Do you think Bill made this face before or after Donald said Hillary would be in jail?

HuffPo:

Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email account while she was secretary of state.

“I didn’t think I’d say this but I’m going to say it, and I hate to say it, but if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception, there has never been anything like it and we’re going to have a special prosecutor,” Trump said during the presidential debate, referring to her emails.

Clinton responded by inviting viewers to fact-check what Trump was saying on her campaign website.

“We have literally Trump, you can fact check him in real time. Last time, at the first debate, we had millions of people fact-checking. So I expect we’ll have millions more fact-checking because, you know, it is, it’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” she said.

“Because you would be in jail,” Trump said to Clinton.

The great lines keep on coming this presidential election, don’t they?

The liberal MSM is gloating this morning:

Politico: Raddatz, Cooper crack the whip

Forbes: Donald Trump Schooled By Moderators Martha Raddatz And Anderson Cooper At Second Debate

The NYT was particulary smug: Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper Steered Debate With Sharp Questions:

They dug for revelations, extracting news nuggets — a rarity on a debate night — like Donald J. Trump’s admission that he had used a nearly billion-dollar loss to avoid paying federal income taxes for years.

They pressed for specifics, interrupting the candidates to demand concrete strategies for handling conflict in Syria and reforming the nation’s health care system.

And they posed blunt, provocative questions at a forum that typically feels more like public broadcasting than cable news: Had Mr. Trump ever sexually assaulted a woman? Did Hillary Clinton really believe that her use of a private email server was not “extremely careless”?

The duo overseeing Sunday’s presidential debate, Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News, seemed to cast off the hand-wringing pressures on this year’s crop of moderators — Is fact-checking mandatory? Are interruptions O.K.? — and put themselves directly in the mix of a high-stakes encounter.

The immediate response was praise from many journalists and some grumbling from partisans.

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Hey, Trumpkins! If Donald Trump is sooo smart and competent, not like all those low-energy democrat punching-bags in the normal GOP, and Trump is going to able to change all the rules, stop the US from being cheated, and negotiate much, much better, beautiful, yuge! smarter deals… So, how come, why is it that last night we found Donald Trump in a debate moderated by (hostile liberal butterfly) Anderson Cooper and (democrat establishment attack dog) Martha Raddatz, who both shamelessly interrupted him, kept him from successfully driving home any of his major points, curtailed his time, and who together behaved with lightly concealed democrat partisanship?

Shouldn’t a so much smarter guy be able to avoid being pushed around and manipulated this way? Wouldn’t a smarter great negotiator be able to secure for himself a balanced and fair set of debate moderators?

NYM “What If?,” February 25, 2016:

Hillary Clinton in 2016 is obviously completely different from Barack Obama in 2008. Obama entered the campaign surrounded by imaginary butterflies and unicorns. Hillary enters on her broom, accompanied by flying monkeys. Barack Obama was so lovable that every adolescent girl in America, male and female, young and old, had a crush on him. NBC’s Chris Matthews famously found his leg trembling with nearly homoerotic adoration of Obama. Nobody’s leg will be quivering for the old and wrinkly Hillary.

Obama was the Magic Negro, the wise friend from another race whose acceptance of you proves that you are exceptionally worthy, and whose aid brings about your survival or your victory in your quest. Hillary is every man’s shrewish wife, the pot-throwing termagant who drives all of America out to the nearest saloon to drown our collective sorrows. Hillary is the mean old lady, heading up the Ladies’ League For Social Reform that is going to ban everything that’s fun. Obama was Chingachgook, Queequeg, and a younger version of every Morgan Freeman character. Hillary is Lady Macbeth.

It would take a miracle effectuated by a political genius of the first water to make Hillary electable, especially in this unfavorable year. The Republican presidential nominee in 2016 has the key to the Oval Office in his pocket as long as he is normally presentable and can walk and talk.

