Just How Unprofessional IS the Trump Campaign - When Hillary In Trouble, Trump Hogs Limelight?

So we get to see some remarkable insights into the two campaigns. (obviously this is again a blog article about the US election, not about digital/mobile/tech). Hillary had her worst days this year, from the middle of last week when the Inspector General of the State Department found she had broken rules about emails and was at fault. For a pro campaign and very seasoned veteran politician, Hillary's campaign had a disastrous moment (every campaign has some of those) and it was clearly her worst moment of the year so far (don't fall for any of the Bernie 'moments' her victory was never in doubt so they were never that bad for her). And like a pro in a pro campaign, she went immediately onto the talk shows, put out as much of the fires as possible, then went to lay down low, riding out the rest of the news cycle. Her best hope is for other news stories to overtake this bad news email story, and that it won't grow to be any bigger than it now is.

TRUMP EPIC FAIL CAMPAIGN

The rival to her campaign should play this like a pro. If the opponent is in trouble, get out of the way. Get out of the news cycle. Don't give the news any possible story now, to compete with the big splash that your rival is in trouble. The smart play by Trump was to stay away from everything. Don't even allow interviews of YOU, let your surrogates handle the needling of Hillary about her emails. Stay away from the press, don't give them any chance to talk about anything relating to you. No, that is too much to ask of Trump. He had to jump in, with NEW silly stupid idiotic damaging stunts to a) draw attention away from Hillary's emails; b) bring up problems you've had in the past; c) bring up new problems for you; d) prepare the press to keep your problems in the spotlight into the near future as well.

Trump is massively behind Hillary. Before Trump clinched his nomination (the last time polls were reporting fairly the race) he was behind by close to 10 points. RCP had Trump behind by about 7 points. Then when Trump clinched (or more accurately, his rivals both conceded defeat) then every time that nominee gets a polling bump. It does not signal that the race has become suddely tight. Hillary will get the same bounce after June 7, when she has clinched. The real race is about a 7 point race which is more than what Obama beat Romney in 2012 and nearly what Obama beat McCain in 2008. Thats the reality right now, except some idiots are falling for the one-sided polling anomaly which happens EVERY election when one side clinches before the other. And it always returns to approximately the same it was, when the other side also clinches. So the reality is, that Trump is losing badly right now. It is FAR worse than the national poll, because in the in-state polling, Trump is behind in every state that Obama won in 2012 plus he is behind also in North Carolina (which Obama lost in 2012 but won in 2008) and he is behind in Arizona (which Obama lost both in 2008 and 2012). Trump is not ahead in the in-state polls of ANY state that voted for Obama in 2008. So Hillary is currently AHEAD of where Obama was in 2012 and by a VERY healthy lead indeed. What Trump needs to do, is to work hard - and CAPITALIZE on the rare occasions where Hillary's campaign is in trouble or making mistakes.

What was Trump doing last week? He wasn't done fighting with Republicans!!! He posted a silly video attacking his past rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz. Why. What possible good does that serve Trump? It angers supporters of Cruz and Kasich - Republicans - who must be convinced to come vote for Trump. He HAS to stop attacking other Republicans. There is absolutely no way Trump can possibly convert 1-to-1 lost Republicans out of his tirades, to new Independent (or Democrat) voters, or somehow that 'silent majority' who isn't voting. He may attract SOME with this silly strategy but he is alienating many more. Its stupid. Plain and simple. Its stupid. But he wasn't done. Then he went and attacked New Mexico's sitting popular Republican Governor, Susana Martinez. Trump felt slighted that she would not come and join him at his rally. So now Trump not only starts a new feud with a sitting Governor of a battleground state, he is also upsetting all those demographics she represents - she is young, she is a woman, she is a Latina. This is sheer madness, why on earth would Trump go do this? He has to work now EVEN harder, to try to convince youth, women and Hispanic voters that no, he doesn't hate them all. By the way, the smart play - even if Trump was not actually considering her for his VP slot, would be to suggest she is the type of person he wants. But instead, Trump is fighting with her. A new fight, started by Trump, that was now on the air about the same time as the Hillary email news broke.

TRUMP STARTS NEW FIRES

So while the newsmedia SHOULD be devoting all their time on Hillary's troubles because they can't find Trump, he has gone into hiding, instead, Trump feeds them one story the more bizarre after the other. He goes to California (why on earth is he doing an event in California? California will never vote for a Republican, its a safely blue state. This is totally wasted effort). In California he holds a big rally - with farmers !! Why farmers? Farmers are about the most reliable 'employment' class for Republicans this side of wall street bankers. Farmers VERY steadily vote Republican and the only time you bother with courting the farming vote is the PRIMARIES when you need to win say a state like Iowa. Trump is behaving still as if it was the primaries. When there still was a race, and Cruz was fighting to try to win California, then it made still sense for Trump to schedule events there. Not now. Now he should be in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado or Florida. A battleground state, not in California. This is time he will never get back.

What did he do in Califronia. Well, he managed to create more problems for himself, both now and into the future. First, at this event, he made that stupid claim that there is no drought in California. Great way to get yourself in the media - for all the wrong reasons - again the press can have a field day quoting all the drought specialists who say yes, actually 75% of California is in a drought. The Drought has been going on for years. It is severe in more than half of the state. So next, Trump of course suggests that he can fix it, there is some little fish which is now the 'fault' of the water shortage (another debunked myth and conspiracy theory). And what of the farmers? If Trump suggests he as President can get the water to the farmers - that means taking water from neighboring states - Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Arizona. So 'pandering' to California farmers at their event will NEVER win Trump the state of California - BUT the Democrats in neighboring states can now use Trump as the danger, that if he is President, he will come and steal YOUR water, to give to his pals the California farmers. Is Arizona in play? Yes. Is Nevada a battleground state, of course it is. And polling from safely-red very consevative Utah - which NEVER votes for Democrats - says Hillary is tied in Utah. (Oregon is safely blue for Democrats anyway). So one stupid comment on a LOCAL issue where the US President has no say anyway - now does not help Trump in any way but it will be run in neighboring states against him and be used to force local Republican politicians to side against Trump (because nobody is going to suggest giving THEIR water to go to California's farmers, these would be local farmers in Nevada, Arizona, Utah etc who would then have to give up THEIR water). And this means, Hillary's nasty email story - a story which is well-worn and tired - is now competing with a Trump story about the weirdness - doesn't Trump KNOW what everybody else has known for YEARS that there is a massive drought in California, so bad Governor Jerry Brown had to take extreme means of water rationing statewide in response... This is an undisciplined campaign.

