Election 2016 Update 09-12

State of the Election 2016

Trump in the News

The news on Trump is that there was little news on Trump. Since the media has trouble focusing on two candidates at the same time, there will be this back and fourth.

Clinton in the News

Basket Full of Deplorables
On Friday, Clinton described half of Trump supporters as deplorable, meaning racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc.

Now she did quickly apologize for this (sort of).

“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that's never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,"

But, she then followed declaring she would still point to the 'deplorables' supporters and that Trump caters to them. You can read the full initial speech and apology, at Politico.com.

You will notice that Clinton did show empathy and respect for the other 'half'. However, you know that means little in politics. What appears obvious is that Clinton is trying to walk the line between an an apology and still maintaining this line of argument. This means that every time Trump brings this up, Clinton has the opportunity to bring up Trump's 'deplorableness'.

I would say leaders should avoid making attribution errors, so she should have said 'those with deplorable beliefs' rather that just 'deplorable', in both a political and moral sense, I'm also concerned that many Clinton supporters have responded by saying the statement is true. They argue some Trump supporters are 'deplorable' (not hard), and they number close to half (not easy). This is definitely cementing partisan divisions and likely to be problematic even if Clinton is elected. Like Benghazi, this will never fully go away.

I'm not sure how this plays out. At the very least it stopped Trumps loses from his comments during the forum. Also, Clinton loses some of her 'high ground' is the debate. But, there is a danger that this could drive those uncomfortable with Trump to full support of him.

Fortunately for Clinton,this came out on a weekend, and the 9/11 weekend at that. This means the story had three days before most heard of it and included her apology. Plus 9/11 put a semi-pause for a day on politics. And the good is that when talking about this, we aren't talking about her emails.

Hillary Can't Take the Heat

During a 9/11 ceremonoy, Clinton went faint due. Most likely this was due to a recent diagnosis of pneumonia combined with dehydration from the heat. There is even footage of her almost collapsing and having to be held up by secret service agents.

The problem here is that it gives purchase to the 'Hillary's health conspiracy', which now will never die. However, it does crowd out the 'basket of delplorables' and could lay a trap for Trump. If he goes to far with this and acts to smug then the suggestion is that he is happy about her being sick.