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities, Muslims,”
DT: It’s just words, folks. Just words. Those words, I’ve been hearing them for many years. I heard them when they were running for the Senate. In New York.
Where Hillary was going to bring back jobs to upstate New York and she failed. I’ve heard them where Hillary is constantly talking about the inner cities of our country, which are a disaster. Education-wise. Job0-ise. Safety-wise. In every way possible, I’m going to help the African Americans, help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities.
She’s done a terrible job for the African Americans. She wants their votes and does nothing and then comes back four years later. We saw that firsthand when the United States senator she campaigned where the —
MR: Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump — I want to get to audience questions and online questions.
DT: So, she’s allowed to do that, but I’m not allowed to respond. Sounds fair.
The moderator cut Trump off but, especially if expanded and supported by data, this seems like an effective message to voters who have been paying taxes and listening to incumbent politicians talk about all of the great things that the planned-by-them economy will do for average citizens.
In response to attacks on his business success, usually centered around some Chapter 11 reorganizations in the early 1990s (25 years ago, a bad time for leveraged real estate developers), he could tell the story of the Wollman Rink, which the government spent 6 years and $13 million trying to renovate. Trump was able to get it up and running in just 4 months for $2.5 million. This doesn’t exactly compare to the scale of the carnage when the Atlantic City casino went bankrupt, but voters don’t seem to have a great sense of proportion (Democrats lapped up the tax returns of Warren Buffett, never questioning why the world’s third-richest man has the same income as a successful Medicare ophthalmologist). And it is a direct comparison of standard government operating procedure versus what the Trump Organization can do. Similarly Trump could compare healthcare.gov ($1 billion+?) to any web sites that he may have built to support golf courses or hotels. Voters outside the Beltway can’t understand why it costs the government 4-40X what private industry pays for the same product or service (compare Boeing 757 operating costs for airlines and USAF, for example; also see what New York spends to operate helicopters).
On immigration, since Trump has demonstrated already that the quickest path to pariah status is questioning the wisdom of admitting folks from a particular country or particular religion, why not simplify to “Do you love sitting in traffic and paying 50 years of income to afford a house in a decent neighborhood? If so, you’ll love Hillary’s plan to expand the U.S. population to 600 million via immigration. If you think that 325 million is sufficient then vote for me and let’s be judicious about whom we invite to join our party. Even if you do want to live in a country dotted with Chinese-style megacities, ask Hillary how she refutes Milton Friedman’s observation that you can’t have open borders and a welfare state at the same time.” (maybe quote from this Senate Budget Committee report that says the 80-plus federal welfare programs cost $1 trillion annually and are the largest budget item currently (Social Security and Medicare are additional))
Since Trump can’t win the personal character war at this point (his comments about the availability of women surrounding TV stars being far more shocking to voters than the Clintons becoming billionaires through selling access and influence), why not stick to some simple policy points?
Readers: What else could Trump be doing in the home stretch of the campaign?
I believe just shutting up would be enough to increase his vote share as an anti-establishment candidate, although it does seem that at this point a majority is out of reach.
It’s hard to remember H-Rod supports open borders, since the fact that we all need to carry around our social security cards to get a job is entirely because of her husband. Maybe people just assume she supports closed borders because of history. Of course, the election is determined by the largest generation: millenials. They gave us Obama, H-Rod. When baby boomers were the largest generation, they gave us Johnson, Ford, Carter. As they aged, they gave us Reagan, Bush, Dubya. Perhaps the same progression will occur with Millennials.
All Trump needs to do is not get entangled in an FBI criminal case and avoid participation in a massive global corruption scheme. The bar cannot be set any lower.
Trump’s speech at the opening of his new hotel in D.C. recently was his best ever.
