Comments

1
Aren't the first two clauses of this post just a tad TMI?
2
1) you are mistaking the GOP primary voters for the general electorate
2) you are advancing a shockingly sexist, concern troll-y argument here
3
Matt Baume is correct. This plays right into Trumps little baby hands! Hillary's already fucking it up!
4
This ad is weak. None of the Republicans featured in it support Hillary. And at least half of them will endorse Trump before the general election.
5
The logic of this piece applies if Clinton was running in the Republican primaries. Watching this ad, a significant percentage of the general electorate will see Trump, not Clinton, as the rube.
6
People who are entertaining the notion of voting Trump do not give a squirt of piss what Clintons think, or what beltway insiders think.

Their whole philosophy is "We don't care what the establishment wants or thinks anymore."

A guy like Trump can only rise when anger/frustration at the establishment reaches a fever pitch.
7
Yes, this ad will not make Trump supporters like Trump any less. I'm pretty sure Trump supporters aren't the target audience.
8
@1

Not really any more TMI than anything else Baume has written, as his posts have always been pretty masturbatory in nature anyway, which is why I don't really bother read to read them.
9
If you're the type of person who thinks that constantly patting yourself on the back, flaunting your wealth, telling people that everybody loves you while mocking and belittling others are positive traits then yes this is a pro-Trump ad. I don't believe that most people are that stupid.
I think most people will look at this ad and see Trump as a self-aggrandizing bully. "A man's praises stink in his own mouth." - people who constantly have to tell me how great they are strike me as insecure assholes. People who tell me how much everybody else loves them ... well it just makes me wonder why I am not hearing that from everybody else.
Matt Baume must have a really low opinion of people in general if he really thinks this is a pro-Trump ad.

You can fool some of the people all of that time ...
10
Unfortunately, there's a serious point here. If Hillary takes the high road, Trump is going to obliterate her. She's going to have to take some barbed shots at him herself, just to knock him off his soapbox a bit. Most of the heavy lifting, though, is going to have to be done by the party and the Super-PACs.

Despite George Bernard Shaw's, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it," this isn't an optional fight. Her campaign is going to be dragged into the mud by Trump. They'd better be prepared to fight their way out and bury that pig, and do it in a way that makes the crowd cheer.
11
@7:

Exactly. These ads aren't aimed at Drumph loyalists who have no intention of abandoning their figurehead, they're aimed squarely at Republican swing voters, the ones sitting out there right now who might have voted for Cruz or Rubio or Kasich or any of the other comparatively more moderate (and I use that term rather loosely) GOP presidential candidates, including those prominently quoted. They already feel uncomfortable voting for The Donald, and she's just giving them one more reason not to by pounding home the point that the candidates they WOULD have voted FOR can't stand him, think he's dangerous, and consider him a threat to the stability of the Republican Party itself. It's basically saying, "you've lost this round - again - but don't make things even worse by voting party loyalty over the best interests of the nation, because doing so might actually bring about the destruction of your party."
12
I think Hillary's thinking is: We are already are set to win and we don't need the Trump supporters to do it. We just have to make sure that between now and November, more reasonable conservatives don't start thinking getting the idea that Trump as a serious option. In other words, as someone else said above, the audience for this ad is not the Trump rabble, it's the crowd of voters who will hopefully just stay home and not vote, out of disgust.
13
Ugh, sorry for the typos. Also, COMTE said a very similar thing just as I was typing.
14
The ad makes me like Lindsey Graham a little more.
15
@10:

I would say this ad is indisputable proof that Clinton can get-down-and-dirty; she's basically showing how pretty much the entirety of the GOP mainstream hates Drumph, thinks he's bad for the party, and by extension, bad for the nation. It's actually a pretty good strategy: soften up your opponent for your main attack by allowing the other side to first wound your target with a barrage of "friendly fire" from behind, and effectively catch him in a pincer-move between the two lines.
16
@10 i just worried Trump is a better pig than Clinton. I'd rather she had surrogates trash Trump with the insults, and let her take the high road. But who knows what's best. Once you trash him once, he has every justification to continue. And for the most part, he's pretty good at name-calling.
17
Let's clear something up: Margaret Dumont was not the fifth Marx Brother. Zeppo was. Margaret was better than that.
18
@16 - He's prolific at name-calling, sure, but I wouldn't say he's particularly good at it. Although there is a value in volume.
19
Was there a point to this post?