But while Trump was in California laying more mines into the minefield he has to later walk through - he also decided to pick a fight with a judge who is presiding over his Trump University case. Trump feels he can try to bully a judge by going public about his case. Good luck with that, schmuck. His attorneys had requested that various statements and documents about Trump University would be sealed, where some press had requested to see them. Now the judge (of course) ruled to unseal those documents. Maybe the judge would have decided so anyway. But first, by Trump making a public ruckus about it (and essentially threatening the judge) he of course made it very easy for the judge to rule against Trump. But secondly - far more damagingly - now the MEDIA are FAR MORE HUNGRY to study those documents. Trump not only drew attention to his Trump University lawsuit - while Hillary has her worst moment of this year - Trump ALSO guaranteed the Trump University 'sealed documents' will receive EXTRA scrutiny in the coming days. Trump knows this is all bad news, he has been trying to get the court case dismissed or postponed. Incidentally, Trump says regularly that the judge should recuse himself but Trump's attorneys have not made that motion in Court. So his LAWYERS know its not a valid case - but the more Trump pushes this point in the media, the more he angers the judge. Thats totally the wrong move. But Trump is not guided by a professional campaign manager (in charge) and whatever Manafort manages to do, is peripheral at best (and apparently there is a big internal war going on between Manafort and Lewandowski). So maybe California was an isolated case?

Sunday. Trump is in Washington DC (oh, yes, that famous 'battleground state' which votes 90% Democratic. THE single MOST DEMOCRATIC voting region in the nation. For Mr Outsider the dumbest thing to do, is to hold a campaign rally in DC. But hey, who am I to advise the Trumpster. So what was this about? He held a huge event at the State Department with a bunch of email specialists perhaps? No. Its a biker event (Harley Davidson type bikers) for veterans. Now. Bikers. White MEN very very racist, often Nazis, who will vote for Trump no matter what happens. These are in terms of activity/hobby probably the single most dedicated Trump supporters, even more so than the gun lobby. Why on earth is Trump at a biker rally? Oh, its probably that same clown political advisor he took in, who used to work on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's campaign. Walker had an unhealthy obsession with Harley Davidson motorbikes. Ok, we get the connection. Except this is the GENERAL election now. You have WON the Harley rider vote, MONTHS ago. That is the LAST place you should be wasting you time campaigning, at a Biker rally, in Washington DC. But its biker-veterans. So first, this of COURSE brings up the bad press about Trump and veterans in this election cycle. So now there is PLENTY of reason to revisit what stupid stuff Trump said about John McCain. Then there is MORE reason to dig into the missing million dollars that Trump promised he'd pay out of his own pocket to veterans. And the gossip about how much he overpromised and underdelivered with his publicity stunt veterans event earlier this year. All this eats time away from the bad news coverage of Hillary's email problems. Meanwhile, did Trump now put this issue to rest. No. He said that on TUESDAY he will release the list of what veterans groups received the millions he has raised. On Tuesday? So the story will linger on for three days now, and run into four at the least, before this story is extinguished from the news cycle. Trump has jumped upon the worst news story his rival has had, and piled one Trump negative story after another, all the while setting up even MORE negative coverage - not of Hlilary - but more bad stuff about Trump in the coming days. How mad is this.

Oh, and on veterans? His supporter Bob Dole now has said, Dole agrees with McCain, Trump should apologize to the veterans. And Lewandowski is on record now saying, Trump won't apologize. Will the media love now digging into this, what will Dole say about that, what will McCain say, and how will Trump react himself. This is an incredibly undisciplined and unfocused campaign, abandoning blatantly obvious opportunities as they (rarely) come.

On Tuesday of next week, Hillary will clinch her nomination (she's only 94 delegates shy of the nomination and June 7 awards nearly 700. She only needs to win about 15% of the delegates to clinch. She is ahead in most polling in most of the states that vote that day). This week is literally the last week when Hillary is this vulnerable - when Bernie is still in the race and thus Trump's attacks would have maximum effect. Yet in the 12 days left between the day the e-mail story broke, Trump has wasted - no, not wasted, destroyed - the news cycle for 4 days and has set the newsmedia ready to put plenty more of Trump BAD news into the remaining days. This is totally bizarre in terms of campaigning. Any professional campaign manager would have advised Trump to behave to the best interest of WINNING in November. But Trump doesn't listen to experts, because Trump likes to talk to himself instead, as he said. And once again, we see he not only hurt himself with these steps, he also did not do what he NEEDS to do (fight in battleground states where he is BEHIND) and he also gave Hillary much-needed cover so the email story won't get much attention.

At some point between now and November, Trump will accept a profesional campaign manager's 'full control' of his message and campaign appearance schedule. That is not yet what Manafort has now. Clearly. It is madness to waste one day of Trump in California, and another day in DC, those states will NEVER vote for him. Its madness to speak at events for farmers and bikers - they will always vote for him. Its utter madness to pick a fight with the judge who can decide to make the Trump University scandal court papers public; and its madness to draw attention to his troubles with veterans. Hillary's team must be thanking the stars for Trump. How much Trump has taken the pain off their worst day of the year and demolished that story from the news cycle.

When Trump starts to behave rationally, he can do a lot better than he is doing now, but so much damage is done already, he can never recover to even footing with Hillary, not even close. But now, he is only making the November loss worse for himself. There are only 161 days left to Election Day. Trump has actually wasted 2 of those days not doing what he HAS to do, campaign in the battleground states (did I mention, Trump is BEHIND in all of the states that Obama won in 2016, Trump cannot win unless he flips half a dozen of those states in 2016). 2 days wasted means one percent of his remaining time was thrown away. That will never come back. No professional campaign manager lets a candidate do this level of damage to himself.

Meanwhile on the other side of the fence. If you're in trouble, who can you call? Ghostbusters? Wouldn't it be nice, if you are in trouble, that you could just call your buddy, the current President of the USA, who happens to be on an international trip - and ask HIM to jump into the story and help deflect the bad news away from you, by attacking your opponent. Yeah. I betcha that was coordinated, the Obama attack from Japan that hit Trump saying that international leaders are 'Rattled' by Trump. Did you see the timing? US sitting Presidents almost never talk domestic politics while abroad. Obama however, can't WAIT to get to campaigning with Hillary against Trump. And he has of course waited, patiently, letting the Hillary campaign decide how to utilize the largest bully pulpit on the planet. Now when Hillary asked (or perhaps Obama sensed it and offered) this was perfect timing to bring Obama into the story, to take some of the heat away from Hillary. Smart play by team Democrats, whoever actually initiated that idea.