Maybe Hillary can win after all, though, because it just so happens that she is married to a political genius of the first water. …

[I]f I were Bill, how on earth could I possibly cause the unamiable, unattractive, scandal-infested, mean old Hillary to win in this most unfavorable year?

Well, what if… what if that slick old Bill actually did think up a way? How could he do it? Well, there is one way, after all. Just suppose it was possible for Bill Clinton to hijack the GOP nomination.

Suppose Bill Clinton figured out the sole, solitary possible way that he could shove a big, fat monkey wrench into the Republican Party’s Presidential Election Campaign’s works.

Let’s say, for instance, that Old Bill knew another feller, that he had a buddy, a good friend, not in politics actually, but a fellow in some respects kind of like himself, brash, shameless, fond of the ladies, appetitive, hugely out-going, and larger-than-life. Bill’s friend, like himself, would be a wealthy and successful person, a celebrity, a performer, and a chap vigorously able to go after what he wants free of ethical inhibitions.

One can picture Bill sitting down with his pal Donald, and saying, “Donald, old boy, I need you to do Hillary and me a solid. …

then Bill (behind the scenes) masterminds The Donald’s campaign, knocking out one legitimate GOP candidate after another with shameless insults, abuse, and outright baldfaced lies.

Donald gets the nomination, but it could be that Bill has a plan in mind to sink the Trump campaign right about the end of next September. Photographs of Donald (like Berlusconi) in the sack with some underage girls just happen to fall into the hands of intrepid NY Times reporters in the nick of time. The GOP campaign sinks suddenly in scandal, while Donald smiles over the stories of his sexual prowess, and Hillary coasts in after all.

What if?

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Erik Eriksen, “I am Fully Embracing This Conspiracy Theory,” July 7th:

I am beginning to believe Trump is a Clinton operation designed to get Hillary elected. Trump is, after all, the only Republican who ran who was a Clinton donor. He is also the only Republican running who called Bill Clinton to discuss running before he even got into the race.

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NYM, “Is Trump Deliberately Throwing the Election?”, August 4:

[I]t’s only the beginning of August. The boxcar-loads of opposition research the Dems and their media allies have been saving up are still just sitting there, waiting to be unloaded and fired.

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One little ten-year-old tape of Trump having a locker-room-style conversation was released and the Trump Campaign is reeling. Just think how much more damaging material the democrat presidential campaign and the MSM has that’s not yet been released. What kind of leak do you think they would have done if Trump were currently ten points ahead in the polls?

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Althouse commenter Meade said, 10/8/16, 10:32 AM:

Trump grabbed an unsuspecting GOP by its pussy. GOP just let him do it. Except for the #NeverTrump-ers, who had too much self respect along with the fact that they had no pussies for Trump to grab.

LawNewz provides answers to the question a lot of people are asking right now.

So, with exactly a month to go until Election Day, what happens if Trump is forced to drop out of the Presidential race? Or if the GOP forces him out? It’s a bit complicated, so let’s explain what we know about the process.

Republican National Committee Rule # 9 outlines what happens when there is a Republican nomination vacancy due to “death, declination or otherwise.”

It basically says that there are two ways for the Republicans to re-nominate a candidate if Trump drops out. 1) They could reconvene at another convention and have all of the 2,472 delegates vote, or 2) the 168-member committee could decide with each member getting a portion of votes based on the population of the state they represent. Number 2 seems like a more likely scenario.

Seems simple? Not so fast. Since we are exactly a month away from the election, there is one major problem: The ballot deadlines have passed in nearly every state. For example, in West Virginia, the law says a candidate must withdraw “no later than eighty-four days before the general election.” With thirty days to go, we are obviously too late. Each state has different rules about what happens if there is a vacancy. So, even if the Republicans pick a new nominee, it is likely Trump’s name will appear on the ballot in most states. …

Professor Edward Foley, who is the director of election law at Moritz School of Law at Ohio State, talked to LawNewz.com about what could happen if the GOP decided to go with another Presidential candidate (for example, Mike Pence):

If Trump publicly withdraws, it makes it easier for GOP leadership to orchestrate a public plan in which to explain to the electorate that by voting for “Trump/Pence” on the ballot they are actually voting for Pence/Kasich (or Pence/_______, whoever they pick for the new V-P slot). It would be legally equivalent to the circumstance in which Trump had died, and the GOP needed to announce a replacement even though it was too late to reprint the ballots.

