It’s quiet… too quiet.
I don’t like it one bit. After more than a year of ugly, bitter, and often times down right disgusting non-nonsensical half sentences, Donald Trump has more or less gone dark. Sure he’s still giving stump speeches and still out there campaigning. But gone are the days when Donald Trump would publicly shoot himself in the foot and then shove said foot into his mouth.
About a week ago I wrote in my Diary entitled “Does Clinton have any cards up her sleeve?”:
Odds are he’s [Trump] tied up with his mouth taped shut in some brass-painted high-rise.
And then there was this piece in the news this weekend:
Over the course of the campaign, Trump has become known for his Twitter rants and statements, which have caused controversy more than once. As his campaign works to catch up with Hillary Clinton’s narrow lead, it seems that the candidate’s aides have been able to take control of his Twitter account.
www.theverge.com/...
While I can’t help but wonder which of his many disastrous tweets was the one the campaign felt was a bridge too far, in the end it really doesn’t matter. The Donald has been muzzled, gagged and neutered. In late October he was bragging about being a free man, off the leash, free to be himself and campaign the way he feels he should campaign.
I’m sure Donald Trump felt he had convinced his campaign staff to let him go back to a formula that worked so well in the primaries and that once free from any hint of restraint he could win his way leaving it all out on the stage. But in reality it seems as though the campaign had simply given up. Instead of trying to take the giant orange gorilla they were forced to market as a serious Presidential candidate they had thrown in the towel and were content letting the candidate go back to flinging verbal feces at everyone.
Then… SCANDAL! Or so they thought.
Once the FBI dropped that bomb about Clinton’s Emails the shackles were immediately put back on Trump. They had been given a chance to make up some ground, the last thing they needed was Donald Trump, you know THE CANDIDATE, messing it up by opening his mouth and letting a thought fall out. Turns out the real October surprise was that the Emails were nothing of any concern. It was almost symbolic of the entire Hillary Clinton Email debacle. Lots of hype, lots of hand wringing, lots of opportunistic Republicans making up wild dream scenarios. But in the end about as interesting as any emails you may recover from your own grandmothers computer.
So here we are, after a long campaign of innuendos, scandals, insinuations and disgusting mental images of Trump forcing himself on beautiful woman, he has been effectively contained and isolated. Unable to run his mouth or spew his word salad via Twitter.
The Election is Tomorrow! It’s finally here. We’re in the home stretch. I doubt there can be any kind of November Surprise this late in the game and if there was one it would have to be pretty freaking huge to make any kind of a difference. When so many actual votes have already been cast and anyone still supporting Trump after everything he’s said and done now impossible to convert. This election is a done deal at this point.
I said in my last diary that I was expecting something from the Clinton campaign in this final week. Some sort of final nail in the Trump coffin. A video of Trump and Putin. A larger release of Tax Returns. Another video of Trump speaking/acting inappropriate. Maybe a tape of some racist tirade on the set of The Apprentice. I was expecting something, especially after the FBI seemed to throw a wrench in her momentum. I was looking forward to some kind of knockout punch. SOMETHING.
We keep hearing about how she’s a fighter but it now appears her strategy for the last week of the campaign was to coast to victory. Maybe she thought she could sit back and let Donald Trump dig his own grave 140 characters at a time. Maybe she thought the news media would never tire of reporting on her huge lead in the polls. Maybe her internal numbers are looking even better than the polls and polling aggregates suggest.
Whatever the reason it appears Clinton had no ace up her sleeve and instead planned to spend the last week of the campaign giving stump speeches and releasing feel good GOTV ads. Maybe she didn’t have any more dirt on Trump. Maybe she just wanted to end a very demeaning and nasty campaign on a more dignified high note. It’s a risky gamble and we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if it was the right call.
Trumps team on the other hand made an equally risky gamble. By restraining Trump Clinton was able to mostly stay quiet about the FBI Email thing. She didn’t have to defend herself against attacks by Trump because he was “playing it safe” at a time when Trump would have likely been otherwise firing up his base with plans of a political witch hunt if elected. Instead the Trump campaign placed their bets on the FBI and the empty promise of some scandal ridden email coming to light.
Ironically it was Donald Trump’s Teflon-like ability to ride out scandals of a horrifying nature that allowed Secretary Clinton to ride out her own scandals and come out unscathed. Against any other candidate, in any other Election year the Email Scandal alone would have probably buried her. Politicians, particularly Democratic politicians don’t generally survive the type of things that have come out over the past year or so.
But because the GOP made the fatal mistake of nominating Donald Trump, her missteps and everything she's been accused of true or false, look run of the mill by comparison.
My biggest issue with this Election is that we never really got around to the issues themselves. When Donald Trump loses the GOP can accurately claim that this Election was not a rejection of Republican Policies or Conservatism, but a rejection of Donald Trump. We never really got a chance to make a case against conservative ideas. Donald Trump never had actual policies or plans. He never even made a complete sentence for Christ sake.
So expect the GOP to claim Clinton has no mandate based on the fact that this was not a battle of ideas. This was a referendum on Trump.
That is why down ballot races matter. (Wo)mandate or no, Clinton can govern as she pleases if she has a friendly House and Senate. And nothing says rejection of Republicanism more than a rejection of GOP Congressmen, Senators and Governors.
I voted early. I voted for Hillary Clinton. Let’s make sure every one of our friends and family do the same.