Trump: the implosion continues

[BayGBM]

First he fires Corey Lewandowski... and elevates Manafort.  Now he demotes Manafort and installs Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon.  And Trump claims he knows how to pick the "best" people.    These amateurs are moving deck chairs on the Titanic!  GOP voters deserve so much better.



Trump shakes up campaign, demotes top adviser
By Robert Costa and Jose A. DelReal

Donald Trump, following weeks of gnawing agitation over his advisers’ attempts to temper his style, moved late Tuesday to overhaul his struggling campaign by rebuffing those efforts and elevating two longtime associates who have encouraged his combative populism.

Stephen Bannon, a former banker who runs the influential conservative outlet Breitbart News and is known for his fiercely anti-establishment politics, has been named the Trump campaign’s chief executive. Kellyanne Conway, a veteran Republican pollster who has been close to Trump for years, will assume the role of campaign manager.

Two Trump campaign aides confirmed the staff's reshuffle early Wednesday, requesting anonymity to discuss personnel changes without permission.

Trump issued a statement hours later. “I have known Steve and Kellyanne both for many years. They are extremely capable, highly qualified people who love to win and know how to win,” he said. “I believe we’re adding some of the best talents in politics, with the experience and expertise needed to defeat Hillary Clinton in November and continue to share my message and vision to Make America Great Again.”

The campaign played down the notion that Trump was reacting to the polls or saw his bid in crisis.

“These announcements come at a time of significant growth for Mr. Trump’s campaign, with the first major TV ad buy of the general election slated to start later this week and with additional top-flight operatives joining the movement on a near-daily basis,” the campaign said in the statement.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the moves.

Trump’s stunning decision effectively ended the months-long push by campaign chairman Paul Manafort to moderate Trump’s presentation and pitch for the general election. And it sent a signal, perhaps more clearly than ever, that the real-estate magnate intends to finish this race on his own terms, with friends who share his instincts at his side.

While Manafort, a seasoned operative who joined the campaign in March, will remain in his role, the advisers described his status internally as diminished due to Trump’s unhappiness and restlessness in recent weeks.

While Trump respects Manafort, the aides said, he has grown to feel “boxed in” and "controlled" by people who barely know him. Moving forward, he plans to focus intensely on rousing his voters at rallies and through media appearances.

Trump's turn away from Manafort is in part a reversion to how he ran his campaign in the primary with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski's mantra was "let Trump be Trump" and Trump wants to get back to that type of campaign culture, the aides said.

In Bannon especially, Trump is turning to an alter ego — a colorful, edgy figure on the right who has worked at Goldman Sachs and made several films, including a documentary about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Bannon, in phone calls and meetings, has been urging Trump for months to not mount a fall campaign that makes Republican donors and officials comfortable, the aides said. Instead, Bannon has been telling Trump to run more fully as an outsider and an unabashed nationalist.

Trump has listened intently to Bannon and agreed with him, believing that voters will ultimately want a presidential candidate who represents disruption more than a candidate with polished appeal, the aides said.

“I want to win,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal. “That’s why I’m bringing on fantastic people who know how to win and love to win.”

The campaign said in its statement that Bannon, a former Navy officer, would be “temporarily stepping down from his role with Breitbart News to work full-time on Mr. Trump’s campaign in a new position designed to bolster the business-like approach of Mr. Trump’s campaign.”

“Mr. Bannon,” it continued, “once recognized by Bloomberg Politics as the ‘most dangerous political operative in America,’ will oversee the campaign staff and operations in addition to strategic oversight of major campaign initiatives in addition to working with Mr. Manafort."

Manafort, in a statement, said that he is sure the additions will “undoubtedly help take the campaign to new levels of success.”

“Buckle up,” wrote a Trump strategist in a text message Wednesday to The Washington Post.

Trump’s decision developed over the weekend as he traveled to the Hamptons in New York for a Saturday evening fundraiser at the home of Woody Johnson, the wealthy Republican benefactor who owns the New York Jets.

According to three Republicans familiar with that event, Trump was confronted by several supporters there, including mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, about news reports on his advisers’ desire to tame his personality.

Trump was visibly infuriated at those stories, the Republicans said, and he conferred with Mercer about potential steps he might take to remake his campaign and populate his inner circle with voices more like his own.

Bannon’s name soon came up. Mercer, the daughter of hedge-fund titan Robert Mercer, spoke highly of him. (The Mercer family is a prominent investor in Breitbart News as well as in a super PAC opposing Hillary Clinton.) Trump did the same and told her they had been talking.

By Sunday, as Manafort appeared on network television shows, Trump was stewing and dialing up his friends, the Republicans said. He connected with his son-in-law and trusted adviser Jared Kushner, who has been on vacation in Europe. Then he called Conway and Bannon, ruminating aloud on how they could help him jolt his stalled candidacy.

The Journal reported that Bannon met with Trump later on Sunday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., to “lay out his new thinking for the campaign team” — with Manafort joining that meeting.

Bannon and Conway, who are friendly, both told Trump they’d be willing to work together and that they understood Trump’s vision for the rest of the campaign, the Republicans said. While careful to not be critical of Manafort —  Conway has referred to the changes as an “expansion” rather than a shake-up — they told Trump they would be dedicated to sharpening his message rather than handling him.

Bannon came to the conversation armed with ideas about how to promote Trump nationally and underscore his populism. Conway, who worked on Newt Gingrich’s 2012 campaign and has long counted Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, as a client, had thoughts on how Trump could reach out to more women and suburban voters.

Bannon quickly began to prepare for a takeover. He was spotted at Trump Tower on Monday and worked there Tuesday though he did not travel with Trump.

The three Republicans requested anonymity due to sensitivity of the campaign shake-up and their relationships with Trump, Bannon and Conway.

Moving forward, Trump is hopeful that Manafort will remain involved and a leader within the campaign with a possible emphasis on building Trump’s Washington operation, one of the Republicans said.