“This doesn’t exactly compare to the scale of the carnage when the Atlantic City casino went bankrupt–”
True enough. Not sure Trump should be trying to run on his business record, given that he’s not even willing to release his tax returns (unlike every other presidential candidate since Nixon!). This Politico profile quotes a casino analyst: Trump’s “a great promoter, a mediocre manager and a miserable financial custodian.”
If Trump wanted to convince people that he could do a better job of running the country, the televised debates (and especially the first debate) were his best opportunity. He should really have prepared. A Clinton adviser, asked how one of Clinton’s debate preparation days went, replied simply, “Five hours.” A Tiger Mother would be proud.
That said, it’s not over yet. FiveThirtyEight is giving Trump a 20% chance of winning. Not a great position to be in, but it’s not totally hopeless.
What should Trump be doing? At this point it’s all about the ground game: getting your supporters out to vote. To do this, you need to spend a lot of time in advance setting up your organization and recruiting your volunteers, and the Trump campaign hasn’t done a great job there, either.
The establishment media polls are hugely oversampling Ds in an attempt to discourage Trump voters. In the real world its a Reagan-esque landslide for Trump.
Unrelated but cool: check out the crazy airfield and taxiway this guy operates a PC12 from = https://www.youtube.com/user/feldwies/videos
Is that a bench seat across the cargo door?
billg: I haven’t looked at those videos, but a bench seat adjacent to the cargo door is an option (albeit rare). The Canadians apparently liked it for charter and I’ve tested it out for sleeping (I’m 6′ tall and can sleep on my side on it).
I’ve seen a PC12 bench seat across the rear, but this appears to be a bench seat parallel to the aisle with 3 passengers backs against the cargo door (visible @1:36 Ibiza video, @1:20 Greece video).
He’s already done the smartest thing possible, which is to stop making any further contributions to his own campaign. The only other thing I could think of would be to publicly give all of his assets to Ivanka to mamage in hopes that he can salvage a little value from what used to be his brand.
@Raleigh
One could argue Trump’s brand is stronger than ever. Imagine when TrumpTV rolls out, 40% of the population will be watching. Every week a “Trump Truth Hour”. Catchy phrases like Crooked Hillary, Lock her up! , Drain the Swamp ( that’s a great one), lyin ted , Pocahontas, Anthony sleazeball Weiner, etc. Commercial breaks for trump steak, trump golf, trump hair club , etc.
@GermanL: just to avoid misattribution of greatness, “drain the swamp” is a very old phrase in American national politics.
@others: I don’t know how much more delusional you can get to argue that the pollsters are underpolling republicans to suppress turnout. So bizarre.
To philg’s question: Trump lost the election by not knowing when to quit. All he had to do was display an ounce of restraint or self-reflection.
It boggles me that we’ve watched this purported deal making expert blow the most simple sales lessons. When you’ve made the sale, stop selling!
All he had to do was nothing. The 40-45% of the population that vote R blindly would have been automatic, and he’d split the undecideds with a healthy bias against Hillary in the few states that matter (OH, PA, FL).
As it is, he’ll lose at least two of those three, and he needs them all. Colossal failure. The election will be called at 9pm on Tuesday night.
That’s Scott Adams, and now you, proposing messages that seem to me better ideas than what he’s doing. But I don’t believe Trump can let up on the media-baiting now that he’s this deep in it. The loathsome behavior of the media is a winning point for him, and he’d better milk it or they’ll bury him. Maybe he can add some positive messages to that foundation.
There’s a 70% chance the polls were momentarily rubber-banding away from reality to create “Hillary’s winning” psychological momentum (yes, she was still ahead – but 12 points? no). She did it to Bernie.
Trump with only a 1 in 4 chance of winning per betting markets is hard to believe. There must be limits on the amount bet or it would have moved.
Trump’s ahead in OH and FL, polls and early voting. He’s also above 45% in at least one national poll. He’s also ahead in early voting in Michigan. He’s doing ok, as it happens when you look at the underlying data.