@17: EXCUSE ME, but there actually WERE five Marx Brothers. It's just that Gummo only did vaudeville with them and moved on to other things before they started making movies.
20
Oh fer fuck's sake! Take another hit on the crack pipe.
21
@19 - Sounds like Gummo was number six, then.
22
Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) posted a similar breakdown of this same ad this morning. Pretty brutal. Hope she figures it out soon.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/14389861534…
23
@17:

Gummo was originally the fourth Marx Brother during their vaudeville days, but left the act when he enlisted in the Army during WW-I and was replaced by Zeppo, so @19 is correct about there actually being five brothers.
24
@22:

Adams is an arch-conservative, and has actually posted some very complimentary assessments of Drumph on his blog, characterizing him as a "master manipulator". So, I think we have to take anything he says about Clinton with a decidedly large dose of salt.
25
My honey explained to me last night, when I was bitching about some TV ad for cars or something, that I'm not their target audience. The ad companies know exactly what they're doing, no matter how stupid it looks to us. Hillary has got Obama's campaign people working for her. I trust them to do their job and do it well.
26
@2, 7, 11, etc: Agree. This is not trying to sway Trump supporters. It is (1) trying to sway moderates and (2) trying to sow discord and pre-emptively point out the lie when some of those Republicans featured here denigrating Trump inevitably fall in line. It's more of an anti-Republican party ad than an anti-Trump ad. Either you believe the other guys and this helps cement your dislike of Trump or you support Trump and this helps cement your dislike of the other guys. Either way is a win for the Democrats and, by extension, their eventual nominee (likely Clinton).
27
@22 @24, I wouldn't call Adams an arch-conservative, but he does make some pretty annoying remarks from his lofty estate in uber-left San Francisco. I feel that over time he's lost a bunch of perspective on how life is in a ass-backwards red state. That being said, replace "manipulator" which "bullshitter" and you can get a better sense of where he's coming from.
28
Holy jesus this newspaper has gone down the fucking toilet.
29
Hillary is smarter than Trump, and her barbs will always be classier. As they should be. Groucho was clever. Trump is not.
30
Great posting, Matt. Next column, imagine Trump v. Bernie. (And please include your boyfriend's take on it . . . he's sharp.)
31
*eats popcorn*

Yes. Yessss. Tear Them apart, my pretties. That's just how you're supposed to act. They're SOOOO evil.

*munch munch*
32
No, she's not; she's Hermione Granger, graduated from Hogwarts and university, now an earnest, knowledgeable policy wonk. Hillary is way more aware than the Dumont character. And remember, HIS voters may laugh and be fine with "establishment" Republicans dissing him, but a yoooge majority of the country (polls here: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/poll… ) would probably agree with this ad's criticism, even if they aren't Hillary voters. Despair not.
33
To Donald Trump's supporters, those ads are everything they like about him. But this is just the beginning and didn't go back any further than the start of his campaign: a greatest hits of (some of) his most offensive statements in the past year when he was running for president. People laughed off some of the outrageous stuff earlier when he was viewed as a carnival barker; hearing them again reminds you that the man saying this could be the next president of the United States.

Later, I'm sure ads will go back in time and chronicle some of his Howard Stern interviews, the lawsuits against him, his bankruptcy, and most racist and misogynistic views.

But this ad was to all of the 'reasonable Republicans' who didn't vote for Trump, and still view him as at best the lesser evil. If Clinton can de-motivate those people into staying home rather than casting a vote for the GOP nominee because he's such a horrible person, that means she's winning, and helping downballot Democrats, too.

34
This is targeted at moderate voters who haven't been paying attention. It works fine for that.

But to really get to Trump, you need to attack him at his strength, the way that Bush did when he went after Kerry with the swift boat ads. Trump's biggest strength is apparent honesty. Just about every supporter will say something about him not being politically correct, or telling it the way he sees it. But that is bullshit. His comments about religion earlier this year show this to be the case. He isn't a religion person. But rather than come out and say that (while saying something nice about America's religious morality) he just lied, and made up bullshit to please his audience.

Another tact is to attack his weak point that hasn't gotten much press: He is unqualified. His bombastic, ridiculous comments have stolen the show, but there hasn't been much talk about the fact that he would have no idea what to do if he was elected. Put it this way: Imagine you want to coach a football team. You haven't played the game or coached it. You haven't spent much time studying football, but you have hung out with a few football players at charity events. Is there any team in the NFL that would hire you as head coach? Of course not. So why does anyone think that running the country is easier than being a head football coach?
35
You know what makes good political blogging? Someone who has a solid theory of politics and then discusses events in terms of their theory.

Wish we could find something like that around here.
37
Great to have political commentary from people with your sophisticated grasp of policy knowledge. Please stay out of the voting booth. If you want a popularity contest, watch American Idol.
38
It started by making me think of Matt Baume naked and managed to go down hill.
39
@34 Agree. They need to focus on what his supporters like about him and tear it apart.

Think he's immune to lobbyists and big money? He IS the lobby and big money. He's a developer that's built an empire with the help of government handouts.

Think he likes 'Murica? He's already sworn to NOT uphold the constitution, and 2 out of 3 or his wives ain't even 'Murican!

Want truth or transparency? He lies and obfuscates in almost every stump speech.

Want the economy to grow? What policies he's mentioned are idiotic, and his mere presence in the white house will destabilize the economy to some degree. Focus on his business failings.

Want to feel safer? He's guaranteed to put American's in harms way.

All this without mentioning religion, abortion, or guns (he says he carries but I bet he's said something in the past the NRA would take issue with.)
40
http://giphy.com/gifs/Zd9VZqdmULhtK/html…

Hils can handle him. Trump's no Groucho.

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