Nate Silver:
There are some hints that Clinton’s post-convention lead over Trump will eventually settle in at about 7 percentage points, give or take a couple points. The biggest tip-off is that both the national polls and the state polls we’ve seen so far look similar to the ones we were seeing in June, when Clinton maintained a lead over Trump of about 7 points after wrapping up the Democratic nomination. Since Clinton and Trump were roughly tied after the GOP convention, a 7-point lead for Clinton would mean she’d gotten about a 7-point bounce, double the size of Trump’s…
It doesn’t quite look like Clinton will reach the 9-point lead, but it could be pretty close, especially if Trump continues to reinforce Clinton’s convention themes by behaving erratically. (Usually, a convention bounce plateaus just a few days after the convention, so if Clinton’s lead is continuing to grow into next week, that will suggest Trump’s post-convention antics are worsening his problems.) Clinton and her Democrats may simply have the more broadly appealing message, whereas Trump doubled down at his convention on appealing to his predominantly white, working-class base, a smaller share of the electorate than you might think.
Nate Cohn:
The polls now put Mrs. Clinton a bit ahead of the level she held before James Comey, the F.B.I. director, excoriated her for her use of a private email server. She held a similar lead in April — before Mr. Trump won the nomination in May and narrowed her lead for the month or so that followed. This has been the race’s natural resting place when there hasn’t been something else suppressing Mrs. Clinton’s support — another reason to think she might be able to retain most of her bounce.
For Mr. Trump, the danger is that he has few opportunities to prevent Mrs. Clinton from further consolidating her support over the coming weeks. There are few reasons to think he has helped himself since the convention by firing back at the parents of Humayun Khan and drawing condemnation from some Republican leaders.
John Podhoretz on Obama demanding that Paul Ryan and others rescind their endorsements:
The troll has been out-trolled.
I don’t say this out of admiration for Barack Obama as a policymaker or as a serious-minded public servant but as a partisan political operative. I am a conservative who despises what Obama has done as president.
But even a Yankees fan must grudgingly acknowledge the skill of Big Papi when he crushes a homer against your team.
Luke Brinker:
But in light of Obama's remarks, retracting [Ryan’s] endorsement would mark capitulation to a widely reviled figure [Obama] on the right — something Ryan can't afford ahead of his Aug. 10 primary election against conservative challenge Paul Nehlen. Ever the savvy political operator — and eager to cast the GOP as the party of Trump — Obama likely knew exactly what he was doing on Tuesday, to paraphrase Marco Rubio.
There's a twist: After Ryan issued a statement Sunday repudiating Trump's attacks on the parents of Humayun Khan, Trump pointedly took to Twitter to thank Nehlen, who blasted Ryan for his "knee-jerk" criticism of Trump.
Twisting the knife further, Trump told the Washington Post Tuesday that he's not ready to lend his support to Ryan in next week's primary, saying "I'm just not quite there yet" — echoing Ryan's public hesitation to endorse Trump in May, when the speaker said he wasn't "there right now."
"I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country," Trump told the Post. "We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I'm just not quite there yet. I'm not quite there yet."
In response, Ryan's team said he'd never sought Trump's endorsement, and remained "confident in a victory next week."
Judd Legum explains the political maneuvering around Ryan, Mccain and Trump ( a great read):
Kurt Eichenwald on the lousy Donald Trump business ratings:
Lost contracts, bankruptcies, defaults, deceptions and indifference to investors—Trump’s business career is a long, long list of such troubles, according to regulatory, corporate and court records, as well as sworn testimony and government investigative reports. Call it the art of the bad deal, one created by the arrogance and recklessness of a businessman whose main talent is self-promotion.
He is also pretty good at self-deception, and plain old deception. Trump is willing to claim success even when it is not there, according to his own statements. “I’m just telling you, you wouldn’t say that you're failing,” he said in a 2007 deposition when asked to explain why he would give an upbeat assessment of his business even if it was in trouble. “If somebody said, ‘How you doing?’ you're going to say you're doing good.” Perhaps such dissembling is fine in polite cocktail party conversation, but in the business world it’s called lying.
