September 13, 2016--The "Deplorables"

Candidates for the presidency should stay away from private fundraisers.

Or if they do attend (and they all seem to feel the need to) they should not make comments but just go around the room and say thank you a lot.

First of all, these bundler-sessions are not private. Anyone running for the highest office in the land who doesn't know that with smart phones nothing is private is not qualified to be commander in chief where at least a few things should be secure from Russian hackers.

Second, when hobnobbing in 15,000-square-foot houses with fellow one-percenters, they are prone to utter what they really think. And telling this kind of truth can be fatal to one's aspirations.

Hillary stepped in it last week at a Manhattan big-bucks fundraiser just as Mitt Romney did in 2012 in Boca Raton and Barack Obama did before him in 2008 in Beverly Hills where among like-minded folks he thought his remarks about average people "clinging" to their guns and religion were off the record.

Romney did him one better when he opined about the "47 percent" of Obama's supporters who were "takers," "dependent" on the government for their sustenance, while the well-oiled Floridians and of course Mitt himself were the "makers."

And now Hillary will forever be associated with her comments that "half" of Trump's supporters fit into "a basket of deplorables"--a presumably unwashed species of the "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic--you name it."

Those who shelled out $10,000 a pop to see her, the New York Times reported, applauded and laughed.

A few things to take away from this--

When will we hear equivalent outrage from the same progressives who justifiably condemned Romney for his 47-percent calumnies?

I think of my colleague progressives as fact-based thinkers who also strive to be openminded and fair. If I have that right, after they get over how to think about Hillary Clinton's alleged pneumonia and why she didn't tell the truth about it for 48 hours (when she was contagious, by the way), what will they have to say about her castigating "deplorables"? I suspect, alas, not very much.

Also, will they have anything to say about what the "clinging," "47-percent," and "deplorables" comments have in common? About how when members of the elite condescend and look down their noses at the underclass it makes those pt-upon people crazier and motivates them to embrace Donald Trump even  more fervently.

Then, as a matter of political strategy, candidates should be careful not to too lightly turn adjectives into nouns--

I suppose unsavories and amorals and obtuses work in some clever circumstances, but transmuting deplorable into deplorables can lose one the election.

September 6, 2016--Enthusiastic About Hillary

I've been doing my quadrennial survey of political yard signs and bumper stickers. A methodology admittedly not Rasmussen or Quinnipiac level, but I did get the winners right the last two cycles. Pretty much including their percentages, which were the same as the yard sign and bumper sticker ratios.

So what do I see trending?

Thus far I've noticed just one Trump yard sign and two or three stickers. No signs yet for Hillary though I have seen four "Hillary for America"stickers affixed to car bumpers. Two on one car, which presents a tallying problem. Maybe I'll check in about what to do with the Real Clear Politics folks.

Over coffee, I've been hearing more enthusiasm for Trump than for Clinton. Though admittedly, this too is a small sample. The "enthusiasm" for Trump, however, has been waning the more he campaigns and runs off at the mouth.

One Trump friend said the other morning, while gesturing dismissively, "I can't stand him but I'm voting for him. Things needs to be shaken up. I don't want to talk about it."

A Hillary supporter, also gesturing dismissively, said, "I can't stand her but she's not Trump and it's time for a woman to be elected."

"So you are not even a little enthusiastic?"

"Maybe I am. She's the most qualified person ever to run for president. Minimally, more so than any recent candidates."

"On paper at least."

"Look at her resumé. All the important jobs she's had. First Lady, senator, Secretary of State . . ."

"All true and impressive--though it was by marriage that she became First Lady--but what did she accomplish in any of those roles? Having those jobs is impressive, very, but what did she achieve?"

"More than anything else that's what she achieved."

"I'm not following you."

"That she got those jobs by election or nomination. That's what she achieved."

"I'll grant you that just securing these assignments is impressive, but that's not the kind of accomplishments I'm asking about."

"Now I'm not following you."

"While she was Secretary of State did things get better in the Middle East--Libya, Syria, ISIS? With Russia? With China? That's what I want to know."

"Well, as I said, I'm enthusiastic."

Listening to this, someone sitting at the diner's counter summed up what I've been hearing--"One's a bigot and the other's a liar. You choose. Me? I'm voting Libertarian."

Confused about what to make of this, I called a feminist friend back in New York City who has been enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton since at least 2008.

She's still enthusiastic--sort of--and has no doubts about the timeliness of Hillary's campaign to crack through the highest and hopefully last glass ceiling.

"Do you have any ambivalences about her?" I asked.

"Not really," she said.

"Not even about the emails and the way in which the Clinton Foundation operated during the time she was secretary of state?"

Not really," she said then added sounding half-hearted, "They all do it."

"And that makes it OK with you?"

"More or less. But, look, more than anything else," unable even to speak his name, added, "she's not him."

"Can I run by you a couple of concerns I have about her to see what you have to say? I want to do this because I intend to vote for her but not without reservations."

"Sure."

"First about her health since if she is elected when inaugurated she'll be 69."

"These days 69 is young."

"To be president? Look at the toll it's taken on the much-younger Obama."

"Women are stronger then men and live longer."

"Actuarially that's true, but did you read the two-page report about her health that her internist wrote last year?"

"Did you read his?"

"I did. It was a complete joke and a fraud, but at the moment we're talking about Hillary."

"I didn't read it."

"If I told you it said, quoting from the two-pager, that she had blood clots in 1998, 2009, and more seriously 2012 when she had a 'transverse sinus venous thrombosis in her brain,' what would you say?"

"That she's over it."

"What if I told you, quoting the New York Times, that Bill Clinton said that the symptoms 'required six months of very serious work to get over'?"

"I'd say move on."

"And that she takes Coumadin to reduce the chances of stroking?"

"As I told you I'm voting for her enthusiastically."