The theft of Clinton Foundation emails by WikiLeaks supplies a look into the “back-scratching and buck-raking world” inhabited by team Clinton, writes Holman E. Jenkins, Jr. in the WSJ.
It pays to recall that the federal machinery trying so hard to give her a pass is the same federal machinery that writes millions of rules for the rest of us. It doesn’t give us a pass. The IRS can’t make sense of its own regulations yet expects us to abide by them under pain of criminal prosecution.
Mrs. Clinton’s every plan involves only complicating America’s life with more rules, more legal pitfalls for citizens, more mandates for business. The tax code is not complicated enough for her. ObamaCare is just a down payment on fixing health care with more regulation and government mandates.
Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another’s careers, constantly.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.
But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group—if you don’t have John Podesta ’s email address—you’re out.
Pre the presidential election, Debbie and I will spend five days driving between Newport, Rhode Island, and Key West, Florida. Unscientific for sure, but an amusing activity is to measure popular voter sentiment by keeping a count of lawn signs. Yesterday through three heavily Democrat states and swing state Pennsylvania, we saw not a single Clinton lawn sign. Clinton support was zero. This summer we made six similar drives covering eastern New York and a lot of New England, all Clinton territory we’ve been told. Well the results were similar. You’d think Clinton had withdrawn from the race. Absolutely shocking.
This morning we are at one of our very favorite boutique hotels in America, Hotel Fauchere in Milford, PA. Since the historical renovation of the hotel was completed, we’ve been staying in pretty little Milford near the Delaware Water Gap four times per year.
It was shocking to roll into town yesterday afternoon to be greeted with huge Trump signs on many key street corners. And Clinton? Aside from some action at Clinton headquarters, there was not a single banner or lawn sign supporting her. What we did not even count were the big signs with a line crossed through the name Clinton or worse yet the “lock her up” signs. Once again, a traveler could not be faulted for believing Hillary Clinton had withdrawn from the race.
Click to our Trump surge map on the home page for our admittedly Trump friendly Electoral College count. We have factored in momentum through Tuesday. We will update our map daily until the election. As things stand, the map looks like most of America is behind Trump. The reality is that a Donald Trump early Electoral College victory and thus the presidency is still a long shot. (The outcome is not official until January). Unfortunately for Trump supporters, the guy just cannot stay on message and keep his mouth shut. Donald Trump has single handily fired enough rounds into his own ship to sink it.
Today we travel through PA, touch into Delaware and West Virginia, and then into eastern Virginia to our destination at The Inn at Little Washington, America’s unmatchable country inn and restaurant. The Inn is a favorite among beltway insiders, and there is always much to learn. By the time I post early tomorrow a.m., I’ll have an updated lawn sign count for you as well as additional anecdotal evidence and the most recent count from the battleground state polls. Here I will be concentrating on Pennsylvania, Virginia and finally Colorado, where, as of this a.m., I think Trump has his best chance of capturing the Electoral College votes he needs.
Don’t expect any actual vision from Hilary, informs Francis Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian.
She just stands for the absolutely conventional thinking of the unthinking left — more money out of the infinite taxpayer fountain to fund my friends and cronies to create every new program they can think of and to fix every known human problem.
We know that she has no interest whatsoever in rocking the government gravy boat. We know that she deeply believes in the main project of the Left, which is to bring social justice and equality to the world through government action and crony capitalism.
Rather than discussing any actual issues in the election or promoting her own policy proposals, Hillary’s campaign events focus on trying to scare her potential supporters about Donald Trump.
Dick and I are on the early leg of our road trip between Newport and Key West. Yes, counting lawn signs. Traveling through small burbs and villages, we see plenty of Trump signs, most likely endorsed by the people who own or work the countless small businesses we see along the way. It’s in the “intellectual centers”–larger urban areas and university settings–where Clinton signs dominate. There seems to be “near total unanimity among the government-funded and government-cradled sectors of the economy (federal and state government workers, teachers, academia, crony capitalists, unions) in favor of Hillary,” writes Mr. Menton.
If you struggle to understand the overreaching vision of Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama, don’t worry. “There isn’t one,” points out Holman Jenkins in the WSJ. “They exist to deliver the wish-list of Democratic lobby groups for more power over the people of the United States. Period.”
Two days and 7 states on the road, and you’d be hard pressed to know Hillary Clinton was in the race. Johnson’s total today outstripped Clinton’s two-day total. To be fair, Johnson scored 100% of his support along a narrow strip of Rt. 78 outside of Allentown Pa.. Perhaps an aberration.