But Bannon’s position could make any attempt to smooth relations in Washington difficult. Breitbart News has been harshly critical of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and is seen as an antagonistic organ by congressional GOP leaders.

Another headache for Manafort: the continued hovering presence of Lewandowski, now a CNN commentator, who remains a confidant of Trump. According to Trump aides, he had a hand in prodding Trump to elevate Conway and Bannon and spoke with Trump over the weekend.

Ever since Manafort came onto the campaign, he and Lewandowski have had a bitter relationship, which only worsened when Lewandowski was fired in June during the last major campaign overhaul.

Controversy has also swirled around Manafort in recent days, after he was named in a corruption investigation in Ukraine that suggested he had received $12 million in undisclosed cash payments. The purported payments, earmarked in a ledger kept by the political party of Viktor Yanukovych, then Ukraine's president, raised questions about Manafort's ties to foreign governments and prompted his critics to demand his resignation. Manafort has denied receiving any such payments.

Trump has struggled to stay on message since the Republican National Convention last month, erasing the steady footing he had developed in polls against Clinton through a series of self-inflicted wounds that have driven news cycle after news cycle.

The day after he formally accepted the nomination at the GOP convention, Trump seemed intent on score-settling when he tore into his vanquished rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and revived unsubstantiated conspiracy theories linking Cruz’s father to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Then, during a combative news conference, he offhandedly invited Russian hackers to infiltrate and release Clinton’s private emails.

The three Republicans requested anonymity due to sensitivity of the campaign shake-up and their relationships with Trump, Bannon and Conway.

Moving forward, Trump is hopeful that Manafort will remain involved and a leader within the campaign with a possible emphasis on building Trump’s Washington operation, one of the Republicans said.

But Bannon’s position could make any attempt to smooth relations in Washington difficult. Breitbart News has been harshly critical of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and is seen as an antagonistic organ by congressional GOP leaders.

Another headache for Manafort: the continued hovering presence of Lewandowski, now a CNN commentator, who remains a confidant of Trump. According to Trump aides, he had a hand in prodding Trump to elevate Conway and Bannon and spoke with Trump over the weekend.

Ever since Manafort came onto the campaign, he and Lewandowski have had a bitter relationship, which only worsened when Lewandowski was fired in June during the last major campaign overhaul.

Controversy has also swirled around Manafort in recent days, after he was named in a corruption investigation in Ukraine that suggested he had received $12 million in undisclosed cash payments. The purported payments, earmarked in a ledger kept by the political party of Viktor Yanukovych, then Ukraine's president, raised questions about Manafort's ties to foreign governments and prompted his critics to demand his resignation. Manafort has denied receiving any such payments.

Trump has struggled to stay on message since the Republican National Convention last month, erasing the steady footing he had developed in polls against Clinton through a series of self-inflicted wounds that have driven news cycle after news cycle.

The day after he formally accepted the nomination at the GOP convention, Trump seemed intent on score-settling when he tore into his vanquished rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and revived unsubstantiated conspiracy theories linking Cruz’s father to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Then, during a combative news conference, he offhandedly invited Russian hackers to infiltrate and release Clinton’s private emails.

Those controversies flew in the face of efforts by Trump’s advisers to craft a more deliberate and controlled message, and to transform Trump from the populist flamethrower he was during the GOP primary to a candidate more restrained and presidential in style and demeanor.

And they came with a price: A Washington Post-ABC News poll released earlier this month showed Clinton opening an eight-point lead against Trump among registered voters. Nearly 6 in 10 voters surveyed in that poll said they do not believe he is qualified to be president. Meanwhile, Trump's persistent unpopularity with minority voters has outweighed his strength among white voters in key battleground states and has potentially put several noncompetitive states for Democrats into play.

"You know, I am who I am," Trump told a Wisconsin television station Tuesday. "It's me. I don't want to change. Everyone talks about, 'Oh, well, you're going to pivot, you're going to.' I don't want to pivot. I mean, you have to be you.”

[BayGBM]

First they tried to spin this as an "expansion" of the campaign rather than a shake up because things weren't going as planned.  Why they even bother with such rhetoric is baffling because everyone can see their dysfunciton.  Now, barely two days later even Eric Trump is admitting Manafort was fired (see last paragraph below).  


Paul Manafort Quits Donald Trump’s Campaign After Tumultuous Run
By MAGGIE HABERMAN and JONATHAN MARTIN

Paul Manafort, installed to run Donald J. Trump’s operation after the firing of his original campaign manager, handed in his resignation on Friday, signifying the latest tumult to engulf the candidate, whose standing in the polls has steadily dropped since the Republican Party’s convention in July.

Mr. Manafort left nearly a week after a New York Times report about problems within the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign helped precipitate a leadership shake-up. His departure reflects repeated efforts to steady a campaign that has been frequently roiled by the unpredictable behavior of its tempestuous first-time candidate.

Mr. Manafort was also dogged by reports about secretive efforts he made to help the former pro-Russian government in Ukraine, where he has worked on and off over several years. Those news reports were blotting out much of the news coverage of the candidate this week. And they contributed to Mr. Manafort becoming viewed with trepidation by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a major force within the campaign, particularly after a number of false starts since the Republican National Convention, according to three people briefed on the matter.

“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.”

Mr. Manafort, a veteran strategist who had managed Republican nominating conventions in the past, was hired by the campaign in late March, as Mr. Trump was facing a protracted delegate fight in his effort to capture the Republican nomination. When he joined the campaign, he was seen as a peer to Mr. Trump, 70, and someone whose advice Mr. Trump might heed. In fact, Mr. Manafort had pushed for the selection of Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, as Mr. Trump’s running mate.

But until this week, the role of campaign manager had remained empty since the June ouster of Corey Lewandowski, who played into Mr. Trump’s most aggressive instincts and with whom the candidate had a level of chemistry that he never forged with Mr. Manafort, according to several advisers who witnessed them interact. Mr. Trump has continued to seek out the advice of Mr. Lewandowski, a fierce rival of Mr. Manafort, since the aide’s departure from the campaign.

