My Take Of Where We Are

++Nearing 66,I can say in all my political incarnations I have never held a position the same as anything of Donald Trump's. His son Donald ,Jr. is one of the most repugnant children of a major candidate in history with his flirtation with the alt.right and neo-Nazis. To have the Anti-Defamation league make a public statement against statements' of a major candidates' son is too much.

++If you live in the viral world or even the regular world, then you don't live in the country I see. Basically, President Obama was right in his last speech to Congress. We are doing quite well as a nation. We face no "existential" enemies--not even Putin's Russia which is a basket case and ISIS looks like it will just be a lethal nuisance to Europe more than us. Everybody got a raise in the country this year, even me, and that raise reached every ethnic group,class and even reached rural America for the first time in years. Our inflation is a whopping 1.5%.

++So we have a presidential contest with one person manifestly unqualified, who is capable of generating endless media for real or imagined statements. And then we have a supremely qualified candidate who has been in the public eye and scrutinized for over 30 years. Before the Trump era, the media had to manufacture scandals about this candidate even though there was no smoke.

++I also believe that the nation has become more diversified and tolerant to a much greater degree over the last eight years. In my lifetime,the rise and success of the LGBT movement has been the most startling and welcomed. But that  progress breeds a reaction and one of the most reactionary elements is one of our presidential candidates. My wife watched a New York Times' video clip of his rallies and she said to me they are more vicious than the Wallace rallies we used to attend as a lark when she went to Duke.

++Now all our poll aggregators are getting nervous about his election but haven't sounded the alarms yet. Nate Silver said don't panic for a week. Sam Wang said if the election were held today it would be so,so close.

++At my age, I can give money, volunteer and vote. But also step back and realize Hillary Clinton has done this before--but not against a crazy man. She has taken corrections with her campaign staff and incorporated the best talent from Obama's team. They are wired into the social media and have raised buckets of money so they won't be caught lacking. And they are vastly superior on the ground. 

++So at some point I have to let go and watch them do their stuff. Last night some of the Democratic political organizers started posting on Dailykos about what they have been doing because most of us don't know. 

++There are 250 events for the Hillary Campaign in Ohio alone. They have been registering 25,000 a day and expect to until mid-October which is the deadline. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are there this weekend. The organizers say ,"Fie" to the polls we are moving ahead. Can this turn it around? But the effort is immense. The same applies to Florida which has an enormously diversified population. 

++Hillary has a superb set of surrogates--Barack Obama,Michelle Obama, Joe Biden,Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders. She has the entire Black Caucus not only for her but very against Trump, the Hispanic caucus for her and violently against Trump, the Asian Pacific Caucus for her and the American Jews. And maybe the women who need to get off the ass. They compose my country. I humbly suggest that are the new "Moral majority". 

++Then we have the millennials. Posters last night said the climate change coalition is going gangbusters in Ohio as well as NextGen. The pitch is Hillary to keep the change going, a theme Michelle effectively delivered yesterday in Virginia. 

++Now if these elements are all tied into the campaign which they are, then I trust the professionalism of the Clinton campaign to bring the horse to water. Yes, she as a candidate breeds anxiety and her every move is examined in a way unlike other normal candidates. But as she said she's not a quitter and in this election year maybe you need a steady person who doesn't quit.

++I think yesterday marked a turn in the coverage of Trump. His abuse of the press got so much that the metaphor is the stage collapsing after his press conference. There is oodles more of subjects the press can start probing before the election. They must keep hammering home on the taxes. All we need to know is that he didn't pay any. And that's the ballgame. Do you feel billionaires should pay no taxes? And we are off to the races.

++Observers are concerned that Clinton is a policy wonk like Dukakis and Gore and that somehow we are in 2000 and 2004 again. That's too easy. Our electorate with all the voter suppression and gerrymandering is still ver different. Even if we had the same turnouts it would be different.

++I am sorry for the awkward position of the American white male who seems to have gone cuckoo. The whole right buys into the demographic winter argument and fear whites soon being the largest minority. While white males control 97% of the CEOs of the multinational corporations. They feel insecure.

++That's the price of change. For me,the diversity makes us richer and Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention and his Pettis Bridge speech outlined the view of America that I hold but not many white men do.

++The changing demographic of America hasn't hit home politically yet but it will in 2020. We have to suffer an horrendous by-election before then.

++The other dimension of this election is that we are dealing with the disintegration of the Republican Party, not in terms of state house or even Congress but in terms of any ideas that will move anything at all forward. Trump smashed the Overton Window and that's what has us scared. The Overton Window refers to what are the limits permissible in politics. The Left has argued that this has moved progressively right over the years. 

++That is true but Trump has smashed it so the absolutely unaccepted now is discussed. Mass deportation,ideological certificates,punishment for women who have abortions. All of these ideas would have disqualified a candidate from Day One.

++Who would have thought that the Republicans would nominate a man who uses McCarthyite tactics who would qualify for being investigated by McCarthy. We still don't know how much he owes to the Russians.

++Do we have a dilemma. We can believe that everything about our political system doesn't work according to the rules of the past or believe that the fundamentals will work out. Money and organization will triumph over media exposure. I still bet on registering, organization and Get Out The Vote.