Obama will be a formidable surrogate for Hillary, likely more powerful than husband Bill. And he will love doing it, spending most of his energy attacking Trump and the sitting Republicans of Congress. Trump's response? Why didn't Obama accuse his Japanese hosts about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yeah, thats REALLY smart diplomacy again, Mr 'I talk to myself'. Japan killed 2,400 Americans on the attack on Pearl Harbor (mostly military but also plenty civilians). The USA killed 140,000 in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima (all civilians). I think this is quite the wrong time for the US President to mention Pearl Harbor but obviously Mr 'I know great words' would do a fabulous job in international diplomacy haha. Its exactly moronic statements like that, which has those foreign leaders 'rattled' by Trump.

BAD CANDIDATE

So yeah. Trump is a remarkably flawed human being. Fine. We have however, learned again new stuff about him. Clearly, Trump is not listening to Manafort at least fully. But Politico now reported that the in-fighting in the Trump campaign has revealed that Trump is the kind of boss whose mind goes by whoever talked to him last. Like a child. So that bodes well for his run haha. Any advice he gets, is forgotten the moment he meets the next advisor or campaign staffer or friend or colleague or just random supporter at a farmer event or biker rally. This is why Lewandowski has gotten back into favor. Manafort was trying to run a campaign - that means a TON of management work which does not involve - and should not involve - the candidate. But Lewandowski was relegated to be the 'front man' on events - meaning he is sitting in the limo and at the hotel and on the jet with Trump every day. And Lewandowski thus gets in that vital last word. Which would be good news for Trump if Lewandowski was even marginally proficient as a national campaign manager for the general election except clearly he is not. So we have issues like Trump firing the first person that Manafort hired (a pro). Where Trump's team is MASSIVELY understaffed AND with vacancies galore - the last thing they need is to REHIRE more of people that are now being fired !! Plus it makes it EVEN harder for Manafort to get ANY competent professionals to sign up - Trump may well embarrass those too, and fire them two weeks after Manafort has hired them.. Oh, and press relations. The Trump campaign still doesn't have anyone as Press Secretary. Nobody is managing his press or media. That buffoon Hope Hicks is clowning around on various TV shows as his 'spokesperson' while the vital job of press secretary is still not even filled.

A 'normal' Presidential campaign will have something in very rough terms of one quarter of a million man-days of campaign work that will be done in the approximately one year that the campaign exists. Its a LOT of work. Trump's team has done perhaps one tenth of what should have been done up to now, and needs to be at full staffing to do MOST of what needs to be done in the remaining time. Trump will most definitely fall short of what is considered a normal major campaign run, by something like 20% at least, maybe even more. Meanwhile Hillary's campaign has already worked more man-days than ANY campaign in history (and not because Bernie gave her any real resistance, most of her campaign effort has been aimed at November). But conservatively estimating, the Hillary 2016 campaign will probably complete half a million man-days of campaign work. Her campaign will outwork Trump's by a factor of about 3. Who wins? If the race were truly tied, and one side puts in 3 times more work - then that side most definitely wins. Except the race is NOT tied, not even close. Hillary is far ahead, and yet, her team is putting in MASSIVE amounts of more work than Trump's side is. And we are seeing the effects. She is ahead in EVERY single state that Obama won in 2012 plus two that Obama lost (and very close to tied in half a dozen more states - including very very VERY reliably Republican states like Utah and Mississippi). 

So then we learn about Trump's delusion. He wants to run in New York. Now, its fully understandable, that for a man with Trump's ego, he wants to win his home state. He put a lot of effort to win the primary for New York (even though he was safely ahead in all polling). But New York is a safe Democratic state. It voted for Obama by 28 points in 2012, by 26 points in 2008 and even in 2004 where John Kerry lost to sitting President W Bush, New York voted for the Democrat by 18 points. There is NO hope for a Republican to win in New York state. It is the fourth most blue state in the union. There is no chance, zero, zip, zilch, none for ANY generic Republican to win New York. Being a New Yorker does not help Trump because so too is Hillary Clinton except she was their Senator winning twice, while Trump is disliked even in his home state. The Republican voter base is in rural New York state, ie 'upstate' where Hillary was their Senator, and they dislike Manattan-dwellers and big city folk (like Trump). New York state is one of the most diverse states in the union, only 71% was white voters last time (this is bad for Trump) with both a high black and high Hispanic minority. He can't win that state. The Real Clear Polling average for New York state head-to-head has Hillary up by 22 points. This is an utterly hopeless mission. But Trump wants to hire staff to fight for New York. Yes, go ahead Mr 'I am so smart, I went to Wharton'. He is behind in EVERY actual battleground state, and his campaign is massively understaffed with open vacancies not filled. But Trump knows better, he wants to waste hiring and staffing and funding and campaigning - to try to win in New York. Lovely. I can't wait to see how long that lasts and how much of his total effort went into that bottomless pit. New York state is one of the most expensive states to run in, haha, go ahead. Will be a delight to see all that effort wasted.

A billionaire tends to hear what he wants to hear (he fires those who say things he doesn't want to hear). So if Trump says - I want to fight for New York, he probably will get that, no matter how much his whole campaign staff will be aghast. So if its a dozen states, and some of them are not that expensive to run in - New Hamspshire, Iowa, Wisconsin - if the Trump campaign puts a real effort into New York state, it would deplete at least 10% of their total resources (on a total waste on a race he cannot literally cannot win). Lets see if someone can talk sense into the man who is so smart or will he talk to himself instead. But again consider the rest of the party - they see a total utter comprehensive train-wreck of a campaign and a candidate who is utterly out of control. The sensible thing is to run away as fast as you can - and like Susana Martinez - refuse to be seen with this doofus. Now what about all those politicians who are in TROUBLE in those battleground states - but who HAVE endorsed Trump? If Trump spends 10% of his time and money and polling etc in New York, thats AGAIN less of what in any case was a weak campaign in terms of support - to the vulnerable down-ticket candidates feeling the pull of the anchor that is Trump, weighing them down and drowning them.

Bur I want to come back to that idea of deciding based on what the last person was who talked to you. That is a HORRIBLY bad manager indeed. I had one boss like that and it will drive you nuts. There will be many who will be resigning because Trump is so utterly disastrous as the Candidate, where he promises you in YOUR meeting to do it your way and then he talks to the limo driver or the usher at the event next, and decides to go opposite of what he just promised you. So it means the top guys HAVE to hang around Trump all the time - it means THEIR work is FAR less effective - this from a team that did none of its homework in the Primary season - and is behind - and has not hired all the staff it needs - and is short-staffed and underfunded for the general campaign - with almost no usable surrogates to take much of that load EITHER. Meanwhile on the opposite side is the most prepared candidate in history, who over-prepared in the primary season, has the largest staff ever assembled, plus a super-powerful Big Data system to optimize and maximize their effort - run by some of the best staff ever in political campaigns - while being the richest campaign ever to run with funds to spare - and with the strongest surrogate team in the history of Presidential politics.