The same pattern of lawn sign readings appeared during the last presidential election. Romney swamped Obama from Lynchburg, Virginia to Key West. Most of the handout crowd, non income tax payers, pseudo liberal university progressives, public sector unionistas, tort lawyers, Wall Street shysters and Hollywood psychotics neither run small businesses, farms, etc. nor populate small town neighborhoods that make up America’s real core. They tend to be clustered by the thousands in towers on top of each other in big city ghettos, cooperative high rises, and glass and steel edifices. Talk about two Americas. (Read The Door to Rebellion Must Never be Closed for more on this).
A look at the battleground polls early this a.m. indicates powerful Trump momentum. (Trump is pulling ahead in New Hampshire.) One serious chink in the Trump armor is a Clinton bounce in Florida. Trump has drawn huge crowds at his Florida rallies, and is not unaware of what needs to be done to take Florida, the absolute key to this election. Virginia would be a nice grab for Trump, but it is a no-go so far. North Carolina offers promise. It is Colorado that in the end may rule the day. Trump has some solid momentum and a chance to grab Colorado as well as New Hampshire and North Carolina. If so, he pulls off a shocker. If not the country will be saddled with easily the most unpopular president to ever take office in my lifetime. Rank and file Democrats were with Bernie Sanders. It was the entrenched delegates system that sank the Sanders boat. Will the Sanders mob turn out for Clinton?
Meanwhile, the FBI is not fooling around here, and Clinton has a betting odds chance of receiving some most unpleasant news pre-Election Day. Such an event would open the trap door under her and seal a Trump victory.
Debbie and I will spend today in central Virginia and post more for you in the a.m.
NC voter: I’m a woman voting Trump; it wasn’t a close call
Yesterday Debbie and I made the third leg of our five-day, East Coast trip. This part of our trip took us from Little Washington, Virginia through Charlottesville-the epicenter of central VA liberalism-down to Lynchburg, in more reliably conservative territory. In our unscientific yard-sign poll, Trump vastly outperformed with the final results Trump 50/Clinton 15/ Johnson 1.
The jaunt from Charlottesville to Lynchburg was a short run, but it was by far the most energized part of our trip yet. New England and the mid-Atlantic states seemed asleep by comparison. You can tell Virginians know their votes could sway the election. (Click here to read about Leg 1 and Leg 2).
These are the Americans that matter. In the suburbs and small cities of middle Virginia live the small business owners who keep America moving. And along the dusty roads Debbie and I travel outside these small population centers live the farmers and entrepreneurs who keep America fed and employed.
These are the people who have been gamed out of the system. Their income is taxed heavily by a government in Washington D.C. that’s more interested in supporting handouts than hard work. Their savings have been hamstrung by a Fed policy forcing them into ever-riskier assets in order to find any type of return. Government policy at every level has been engineered to service the needs of the Wall St./Washington corridor rather than the needs of these every day Americans.
That’s why if Trump loses, he’ll have only his undisciplined, loud mouth to blame. Hillary Clinton represents the gamed system in every way. The populist campaign Trump is running should be miles ahead of such an insider candidate today, but Trump’s lack of discipline has been his Achilles heel all along.
Given the current polling, it’s not impossible that a tie might occur. In that case, the decision would be given over to the elites in the House of Representatives. With the convoluted rules governing a House election for POTUS, results would be hard to predict. Candidates must collect some electoral votes to be given consideration by the House, so it’s likely that given a tie, the House will be given the same choice Americans faced between Trump and Clinton. Keep your eyes open.
New Hampshire could provide the 270th electoral vote. I am uniquely familiar with not only the more conservative Carroll County, located in the northern part of the state, but also the neighboring state of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. Maine is not a winner take all electoral state. It’s split between the two districts and a 2 point bonus for the statewide vote.
One electoral vote short of 270 will most likely keep Hillary out of the White House. Like other rural parts of this country, this northern area of New England has shed more than it’s fair share of blood and treasure in our senseless wars. I can’t imagine voters here will be kind on Hillary’s national security malfeasance. It’s embarrassing, and her arrogance may be her downfall here. And it’s why this slice of the country could very well decide the path of a Trump victory or Clinton coming up short of the 270 electoral vote. Regardless of the news from James Comey on Sunday that the FBI has re-closed its investigation in Clinton’s email server, Hillary’s malfeasance is on voters’ minds. My fingers are crossed. Nate Silver writes:
How about polls of swing states in particular? Right now, the tipping-point state in our forecast — the state that would provide the decisive 270th electoral vote if the polls got things exactly right — is New Hampshire. There, Clinton leads by only 1.7 percentage points in our adjusted polling average, as several recent polls show Trump tied or slightly ahead, along with others that still give Clinton the lead. Thus, Clinton’s doing a little bit worse in the tipping-point state than she is overall — a sign that she might win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College.
