John Cassidy, The New Yorker: Can Donald Trump Rebound?
Last edited Mon Aug 8, 2016, 06:55 AM - Edit history (1)
John Cassidy is my go to writer on the presidential race. Not only does he write well, but he's been spot on for the last year.
Donald Trump’s campaign is in reset mode. On Friday, Trump reversed himself and endorsed the reëlection efforts of fellow Republicans Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, and John McCain. He admitted that he hadn’t seen a video of a U.S. plane unloading four hundred million dollars in Iran. And he also wished good luck to the U.S. Olympics team in Brazil. This “New Trump” even lasted into the weekend. Appearing at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday night, he referred extensively to his written notes and restricted his barbs to the media and Hillary Clinton, whom he described as “a dangerous liar.” He didn’t bait any fellow Republicans, query the security guarantees that underpin NATO, or disparage the families of fallen U.S. servicemen.
Something had to change. Opining about Trump in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, issued a warning: “If he has more weeks like the dreadful past two, the gap between him and Mrs. Clinton is likely to widen and never close again.” On Monday, when the first polls taken during the Democratic Convention were published, Clinton had an advantage of 3.9 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. On Sunday morning, after a week in which Trump did a good impression of a man out to sabotage his own campaign, another slew of polls showed that Clinton had extended her lead to seven per cent.
There was particularly bad news for Trump from the battleground states. According to the latest surveys, he’s trailing Clinton by six points in Florida, nine points in Michigan, eleven points in Pennsylvania, and fifteen points in New Hampshire. The polls are also running strongly against him in Virginia and Colorado, two swing states that have been trending toward the Democrats, and there was even a survey a few days ago that showed Clinton ahead in Georgia, which has voted Republican in seven out of the last eight Presidential elections.
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Theoretically, at least, Trump still has time to reboot, embrace self-discipline, and prepare for the television debates, all the while hoping that another Clinton scandal or a ghastly news event helps him out. But he’ll have to confront a potential mutiny among his fellow Republicans, a gaping disadvantage in field organization, and the widespread belief that he isn’t qualified to be President.
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In sum, Trump faces a credibility crisis, which his antics over the past couple of weeks have heightened. On Saturday, Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “When you act as if you’re insane, people are liable to think you’re insane. That’s what happened this week. People started to become convinced he was nuts, a total flake.” To dispel this impression, it will take more than a couple of days of Trump holding his tongue.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/can-donald-trump-rebound
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