The morale at the Trump campaign is bad. It will keep getting worse. They can't hire the best staff who won't join the losing effort. Some who are there will bicker and complain. Trump will be firing many more, often for trivial reasons - or in cases where all in the Campaign see the fired person was right and Trump was wrong - this further saps morale. That is all before the REAL polling disaster becomes evident, after the Conventions, into August. Hillary will be safely in a 10 point lead by then, and that means the rats start to escape the sinking ship.

Then a few words about campaign budget and financing. So yeah, now the myth of Trump self-funding is long gone. He spent months telling that candidates who take money are then beholden to those who contributed, but now Trump will take in something nearing a Billion dollars in money - with all the strings that come attached to those donations. So far, so bad. But it gets worse. He has not much time left, why is the SuperPAC still a mess? His various surrogates are promoting two rival SuperPACs and Trump hasn't clarified which it is that his supporters should donate to. This was all done very fast and not with much sensible planning. (Once they exist, the campaign is not allowed to 'coordinate' with its SuperPAC but thats a very nebulous rule). But on Trump's main campaign funding. He's decided he won't build a ground operation of his own - he will rely on the Republican party to do that for him. Sounds nice. Why didn't every previous candidate do that? Because it means Trump will not be in control. And that Republican party machine has to support ALL the candidates in that state, from Governor to dog-catcher. They CERTAINLY do not have the budget to do a proper job of it for the Presidential candidate and his/her needs - that is why EVERY past campaign, the Presidential candidate set up his/her own organization (in the battleground states obviously).

But now comes the added mess of Trump. Many local politicians do not WANT to be seen anywhere near Trump. While Hillary will be loved by all Democrats, who will HAPPILY re-organize their calendars to be NEAR her when she is in town, with Trump, the GOP party organization in that state has to be mindful of every individual candidate who doesn't want to be seen with Trump, and try that extra layer of hassle in organizing events and press etc. What about local fliers, advertising, lawn signs, robocalls, etc. The local party is now saddled with MORE work (because Trump won't be bothered) which takes away from their own guys that they KNOW - who often will hate that Trump can't be bothered to pay his own way and hire his own staff - and where will those loyalties go - to try to save the own guy rather than fight for Trump - which will only get worse, the more Trump will be under water in the head-to-head polling against Hillary. This is a very very VERY bad way to go about the campaign, and I am expecting Manafort to eventually convince Trump that they have to set up their own staffing in at least the most important battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. They will NOT get 100% out of a shared resource with the party. Thats just dumb. Usually its the OTHER way, where the locals hope for more help from the 'rich' Presidential campaign, to pick up some of the extra effort for THEIR local guys, not this way.

LIBERTARIAN MESS

So then we get the last unexpected bonus and silver lining on the thundercloud for Hillary's team, the Libertarian surprise. Its not that much a silver lining as gold-pressed latinum. This may turn out a mirage, but this might be the year of the Libertarians hitting major percentages, into high single digits or even double digits in the general election in November. THAT is more than gold. That is more than platinum for Hillary. In her worst week this year, she may have received the best present at its end. This week which otherwise was so bad for her. Gary Johnson, the ex Governor of New Mexico, was just selected as the candidate of the Libertarian party. He is a Republican. His Vice Presidential running mate is another Republican former Governor, William Weld who ran the very Democratic state of Massachussetts. And these two have already been very vocal critics of Trump. In some polling of a three-way race, Johnson polls at around 10% already - while nobody knows him in any way. Now they will be in the news at least for a short while, and many who are very conservative and or very Republican voters, but who really don't like Trump for whatever reasons, and can't stomach the idea of voting for a Clinton, will have two solid but moderate Republicans - both ex Governors - to vote for. The Libertarian party is the only other ticket which has access to all states, so every voter will get a choice of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or Gary Johnson (while each state will have usually a dozen or so also lesser 'third party' candidates, but none that are on the ballot in every state). If Johnson can get his polling to 15% - a distinct possibility - he'd also get to join the TV debates.

Most years a third-party candidate has no chance, and this year too, Johnson won't be winning the election. But recently Ross Perot in 1992 did get 19% of the vote, and at one point in the race he was ahead of both rivals. Bill Clinton eventually won in 1992, with 43%, over incumbent sitting President Daddy Bush who got 37% of the vote. Many Republicans feel that Perot 'spoiled' their race and Daddy Bush would have won if Perot was not in it. The exit polls however very clearly show that Perot took votes from both sides and Bill Clinton would have won in any case. Then in year 2000, Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket, and while he only got 3% of the vote, it did damage Al Gore enough, that (after a recount and Supreme Court intervention) W Bush was declared the winner. Even a few points of the total election might swing it one way or the other.

Libertarians can find some appeal with both Republican and Democratic voters but they generally are far more aligned with Republicans. There is a rather well defined Libertarian wing to the Republican party (which used to vote for Texas Congressman Ron Paul and now supported, but perhaps only in a lukewarm way, his son Rand Paul). I would think, in very rough terms, about 75% of Gary Johnson's votes would be drained from Trump and 25% from Hillary. Give those +/- 5% either way and its always a net damage to Trump now that Johnson definitely will be on the ballot in November. But now the game becomes, how much of the 'stop Trump' movement and 'never Trump' movement which may be left, inside the Republicans, will shift to supporting Johnson and Weld. I'd guess Mitt Romney will be there rather quickly and so probably will be the Bushes.

Because they are both Republicans, Johnson and Weld provide the 'cover' for conservatives to fairly vote 'against' Trump but not actually vote for Hillary to win. In reality, any vote by a Republican to the Libertarian ticket will be effectively a vote helping Hillary defeat Trump (and similarly any Bernie supporters who will end up voting for the Libertarian - or any other ticket like Green party - will be voting to support Trump against Hillary). The Libertarian ticket has zero chance of winning this year, Johnson is about as exciting as a candidate as George Pataki, but he can well get into the double digits in his support. And because they know their core voters will be disgruntled Republicans, the pair, Johnson and Weld, are very well motivated to attack Trump at every chance they get. Meanwhile, for all those Trump-haters who really want Trump to fail comprehensively (the Wall Street Journal just ran an editorial where they argued Trump NEEDS to fail in epic manner so the party learns not to nominate candidates that are this bad - the point I've made for months) they are likely to announce their support of the Johnson-Weld ticket in 'timely' manner, not necessarily coordinated, but to give a general impression of a growing wave, so some will deliberately wait for an opportune moment WHEN to announce, to keep up that feeling of momentum.