Since the convention in Cleveland, Mr. Trump has engaged in a series of self-defeating battles, including belittling the mother of a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq and threatening to withhold an endorsement from Speaker Paul D. Ryan. Aides have tried a range of efforts to rein in his impulses, including adding different travel companions.

Mr. Manafort ended up taking over the campaign two months ago after Mr. Lewandowski was fired when he became a distraction to the candidate over a string of high-profile fights.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, wrote on Twitter Friday afternoon that Rick Gates, Mr. Manafort’s deputy, would leave New York for Washington, where he would serve as “the campaign’s liaison to the R.N.C.” Mr. Manafort’s friends said privately that he had urged core staff members whom he brought on to stay on the campaign.

Last weekend, Mr. Trump decided to install Stephen K. Bannon as his chief executive and Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser, as the new campaign manager. That followed an emergency meeting called after the Times article last weekend on the frequent and stymied efforts by Mr. Trump’s top advisers to curtail his pugilistic instincts. Roger Ailes, the recently departed Fox News chairman, was present in New Jersey as the hastily called campaign meeting took place, and he is expected to play a role behind the scenes, including discussing debates with Mr. Trump.

The announced staff moves were widely seen as a step toward sidelining Mr. Manafort, but he and other Trump officials initially said that he would remain with the campaign.

But it remains to be seen who will step into the role of chief strategist for the final 11 weeks of a campaign that hasn’t held a poll lead since before the Republican convention, although his new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was seen as the likeliest choice.

After a primary season in which crucial organizational elements were left untended, the campaign is still struggling to ramp up against the operational behemoth of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Mr. Manafort is the second top Trump aide to be eased out in the last two months. Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager, Mr. Lewandowski, was dismissed in June after he repeatedly clashed with the candidate’s children and failed to prepare for a delegate slog against hardened opposition within the Republican Party.

Mr. Trump’s aides wanted to put out word of Mr. Manafort’s resignation on Friday morning, before the candidate landed in flood-ravaged Louisiana. But even after releasing a statement, by noon, as Mr. Trump toured Baton Rouge, his campaign had not held a conference call with staff members to inform them of the change.

The latest turmoil comes as Mr. Trump has been trying to reset his campaign after a disastrous stretch in which he committed a series of self-inflicted wounds. The often-improvisational candidate has given three speeches this week in which he largely followed a script, began airing his first television ads on Friday and has mostly targeted Mrs. Clinton while refraining from attacking other Republicans. Mr. Trump, who has long resisted apologizing for any misstep, even said in a speech on Thursday night that he regretted some of comments he had made.

But Mr. Trump’s renewed effort to impose a measure of professionalism on his campaign was obscured by a near-daily stream of stories detailing Mr. Manafort’s compensation from and advocacy for Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukranian president and ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

It had become clear to Mr. Manafort last weekend, as Mr. Trump excoriated him over a Times story describing the candidate’s and campaign’s dysfunction, that the pending stories about his work in Ukraine would make remaining on difficult, according to three people briefed on this thinking at the time.

Mr. Trump was informed about the latest reporting — an Associated Press article citing emails that showed Mr. Manafort’s firm had orchestrated a pro-Ukrainian Washington lobbying campaign without registering as a foreign agent — in North Carolina on Thursday night. That was enough to prompt Mr. Trump to telephone Mr. Bannon and suggest it was time for Mr. Manafort to go, according to a Republican briefed on the exchange.

“The easiest way for Trump to sidestep the whole Ukraine story is for Manafort not to be there,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who has become a counselor to Mr. Trump.

Yet Mr. Trump’s dissatisfaction with Mr. Manafort began before the drumbeat of stories about the operative’s Ukranian work, with the Times account, published online last Saturday, of the candidate’s struggles to remain on message despite repeated interventions from advisers and allies.

The next day, Mr. Trump met with Mr. Ailes in Bedminster, N.J., and Mr. Ailes urged him to shake up the campaign, according to a Republican briefed on the meeting. Mr. Ailes, a former Republican strategist and ad man who has become a trusted adviser to Mr. Trump since his ouster, had reviewed some of the initial television commercials Mr. Manafort had overseen and told Mr. Trump in blunt terms that they were lackluster.

Thomas Barrack, a financier and friend of Mr. Trump who helped bring Mr. Manafort into the campaign, expressed regret about the turn of events involving Mr. Manafort.

“I’ve known him since we were in college, he’s a first-class person, he’s an amazing individual and he has been the lead architect in trying to seamlessly put together the institutional side of this campaign,” Mr. Barrack said in an interview. “I think the architecture he put together will continue to serve the campaign well, but I’m sorry to see him go.”

After he was hired by Mr. Trump, Mr. Manafort helped quash uprisings among Republican delegates that, even if they wouldn’t imperil Mr. Trump’s ability to get the nomination, would have been an embarrassing distraction at the convention.

In an interview with Fox News, Eric Trump, the candidate’s second-oldest son, appeared to acknowledge that Mr. Manafort did not entirely leave on his own.

“My father just didn’t want to have the distraction looming over the campaign and quite frankly looming over all the issues that Hillary’s facing right now,” Eric Trump said.

[Straw Man]

Another great example of Trumps "extreme vetting" of his own personal

Hiring Bannon as "CEO" of the campaign, whatever the fuck that means, is like hiring someone who's never flown a plane or even ridden in one to be a pilot on his private jet

[BayGBM]

Another great example of Trumps "extreme vetting" of his own personal

Hiring Bannon as "CEO" of the campaign, whatever the fuck that means, is like hiring someone who's never flown a plane or even ridden in one to be a pilot on his private jet

 

This campaign is a perfect example of Trump's leadership skills on display.

[BayGBM]

Trump’s ‘apology’ sounds like a non-apology
By James Hohmann

Donald Trump is still figuring out the art of the non-apology apology.

