The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Pence Pick Helps Trump

    By HSG on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 12:01pm |

    For the record, I don't think Donald Trump will be the next President. Although a CBS/NYT poll published Thursday shows a tight race and oracle Nate “Tarnished” Silver now gives Trump a 1 in 3 shot at winning, I would argue the racist deadbeat's chances are more like 1 in 4 or less. For one thing, a slew of NBC/WSJ polls released Friday show Clinton with commanding leads in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Of even more consequence is the “hot mess,” in the words of the New Republic's Jeet Heer, that is the Trump campaign. Finally, Silver lost his air of infallibility by his insistence last year that Trump would not be the Republican candidate.

    Nevertheless, Pence probably keeps Trump in a game that he could have easily lost before halftime had he plumped for Chris Christie or Newt Gingrich. As Silver wrote yesterday, Clinton could lose if “Americans come to view the race as one between two equally terrible choices, instead of Trump being uniquely unacceptable.” Pence, whose conservative Christian bona fides are nearly impeccable, will excite evangelicals skeptical of the worldly Trump with his divorces, New York values, and periodic lapses from homophobic orthodoxy.

    By contrast, the scandal-plagued Catholic Christie, who embraced President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and the adulterous insider Gingrich would have most likely alienated heartland Christians. Another bonus for Trump is that Pence endorsed Ted Cruz in the primaries. Trump thus comes across as somewhat magnanimous and without the mean-spiritedness that characterizes nearly everything he does.

    Pence will not hurt Trump's standing with the famed white working class demographic. The Indiana governor told Sean Hannity he is open to renegotiating trade deals and supports Trump's call to wall off Mexican border. Of equal import is that by choosing the rubicund, male, white, Midwestern, anti-choice, homophobe Pence, the reality show host demonstrated anew the über political incorrectness for which a significant slice of America embraces him.

    Trump is nothing if not a hustler. The bland Pence whose red-face belies his colorlessness will not distract the crowd one whit from Trump's three card Monte operation except to lend it a patina of respectability. Seemingly competent and straight-shooting, the Hoosier Pence may persuade some neighboring Ohioans and nearby Pennsylvanians to give Trump one last look-see. If this happens and enough Buckeyes and Keystone State voters start asking whether the flim-flam man really is any worse than his widely distrusted Democratic opponent, we could be in for a very long election night.

     

    Note: "Correctness" has been changed to "incorrectness" in the ultimate sentence in the penultimate paragraph.

    Comments

    I think Pence is a sobering reminder that there is a real danger that Trump could win.  Pence gives Trump a thin patina of respectability even though Pence is, as one pundit put it, "Sarah Palin without the charisma."


    by MrSmith1 on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 1:27pm

    Except that the rollout of the Trump-Pence team has been such a fiasco (with the suggestive T-P logo lasting just one day and Trump changing his mind about his VP just a few hours too late) that it glaringly proves Don's incompetence to run a campaign, let alone a country. Let's wait for the chaotic (yet boring) GOP convention to see what that does to Trump's poll numbers. Followed by the Democrats' show of unity and coherent messaging, with the money and talent to promote that narrative till November. I suspect Trump's tide has turned.


    by acanuck on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 4:08pm

    Much of the news about the poor roll out of the vp announcement was ignored by the majority of the electorate. Most people don't pay nearly as much attention to the details of the election as we do.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 4:14pm

    Here's the point I was trying to make, laid out more clearly. The issue is not Pence as VP pick, it's Trump's unreadiness to lead. Hillary is already running ads focusing on that. Experience is what even her critics agree is her trump suit -- and that's what will win her the presidency: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/15/1548723/-Donald-Trump-fails-th...


    by acanuck on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 4:58pm

    Trump could pick Donald Duck as VP and MSM would spin it as a savvy play. Shows that Donald wants an outsider who can lighten up the mood in DC,  shows Trump is secure with his base while also giving a running mate whose feathers are not easily ruffled.


    by NCD on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 4:22pm

    I repeat, let's wait a week or two.


    by acanuck on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 4:27pm

    Agreed.  Though this is a fun disaster to watch.


    by Michael Maiello on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 4:53pm

    The 464th in the world women's golfer is supposed to speak at Cleveland, along with 4-5 Trump relatives. Can't wait.

    I wonder if David Brooks is going to do his usual both sides spin and come around to saying Trump has displayed Presidential demeanor.


    by NCD on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 5:03pm

    I couldn't stop laughing when I read this.

    So there we were. Waiting for Trump and Pence to emerge. And what Rolling Stones song did the campaign choose? What did we all hear, over and over again, as we waited for Trump to introduce Mike Pence, his "first choice from the start!"?

    "You can’t always get what you want..."


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 07/16/2016 - 5:38pm

    It's useful  to distinguish between Silver's skill in the sophisticated analysis of data -where he's exceptional - and as a  "pundit"  where he's just one among many. Too many.


    by Flavius on Sun, 07/17/2016 - 6:58am

    Yeah, it's hard to fault Silver for making the same mistake almost every other pundit and most of us here made. Like all of us he just couldn't fucking believe the data that pointed toward a Trump victory or that the outrageous things Trump said would have no effect on the polls.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 07/17/2016 - 2:11pm