Trump is behind. What he absolutely cannot sustain, is for erosion more from his side than Hillary's side. A perfect third party candidate in this year, for Trump, would have been Bernie. The worst possible candidate to run, this year, for Trump, is another Republican. We have to see how this plays out, but this Libertarian ticket may well be the worst news to hit the Trump campaign this whole season up to now. But we don't yet know. Lets see a few weeks of does this story pick up steam, does this story have 'legs' or will it fizzle out in the next few weeks and be dead by the Conventions. I do think, that with all the feuding and trouble that Trump has gotten himself into, for all those who actually do not WANT to be on Trump's VP list, all those politicians will likely want to now go with the 'sane' Republican alternative - ie the Libertarian ticket (as long as that ticket fits their political views - Libertarians are totally against the bedroom police and bathroom police aspects of the Religious Right, so I don't expect Ted Cruz to really like this option but John Kasich should find this ticket far more palatable than supporting Trump).

Then there is the money. The Bush clan has tons of financial clout. If they come in support of the Libertarian ticket, that could give them some significant money. Then there is the Koch brothers network. One of the Koch brothers once ran for VP on the Libertarian ticket, and they have been very warm to Libertarian views in the past. They hate Trump, here they have two moderate Republicans, why not go support them. Its plausible that this ticket really takes off, and gets Johnson to something around 20% or even 25% of the final election in November, and as they'll be a professionally run campaign without the sillyness of Trump, if they run roughly neck-to-neck in total national vote percent, say both get 22% (with Hillary winning in epic landslide at 56%) then its VERY likely that Johnson wins more STATES than Trump while they'd have as many votes. Trump's base is very loyal but widely spread. The Johnson-Weld ticket could focus and pick up a bunch of red states where they could slightly outperform the 'generic' Trump effort - while Trump would have to fight (and badly lose) in the battleground states (where Johnson would not attempt to win).

If the Libertarian ticket is strong enough to qualify for TV debates ie Johnson polls at above 15% by September, then Trump will be fighting a two-front war where he is the underdog, utterly outgunned on both fronts. And where normally the in-party fighting ends at the Convention - this would be that weird year, where the Republican and Conservative 'Stop Trump' movement could actually run until November, uttely totally completely destroying any chances he might have otherwise had. Even if in November Johnson only takes 10% of the national vote (halfway between Ralph Nader of year 2000 and Ross Perot of 1992) then Trump is down another 5 points against Hillary. If Johnson could get to Ross Perot levels - and assuming they continue to mainly attack Trump from the right, appealing to conservatives and in mostly the red states - then at Johnson on a national 20% vote level (with Trump say 25%) its possible Trump wins NO STATES and Johnson wins a handful (Kansas, Oklahoma, Idaho) and Hillary wins over 40 states flipping such 'red' states as Texas, Mississippi, Utah..

We don't know yet. But this is a development that could be utterly devastating to Trump 2016. If they play this right, the Johnson-Weld ticket could be the 'real conservative, real Republican' ticket and the 'adult' and 'rational' choice against Hillary. They could even plausibly win more votes than Trump. But if they get as much as 10% of the vote, then Trump is LUCKY if he escapes with a 20 point loss to Hillary. If these guys climb above 10% in November, it pushes Hillary's victory into truly 'catastrophic' drubbing of more than 20 point loss to Trump. 
 
This is yet another aspect I did not see coming in this truly amazing year, and once again, the stars are aligning even more perfectly for Hillary. A strong third-party run also means higher turnout - that is always to the Democrats' advantage and the disadvantage of Republicans. This means even more trouble for down-ticket candidates. And those will then be making their various choices of who is going to campaign with Trump or who will go join the rebel alliance of Johnson-Weld. Meanwhile the Democrats will be united like never before, safely ignoring the Libertarians and focusing like a laser on Trump. Its fear of Trump which will drive up Democratic voter turnout. And remember, its not enough for Hillary to win, she has to flip both the Senate and the House to have any chance to enact her political agenda. She needs to have huge coat-tails, to bring in that huge change in Congress.

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

So Trump goes on the attack. That means - obviously - that he has some serious faults to defend on the veterans issue. What do we KNOW. We know he only paid his own 1 million dollar promise on May 25, after one journalist hounded him for four months about it. FOUR MONTHS. And the total he bragged about for at least two months - that he had raised 6 million dollars, was now revealed to be only 5.6 million dollars. BUT, Trump was not just bragging about his 'six million' in mid April, on April 25 he was repeatedly asked about where is his money. He said it was all distributed. But at that time Trump HIMSELF had not given his OWN one million !!! And he would not do that for another month.

So from April 25, 2016, when he was repeatedly asked by various media, where is the money, how much was paid - Trump said for the next month 'I have raised 6 million for Veterans' while he had only raised at best 4.6 million and was trying to avoid giving his own promised 1 million. What a total sleazebag. This story will have legs and will be coming back. He bragged about 6 million when in reality it was 4.6 million and he tried to skip on his own promise - to veterans! - to pay a million out of his own pocket. A million to Trump - if he really is worth 10 Billion - would be what 5 dollars is to you and me. And yet Trump tries to screw veterans for that tiny amount - and for a MONTH after asked repeatedly about it, he tries to avoid paying it.

Cheapskate yes. Massive exaggerations yes. Penny-pincher yes. Sore loser yes. A liar, obviously. Con artist, yes. A perfect stereotype of the most obnoxious rich guy, certainly. Sleazebag. Totally.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Follow-up

I just did a search, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox and other news sources on various dates February-March (each a separate incident, not two news sources reporting on the same instance) have Trump bragging about how he raised 6 million dollars (he did not, he finally only raised 5.6 million) and that he personally contributed 1 million dollars (no he did not in February, nor March, nor April - only on May 25, did Trump finally relent and write the check of 1 million dollars of his own money. After he was hounded for four months. But sleazebag Trump was BRAGGING about how he had 'personally contributed' one million already in February. What a horrible person. He BRAGS about HAVING CONTRIBUTED to VETERANS when he actually didn't - and then tried to STIFF THEM for four more months.

There is a very special place in hell for those who brag about supporting veterans and then do not. Trump this year cannot be nasty enough for you to punish you for the rotten person that you are.

Thank god for the journalists who chased the story, to finally 'hound' Trump into making that payment on May 25, 2016, when he bragged about HAVING PAID already in February. Thank god. I feel ashamed as a human being for Trump and how rude that is to veterans. Remember, Trump himself is a draft-dodger, who got four deferrments so he didn't have to go serve in Vietnam.