After more than a year of refusing to budge as he moved from one firestorm to the next, the Republican nominee surprised everyone Thursday night by declaring that he lives with some “regret.”

But while he expressed remorse for the first time since getting into the presidential race 14 months ago, he steered clear of the S-word: “sorry.”

Parsing the speech, which was read from a teleprompter, veteran campaign strategists and historians noted that Trump sounded much more like a conventional politician than he has all year. In their view, he’s following a path of rhetorical evasion that has been well trod by candidates in both parties.

Linguists and relationship experts, meanwhile, said Trump’s comments were ineffective and that his words cannot accurately be described as an “apology.” In fact, the GOP nominee did not specify exactly who or what he was talking about. The targets over the course of his campaign are plentiful, including the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Megyn Kelly, New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, Mexicans and Muslims.

Yet with his poll numbers sinking with 81 days left to go, Trump has finally decided to participate in a familiar ritual of penitence: asking the voters for grace after a headline-grabbing misdeed (or, in Trump’s case, many). It’s the same kind of public plea for forgiveness that U.S. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte also issued on Friday over revelations that he fabricated a story about being robbed in Rio (he didn’t actually use the word “sorry” either). But there are many celebrities (actor Mel Gibson after his drunken tirade against “the Jews”) and politicians (then-South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) after “hiking the Appalachian Trail”) who have been through it before.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has also had to make some public mea culpas in her political lifetime — most recently, saying she was “sorry” for her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Sometimes the public plea for forgiveness works; sometimes it doesn’t.

The biggest problem for Trump, experts said, was the vague nature of his actual words.

“Sometimes in the heat of debate, and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that,” Trump said. “And believe it or not, I regret it. I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain.”

Asked if he’ll apologize to the Khan family, newly installed campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said “he may.”

“I certainly hope they heard him,” Conway said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I hope that everybody who has criticized him at some point, for being insensitive or for mocking someone, at least shows some recognition and some forgiveness.”

New York University historian Tim Naftali, who previously directed the Richard Nixon presidential library, heard Nixonian echoes as he watched the tape of Trump’s speech in Charlotte on Thursday night. Two men who Trump talks to — Roger Ailes and Roger Stone — worked for the former president.

After Watergate, Nixon never apologized for breaking the law, even in his famous interview with David Frost. He instead said that he was sorry for causing the American people pain and suffering.

“An apology involves contrition. Neither Trump, so far, nor Nixon showed real contrition,” Naftali said. “Nixon, at least, believed apologies were a sign of weakness, which exposed him to more attacks from his real and perceived enemies.”

Trump’s insults have come fast and furious during the campaign, but he has never before apologized. “I don’t have regrets,” he said in March when asked about the charged rhetoric at his rallies.

After Khan’s father said Trump does not understand what “sacrifice” means during the Democratic National Convention, the GOP nominee spent a week attacking him. Even following heavy criticism of his attacks on a Gold Star family, Trump told WJLA: “I don’t regret anything.”

Susan Wise Bauer, who wrote the “The Art of the Public Grovel,” called Trump’s language about regret “pretty pathetic.”

“ ‘Regret’ is about the weaseliest non-apology, non-confession word you can pick,” said Bauer, who teaches American literature at the College of William and Mary. “You could ‘regret’ the fact it’s raining outside and have nothing to do with it.”

Perhaps that’s exactly why so many public figures use the word so often, in lieu of more direct words like “apologize” or “sorry.”

Last month, under fire for disparaging Trump as a member of the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “On reflection, my recent remarks ... were ill-advised and I regret making them.”

In 2008, after Joseph R. Biden Jr. called Barack Obama, at that point his opponent for the Democratic nomination, “the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” the Delaware senator released a statement saying: “I deeply regret any offense my remark ... might have caused anyone.”

For others, Trump’s non-apology recalled then-Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood’s mealy-mouthed response to sexual harassment accusations. “I’m apologizing for the conduct that it was alleged that I did, and I say I am sorry,” Packwood said in 1992.

“Trump’s not really able to name what he did wrong,” said Edwin Battistella, author of “Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology” and a linguistics professor at Southern Oregon University. “If you think about what a good apology is, you really want to name what you did wrong and apologize specifically for that — not just say I’m sorry for ‘whatever.’ ”

Naftali says Trump is “testing the waters” to see if unspecified regrets is enough.

“That’s a classic way for an unrepentant person to try to get us to move on,” Naftali said. “What was unusual and new about what Trump did was that he actually took responsibility for the power of his words.”

Lauren Bloom, who wrote “Art of the Apology: How, When, and Why to Give and Accept Apologies,” said sincerity is a fundamental apology requirement. “I’m sure he sincerely regrets creating controversy that hurt his poll numbers, but that’s not being sorry,” she said.

Bloom argued that, if Trump was sincere, he would telephone some of the people he lashed into, including McCain (who he blasted for being captured in Vietnam) or Carly Fiorina (whose face he mocked).

But Republican strategists lack confidence that Trump has the self-discipline to stick with this approach.

“The speech was him trying yet again to send the same message — ‘we’re going to pivot’ — which we’ve seen for well over a year now is meaningless,” said Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee communications director.

Besides her email server, Clinton has offered many non-apology apologies of her own. She defended her support for the Iraq War in 2008 before saying it was a “mistake” in 2014.

Bill Clinton is much more accomplished in the art of the non-apology apology. In April, he lectured Black Lives Matter protesters about his crime bill, angering some African Americans.

“I almost want to apologize,” he said the next morning.

But he did not. He just kept talking.

[TheGrinch]

[BayGBM]

It’s hard to imagine a much worse pitch Donald Trump could have made for the black vote
By Philip Bump

At a rally Friday night in Dimondale, Mich., Donald Trump repeated a version of a plea to black voters that he had offered 24 hours earlier in North Carolina.

"No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African Americans," he said, apparently pointing to individuals in the crowd. "No group. No group. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain to the African American community, she could not have done a better job. It is a disgrace."

"Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime, number one," he said from a city 90 minutes away from Detroit with a population that is 93 percent white. "This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by crooked Hillary Clinton."

He went on.

"The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership," he said.

"Look at how much African American communities are suffering from Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? What do you have to lose?" he asked. "You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?"

This was not the Teleprompter Trump that we saw in Charlotte, interlacing his prepared remarks with occasional asides. This was Traditional Trump, riffing a bit more on what he wanted to say in a manner that probably didn't do him much good.

Consider: Black Americans are not "living in poverty" as a general rule. A quarter of the black population is, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, about the same as the percentage of Hispanics. In Michigan, the figure is slightly higher. Most black Americans don't live in poverty, just as most white Americans don't.

Consider: The unemployment rate in the black community is higher than that in the white community, as it has been since the Department of Labor started keeping track. Among young blacks, though, the figure is not 59 percent — unless (as PolitiFact noted) you consider not the labor force but every young black American, including high school students. Many young black high school students are unemployed. This isn't a metric that the Labor Department typically uses, for obvious reasons, but calculating the rates for young whites gives you about 50 percent, too.

Consider: Black voters are perfectly able to evaluate candidates on qualities other than their political parties. Black voters began supporting the Democratic Party heavily thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then, they have consistently voted for the party — a party that is one-fifth black and which since 1964 has elected the vast majority of the black members of Congress. Democrats win the support of black voters consistently because those voters like the work that they do and like the fights that they fight.

When President Obama won reelection in 2012, 93 percent of black Americans thought he was doing a good job. That's also the percentage of the vote he received, according to exit polls, beating Mitt Romney by 87 points.

And yet, somehow, Trump is doing worse.

In the battle between Trump and Clinton, he consistently lands in the low single digits of support from black Americans. In some polls, he has received 0 percent support, a negligible amount. In our most recent survey, he got 2 percent support.

Why? Because nonwhite voters view Trump very unfavorably. We wrote about this in June but can now update the numbers. Four-in-5 blacks have a very unfavorable view of Trump, with a slightly higher percentage, 83 percent, agreeing with the idea that he is biased against women and minorities. Eighty-seven percent of black voters we surveyed indicated that they would be anxious if he were elected president and only 6 percent "comfortable." The numbers for Clinton — who very quickly tweeted that Trump's Michigan comments were "so ignorant it's staggering" -- were nearly completely flipped.

There are any number of reasons that black Americans might view Trump unfavorably, starting with his 2011 effort to cast suspicion on Obama's place of birth. Or, probably, starting with his full-page ad calling for the death penalty against five black teenagers in New York City who were accused of rape — wrongly, as it turned out. Or perhaps thanks to the support his current candidacy is getting from people like former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

There's no reason to think that Trump's suggestion that black Americans had "nothing to lose" because they "are living in poverty" will do anything to reverse that trend. Nor was his insistence in North Carolina that he should get votes from black voters because "the inner cities are so bad." Some black people, research shows, live in places besides the "inner city."

So why make the argument? It could be, simply enough, that Trump doesn't have anyone in his inner circle that can provide a sense of how to reach out to the black community. One adviser said on CNN that Trump making his appeal in a mostly white town wasn't a big deal and that "maybe it would have been nice if he went and had a backdrop with a burning car." Or maybe Trump was listening to Ben Carson, who in May made a similar argument for Trump: He would only be president for four years, so what could go wrong?

It's likely that Trump's continuing lack of meaningful outreach to black voters keeps him from understanding effective ways of arguing his case. When he went to Baton Rouge to see flood damage, he stopped at a Baptist church with a mostly white congregation.

Or maybe black voters aren't his intended audience. Maybe, with his poll numbers low thanks to soft support from his own party, Trump is trying to convince Republicans that he wants or can earn the black vote. In our most recent poll, one-fifth of Republican men and a quarter of Republican women agreed with the statement that Trump is biased against women and minorities. He gets 90 and 80 percent of the vote from those groups, respectively. Maybe this is an attempt to get them to see him as doing real outreach, even if he isn't.

Of all of the claims Trump made Friday night, though, perhaps none is as laughable as his ultimate prediction.

"At the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over 95 percent of the African American vote," he said. "I will produce for the inner cities, and I will produce for the African Americans. The Democrats will not produce, and all they've done is taken advantage of your vote. That's they've done. And once the election's over, they go back to their palaces in Washington, and you know what, they do nothing for you, just remember it."

Black voters will not give Trump 95 percent of the vote should he be up for reelection in 2020. If he got 25 percent of the vote from black Americans, it would be remarkable. And unless he persuades his own party to support his candidacy, the only one returning to a golden palace after Election Day will be Donald Trump.

[sync pulse]

[Soul Crusher]

Unless someone promises free stuff , and a lot of it , thry always lose the black vote. 

It’s hard to imagine a much worse pitch Donald Trump could have made for the black vote
By Philip Bump

At a rally Friday night in Dimondale, Mich., Donald Trump repeated a version of a plea to black voters that he had offered 24 hours earlier in North Carolina.

"No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African Americans," he said, apparently pointing to individuals in the crowd. "No group. No group. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain to the African American community, she could not have done a better job. It is a disgrace."

"Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime, number one," he said from a city 90 minutes away from Detroit with a population that is 93 percent white. "This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by crooked Hillary Clinton."

He went on.

"The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership," he said.

"Look at how much African American communities are suffering from Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? What do you have to lose?" he asked. "You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?"

This was not the Teleprompter Trump that we saw in Charlotte, interlacing his prepared remarks with occasional asides. This was Traditional Trump, riffing a bit more on what he wanted to say in a manner that probably didn't do him much good.

Consider: Black Americans are not "living in poverty" as a general rule. A quarter of the black population is, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, about the same as the percentage of Hispanics. In Michigan, the figure is slightly higher. Most black Americans don't live in poverty, just as most white Americans don't.

