"Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said he remains convinced Clinton is ahead, somewhere in the range seen among the polling aggregators.
“There has been a closing that’s completely natural,” Sabato said. “Every four years, you have two national party conventions that produce a bounce of varying sizes. Clinton got a substantial bounce this year that lasted for a full month. It’s usually gone around Labor Day, and by then we’ll be where we should be, which is right around four to five points” for Clinton.
In a separate question in the Reuters/Ipsos poll that included alternative-party candidates, Clinton and Trump were tied at 39 percent. Seven percent supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, and two percent supported Jill Stein of the Green Party." Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN1182PT
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Well, pilgrims... Larry Sabato is the same fellah I watched on the TeeVee as he reported from a Republican Party convention in Richmond that George Allen, the tobacco chewing, spittoon using faux bubba who had just been nominated for governor of Vajinnyah would never be elected. Never! Well, fellow pilgrims, he was elected governor and then he was elected to the US Senate and would have been re-elected if he had possessed enough mother wit to abstain from calling a reporter a monkey because he was "a person of color." Sooo ... I am unimpressed with the Sage of Charlottesville's opinion.
Actually, I think that HC's many faults as a candidate are steadily diminishing her chance of being president and commander in chief, as she correctly states the natures of the job. I would now give her a 65% chance of winning.
Accordingly, this is a moment in which to consider the pluses and minuses of a notional Donald Trump in the White House:
Pluses.
IMO he is a risk averse entrepreneurial deal maker and closer. He is loud mouthed but I would judge him to be timid. I knew many such in my decade long business purgatory. If you want to see his clones, watch "Shark Tank." These monstrously wealthy people are all risk averse. They are not in any way interested in backing concept companies, prototypes, and even functioning businesses unless they have thriving sales and low costs. Trump is like that and would, IMO, avoid war, the ultimate risk.
He identifies with the United States as a country rather than identifying with a larger utopian world wide "market" under US domination. This may have to do with his personal history in having emerged from recent immigrant beginnings. From my POV people with a recent immigrant past tend to be like that.
IMO he would successfully re-negotiate the various trade deals that have cost the US dearly in jobs and manufacturing.
He would also IMO re-negotiate international defense agreements that have in their present form outlived their usefulness.
IMO once you get beneath the public rhetoric Trump's immigration policy would be much like Obama's.
Minuses.
He does not listen well and is really not looking for unsolicited advice or disturbing information.
He is incurious and knows little of the world outside his narrow experience of deal making and project construction.
He knows little of the nature of government and the US constitutional limits on the power of the presidency. IMO he would have to make someone like Pence de facto manager of the Executive Branch of the federal government because he could not make the machine run.
He does not seem to understand that in business terms there are no quantifiable profit centers in government, only cost centers. Taxes and fiat money are not profit centers. They are part of the costs inflicted by government.
His business experience does not include successful day to day management of a large and continuously functioning organization. It is hard to imagine him managing General Electric for example. I doubt that he has the persistence and self discipline to do that.
pl
Laura, who is John K.Wilson ????
Posted by: rjj | 05 September 2016 at 12:22 PM
She certainly didn't listen during the days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to one of her own constituents who also happened to be probably the most informed person in the world with regard to that country's weapons of mass destruction status.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-ritter/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-vote_b_9350340.html
Posted by: ex-PFC Chuck | 05 September 2016 at 12:27 PM
A few highly publicized "show" trials with harsh sentences handed down to employers of illegals would work wonders in stopping the flow. The word would get out to the street down there. The problem is would the big corporations that are benefitting from illegal immigrant labor be treated as harshly as bubba who hires a couple of men to hang drywall? If they were and a few executives did a perp walk to prison, that would really help shut off the flow.
Posted by: morongobill | 05 September 2016 at 12:30 PM
HUMBUG!!! Trump is not messianic...speaking of which, did you vote for Obama???
Think calculated risk -- or maybe political triage.
Posted by: rjj | 05 September 2016 at 12:36 PM
LeaNder...I thought I was pretty clear that the author had a serious bias...however, I still thought the questions and answers were about issues I had not really considered before. Just an offering...
Posted by: Laura | 05 September 2016 at 01:03 PM
Eric Newhill, The border has changed a lot in 25 years. It is tighter and harder to cross. Not impossible but much harder. There are many more border patrol agents and they are very active every night.
Posted by: Laura | 05 September 2016 at 01:07 PM
Sir, The other day I was re-acquainting myself with Black Jack Pershing's military incursions of a hundred years ago. IMO, the current situation is more of a law enforcement situation than a military one.