Probably not taking Massachusetts, of course, but weirdly has pretty good shots at NJ, RI and DE. And is going to get some combination above 0 of the EVs from NH and Maine.
If you care about restricting abortion above all else, then vote Trump. While Trump does not seem particularly committed to your cause, Hillary is clearly very committed to choice.
If you are a racist, misogynist, or jew hater, then vote Trump. He clearly stands with you.
If you think that global warming is a hoax and care about this issue above all else, then vote Trump.
If you care about smaller government, Trump’s stated policies (maintain entitlements, build a wall, create a deportation force, cut taxes on the rich) will increase the size of government and explode the deficit. At least Hillary talks about holding the line on the deficit. Trump talks about reducing regulations but clearly has no idea how to do so and clearly lacks the attention span to learn.
If you care about the equality of all Americans but are concerned about the excesses of the left, encouraging the voices of hatred by electing Trump will do more damage to your cause then electing Hillary who is after all to the right of the people who concern you.
If you care about economics, then protectionism is going to hurt more people than it helps. Ultimately, America must compete in the new global economy. While we have our share of self inflicted handicaps, there is no reason to think we can’t do so.
If you care about health care, “repeal Obamacare” is not a plan. For all its problems, repealing Obamacare without a plan is a bad idea.
If you are holding your nose and voting Trump because you hate Hillary, I’m just not seeing it. Sure Hillary is corrupt, but it is the typical corruption of American politicians. She looks worse than average because of the extraordinary scrutiny to which she has been subjected.
People keep forgetting the campaign exists because of the immigration issue. It is *why* he knocked the rest of the republican field on their asses and millions of people have newly registered to vote for him or changed parties.
Hillary will grant citizenship to over 25 million new Americans and permanently transform the American electorate. A republican style candidate will never again win a national election. This is potentially the last election, in a sense. The only reason the last one was even close is the last two decades of demographic transformation. Romney won huge with “traditional americans.”
Pretty much everything else about this election is almost ancillary. Some people want to nit-pick policies as if it were 1999. It’s not.
http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/
It has become a question of “Who Are the Americans?” Trump gets this and people like phillg are oddly blind about it.
@bobbyboboblotsofbobs:
> A republican style candidate will never again win a national election. This is potentially the last election, in a sense.
Four years ago was the last election where a traditional (post Goldwater) republican had a chance. That’s true. It was the last time a socially conservative candidate had a big enough constituency to matter.
This is a good thing, I think. The country is different now and flushing out the old is what we do. Obama is a consequence, not the cause, of that change.
But it’s on the republicans now to come up with a platform that’s viable for the new century. The Democratic Party requires balance, extremely so. Whether the balance is called the Republican Party or not is just a minor detail.
> a platform that’s viable for the new century
Cutting off immigration is totally viable. I don’t understand your point. A lot of recent citizens can also be heavily incentivized to go home.
I think you’re suggesting “outreach” to people with zero interest in traditional American ideals of small government and individual responsibility/liberty. How does that make any sense? The democrat party already exists. We don’t need two democrat parties.
> The country is different now and flushing out the old is what we do.
Yes, we are going to change course on what we’ve done over the last 35 years. Flush out the old. Time to end immigration, kick a lot of people out, and reign-in the influence of finance and global corporations.
@Neal: I decided to play a little fact-checker, so I managed to find official Trump campaigners and I asked them if it was OK for me to vote for Trump even if I wouldn’t quite conform to their usual stereotypes. And they said it was fine with them! Even though they suggested I should do some extra work and become just a little bit more deplorable. Here’s what I found out, going line by line.
> If you care about restricting abortion above all else, then vote Trump. While Trump does not seem particularly committed to your cause, Hillary is clearly very committed to choice.
I asked them if it was OK for me to vote for Trump if I am pro-choice. And they said, yes, just don’t vote for Ted Cruz. But Cruz isn’t even running! They are so dumb.
> If you are a racist, misogynist, or jew hater, then vote Trump.