Consider: The unemployment rate in the black community is higher than that in the white community, as it has been since the Department of Labor started keeping track. Among young blacks, though, the figure is not 59 percent — unless (as PolitiFact noted) you consider not the labor force but every young black American, including high school students. Many young black high school students are unemployed. This isn't a metric that the Labor Department typically uses, for obvious reasons, but calculating the rates for young whites gives you about 50 percent, too.

Consider: Black voters are perfectly able to evaluate candidates on qualities other than their political parties. Black voters began supporting the Democratic Party heavily thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then, they have consistently voted for the party — a party that is one-fifth black and which since 1964 has elected the vast majority of the black members of Congress. Democrats win the support of black voters consistently because those voters like the work that they do and like the fights that they fight.

When President Obama won reelection in 2012, 93 percent of black Americans thought he was doing a good job. That's also the percentage of the vote he received, according to exit polls, beating Mitt Romney by 87 points.

And yet, somehow, Trump is doing worse.

In the battle between Trump and Clinton, he consistently lands in the low single digits of support from black Americans. In some polls, he has received 0 percent support, a negligible amount. In our most recent survey, he got 2 percent support.

Why? Because nonwhite voters view Trump very unfavorably. We wrote about this in June but can now update the numbers. Four-in-5 blacks have a very unfavorable view of Trump, with a slightly higher percentage, 83 percent, agreeing with the idea that he is biased against women and minorities. Eighty-seven percent of black voters we surveyed indicated that they would be anxious if he were elected president and only 6 percent "comfortable." The numbers for Clinton — who very quickly tweeted that Trump's Michigan comments were "so ignorant it's staggering" -- were nearly completely flipped.

There are any number of reasons that black Americans might view Trump unfavorably, starting with his 2011 effort to cast suspicion on Obama's place of birth. Or, probably, starting with his full-page ad calling for the death penalty against five black teenagers in New York City who were accused of rape — wrongly, as it turned out. Or perhaps thanks to the support his current candidacy is getting from people like former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

There's no reason to think that Trump's suggestion that black Americans had "nothing to lose" because they "are living in poverty" will do anything to reverse that trend. Nor was his insistence in North Carolina that he should get votes from black voters because "the inner cities are so bad." Some black people, research shows, live in places besides the "inner city."

So why make the argument? It could be, simply enough, that Trump doesn't have anyone in his inner circle that can provide a sense of how to reach out to the black community. One adviser said on CNN that Trump making his appeal in a mostly white town wasn't a big deal and that "maybe it would have been nice if he went and had a backdrop with a burning car." Or maybe Trump was listening to Ben Carson, who in May made a similar argument for Trump: He would only be president for four years, so what could go wrong?

It's likely that Trump's continuing lack of meaningful outreach to black voters keeps him from understanding effective ways of arguing his case. When he went to Baton Rouge to see flood damage, he stopped at a Baptist church with a mostly white congregation.

Or maybe black voters aren't his intended audience. Maybe, with his poll numbers low thanks to soft support from his own party, Trump is trying to convince Republicans that he wants or can earn the black vote. In our most recent poll, one-fifth of Republican men and a quarter of Republican women agreed with the statement that Trump is biased against women and minorities. He gets 90 and 80 percent of the vote from those groups, respectively. Maybe this is an attempt to get them to see him as doing real outreach, even if he isn't.

Of all of the claims Trump made Friday night, though, perhaps none is as laughable as his ultimate prediction.

"At the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over 95 percent of the African American vote," he said. "I will produce for the inner cities, and I will produce for the African Americans. The Democrats will not produce, and all they've done is taken advantage of your vote. That's they've done. And once the election's over, they go back to their palaces in Washington, and you know what, they do nothing for you, just remember it."

Black voters will not give Trump 95 percent of the vote should he be up for reelection in 2020. If he got 25 percent of the vote from black Americans, it would be remarkable. And unless he persuades his own party to support his candidacy, the only one returning to a golden palace after Election Day will be Donald Trump.

[Coach is Back!]

Liberal LA Times Trump +2 this morning...

http://www.latimes.com/politics/

[BayGBM]

Trump campaign manager no longer wants him to release his tax returns
By Jenna Johnson

Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday morning that she does not want the Republican presidential nominee to release his tax returns until an audit by the Internal Revenue Service is completed, abandoning a position that she took five months ago, when she didn't work for the campaign and urged Trump to "be transparent" and release the filings.

"I've learned since being on the inside that this audit is a serious matter and that he has said that when the audit is complete, he will release his tax returns," Conway said during an interview on ABC's "This Week" that aired Sunday morning. "I also know as a pollster that what concerns people most about quote 'taxes' is their own tax liability, and so we appreciate people being able to see Hillary Clinton's plan and Donald Trump's plan and figure out who will really get the middle-class tax relief."

According to Trump's attorneys, his tax returns filed since 2009 are under audit but those from 2002 to 2008 are no longer under audit. Conway said Sunday in an interview on CNN that she does not want Trump to release those returns, either.

On ABC, Conway also took a swipe at Clinton over transparency: "I'm glad that he's transparent about a number of things, and we're certainly running against the least accountable, least transparent, I think, joyless candidate in presidential political history."

Trump is the first major presidential nominee from either party since 1976 to not release tax returns. Last summer, Clinton released returns from 2007 to 2014, and her campaign shared her 2015 return this month, as well as 10 years of returns from her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has said that he plans to release his tax returns, with a spokesman telling CNN that this would happen before the election.

In April, Conway appeared on CNN and defended a short-lived alliance between Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) to stop Trump, a strategy that she considered "fair game."

"Of course it's fair game," Conway said. "Oh, absolutely. It's completely transparent. Donald Trump's tax returns aren't, and I would like to see those be transparent."

During the Sunday interview on CNN, Conway said she didn't understand why Trump's tax returns have become such a big issue.