In a shocking revelation, I can write to you this morning, pre our final run to the Florida Keys and our home base in Old Town, Key West, that over our full day drive yesterday from Beaufort, South Carolina, to the Brazilian Court Hotel in Palm Beach, we saw not a single Clinton road sign, banner, or billboard.
There is no way the core of American voters, who make up the productive sector of our economy, are behind Hillary Clinton. As for Donald Trump, we just stopped counting around Daytona, far more interested in the ongoing development surrounding Daytona Harley Davidson.
Productive, pro 2nd Amendment, anti-radical Muslim immigration Americans want no part of Hillary Clinton. We have been shocked at the absolute total lack of enthusiasm for a woman most Americans, never mind the FBI shenanigans, agree is a liar, a national security risk, and a bought and paid for foundation hostage. Donald Trump has effectively stamped her “Crooked Hillary.”
Most of Clinton’s support is bought, bused in, or provided by self-serving special interest groups that know that the Clintons can be bribed to do their bidding. This sorry group includes the the East Coast pseudo intellectual university elites, the military/industrial complex/ tort lawyers, public sector unions, Wall Street, the welfare crowd, and the half of Americans who pay zero income tax. It’s a sad mix indeed, and revolt is in the air. Debbie and I see the same thing all over Europe. Should Clinton win, she will immediately come under siege and will be walled off from doing anything of significance for the two years before the mid-terms, where her party will be thrashed unmercifully.
Should Clinton prevail, she will take office as far and away the most detested presidential candidate in my lifetime. The majority of productive, tax-paying Americans recoils at the mention of the name Clinton and will stand against her from day one.
I’ve had hundreds of conversations over the last few months leading up to today’s election. Most of my talks have been with like minded folks. They don’t like all of the things Trump has said, but they can’t believe the things Hillary has done. It has been a bruising campaign season. And it has taken someone like Trump to pull the curtain back on, not only Hillary, but on the entire broken political system.
In one of the many conversations I had yesterday, I was asked what are Trump’s chances of winning. I said I’ve read the low “probabilities” put out by guys like Nate Silver, but in my gut, I felt, and still feel that Trump is going to pull it off. He replied, “You know, I feel exactly the same. We left Colorado on Oct 15, went east across Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida, have seen thousands of Trump yard signs, zero Clinton!!! But, have not been in the huge cities where all the handouts are!!”
It doesn’t seem fair that voters with no skin in the game get to cancel out the voters that provide the money to allow the game to be played.
This redistribution of your money cannot go on forever. It will stop. We just don’t know when. But one thing is for sure, as another client reminded me, the Party of Trump is not going away. The Party of Trump will be a third party or something to that effect. The Party of Trump will not be brought back into the GOP tent. That tent has collapsed on the likes of Paul Ryan. No future race will be the same. And that’s a great, great thing. Thank you Mr. Trump.
Well it’s over. Debbie and I are in Key West ready to head out to vote, with our five-day Rhode Island to the Florida Keys road trip behind us (Read here, here, here and here). Along our entire trip we conducted, as we did on six other occasions this fall and summer, a not very scientific yet informative poll of East Coast voters.
The final day of what was 20 total days on the road ended as it began, with a resounding if muted victory for Donald Trump. Here are our three most interesting takeaways.
In Amherst Mass, the most wildly leftist enclave on the planet, we saw not a single Clinton sign.
By far the biggest run of road signs for either candidate, and not surprisingly for Trump, came in a 20 or so mile stretch in the greater Lynchburg, VA area. As an aside, we rate exploding Lynchburg far and away as the East Coast place we would feel most comfortable in starting a new business, regardless the business. The driver for Lynchburg? Liberty University
The total lack of enthusiasm for either candidate along the 135-mile stretch of the Florida Keys. Mile after mile there was nothing for Trump or Hillary.
So 20 days on the road and 20 easy victories for Mr. Trump. Am I projecting a victory for Trump? No, because our unscientific polling effort, as detailed as it was, comprises largely small business owners, farmers, hospitality industry businesses, and small towns and villages where most people are productive and pay taxes. We do not get a shot at the big cities populated by massive towers and beltway leeches.
There has been much discussion about a rigged election. Where there is smoke there is usually fire. Bernie Sanders was cheated and robbed blind by the Democrat elites and their phony super-delegates game. Trump was savaged by the television network media, big city print media and, as we found to our dismay, NPR. Public radio? What a farce. In the bag for the Democrats. And by the way, NPR apparently does not know that America is a constitutional republic not a democracy.
Well, there you have it. Should Clinton emerge victorious she will enter the White House as easily the most despised incoming president in history. Nice finish!
