You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, for Trump specifically, this ad-free campaign has worked fairly well because of the vast amounts of free press he gets. But while things are changing due to the internet, cellphones, etc., I don't think that this is a sign that ad campaigns are going away, because I don't know if anyone else would be able to get the amounts of free press Trump has. You can't just be a hateful person saying horrible things, you need to already have a name for yourself to get this volume of press, after all! Trump is, obviously, quite famous outside of politics, more so than most presidential candidates are. So my thoughts are that while this campaign is sort of working for him, it wouldn't work for others and we will return to more "normal" campaigns after this year. If Trump loses badly, as he currently is in the polls, this outcome will become even more likely.

Lately, I've seen many Trump supporters defending his insanity through creative interpretation. "Cleary, what Trump ACTUALLY meant was that second amendment people are a big lobby with a lot of power."

Well, Trump recently revealed he's not that deep. He's claimed that Obama is the founder of Isis. In a recent interview, he was given an out when the interviewer said "I get what you meant by that, which is that Obama created the political climate that allowed Isis to come into being" (never mind that this is certainly false, and if anyone's to blame it was Bush Jr.). Trump removed all doubt by responding that no, that is NOT what he meant, and he meant exactly what he said, that Obama is literally the founder of Isis.

Trump has an amazing capacity for lying repeatedly without ever seeming to recognize he's changing his positions every five seconds and saying obvious falsehoods. So yeah, does he have the self-awareness to actually realize that he's lying, or that the things he is saying are not true? It is widely believed that he has narcissistic personality disorder, so that is a factor, but then on top of that he's never been the smartest person, and he had so much success with his unfiltered idiocy that he just isn't able to turn from that to something that general election audiences will accept. So, he just keeps saying insanely horrible things, either because he literally can't help himself because of some mental issues, because he's too bored with the concept of being a "normal candidate" to be willing to stick to it because he prefers saying crazy things and getting a rise out of crowds as a result (I think this is fairly obviously true!), or because of the unlikely conspiracy theory that his whole campaign is a sabotage job against the Republican Party. It's one of those. I believe the second is the most likely, myself, but the ways his speeches ramble and randomly jump from one topic to another is so hard to follow that it does make you wonder about is mental state...

If Trump is arrested, he can't continue his campaign for president. They'd have no choice but to find someone else. Same thing if he dropped dead of a heart attack or spray-on tan poisoning or transplanted wig rejection. These are things that have always been possibilities in any candidacy, and is it really true that even in the era of gun duels, no presidential candidate has ever died before the election?

I can't think of any Presidential candidate who actually died before the election, but it has happened before in Senate races and lower. What happens in those cases depends on state law, generally. But yeah, Trump only goes away if he chooses to, I don't think the Republicans have any way now to get rid of him if he doesn't want to go. And even if he did withdraw, he'd leave a really tough race for his replacement, with how the Trump-supporting wing of their party would surely be very angry at the party for "forcing out Trump"...

So near as I can tell, you agree with me on the Kissinger thing. That's what you were getting at with all that, right?

I do not want her to ask for or accept his endorsement, but if he did publicly endorse her for whatever reason, it would have no effect on my certainty that I will vote for her. So I agree on your sentiment against Kissinger, but not on the "and it might affect my vote" part of your posts.

At any rate, I do NOT want to see her "try to expand the base" into right wing territory. Democrats ALWAYS try to do that, and it never works! All they do is alienate the progressive side when they try that.

If she can win over people in the center without actually changing any POLICIES towards the right, I'm all for her expanding things! We badly, badly need to win as many Senate seats as possible this year, to win the Senate back and then hopefully survive the probably very bad cycle that will be 2018 in the Senate where the Dems have to defend a lot of very difficult seats (Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, etc.), and the more states she does well in, the better a chance at that we have...