"This entire tax return debate is somewhat confounding to me, in the following sense: I don't think that it creates one job, gets one more individual who does not have health insurance covered by health insurance, particularly under the disaster that has been Obamacare with these private insurers pulling out our exchanges now and reporting billions of dollars of losses," Conway said. "If we want transparency, if we want specifics, the most relevant thing that people can look at is what is his plan for their tax bill."

[Soul Crusher]

When is Hillary releasing the 33k deleted emails

Trump campaign manager no longer wants him to release his tax returns
By Jenna Johnson

Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday morning that she does not want the Republican presidential nominee to release his tax returns until an audit by the Internal Revenue Service is completed, abandoning a position that she took five months ago, when she didn't work for the campaign and urged Trump to "be transparent" and release the filings.

"I've learned since being on the inside that this audit is a serious matter and that he has said that when the audit is complete, he will release his tax returns," Conway said during an interview on ABC's "This Week" that aired Sunday morning. "I also know as a pollster that what concerns people most about quote 'taxes' is their own tax liability, and so we appreciate people being able to see Hillary Clinton's plan and Donald Trump's plan and figure out who will really get the middle-class tax relief."

According to Trump's attorneys, his tax returns filed since 2009 are under audit but those from 2002 to 2008 are no longer under audit. Conway said Sunday in an interview on CNN that she does not want Trump to release those returns, either.

On ABC, Conway also took a swipe at Clinton over transparency: "I'm glad that he's transparent about a number of things, and we're certainly running against the least accountable, least transparent, I think, joyless candidate in presidential political history."

Trump is the first major presidential nominee from either party since 1976 to not release tax returns. Last summer, Clinton released returns from 2007 to 2014, and her campaign shared her 2015 return this month, as well as 10 years of returns from her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has said that he plans to release his tax returns, with a spokesman telling CNN that this would happen before the election.

In April, Conway appeared on CNN and defended a short-lived alliance between Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) to stop Trump, a strategy that she considered "fair game."

"Of course it's fair game," Conway said. "Oh, absolutely. It's completely transparent. Donald Trump's tax returns aren't, and I would like to see those be transparent."

During the Sunday interview on CNN, Conway said she didn't understand why Trump's tax returns have become such a big issue.

"This entire tax return debate is somewhat confounding to me, in the following sense: I don't think that it creates one job, gets one more individual who does not have health insurance covered by health insurance, particularly under the disaster that has been Obamacare with these private insurers pulling out our exchanges now and reporting billions of dollars of losses," Conway said. "If we want transparency, if we want specifics, the most relevant thing that people can look at is what is his plan for their tax bill."

[TheGrinch]

Hey.. I have a great idea...

Lets vote for a feeble Grandma who can't get up stairs, gets propped up by pillows, and is in severely poor medical health who has according to FBI testimony perjured herself under oath!


yeah... that sounds like an AWESOME idea for a strong president to represent the US!!

Hildog 2016 !! lets do this... whoo hooo

[240 is Back]

Liberal LA Times Trump +2 this morning...

http://www.latimes.com/politics/

Is this poll accurate?  Is the poll that has Trump down 9 points in FL accurate? 

hoping youre consistent, and not one of those folks that only believes in polls when their guy leads.

have you endorsed a candidate yet, or still making up your mind, coach?

[Primemuscle]

Is this poll accurate?  Is the poll that has Trump down 9 points in FL accurate? 

The L.A. Times poll is an outlier.

[Coach is Back!]

Is this poll accurate?  Is the poll that has Trump down 9 points in FL accurate? 

hoping youre consistent, and not one of those folks that only believes in polls when their guy leads.

have you endorsed a candidate yet, or still making up your mind, coach?

Done playing your games. You know who I endorsed as Ive said it right after the convention. Figure it out junior.

[240 is Back]

Done playing your games. You know who I endorsed as Ive said it right after the convention. Figure it out junior.

hey, we both may end up voting trump.  I dont want hilary to win either, I just think trump is a lib piece of shit working for her too.

what's with this 'junior' stuff?   Do you talk like a piece of shit in real life?  or just on the message boards?

[BayGBM]

Conway shouldn’t have gone on TV
By Jennifer Rubin

Grading on a curve, Kellyanne Conway is doing A-plus work for Donald Trump. She hasn’t manhandled a reporter as Corey Lewandowski did. She’s not tied up with Russian oligarchs as Paul Manafort has been. But in absolute terms, her tenure has gotten off to a rocky start and her appearance on the Sunday shows was misguided if not semi-disastrous.

To recap Trump’s travails since she came on: He made a condescending speech to African Americans that only magnified his cluelessness. He insisted on grandstanding in Baton Rouge, only to be told off by the governor and exclude the press anyway. As money figures were released, there was confirmation of how little of what he purportedly raised is going to his campaign (about $37 million of $80 million raised); how lavishly he spent on consultants and in payments to his own entities; and how badly his campaign and super PACs trail Hillary Clinton’s money operation. The latter fundraising troubles were not on Conway’s watch, but she did little to pave the way by downgrading expectations.

Next, the Huffington Post reports that she must treat Trump like a baby, flattering him (“she has a whole vocabulary of diplomatic words”) and keeping bad news away (“Kelly’s telling Trump what he wants to hear”). That’s horrible if true because it portrays him as crippled by his own ego and demonstrates that Trump can abide only women with whom he agrees. (“That’s the kind of woman he likes around, who can tell him the soft way  — encourage him, guide him but not criticize him.”) That’s humiliating, frankly, but it certainly jibes with a narcissistic personality. If Conway really is helping Trump escape from reality, she is doing Trump, the party and the country no good. Then there were her remarks on Sunday, which were at times bizarre.

She couldn’t say if Trump was changing a central tenet of his campaign, his deportation of 11 million people. (“To be determined,” she said of a policy he’s advocated for over a year.)

After saying before she joined Trump’s campaign that she didn’t like politics of denigration, she had to insist, “He doesn’t hurl personal insults.” Who believes such preposterous spin?

