Gird yourselves, y'all - 81 days out

[piechartking]

And I can sense the media's excitement over a "horse race" again. I know, more like horse shit, but Fivethirtyeight.com giveth, and Fivethirtyeight.com taketh my Now-cast away.

Let's see, we can start with what Joe Scarborough will be giddy about this morning: US using "leverage" to withhold payment until we get our hostages back. I know, I know, technically it's Iran's money and we're returning it. When did people (or the media) every get hung-up on "technicalities" or do subtlety?

Oh, and Trump is reaching out to "the blacks". And having "regrets" (Still not sorry). Never mind that the outreach is to white people who just need a tiny excuse to give themselves permission to tumble back into the Republicans' warm embrace.

And Obama putted while Baton Rouge drowned. Not sure what that has to do with Hillary, but you can bet it will before all's said and done.

Let's hit back. What can we do?

Bait Trump - all this pivot bullshit has to viscerally feel like emasculation for such an insecure tough guy. Can we get much-richer fellow New Yorker Bloomberg out here again to insult Trump? Nothing like getting kicked in the seat of your pants by the old hometown.

Patriot TV shitshow - No matter if it's true or not, it's plausible that Trump is prepping the launch of his own TV channel, hooking up with Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon. Hammer them over and over on how Trump is ready to check out, cash in and hang people out to dry.

From Mannafort, with love - Much shitty news about Paul Mannafort's ties to Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia.

Can Colin Powell show some love and endorse Hillary already? Let's just get another story out there.

[helpisontheway]

1. I just hope Colin does not say that she is lying

when she said he told her to use private email. wonder if he would admit to it even if it is true.

[bigwillq]

3. ....

Mr. Powell’s office released a statement on Thursday night saying he had no recollection of the dinner conversation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/politics/hillary-clinton-told-fbi-colin-powell-advised-her-to-use-private-email.html?_r=0

[Demsrule86]

2. It is not a horserace.

A desperate campaign just made a desperte (and what will be a bad choice) attempt to re-right the grain heading to the cliff.

[Democat]

4. A lot of posters seem "concerned" about Clinton today

Mostly ones with low post count.

I wonder if Trump's latest reboot involves internet propaganda troops?

[piechartking]

5. Maybe you can read through my whole post

Before you start accusing. Thanks in advance.

[Democat]

7. I'm not accusing you of anything

Just saying that Trump did a reboot and then suddenly DU is flooded with concern. It seems that it could be related, wouldn't you agree?

[piechartking]

8. I'm sure a reboot may have invigorated some Trump supporters but

My intention is not to demoralize nor inject negativity.

At the risk of overusing sports metaphors, what Trump has done is gone into the locker room at halftime and made adjustments to his gameplan. Thankfully, he hasn't shown himself to be a very strategic thinker thus far, and Conway is just a pollster, not a campaign manager. Bannon is DEFINITELY not a campaign manager. So, I see a lot of tactical shifts, not strategic, and none of them know how to GOTV. So we have that going for us.

But the bigger picture is that Trump is trying to change the conversation from a referendum on Trump, to one on the status quo. We can't let that happen.

To that end, then, we have to dislodge Trump from this strategy, which as I said before, may be fairly easy to do, given his temperament and his lack of strategic thinking.

But I don't mean any of this to be negative or to demoralize.

[Squinch]

6. I'm not a fan of concern trolls, but I, too,am wary of the combination of Breitbart boy and Ailes.

They're going to drop something on Hillary as soon as they organize themselves. Though it will be groundless it will be Himmlerian in its psychology, and I don't like waiting to see what it is.

[piechartking]

10. They've already dropped the new ad

I don't have a link though.

However, the bigger picture is that we can out-organize them, no problem.

but we also have to win the news cycles. Now, when he was hanging himself, it was all well and good to keep out of sight. But now, if Trump is starting to act "normal", it's important to get the coverage back to being "negative" for him - bring up the Russia connections of Mannafort, dig up dirt on Conway or Bannon (something tells me Bannon is a big fat (figuratively and literally) target), play up the fact that he's going to start a TV channel, and he's checked out out of the race, and will cash in on the TV network, etc.

We have to aggressively work to keep things negative on him.

[Squinch]

14. Yes. This might require an adjustment of our own.

[piechartking]

11. I get tired of saying this but...

Read through the entirety of the post. Please.

[Demsrule86]

12. I read it it again and self deleted...Mea culpa.

[piechartking]

13. No problem. Just because the movie starts dark

Doesn't mean it doesn't have a happy ending.