I asked if it was OK for me to vote for Trump if I would not self-identify as a racist or a misogynist. My wife thinks that a racist (she is not Caucasian) or a misogynist should sleep on the couch, and I don’t want to do that! Honestly, I am a little bit of a Jew-hater: every secular Jew is. To my surprise, they confirmed that would be fine, too! What they clearly didn’t want is for my vote to go to Anthony Weiner and Co, because that guy is not misogynist: in fact he loves all women!
> If you think that global warming is a hoax and care about this issue above all else, then vote Trump.
I asked them if I should respect Prof Freeman Dyson (who as you certainly know is a complete charlatan and has been for over 60 years) and they said that would be fine, as he signed up as their secret agent right after Putin, but I should be just a little more stupid and deplorable. To be honest, that was a slight inconvenience, as I had to denounce my Physics PhD, but that was certainly doable: after all, my teenage kids think I am dumb and uneducated, especially in all matters sex.
> If you care about economics, then protectionism is going to hurt…
As a budding deplorable, I must be vigilant, and so I ask: care to provide a proof? A solid math proof would do: thank you! If not, a strawman doesn’t look like a good argument to me.
> If you care about health care, “repeal Obamacare” is not a plan.
As a cancer survivor I must say: you don’t really know what you are talking about, do you? I have seen Obamacare, and I am still alive to ask this question.
> If you are holding your nose and voting Trump because you hate Hillary, I’m just not seeing it.
That’s exactly why I’m planning to do so. You are not seeing it just because you are not as uneducated or stupid as I am. I don’t hate Hillary: my stronger emotions are reserved for people I know personally. I just don’t want her to be my president, that’s all.
Now seriously, please cut the propaganda.
The line of the year is what Bill purportedly once said about Hillary: “She’s eaten more pussy than I have.”
If that is true, she and I at least agree on one thing…
> If you are a racist, misogynist, or jew hater, then vote Trump.
Insulting half the electorate just isn’t going to work anymore. We’re tired of it. There are serious differences on issues and if you can’t face them without resorting to name calling, perhaps you should leave voting to the grownups.
@Anon
>care to provide a proof? A solid math proof would do: thank you!
I think litigating the economics of free trade vs. protectionism (or the science of global warming for that matter) would be off topic for this post. If you are really interested in the argument against protectionism, I suggest you google Milton Friedman protectionism.
>If not, a strawman doesn’t look like a good argument to me.
Accusing me of doing what you yourself have done; very Trumpian. To be explicit, I did not and do not argue that if you vote for Trump you must be pro-life, a racist, a misogynist, a jew hater, or a global warming denier.
> As a cancer survivor I must say: you don’t really know what you are talking
> about, do you? I have seen Obamacare
I am very glad you survived cancer. But for Obamacare (or an employer’s policy to pool the risk), that medical history would make most people uninsurable. I’m sure the insurance companies would make an exception for you on account of your PhD in Physics.
>I don’t hate Hillary… just don’t want her to be my president, that’s all.
That is kind of implied by your apparent decision to vote for Trump. I think what philg was after was a bit of the “why” behind it.
@bob:
Cutting off immigration is a viable plan, but it’s not a platform. Any candidate who runs on that alone (or that plus anti-abortion, anti-healthcare, anti-trade, anti-etc) will not attract voters.
There is a sane “fiscal responsibility” platform to sell to voters. But if it’s wrapped up in religion and dogwhistles and hostility to the underclass, it will fail on the national level.
This is progress. Unfortunately, we’ll have to live with Hillary in the meantime.
The Practical Conservative: “He’s also ahead in early voting in Michigan” How would anyone know? (or did you get the wrong state?)
We use absentee ballots in Michigan. They just sit somewhere until election day and are counted then. (apparently you actually have 3 days past the election to return them, so they could be added in later)
It doesn’t seem to be practical to stand next to all the mailboxes and ask people if they are voting, and how?