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How the Clinton-Trump Race Got Close
NY Times Opinion Pages ^ | 9-30-2016 | Paul Krugman

Posted on 09/30/2016 5:10:45 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot

Monday’s presidential debate was a blowout, surely the most one-sided confrontation in American political history. Hillary Clinton was knowledgeable, unflappable and — dare we say it? — likable. Donald Trump was ignorant, thin-skinned and boorish.

Yet on the eve of the debate, polls showed a close race. How was that possible?

After all, the candidates we saw Monday night were the same people they’ve been all along. Mrs. Clinton’s grace and even humor under pressure were fully apparent during last year’s Benghazi hearing. Mr. Trump’s whiny braggadocio has been obvious every time he opens his mouth without reading from a teleprompter.

So how could someone like Mr. Trump have been in striking position for the White House? (He may still be there, since we have yet to see what effect the debate had on the polls.)

Part of the answer is that a lot more Americans than we’d like to imagine are white nationalists at heart. Indeed, implicit appeals to racial hostility have long been at the core of Republican strategy; Mr. Trump became the G.O.P. nominee by saying outright what his opponents tried to convey with dog whistles.

.... as recently as August Mrs. Clinton held a commanding lead. Then her polls went into a swoon.

What happened? Did she make some huge campaign blunders?

I don’t think so. As I’ve written before, she got Gored. That is, like Al Gore in 2000, she ran into a buzz saw of adversarial reporting from the mainstream media, which treated relatively minor missteps as major scandals, and invented additional scandals out of thin air.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: 2016election
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To: combat_boots
What’s up with Hellary’s comment that “the next 40 days will decide the next 40 years”? What does she mean by “the next 40 years”?

Oh, that's easy!

  1. President Hillary! Clinton, Succeeded by...
  2. President Chelsea! Clinton-Mevinsky, Succeeded by...
  3. President Charlotte! Mezvinsky

41 posted on 09/30/2016 6:33:33 AM PDT by COBOL2Java (Hillary's screeching voice is like the pipe organs of hell)
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To: Yo-Yo

“Do these people ever tire of playing the race card?”

When the only cards in their hand are the racism and sexism cards they have to play them too often.

They know they’ve played those cards to death so they’ve added the homophobia and islamophobia cards to the deck.


42 posted on 09/30/2016 6:45:39 AM PDT by oldvirginian (If someone tells you biscuits and gravy ain't a meal, just walk away. You don't need the negativity.)
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To: Sir Napsalot
"a lot more Americans than we’d like to imagine are white nationalists at heart..."

Where is the barf alert?

43 posted on 09/30/2016 6:58:56 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (We will be one People, under one God, saluting one American flag. --Donald Trump (standing ovation)
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To: Sir Napsalot

I’d like to write a satirical novel about a pure white country that is turned upside down culturally and politically by the birth of a “colored” child(for unknown reasons). I’d like to see them turn themselves upside down to please ONE person and destroy their country in the process.


44 posted on 09/30/2016 7:04:37 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: All

Hmmmm....so being white and loving your country is something people should be afraid of?


45 posted on 09/30/2016 7:23:58 AM PDT by Maverick68 (p)
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To: All

The American people are smart enough to know we should fear the arsonist, not the fireman....


46 posted on 09/30/2016 7:27:00 AM PDT by Maverick68 (p)
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To: Col Frank Slade

Halfway through the article I heard a dog whistle and couldn’t pay attention anymore.


47 posted on 09/30/2016 7:42:56 AM PDT by freefdny
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To: Col Frank Slade

I was eating my lunch at my desk at work......

now I have nausea....

Did the author actual use the word “grace” in regards to her?

I need to go to another thread in order to be able to finish my lunch.


48 posted on 09/30/2016 10:23:13 AM PDT by Mrs. B.S. Roberts
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To: Sir Napsalot
a buzz saw of adversarial reporting from the mainstream media, which treated relatively minor missteps as major scandals, and invented additional scandals out of thin air.
Uh, Paul? The “relatively minor” email scandal has the potential to destroy the ability of Americans to get cooperation from anyone who needs anonymity. Highest-level secrets handled in absolute disregard of the potential consequences of disclosure to unfriendly (or even neutral) actors.

For example, during WWII American codebreakers were overjoyed when a Japanese bureaucrat repeated a message in an old code, after sending the same message in the new code. It was a veritable Rosetta Stone for revealing how to read messages in the new code. And Hillary’s server was awash with potential such specimens. The consequences could turn out to be profound - even if they are never explicitly revealed to the public. Embezzlers and spies do their best to prevent their marks from even suspecting that their pockets have been picked.

And Paul? If we ever run out of email scandals, we could just reprise some oldies but no-goodies from the 1990s. Billy Dale was the head of the White House Travel Office, hired by JFK. He served at the pleasure of the president, but presidents Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, Reagan, and GHW Bush all retained him in his position - because they, and the journalists who were affected by his work, had confidence in the job he was doing. Hillary wanted to replace Billy Dale, though, and so he was fired. But not just fired, tho. He was arrested by the FBI and charged with embezzlement. And we know it was done on Hillary’s orders. We know he was innocent, tho, because he was quickly acquitted after the jury heard his defense, which included character references from famous reporters.

Paul? Compare that treatment of Billy Dale with the treatment of Craig Livingstone. Livingstone abused his position to acquire information, on a great many hundreds of people, to which the White House was not entitled. The Filegate scandal was so radioactive that the Clinton Administration refused to specifically admit the obvious fact that somebody in that White House had hired Craig Livingstone, and when it was announced that Livingstone had been terminated the announcement was in the passive voice, “was fired” - meaning, no identifiable person in the White House fired him. It was very clear that what Livingstone did was illegal, and yet he was never prosecuted. It’s not just Hillary, Paul - but it is Hillary, more certainly than anyone else in the Clinton White House, who falls under suspicion of hiring Craig Livingstone. Anyone who stayed in the WH after the Livingstone scandal did so under a cloud which cannot be effaced.

No one who is willing to persecute, and attempt to jail, an innocent employee is worthy of the highest office in the land. Nobody who was in the Clinton White House, and stayed there after Livingstone walked, is worthy of the highest office in the land. Least of all Hillary Clinton. In all reasonable likelihood Hillary hired Craig Livingstone. It is a moral certainty that she knows who did hire him.


49 posted on 09/30/2016 11:31:58 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: Sir Napsalot
Oh, its Krugman, the mis-educated economist, who likes to pretend he is also a keen political commentator.
50 posted on 09/30/2016 12:10:51 PM PDT by Sam Gamgee
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To: Neidermeyer

I forgot the /s tag, I was making fun of how the media hammers trump over a stupid tax return while ignoring massive corruption on the clinton side.


51 posted on 09/30/2016 2:36:57 PM PDT by bigtoona (The media, GOPe, dems, commie Pope, hate Trump. He is the destroyer we've been waiting for!)
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To: bigtoona

I figured as much ,, I was just playing the straight man to that whopper...


52 posted on 09/30/2016 6:08:27 PM PDT by Neidermeyer (Bill Clinton is a 5 star general in the WAR ON WOMEN and Hillary is his Goebbels.)
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To: needmorePaine

LOL!! So true!!!


53 posted on 10/01/2016 8:35:57 AM PDT by Heff
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