Race for the White House- Volume 90

51 Days Until Election Day

What is going on in this country?

This past week, an online article quoted an unnamed GOP operative who stated, "I'm losing faith in Hillary's ability to win this easy-ass election."

I sort of cannot help but feel the same way. Of course, I do not actually want Hillary Clinton to be President. In terms of her ideas, record, and character, she is completely unacceptable in my view and I could never vote for her. That does mean that I cannot help but fear the prospect of Donald Trump being President even more. This was a horrific week for Hillary Clinton and the evidence is showing in the most recent poll numbers Ultimately, I still think she wins, because the fundamentals of the race are strongly against Trump but Democrats should rightfully be sort of panicked right now.

Hillary Clinton is a truly horrid candidate with so many questions surrounding her candidacy that cannot be reconciled. With each passing day, it is clearer that almost any reasonably credible Republican would be walking away with the race right now and Democrats would be fretting just why they had to nominate such a week candidate. I have to look at the roles being reversed. The outright stupidity of the Republican primary voters and the willingness of the party leaders who could have actually stopped it, have caused Trump to be the nominee, and I still do not think he can win, nor should he. However bad the alternative is, he is worse. Clinton is so terrible of a candidate though that she has lost her post-convention bounce and is now behind Trump in many national and key state polls, although they are close. Such an effect leads to no possibility of Trump continuing to languish far behind and actually quitting the race, so the Republicans could nominate someone else.

Last week, I talked about how damaging her "basket of deplorables" comment was. Sunday got even worse, as she briefly collapsed while leaving the 9/11 Memorial ceremony in New York City and had to be helped in a van. For weeks, I have scoffed and made fun of the alt-right lunatics who have claimed that Hillary Clinton has seriously health problems and is on the verge of croaking any moment. I still think they are nuts, but then this happened. Apparently, she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, and had no intention of telling anyone. The Trump focus on her health and stamina were part of the reason why I am sure, but her penchant for secrecy continues to give her major problems.

I literally did not believe when I read on Sunday morning that she had passed out. I thought it was Brietbart-like fiction, but indeed, her campaign soon had to verify she left early, and then when a horrific looking video surfaced, they had to make sure she was shown leaving her daughter's apartment looking better. (Conspiracy theorists believe it was a body double of course.)., First being overheated was blamed as the culprit, but late in the day, the pneumonia admission came down. Clinton, who thankfully of course is ok, took a few days off the campaign trail this week, but the damage was done and the Trump fanatics will keep pushing stories about her health and stamina. There is no doubt though that her health has now become a legitimate issue in the campaign, as is her lack of transparency. Anybody who wants her to be President better pray there are no future incidents before the election. In the meantime, beyond some head-fakes that would release more information, the Trump campaign, to this date, Dr. Oz appearance and everything, have released absolutely nothing relevant about his actual health. Trump says he gets all his exercise waving his hands around giving speeches. In his defense, his hands are amazingly petite.

To say the least, there is really nothing in the way of serious policy discussion during this campaign, far less than normal either. To those who are junkies for character based attack politics, this might be a dream campaign, but I still find it abhorrent. I could try to think about what else there is to right about, but besides for Donald Trump now finally admitting that Barack Obama was born in the U.S., its not even worth it. The hacked Colin Powell emails were pretty funny, though unfortunate that Trump's Russian buddies hacked them. He is like me in finding both candidates pretty bad. I am not much of a Powell fan myself though.

Trump made many headlines a few years back by questioning the birthplace of Obama and demanding to see his birth certificate. He has refused to talk about it much in the campaign, but it is a reason why so many African-Americans and others feel that Trump is a racist. Yesterday, Trump played the media by saying he would have some big announcement about the birther issue, but he mostly talked about other stuff. He said that Hillary Clinton started the claim that Obama was born in Kenya, and he had ended it, back in 2011. It's ludicrous. While it is true that Clinton associates likely did try to push the narrative of Obama being "foreign" while in the 2008 primaries, Trump was the one who went further than anyone on the ridiculous matter and continued to do so, even after Obama produced his long-form birth certificate. If the public truly comes to overlook Trump and blame Clinton for this, we live in a very crazy universe.

So, there we are.  This was a very bad week for Hillary Clinton, but at least for her, it is hard to see how anything could get much worse. The media may very well soon be pushing the "Clinton Comeback" narrative, especially after whatever happens in the fast approaching debates, that I still find hard to believe will actually occur.

I find myself loathing the concept of actually, at some level, rooting for Hillary Clinton to right things, so she can whoop Trump. I don't want her to be the benefit of his loss, I just want him to lose, above all else. I am pretty sure Democrats will pull out all the stops, including deploying the somewhat more popular Obama now to campaign for her, since she is so bad at making the case for herself, and her husband, continues to be really off his game, and misspeaks at every opportunity.

If this is not a much better week for Clinton and if the polls do not improve, Democrats might need to look at the possibility of asking her to step aside for a nominee who would be sure to win.