AUGUST 5, 2016
Photo: Getty
If someone you love is addicted to petty fights, sexist language and being off-message, it’s time for an intervention.
And that is just what GOP leaders, including Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, are reportedly planning to do with Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump this weekend after a week of unforced errors and shocking poll numbers revealing that, in many battleground states that Trump desperately needs to win in order to take the White House, Hillary Clinton has now opened double-digit leads.
While Clinton and the Democrats have at times offered several scandalous softballs for the GOP to hit right over the plate, Trump whiffed on every one because he was too obsessed with settling scores with the Khan family, Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte and John McCain. Any chances that the Republicans had of stopping Clinton’s post-convention bounce were stymied by their candidate’s refusal to stay on message.
Will an intervention work? It’s highly doubtful. Yes, there are political pros to whom Trump will listen, such as Giuliani and Gingrich. And his closest advisers are said to be his children — Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. But there’s only one voice of counsel to whom Donald Trump really listens.
The polls.
The first bit of bad news came in on Wednesday night in a national poll from Fox News, giving Clinton a double-digit (10-point) lead over Trump 49% to 39%. And this was from Fox News!!
But that was just the amuse bouche of Thursday’s smorgasbord of polls. A second national poll soon came in from the respected McClatchy News that showed that Clinton now has a 15-point lead over Trump, 48%-33%, up from a Clinton lead of just 3 points last month.
But wait, all is not lost. Trump has regularly said in his stump speech that he is either competitive or is leading in four crucial battleground states — Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. All four states happened to release up-to-date polls from very respected pollsters on Thursday, so let’s check out Trump’s competitiveness or the size of his lead.
FLORIDA: Suffolk University Poll — Clinton 48%, Trump 42% (Clinton +6)
MICHIGAN: Detroit News Poll — Clinton 41%, Trump 32% (Clinton +9)
PENNSYLVANIA: Franklin & Marshall College — Clinton 49%, Trump 38% (Clinton +11)
NEW HAMPSHIRE: WBUR Poll — Clinton 47%, Trump 32% (Clinton +15)
If you were a Republican Senatorial or Congressional candidate running down-ballot and relying on Trump to bring out GOP voters, wouldn’t you be a teensy bit nervous and might want an intervention? With numbers like these, certainly GOP control of the Senate and perhaps even the House are in serious jeopardy. So no wonder that leaders of the party are looking for some remedy.
It was widely reported that on Wednesday that GOP legal experts were brought in to weigh whether Trump could be removed from the top of the ticket. The answer is — he can’t, according to Republican Party by-laws. Trump would either have to step down willingly (like that’ll happen) or he has to die (at this point, don’t put it past some factions of the party).
For Trump’s part, he responded much more on-message on Thursday. Instead of going after the Khans or Paul Ryan, he focused his attack lines on Clinton and Obama, focusing particularly on a $440 million dollar payment to Iran. Although the payment, first announced in January, was the first part of a larger repayment to Iran of money that the U.S. owed since 1979, it was seen by Trump and many Republicans as paying ransom money for four Americans who were held captive and released several months ago. Okay, it was a charge not based in fact, but at least Trump stayed on-script.
Until he didn’t.
Trump, as usual, went a step too far and proudly proclaimed that he had personally seen a video of the $440 million being taken off a plane and handed to the leaders of Iran. That would be an amazing claim if it was true. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that it’s totally bogus. It was widely reported by several major news services that, after an extensive search, no such footage exists. (It was probably shot by the same guy who made the video that Trump vows he saw that supposedly showed thousands of Muslims in Jersey City cheering as the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11.)
On Friday morning, in a rare reversal, Trump took back his statement about the video, and said that he made a mistake. Maybe he is learning.
Normally in the first week of August, political pros would say to any candidate behind in the polls to relax, because there’s still a lot of time left. But the Olympics opening ceremony begins on Friday night, and if past campaign history is any judge, the Presidential race freezes during the two weeks of the games.
And if you’re down 15 points in the polls nationally, a freeze in the race is the last thing you want. Have a nice intervention.