She lied that Trump had apologized in public to Capt. Humayun Khan’s parents. She also let it be known that he has not apologized to anyone personally. It was painful to watch:

    GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So what specifically does Mr. Trump regret saying?

    CONWAY: He has said that he wants to regret anytime he’s caused somebody personal pain by saying something that he didn’t intend to cause personal pain. And I think those who have received it privately should take that expression of regret.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: So he’s called the Khan family?

    He’s called John McCain and apologized?

    CONWAY: No, he’s expressed his regret publicly and said if I have caused you personal pain — that can include me, that can include you — that he regrets that. And that’s the Donald Trump —

    (CROSSTALK)

    STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s regretting what they feel, not what he said.

    CONWAY: No, no, that’s regretting that — he said if I have chosen the wrong words or said something in a way I didn’t intend, then I regret that.  But this is exactly what people love. They love humility. They love accessibility. They love authenticity. And I’m just amazed that the Hillary team has responded in yet another attack on Donald Trump.

And of course she had to spin on his refusal to release his taxes, which she previously said he should do. “I’ve learned since on being the inside that this audit is a serious matter and that he has said that when the audit is complete, he’ll release his tax returns,”she said. (So he’s in big trouble with the IRS?) And as if to underscore that she was dishing out spin, she added, “I also know as a pollster that what concerns people most about, quote, ‘taxes’ is their own tax liability.” In other words, he thinks he can get away with it.

Finally, confronted with criticism of Trump’s condescending speech about African Americans, she let on it was all about catering to white people. “Those comments are for all Americans. And I live in a white community. I’m white. I was very moved by his comment. In other words, he is trying to tell Americans that we can do better.” Translation: He was telling white people he’s not as racist as they might have suspected.

Listen, Conway has an impossible job — trying to make Trump into a respectable candidate. She is far and away the most competent and experienced person on the team. From the outside, she’s also the most “normal” person he’s had in any senior position. But she has never run a presidential campaign. Moreover, she seems to have forgotten the first rule of campaigns: When you are going to be asked questions for which there are no good answers, don’t go on TV.

[240 is Back]

She went on TV because she wants to be a star anchor on TrumpTV and is trying to get as much airtime as possibl.

She didn't know his message, and created a big pile of flip-flop shit that he didn't need, in a week where he was actually doing well.

Creating that doubt of "maybe they can stay, to be determined!" was a DUMB move.


Trump would be better off with a 12-year old running part of his campaign at this point.

[BayGBM]

She went on TV because she wants to be a star anchor on TrumpTV and is trying to get as much airtime as possibl.

She didn't know his message, and created a big pile of flip-flop shit that he didn't need, in a week where he was actually doing well.

Creating that doubt of "maybe they can stay, to be determined!" was a DUMB move.

Trump would be better off with a 12-year old running part of his campaign at this point.

I don't know about a 12-year old but Conway is not a compelling presence on TV.  She reeks of hypocrisy and opportunism.  She may or may not be effective behind the scenes but on TV she is a total disaster! 

[240 is Back]

I don't know about a 12-year old but Conway is not a compelling presence on TV.  She reeks of hypocrisy and opportunism.  She may or may not be effective behind the scenes but on TV she is a total disaster! 

12-year-old running Trump campaign office in Colorado

WHEAT RIDGE, CO (KDVR/CNN) - Donald Trump's campaign has some young blood among its leadership.

And by young, that means 12 years old.

In one of the most important counties in swing state Colorado, Donald Trump is relying on 12-year-old Weston Imer, who runs the Jefferson County operation for the Trump campaign.

Jefferson County is one of the most populous counties in Colorado and is part of the Denver metro area.

http://www.kmov.com/story/32807204/12-year-old-running-trump-campaign-office-in-colorado

[Coach is Back!]

12-year-old running Trump campaign office in Colorado

WHEAT RIDGE, CO (KDVR/CNN) - Donald Trump's campaign has some young blood among its leadership.

And by young, that means 12 years old.

In one of the most important counties in swing state Colorado, Donald Trump is relying on 12-year-old Weston Imer, who runs the Jefferson County operation for the Trump campaign.

Jefferson County is one of the most populous counties in Colorado and is part of the Denver metro area.

http://www.kmov.com/story/32807204/12-year-old-running-trump-campaign-office-in-colorado

A 12 year old could run this country better than Obama can.

[TuHolmes]

12-year-old running Trump campaign office in Colorado

WHEAT RIDGE, CO (KDVR/CNN) - Donald Trump's campaign has some young blood among its leadership.

And by young, that means 12 years old.

In one of the most important counties in swing state Colorado, Donald Trump is relying on 12-year-old Weston Imer, who runs the Jefferson County operation for the Trump campaign.

Jefferson County is one of the most populous counties in Colorado and is part of the Denver metro area.

http://www.kmov.com/story/32807204/12-year-old-running-trump-campaign-office-in-colorado

Well, I don't know how much running it he's doing... Maybe he is, but eh.

From your link:

Imer's mother, Laurel Imer, is the official field coordinator on paper, but she wants to give her son most of the responsibility and help show other parents - Democrat or Republican - how to get their kids involved.

"You have a responsibility to your children to teach them," Laurel Imer said.

School starts for Weston Imer in September, and he hopes to lead the field office until then, recruiting friends and making Trump - who he has met - proud.

[240 is Back]

I like what they're doing there, putting kids to work with such responsibility.   Pretty cool actually.

Trump's new campaign manager said some stupid shit, and now the base is running from Trump because he has to commit to deportation, or admit to his STRONGEST supporters that he was just lying to them when he promised that.

We're figuring it out now = to be determined = why in the F did she just put trump in this position?   He had to cancel a speech on immigration and is now re-formulating it?

[BayGBM]

A 12 year old could run this country better than Obama can.

Do you mean to say a 12 year old could better clean up the disaster left by the Bush administration?  Is that what you mean to say?   Or do you cling to the idea that Bush/Cheney was a successful administration.