I think Trump could and would work out a mutually beneficial agreement with Mexico city. There are a lot issues on the table. There must be an opportunity for trade-offs via sticks and carrots. That must be attempted before any major wall construction and, most certainly, before any shooting commences. Though a joint US/Mexico operation to wipe out the cartels in El Norte might not be a bad idea.
My sense of Trump is that he is one who asks for the sun and stars knowing he will negotiate down to just the moon. The wall would be one such initial pre-negotiation posturing.
As for possession of the US SW, it's ours today regardless of any history. The solution to keeping it that way lies within the cultural values of the US citizenry. The white multi-cults are accepting of blame and shame and are happy to maintain a most optimistic outlook of what happens when culturally very different tribes live in the same geography. As long as we have a consensus like that, the invasion will continue. Some people are getting fed up already, but not enough to stop it yet. Or maybe we've reached a tipping point now. If so, then immigration levels will be lowered and de-incentivizing for immigrating will occur and the SW is preserved as US owned. If not, the trend will continue until, some day in the distant future, long after you and I are beyond the concerns this plane of existence, there will some kind of a revolution and a return of the land to Mexico. I live and work in totally unrelated areas now and beyond an abstract notion of nationalism, don't really have skin in that game. Nothing in human endeavors last forever and the only constant is change itself.
I would not be in favor of war and nation building in Mexico, a la Iraq. We do not seem to be good at it; if anyone is.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 05 September 2016 at 01:08 PM
rjj--He is an academic (U of Illinois?) who has written the following books. Yes he is a liberal and not a Trump fan but I still think his observations MAY be of value as he raises concerns worth considering! John K. Wilson is the author of Trump Unveiled: Exposing the Bigoted Billionaire (www.trumpunveiled.com), to be published on Sept. 1 by OR Books. His previous books include The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh’s Assault on Reason, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, and Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies.
Posted by: Laura | 05 September 2016 at 01:24 PM
Just because one's day job is in the groves of academe doe not mean one is not a hack. From the titles you mention, he is an ideologue.
I visited his Amazon page, and if you cannot predict his stand on any question, check your pulse.
Grain of sand time.
Posted by: Joseph Moroco | 05 September 2016 at 02:19 PM
Maybe I should add that spending a fair amount of my youth with my father's people, Armenians, including living with my grandparents who survived that genocide (barely), that I have an ingrained pessimism about human nature, multiculturalism and all that. I've tried to shake it in order to be a better person, but it keeps coming back. In the interest of fair disclosure, that background colors a lot of my opinions and, of course, I'm prone to seeing evidence that supports my ingrained biases. So that's a fair disclosure for anyone who might take what I say into consideration.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 05 September 2016 at 02:36 PM
Just by the titles, he sounds like another left wing propagandist hack....
synonomous with most academics, these days.
Posted by: TV | 05 September 2016 at 02:39 PM
Walrus, doesn't the Trump campaign itself give you pause when you say "He need to have experience in hiring an managing people that do have that experience"? That is exactly what I do not see. Hillary's campaign people are NOT part of the news story and Trump's are. Shouldn't a really competent businessman have a team that is unremarkably competent? I don't see his great managerial skills...but I would like to know that he has them.
Posted by: Laura | 05 September 2016 at 05:35 PM
I agree...but I still think that any reasonable voter should at least try to consider what a President who believes in conspiracy theories would be like. Because Trump has promulgated such theories repeatedly. It might pay to believe him and ask how would that color their responses..would they continue to read those sites or listen to the intelligence community?
And, if his (admittedly provocative) assessment of Trump being a violent isolationist is even somewhat valid? What would that look like on the ground in the Oval Office and how would that translate into military action?
If we can spend time gaming out Hillary's proclivities, shouldn't some thought be given to these? Dismissing out of hand might not be entirely wise. Just saying...the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, not out at either end of the continuum but you must consider the ends to find the middle.
Posted by: Laura | 05 September 2016 at 05:44 PM
Laura, apparently he is not exactly an academic, but more like a higher education groupie and media wannabe -- not that there's anything wrong with any of thaaaaaat.
https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/9A9B0683-AC07-4A4F-B2A8-86B1B1DE7F03/0/WilsonJ.pdf
John K. Wilson received his Ph.D. in higher education from Illinois State University in 2014. He is the co-editor of AcademeBlog.org, the editor of Illinois Academe, and the author of Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies (Paradigm Publishers, 2008). Correspondence to: John K. Wilson, 1205 N. Walnut, Normal, IL 61761, USA. Email: collegefreedom@yahoo.com
Posted by: rjj | 05 September 2016 at 06:37 PM
"violent isolationist"
My dear lady, you can't be serious. Would that be like a chaste groupie?