But Trump doesn’t need to withdraw for the GOP leadership to pursue a comparable public plan whereby they repudiate him. The RNC could attempt to invoke its own rules to declare that, over Trump’s objections, he’s no longer the party’s nominee. If the RNC were to take that route, it might put the GOP on stronger legal footing under various state laws concerning the party’s slate of presidential electors.

But from the perspective of the U.S. Constitution, and the Electoral Count Act of 1877, which are the two key pieces of federal law, it is not essential that the RNC take that kind of formal step under its own party rules. If there is a well-publicized plan in which McConnell, Ryan, and other party leaders all announce that they want the GOP presidential electors to vote for Pence for president, not Trump, and that’s what the GOP presidential electors do on December 19—in those states in which the GOP presidential electors received more popular votes that Clinton electors—then Pence (or whoever the GOP picks) is the choice that gets sent by those electors from those states to Congress for opening and counting on January 6.

It obviously matters whether or not the GOP can reach 270 Electoral College votes for Pence (or whomever they pick) under this strategy. If not—in other words, if Clinton wins enough states so that her electors have 270 or more—what the GOP electors do is irrelevant. Clinton is declared presidential-elect, assuming Congress confirms so on January 6.

An update of the famous 1976 Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover.

Hat tip to Vanderleun.

Ann Althouse & her commenters contemplate the key issues of our unappealing electoral choices.

I sort of like Trump’s lack of polish (though not really his nastiness — there’s a cruelty there that’s troubling) and if I thought he was trustworthy and demonstrated some capability in governing I’d be all for him. Though of course in a president, you do have to be careful with your words — not just in avoiding setting off financial panics (look at how closely investors consider Janet Yellen’s statements) but in diplomatic affairs as well (see Dean Acheson’s statements about our zone of interest that made Stalin and Kim think invading South Korea wouldn’t provoke major U.S. involvement). A more ‘earthy’ speaking style, with consideration of the phrasing used, is my ideal.”

Said Brando, in the comments to yesterday’s post about the preference many people seem to have for Pence’s style, the style of a career politician. I’d said: “A man with a style honed outside of politics will seem too rough, too unfinished, too strange.” I didn’t come right out and say it, but, like Brando, I sort of like Trump’s style — with the same reservations.

Here’s another helpful perspective from the comments, from Clyde:

I want someone who:

1. Is honest

2. Is savvy enough to deal with our adversaries in the world without beclowning him/herself (Clinton’s political experience did not give her such help in dealing with the Russian Reset, Benghazi, etc.)

3. Will pursue policies that will benefit the people of our country, rather than enriching him/herself, and will give the American people more freedom rather than less.

Hillary Clinton is 0-for-3. This election is a binary choice. Donald Trump might not be good, but Hillary would certainly be very, very bad, probably even worse than Obama. It doesn’t come down to whether someone is a polished politician or not. Clinton is more polished, but our adversaries would eat her lunch, just as they have with Obama. Trump? He’s used to negotiating and wheeling and dealing.

But he’s used to negotiating and wheeling and dealing where he can walk away from what he doesn’t like without worrying about the fate the other parties and where he can fold up the parts of his operations that are not profitable.

What happens when you transfer that skill to government — suddenly and at the presidential level — and when you are bursting with exuberant confidence? It seems like an insane risk.

Jonah Goldberg explains his perspective, which is pretty much exactly what all the rest of us Movement Conservative NeverTrumpers think.