Yeah, I am disgusted - but good thing he was forced to pay that one million. I betcha it REALLY hurt, because obviously Trump is nowhere near as rich as he claims and he had most definitely decided he was never paying that promised amount.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[John Fro]

With Hillary (and maybe Trump) very close to indictment, we might have a very chaotic election. Nothing of any great importance happens until Labor Day in US politics, but you don't waste time until then. It's all groundwork. The problem for both candidates is that they did the wrong groundwork. Hillary made assumptions about the Republican nominee that were totally wrong and Trump hasn't really done any groundwork. Trump won because of a well known phenomenon of how name recognition becomes increasingly important as the number of candidates rises. This is why Arnold Schwarzenegger won in CA and Jessie "The Body" Ventura won in Minnesota. Name recognition equals bedrock support. With Trump it's about 25% of registered Republicans. That's about 10-12% of registered voters. That's not unusual for a celebrity third party candidate, which is really what he is. Forget about minorities, the Republican party is losing white working class protestant voters--their mainstay since the 1960's. They've essentially split off to become a 21st Century Know Nothings resurrection. The problem is that within that movement their are the nativist Neocons who advocate a very muscular US foreign policy. So, it's become all mixed up as the mainstream Neocons are part of the stop Trump movement. This is like a five-way break-up of the Republican coalition: Trump Know Nothings, Neocon Know Nothings, Mainstream Neocons, Catholic Isolationists and Southern Baptist Evangelicals. The Democrats are split in two between the democratic socialists and the mainstream of the party. The irony is that Bernie Sanders is closer than anyone else to calling for a major political re-alignment, and has the numbers to back him up. You could say that he's building while the Republicans are tearing themselves apart. Hillary has no political agenda other than becoming president.

[virgil]

@Tomi - if it turns out that you are wrong, and the idiots are right to say Trump will win the election - will you publish a blogpost titled "I am an idiot" where you do your mea culpa for naming "idiots" people who foresaw this Trump vitory ? Come one, you are so sure, right? This can never happen. Just agree to the blogpost. Trump is definitely standing on a burning platform.

[Winter]

@virgil
"if it turns out that you are wrong, and the idiots are right to say Trump will win the election"

If Trump does win the election, Tomi, and everyone else here, have other worries than posting here. Finland is VERY close to Denmark, with the wind blowing from Denmark over the Baltic. And even Hongkong might feel unsafe.

[Winter]

The question is, does Hillary employ game theorists?

Donald Trump, game theorist
https://plus.maths.org/content/donald-trump-game-theorist

I suggest that much of what Donald Trump offers is ambiguity, which in part stems from his ignorance on policy issues. This stance is anything but a stupid strategy in deal-making. He combines it with confrontation, which works to draw out opponents on a battlefield on which Trump thinks he can win. The latter strategy is dangerous, however, if one is bluffing and the bluff is called.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hey virgil

You CLEARLY do not know me. Of COURSE I would do that. I DID that for example in the mid-terms of 2014. I ALWAYS come back to my predictions, most are reasonably close - I still point out where I was wrong on those - and EVERY time I point out any forecast where I was wrong.

You clearly do not know me or this blog. That is ALWAYS how I play it. And thats why this blog has had 6 million visits and a fiercely loyal readership. I have integrity. Yes, I will of course say I was a total idiot if Trump is elected - but watch out, virgil - I predicted EXACTLY how the 2016 Primary race would end - not just the Top 3 finishers in order but even their percentages almost perfectly - and I say Trump will lose by 20 points. Its not going to be close. I have no worry about having to come back on this prediction haha...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

People get smart on Trumps bullying tactics:

WATCH: Libertarian Gary Johnson taunts ‘racist’ Trump by blowing him a kiss
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/watch-libertarian-gary-johnson-taunts-racist-trump-by-blowing-him-a-kiss/

[Winter]

I think I could learn to like Johnson:

Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson: Pardon Edward Snowden
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/gary-johnson-edward-snowden-libertarian-pardon/2016/05/31/id/731617/

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

Seriously, guys... Trump is EVERTHING I said in that big Trump vs Hillary preview I gave you two months ago. He is EXACTLY that bad, as a candidate, that bad as a campaign, that bad in fund-raising, that bad in VP choice, surrogates, ground-game, data-mining etc.

..except Trump is EVEN WORSE than that. On EVERY aspect he is worse than what I wrote. I said Trump will lose by 20 points because he is the first candidate behind on ABSOLUTELY EVERY measure there exists. He will lose every demographic except white men. He will do significantly worse than Mitt Romney or John McCain. That was all before these past 3 weeks, when we found out how much WORSE the Trump 2016 candidacy is.

He is EVEN worse as a candidate than we thought. He is truly delusional yes, but he is mentally uncapable of taking in sound advice (such as from Manafort) and when he momentarily accepts a slight granule of that, his child-like mind will forget it within 24 hours and he's back to being Trump again. We all agreed Trump HAS to pivot, he cannot run his primary race into the general election - that is utterly un-electable. And we saw small signs that he is pivoting. Now, we have 3 weeks of evidence, no actually he is NOT pivoting, he is actually CONTINUING the primary race even when his rivals have conceded. This is sheer madness. Where the candidate HAS to unite his or her party, Trump is digging ever deeper divisions - feuding with Cruz & Kasich, feuding with Mitt Romney, feuding with John McCain, feuding with Susana Martinez etc etc etc and has not even managed to get Paul Ryan to join his cause. This man is LITERALLY WORSE than the one I profiled, when I calculated Trump will lose by 20 points.

Then the CAMPAIGN. Oh my gosh, is this far worse than anyone could have imagined. You guys remember, we debated and pondered, what is Trump's brilliant plan for the general election. Clearly he cannot be that dumb, that he had no plan (he was) and he has to have something brilliant coming after the primary season is over (he doesn't, there isn't). Now we learn that he will not fund a ground-game. He prefers to hand that part to the Republican party. This in the year when the party itself is essentially broke, and most fund-raisers are running away. The Republican party is EXCEPTIONALLY weak, unable to fully support Trump on the ground-game - where EVERY OTHER candidate always has supported the OTHER WAY, where the candidate had the funds and the big organization, to help the party because the party always was weaker.

Talking about weak, the money. Trump is 44 million dollars in debt. He now wants his fund-raisers to collect the cash to pay Trump back his loans. THEN he can start to fund his meager campaign. Hillary meanwhile is the richest campaign ever to exist who already has 25 million dollars in the bank. And she has the richest SuperPAC ready to start bombarding Trump next week with attack ads in battleground states. Trump still today has not even designated which of the competing SuperPACs is his official SuperPAC, so some of that little money which will come, will go to the 'wrong' group.

Then we have the STAFF. Trump never intended to run, so he never hired pro people, he had that idiot Lewandoski to run the nastiest primary campaign ever, but now Trump doesn't have the pro staff to run a general election campaign. The first person Manafort hired, was already fired by Trump. Nobody who is competent even wants to work for this train-wreck. Whatever Manafort can eventually hire, will be weak mediocre talent. Meanwhile Hillary has the best of the Clinton machine professionals, combined with the best of the Obama team. Arguably its the political 'dream team' of winning campaigns, ever.