I do not trust trump in that he is a bit all over the place, but he has said in this campaign some of the most sane things I've heard, for example,
"When asked what he thinks Putin is doing in the Middle East, Trump stated, “Well, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started, and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. You know, I said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that’s terrible. If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything. But he wants to go in. He wants to fight ISIS. Now, he wants to keep, as you know, he wants to keep your leadership, your current leadership, Assad in Syria. Personally I’ve been looking at the different players, and I’ve been watching Assad, and I’ve been pretty good at this stuff over the years, cause deals are people. And I’m looking at Assad and saying, ‘Maybe he’s better than the kind of people that we’re supposed to be backing.’ Because we don’t even know who we’re backing.”"
If Frau Clinton has said anything as intelligent, I'd love to hear it.
Posted by: Joseph Moroco | 05 September 2016 at 09:29 PM
I know I'll attacked for being silly here, but Trump beat 16 of the best that the Republican party could produce at this time. Now these so-called proffessionals are all pissy and took thier ball home with them. The "Lamest 16" as I like to call them couldn't ever win because they'd be falling all over themselves to grovel at Queen Hilary's feet.
I believe that Hillary is just plain evil and would only finish the ruin of this nation that Obama has started. I can remember just 8 years ago all the intellectuals fainting during his speeches because his retoric was so soaring. Now we all struggle with just a couple of positive GDP points a year and everybody is now working part time. Obama plain lost the war with Islam and Hillary just plain protected ISIS until it is a real threat to the west.
People need to face reality, Republicans are cowards and Democrats are just evil. So, a guy like Trump might just be what this country needs at this moment.
Posted by: Chuck Marvin | 05 September 2016 at 09:34 PM
Fred,
Be careful to use the term "slave labor". Different society, market, and cost of living. Do you know how much is minumum wage for Chines workers? how much is an average skilled laborer make in China? And most of all, how better off an American worker earning minimum wages living with US cost of living, comparing to a FoxConn worker with China cost of living?
Posted by: TonyL | 05 September 2016 at 10:57 PM
Maybe quality is the problem. Not that it was poor, on the contrary it may have been too damn good. I have a Frigidare refrigerator, made in Dayton Ohio and purchased in 1987. Other than some easily replaced worn out fans, is still going strong.
Posted by: Mike | 06 September 2016 at 01:31 AM
Conspiracies are the norm rather than the exception.
Posted by: Mike | 06 September 2016 at 01:47 AM
Chuck, Obama started the 'ruin of this nation'? You are either ignorant or a partisan. Go away, don't come back until you can try to be objective.
Posted by: Mike | 06 September 2016 at 02:15 AM
Reagan and everyone that followed failed in degaussing the jobs magnet through E-verify. Business interests piss & moan about the 'burden' it places on them and the politicians cave.
Posted by: Mike | 06 September 2016 at 02:33 AM
Sorry Laura, I am sometimes very, very unfair. ... The three points you make are interesting. The first is online in the excerpt, the myth he opposed the Iraq war:
http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/trump-unveiled-john-k-wilson/
Could be, I have a slightly Pavlovian response to two things: The "unveiled" in the title, followed by Trump the Narcissist in the introduction.
Concerning Chapter 4: Paranoid Trump, the point you end on. Does he compare Trump to Nixon? I can see he gambles with some of the topics, but does that tell us something about him?
If you ever want to be unfair to me, be my guest. ;)
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 September 2016 at 07:14 AM
Thanks Eric. No harm meant. I got the mules idea.
Sorry about the association, I am quite interested in the topic. The alternative base I spent some time in apparently followed the grand theory of CIA involvement. Apart from that it was quite open to all type of fiction. Could well be the story about the Chinese at the border was spread with intend. But I somewhat doubt considering the quite apparent love for all type of fiction coupled with a special state of mind.
The place may have seen better times earlier. In the end it was for me only some type of self-awareness trip, not least due to the group dynamics ... Easy grasp versus collective objection and/or following the leader's assessment.
I'll try to keep that in mind.
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 September 2016 at 07:53 AM
A recent story caught my attention, no idea why it made into a feature of here. Maybe since it involved weapons?
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 September 2016 at 07:58 AM
It is there because the Israelis consider themselves to be at war with the Palestinian people. are we at war with the Mexican people?
Excellent point. (Appreciate the dispassionate observation. So fed up with the tendency to overly dramatic over-simplification and lack of accuracy.)
Furthermore, Israelis are occupying Palestinian land. See http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp. Specifically, the language under Section 1. “The Constitution”, which few Americans know, realize, or give a shit about.
Posted by: MRW | 06 September 2016 at 11:52 AM