In my most selfish moments, I want Donald Trump to win the election. …

Trump got to where he is for a lot of reasons, starting with a 17-candidate collective-action problem, myriad failures of both the GOP’s establishment and anti-establishment wings, and, of course, the cold, indifferent cruelty of this meaningless, empty universe where nothing matters and the living envy the dead. But giving Trump his due, he also got to where he is because he was great at punching-up. When he took on Jeb Bush, Reince Priebus, the media, Washington, etc., he was punching up. He wasn’t just the outsider coming into town to blow things up, he was Godzilla smashing all before him. In the standard Godzilla movie there’s always that scene where the hapless Japanese army tries to lure the beast toward some electric power lines. Godzilla takes the bait and bites the power lines. But the shock doesn’t kill him, it makes him stronger! That was Trump in the primaries. Mangling metaphors somewhat, people told him “You can’t chomp those power lines! Those are the third rails of American politics!” Trumpzilla cared not, bit them, and got stronger.

But here’s the problem: Everyone thinks Godzilla is cool when he’s fighting Monster Zero or swatting away fighter jets. But when they have that close up shot of Godzilla’s clawed foot coming down on a child or a screaming woman, all of a sudden, you can’t cheer the King of Monsters. So it is with Trump: He wins when he punches up. He loses when he punches down.

And that’s Trump’s Achilles’ heel: He can’t resist punching down. He can no more stop himself from “counter-punching” the little guy than my dog can agree not to chase rabbits. (“It’s just so hoppy! I must kill it!”) …

If Trump could stay on message, if he could be a disciplined candidate, I think he’d be ten points ahead by now. But realistically, this is no different from saying if he could control anything metal with his mind, he would be Magneto. …

Okay, so why in my selfish heart of hearts do I want Trump to win? Because that’s the only surefire way my opposition to Trump can be vindicated. If he loses, every time Hillary Clinton does something awful — which will be a lot — people will say, “If Trump were president this wouldn’t be happening,” or, “This is all the fault of the ‘Jonah Goldberg class,’” or, “If we had Mr. Trump’s broad-shouldered leadership, the grain harvests would be historic.” …

And that’s why I say that in my selfish moments, I want him to win. Contrary to all of this incessant blather that I want Hillary Clinton to win because it will be good for my bottom line, the truth is the best thing that could happen for me personally is for Trump to win and then prove to be the spectacularly awful president I am quite confident he would be. The I-told-you-sos would be delightful, the tears of some of his supporters, delicious. …

Candidate Trump can’t be managed. Everyone with any contacts in or around Trump world has heard the stories about how his staff tries to impose discipline on him. The jokes about Kellyanne Conway desperately trying to hide his phone from him to keep him off Twitter are funny because they’re true.

And yet, you’re telling me that when Trump wins despite rejecting all of this advice and actually takes possession of Air Force One, and when the Marine guards start saluting him as the band plays “Hail to the Chief,” I’m supposed to believe this staggering narcissist will suddenly become manageable? Seriously?

Moreover, throughout his entire career in business, he’s made a name for himself as a promise-breaker, welcher, and snake-oil salesman, willing to say whatever he needs to in order to close the deal. “Sure this car gets 200 miles to the gallon. Sign the check and you’ll see.” That is what the art of the deal really means for him. He’ll get the White House and he’ll say to the rest of us looking to cash in his political promises, “Try and collect.”

Trump is not a conservative. He has some instincts that overlap with conservatism — the importance of law and order, the value of military strength etc. — but these instincts are not derived from any serious attachment to ideas or arguments. They stem from his lizard-brain machismo and his authoritarian streak. He never talks about liberty or limited government unless someone shoves it into his teleprompter. His ideas about economics and public policy are shot-through with dirigisme. He’s learned to talk the talk about free-market solutions, but in his heart he’s still the guy who believes single-payer health care works “incredibly well.” The one adviser we know he listens to is his daughter, and she is certainly no conservative. Does anyone believe he will side with Mike Pence and against her in a fight over, say, Planned Parenthood?

Read the whole thing.