And while Trump is quick to boast that his purported billions prove his business acumen, his net worth is almost unknowable given the loose standards and numerous outright misrepresentations he has made over the years. In that 2007 deposition, Trump said he based estimates of his net worth at times on “psychology” and “my own feelings.” But those feelings are often wrong—in 2004, he presented unaudited financials to Deutsche Bank while seeking a loan, claiming he was worth $3.5 billion. The bank concluded Trump was, to say the least, puffing; it put his net worth at $788 million, records show. (Trump personally guaranteed $40 million of the loan to his company, so Deutsche coughed up the money. He later defaulted on that commitment.)
This is why Bloomberg, Buffett et. al. matter. The true rich guys are in a position to call the phony one a con artist. There’s a reason why they are in the campaign.
Anna Greenberg:
Why Hillary Clinton is both widely disliked and widely admired
In the end, the most admired women are the ones who challenge gender norms, even if it is unpopular and makes them unpopular. Eleanor Roosevelt was chastised in her day for her women-only news conferences, her column that delved into domestic and political issues alike and her public advocacy on policies not even supported by her husband. She was criticized for overreach from the traditional role first ladies play and for her appearance, which was deemed insufficiently feminine. And yet she is just behind Clinton as the most admired woman in the United States.
If Clinton wins in November, it’s a sure bet that she’ll be the most admired woman by a large margin. Whether Americans come to have a favorable view of her may say less about her than about us, and our ability to accept her as a gender-role iconoclast.
Philip Rucker:
Khan confrontation keys in on human decency — and that could haunt Trump
The Republican nominee invited the Russian government to uncover and release Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton’s private emails. He showed himself to be at best confused and at worst ignorant about the turmoil in Ukraine. He maligned a four-star general as a failure.
All were shocking in their way, although none is likely to register in a broad or lasting way among voters.
Trump’s belittling of the Muslim American parents of a dead U.S. soldier may be different, according to political strategists in both parties, who say the ongoing episode could challenge the notion of Trump as a Teflon candidate.
So far, they say, Trump’s repeated offenses haven’t doomed his candidacy because many voters see each Trump insult as a dagger at political correctness, every blemish a welcome reminder that the celebrity-mogul candidate is willing to take on the established order.
But in the case of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — whose son Humayun Khan, an Army captain, was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a suicide bomb — Trump is taking on grieving parents, not elites or the status quo.
“Nobody minds when he attacks other politicians; in fact, they like it. He’s instilling an accountability that doesn’t exist. But they don’t like it when he goes after real people, and they wish he would stop,” said GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who conducted a focus group about Trump with voters Friday in Columbus, Ohio.
Politico:
Democrats make a play to turn Arizona blue
Operatives and elected officials are pushing the Clinton campaign to invest real swing-state resources in Arizona for the first time in years.
Instead of supporting Trump, someone leaked the email.
New Yorker:
CAN LATINOS SWING ARIZONA?
An organization’s efforts to get out the vote may help to determine who wins the 2016 election.
Extraordinary tweet dialogue about Trump voters and respect vs racism, based on this story from Chris Arnade:
What do Donald Trump voters really crave? Respect
They want respect because they haven’t just lost economically, but also socially. But it’s dangerous territory: anger tainted with revenge and, sometimes, racism
Here’s the point from James Surowiecki.
Here is the counterpoint from Chris Arnade.
And here is a related piece from Suroweicki on the unfairness of expecting the Democrats to accommodate white working class racism:
Roger Simon:
Alone in his bedroom on a dark and stormy night, Donald Trump was inventing some tax returns, when the devil appeared before him.
“Fear not,” the devil said. “You need not file tax returns. Ever. Also, I will make sure you are elected president this year and again in 2020.
“But in return, you must sell me your soul. You must betray all decent principles. You must pander, trivialize and deceive. You must gain victory by exploiting bigotry, fear, envy and greed. And you must conduct a campaign based on lies, sham, hype and distortion.”
“So?” Trump said. “What’s the catch?”
Nature:
Trump vs Clinton: worlds apart on science
Presidential candidates begin to make clear their stark differences on climate change, energy production and stem-cell research.
Jill Lawrence:
The time for denial is over.
If you want to quantify the distance Republicans have traveled since its “party of Lincoln” days, look away from Donald Trump long enough to read the federal court ruling that struck down a North Carolina voting law. It’s as damning a document as you will ever encounter.
The evidence shows the state party as an institution conspired — OK, schemed — to suppress the votes of one particular race. We are not talking about a few bad apples, a few hyped up white supremacists, or a single erratic presidential nominee with no brakes on his mouth.
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