And then the MAP. Again, Trump the lunatic wants to go fight for California and New York. When I did my Trump vs Hillary preview, of course I assumed Trump will behave like a sane rational politician and not throw his race away. For Trump to try to win California is as stupid as if Hillary went to try to win in Oklahoma. In no year will she win that race. And in no year, will Trump win California. That will not happen - but its THE most expensive state to run in. I love it, personally, that Trump is throwing his slim budget and time into that bottomless pit that is California for Republicans but haha, yeah, I did not COUNT on him being this dumb. Same for New York. Trump will never win New York but he is clearly trying to compete there.

EVERYTHING we have now learned about Trump says he is in a WORSE position, he is a WORSE candidate, he is running a WORSE campaign, he is not pivoting, he is digging his own grave even deeper, and thus, his loss will be WORSE not less, than I calculated. And here is my dilemma. I dare not say it will be worse than 20 points. But EVERY bone in my body says, it will be worse than 20 points. This is so horribly stupidly idiotically mad what he is doing, it is only hurting him.

Take Susana Martinez. She did not start this fight. This is a NEW fight, Trump picked with a Republican. She is not just a two-term sitting Governor, she is the CHAIR of the Republican Governors Association, one of the most senior leader positions in the party. Chris Christie used to hold that position. She gave one of the best speeches of the 2012 Republican Convention (the one for Mitt Romney best remembered for Clint Eastwood doing Empty Chair Monologues). She is BY FAR the most senior Latina woman in the Republican party and one of the most respected Hispanics of EITHER party. New Mexico, her state, is a battleground state. What possible gain can Trump have, from starting a feud with her? The Hispanics ALREADY dislike Trump at record-setting levels, his approval with Hispanics - before this madness - was at 80% disapproval level. He was already BEFORE this nonsense THE most despised politician by Hispanics EVER MEASURED. And now instead of trying to mend fences and make good with Hispanics, Trump VOLUNTARILY and with written notes - PLANNED an attack on Martinez, on several sentences of attacks while speaking in Albuquerque the Capital city of New Mexico.

Its truly as if Trump feels he has not damaged himself ENOUGH with Hispanics, and wants to do more damage. Now what about WOMEN? Trump has the worst gender gap ever measured by a front-runner. So he fights with Susana Martinez and in the same speech - also attacks Elizabeth Warren. Now, Warren is a Democrat, ok, so yeah, why not attack her. But how? Trump mocks her heritage by calling her Pocahontas. She is a genuine native American (Indian) of heritage, partially. Genuine native American Indian. For Trump to mock her about that - angers all native Americans - and is yet one more sign of his racism, that ALL minorities will immediately understand - blacks, Hispanics, Asians, gays, etc. WHY ? Trump could have attacked Warren for her positions on say being against bankers, but why attack her HERITAGE?

So now ANY woman sees, that Trump attacks Susana Martinez and Elizabeth Warren - neither on anything of merit - but on bogus attacks - which seem like SEXISM and bigotry. And bullying. The way women immediately sense if its a rude, arrogant, male boss, who can't handle a strong, smart, accomplished woman. This only hurts Trump again more with women. And Trump's behavior is as if he felt, he has not damaged his relations with women ENOUGH. He needs to do more. And minorities, also those... This is sheer madness.

If we look back at Romney 2012 or McCain 2008 in this same period, before the Convention, both were giving STRONG signs of their pivot to the center and lots of SMART moves about their upcoming general election race. Trump? No. He is making his matters worse. Every single thing we learned about Trump past 3 weeks reveals he is EVEN weaker (or dumber) than we thought.

Like the court case with Trump University. The SMART play, Trump KNEW he is wrong, is to settle - but make a condition of the settlement that all documents are sealed. Instead of that smart play - to prevent Trump U from becoming yet another disaster for him - he went to anger the judge. Now part of the documents are in the open - which really do expose Trump to be a genuine sleazebag. He is, as he is accused of, of being a fraud, a con-man. This again, shows bad judgement of Trump as a politician, he could have made this issue go away, instead he forces it into the general election now, giving MUCH more ammo for Hillary to open NEW areas to hit Trump that he has not been hit on, yet.

So yeah. My dilemma, can I possibly say his loss will be worse than 20 points. 18 points is Walter Mondale level against Reagan - and that was when Reagan was the SITTING President. But not in ONE area has Trump improved his sad position since March and in EVERY area we have learned about him - it is actually worse. Yes, I do think the loss will be greater than 20 points (or, Johnson or some other third party candidate will come in and then Trump could be at levels of 35% or worse while Hillary might not have 20 points on him - in a two-person race a 20 point lead means Trump gets 40%. If Trump is at 35% or less - thanks to a strong Third Party rival - he might not win ANY states)

Its not just that Trump is the worst candidate (and least prepared and least disciplined) running the worst campaign, the REALITY of Trump is even worse than we thought. So please please please do not despair. This will not be a contest. This will be a political massacre.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

@Tomi
"So please please please do not despair. This will not be a contest. This will be a political massacre."

There is even another possibility. Trump is mentally unstable. In the end, he might not run at all.

That would truely break "new ground" for the USA.

[Winter]

And to back Tomi's analysis about how BAD Trump is at making alies:

The 224 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html

Look for updates later.

[Millard Filmore]

@John Fro: I am not an expert about these things, nor do I have any special data sources, so I have to rely on others with more knowlege of the situation.

About Hillary's indictment: "former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld [...] Weld replied, "I'm speaking as a former director of the criminal division of the Justice Department. There's no criminal intent, and with no criminal intent there's no indictment."

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/05/libertarian-vp-candidate-blows-republicans

@Tomi: the Trump University situation is heating up, with New York state moving continuing their fraud case.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ny-attorney-general-back-off-trump-fraud-case/story?id=39515501

[cornelius]

@Winter

Trump may drop even if he wasn't mentally unstable (which he is). Trump would not be able to stomach the idea of him losing the presidential race. When he's talking to himself he's telling himself that he's a winner. That's why, when he will realize that it is very likely that he will loose, he will find a ridiculous pretext and he will throw a temper tantrum and withdraw from the race.

[Winter]

Court Documents Reveal How Trump University Staffers Sold the Brand
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/court-documents-reveal-how-trump-university-staffers-sold-brand-n583611

Documents from both years advise salespeople to negotiate around the price — which could be as much as $34,995 for the "Gold Elite" package — while suggesting buyers without available means rely on credit cards or savings to fund the course.

[oibur]

It looks that Trump is still not over regarding vet donation

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36422611

[Winter]

If The Media Treated Trump Like Other Candidates, Yesterday Would Have Ended His Campaign
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-media_us_574f07c1e4b0ed593f12e5d0

If Cruz, Rubio, Sanders, or Clinton behaved like Trump, the news media would not stop for weeks declaring them unfit for the job of PotUS.

