Wow! It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Trump has melted down in ways entirely predictable yet still awesome to witness. And he has done so on an international stage. No longer were his petulance, his childishness, his ignorance and his repugnant salaciousness merely the province of inside-baseball pundits and breathless online commenting update-mongers. Right there, in front of God and everyone, Donald J Trump showed his true colors.
Again, this is not a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. The surprise is in how many people haven’t been paying attention. But in the last two weeks from the first debate, the numbers have returned where they were in late August, and the race appears all but out of reach for the Trump campaign.
As we know, early voting has been underway in some states for the past several weeks, and more are being added to that total all the time. So votes are being banked in advance of Election Day for both candidates, but they are being banked while the SS Trumptanic is well down in the polls, and sinking fast.
GOTV stands for “Get Out the Vote,” the end-game for all elections. Every voter you’re reached out to, every regular voter for your party, anyone you’ve identified as a supporter is now your responsibility to get to vote. Every one you are able to convince to vote ahead of time is one less name you have to worry about on Election Day proper. All of this takes an outstanding data operation, and a dedicated and motivated group of volunteers to execute the plays that the data calls for.
Trump has neither of these things. He had depended on the rank and file of the Republican Party, starting at the top with the RNC, to carry out a function that he never thought was all that critical – the fabled “ground game.” In politics, voter identification, persuasion and GOTV are the ground game, while messaging, especially through media, is called the “air game.” Trump’s understanding of the mechanics of campaigning is limited to the air game and personal appearances, exactly the way he has conducted his whole life of adolescent attention-seeking cum adoration-mongering. Actual work is something you contract out and sometimes pay for.
And this is why he is done, because the actual work of winning a campaign occurs by getting people who are for you at home, to get dressed, get in the car, drive to someplace they only go to once every 4 years, if that, maybe stand in line, and finally vote. Or to fill out a bunch of forms to receive and return a mail-in ballot.
But Trump has outsourced that to the national, state, and county organizations of the Republican Party. Saturday, it was reported, the RNC suspended a huge mailing operation on behalf of Trump, the “Victory Project.” And precinct-level volunteers who were doing this long before he raised his orange coif and will be doing it long after it sinks back into tabloid oblivion will also sit on their hands rather than lift a finger to help him. In 2004, I witnessed suburban Republican women, the mainstay of their local Party, walk out of a speech by Obama’s Senate opponent, Alan Keyes, when he started in on his misogynistic abortion rant.
How fast do you think they are heading for the exits, now?
As the AP has just reported – Speaker Paul Ryan is basically telling them to do so. It’s everyone for himself; the lifeboats are on the davits, dangling: Senators and Congressfolk first, if you please.
In the end, this will make exact Electoral College vote totals difficult to predict. Hillary will win the states she’s expected to, as we discussed in May. Several toss-ups will end up in her column thanks to the disparity in GOTV. It’s hard to predict how regular GOP voters may split their vote between now and Election Day because, from what we hear, THERE ARE WORSE TAPES OUT THERE for Donald Trump.
Is there anyone left who would be surprised?
Imagine how bad she smells, man? I’m told her and Obama, just stink, stink, stink, stink. You can’t wash that evil off, man. Told there’s a rotten smell around Hillary. I’m not kidding, people say, they say — folks, I’ve been told this by high up folks. They say listen, Obama and Hillary both smell like sulfur. I never said this because the media will go crazy with it, but I’ve talked to people that are in protective details, they’re scared of her. And they say listen, she’s a frickin’ demon and she stinks and so does Obama. I go, like what? Sulfur. They smell like Hell.
“Trump has said some things that are very vile back when he was supporting people like Bill Clinton,” Gohmert opined. “But if you’re Bill Clinton’s big buddy like he was at one time, you’re going to talk like Bill Clinton. And I think we need to forgive him for talking like big Democrats like Clinton and other foulmouthed people.”