But Trump gets away with it.

[Winter]

NYC officials investigating use of Trump Tower for campaign events
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/01/politics/buildings-department-investigating-trump-tower/

The New York City Department of Buildings confirmed Wednesday that it is investigating the use of the Trump Tower atrium for campaign events, which may violate an agreement Donald Trump made to keep parts the building open to the public when he built the landmark.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi cornelius

(great stuff everybody, but let me just take that one point)

cornelius - wow gosh yeah. THAT makes sense. Remember Ross Perot's campaign? He LED the polls against Bill Clinton and Daddy Bush (the sitting President) at one point. He was in the TV debates, he really had a chance to win it, in a three-way race (he ended up with 19% of the vote) BUT he had a disastrous campaign (his Vice Presidential choice even said in the TV debate, he didn't know why he was there..) but yeah. Ross Perot suddenly QUIT the race when he was very competitive, then later, like a month later, he returned and resumed his now doomed campaign.

Gosh yeah. That is the Trump exit strategy. He will find a ridiculous pretext to quit - and then he IS the only official Republican candidate, and he will simply declare, the game is rigged, he will not run - and he quits, in the middle of it. And we have seen how thin is his skin, he will take it personally on ANYTHING, and he could for example calculate that around early September, the situation is hopeless, he is behind in almost every state he would need to win - and he sees the first TV debate coming, where he knows he will be crushed - and suddenly he makes a stunt about something related to the debate. Something in it is 'unfair' and he won't participate - then when everybody gangs up on him being the coward - he says, the media is out to get him, and he quits the race.

Incidentally - while not ever releasing his tax returns haha.

Now Trump will be on the ballot in every state ANYWAY. It will be too late for the Republican party to replace him. BUT when Trump formally quits or 'suspends' his campaign, that is when the total Republican establishment will rush to embrace Johnson on the Libertarian party ticket. That will not make Johnson as competitive as Trump was, but might bring Johnson even to something near 30%. The hard-core Trumpistas will remain with him and vote for him but that could be down to 10% by election day as Trump will have been out of it for two months by then - and Hillary wins by 30 points over Johnson 60-30 (with 10 to Trump) in very rough terms. And total utter landslide crushing catastrophy for Republicans up and down the ticket.

Trump is going to lose the election, that is very clear. He may currently not have internalized it yet. Probably he hasn't. He doesn't listen to the professionals (and its the seriousness of those few pros around him, that may have caused Trump to fire that one guy already). So Lewandowski keeps feeding Trump the 'yes man lies' that the Billionaire wants to hear. Manafort maybe also noticed - he's been advising all sorts of despots around the world, real bad guys, and probably knows how to say 'yes, Sir' for a good paycheck - that its better to just let Trump live in his fantasy, for Manafort to pick up the big checks, and let Trump go down in flames. Manafort has a prime seat now to grow his power in the Republican party, as the 'only sane one' related to Trump haha, so he can't really lose in this game, however badly it will end.

And Trump? He reads the PUBLIC polling. So currently - delusional Trump is lulled into a false sense of security. He honestly now thinks, that yes, by running the 'counter-intuitive' but Trumpian campaign - of CONTINUING the primary contest of hate - he has tied Hillary. In polls now this week and early next week, he will continue to see that 'good news' of how well this strategy seems to be working.

Because Trump 'talks to himself' and doesn't trust experts - and knows the media is liars - he has no way of the truth reaching him, that the polls in these few weeks now show a distorted picture. Trump is LEARNING the wrong truth now. That is good (for his demise). Because after June 7, polls that report around June 11 or so, they will show the bump to Hillary and the race will go back to a 7 point race. What will Trump think? First thought - the polls are biased and wrong, and crooked. He will actively IGNORE the first signs, thinking they are inherently wrong and even that they have been published to damage him, Trump, personally.

But Trump will continue this, the primary-style campaign of hate - for a few more weeks - because Trump will refuse to accept the polls telling the truth. THEN, when Trump starts to think that something needs to be changed, he will look at NOW. He will look at the period from early June (not mid May) as the 'starting point' of where it went wrong. Something that he does NOW - will be what Trump will mistakenly think, THAT is what caused it. Note, that right now, regardless of the ongoing nonsense, Trump is ALSO doing his small steps of the pivot. And its most likely, that at the end of June, Trump studies early June, and decides one of his PIVOT moves was 'the mistake that caused the polls to collapse' - and Trump will go back to 'what worked' and be even more belligerent and rude.

Who knows, we are not his psychiatrists but as a total non-medical person and layman, just trying to imagine the obvious next few events that will happen, and judging by what bizarre reactions we've seen from Trump before - its a likely scenario that a) - Trump now thinks he is 'winning' and by continuing the primary style campaigning rather than a clear pivot to the middle. (Good! this is lunacy). Then b) he is likely to view early polling from the end of next week and beyond, to be 'wrong' and biased, and ignore those (while continuing the idiotic campaigning). And then c) he is likely eventually interpret the changed polling to reflect a reality - where he pinpoints incorrectly the TIMING of the polling 'collapse' to be something he is now doing or about to do in early June (good! This is critical mis-judgement). All this means, its HIGHLY likely that Trump will continue to make his journey worse into the Autumn campaign>

Then its the cornelius scenario that at some point, it hits Trump hard, he cannot ever win this. It was all a mirage (he'll never admit he ruined it for himself) and he needs an exit. A great excuse of why he has to quit because clearly the game was rigged against him and everybody is unfairly targeting him.

BTW it just hit me, take a vital timing element - Trump will want to have his 44 million dollar loan repayed. He won't quit before that is fully paid off. He may quit VERY soon after it has been. The window to me, most likely is just before the first TV debate. The more his growing professional advisors freak out about his bad and minimal debate prep (while reviewing debate tapes of the primaries and those of Hillary) - the more Trump will want to AVOID doing the 'homework' of hard work, of debate prep (remember he did very little of it in the primaries) and then at some point he will have a bad debate practise and he will decide, he has been paid back his loans, rather than go through the trouble of prepping for debate, he'll just cancel it. Oh, and cancel the whole race.

Thanks cornelius. That is the most likely way Trump's race ends. He will quit before November. I would say, the single most likely timing for his quitting is a few days before the first TV debate.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Millard Filmore]

@Tomi: If Trump drops out the RWNJs will explode with conspiracy rants. The right wing crazies are already floating the idea. Bakker's opening theme is that martial law will prevent a Trump presidency. It will be easy morph that, dropping martial law, and go with a claim that Trump was forced to quit the race because of nefarious actions on the part of the evil liberals.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jim-bakker-anti-trump-forces-may-impose-martial-law-or-cancel-election