What If Donald Trump Really Is . . . Electable?
Do a dance, Donald Trump fans, because the "he'll lose a general election in a landslide " argument just took some damage in the CNN poll out this morning: The poll finds Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump by just 6 points, a dramatic tightening since July. Trump is the one of three Republican candidates who have been matched against Clinton multiple times in CNN/ORC polling to significantly whittle the gap between himself and the Democratic frontrunner. He trailed Clinton by 16 points in a July poll, and narrowed that gap by boosting his standing among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (from 67% support in July to 79% now), men (from 46% in July to 53% now) and white voters (from 50% to 55%). It will be fascinating to see if applying likely voter screens changes these numbers. Usually, Republican candidates do a few points better among a sample of likely voters than overall registered voters. But Donald Trump's name identification among the general population is so high, his numbers might be the same. Why Democrats Can't Confront What Hillary Has Done The Democratic party is about to have a breakdown. For at least the past four years, if not longer, the average Democrat, when asked about the nominee-in-waiting, will respond, "Hillary Clinton is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." Oh, sure, they may not be able to think of any accomplishments, and they may gripe about her ties to Wall Street. They may openly acknowledge that she lied about her e-mail server. Her team may openly gloat that no one cares whether she followed the rules or the laws about government archiving. But most of that they hand-wave away. She's just doing it because she has such ruthless enemies. Everybody does it, she's judged by an unfair, harsher standard than everyone else. The problem is that there isn't really a good reason to keep lots of classified information on a private server. We're talking about information from the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (spy satellite images), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The Director of the DIA at the time Hillary was at the State Department said there's a "very high" chance her e-mails were hacked by foreign intelligence -- Chinese, Russians, or others. "Likely. They're very good at it. You know, China, Russia, Iran, potentially the North Koreans. Other countries that are quote-unquote our allies, because they can." And here's who was running the server: The IT company Hillary Clinton chose to maintain her private email account was run from a loft apartment and its servers were housed in the bathroom closet, Daily Mail Online can reveal. Daily Mail Online tracked down ex-employees of Platte River Networks in Denver, Colorado, who revealed the outfit's strong links to the Democratic Party but expressed shock that the 2016 presidential candidate chose the small private company for such a sensitive job. One, Tera Dadiotis, called it "a mom and pop shop" which was an excellent place to work, but hardly seemed likely to be used to secure state secrets. And Tom Welch, who helped found the company, confirmed the servers were in a bathroom closet. This sort of decision is just stupid. It's dangerous for herself, for everyone she e-mails, for the Obama administration, and of course, for national security. It's an astonishingly short-sighted risk-reward calculation, to escape Freedom of Information Act requests and Congressional subpoenas by putting your communications at risk of being read by Russia's foreign-intelligence service or the Chinese Ministry of State Security or God knows who else. The problem for Democrats is that their worldview rests upon their leaders' being the smart ones. They're the ones who are wrapped up in "smart power." They're the ones sophisticated enough to "empathize with our enemies." It's those knuckle-dragging Republicans, those neocon warmongers, those paranoid xenophobes, those backwards hicks who just don't understand how the world works. All it takes to get Russia to behave better is a reset button. The fall of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya deserves a "victory lap." Syria's Bashir Assad is a "reformer" and "the road to Damascus is the road to peace." If Democrats acknowledge Hillary made a stupid and consequential decision, everything else built upon that perception of intellectual and judgmental superiority crumbles. Yes, it erodes the case for her to be commander-in-chief. But what's more, it forces Democrats to look at what their foreign-policy philosophy has really generated. Has the outstretched hand really thawed relations with hostile states? Have the concessions made to hostile states changed their behavior, rhetoric, or policies? Are international institutions really responsive to horrific mass violence? Is the world safer? Are human rights more respected? Are extremist groups waning or thriving and expanding? Coming to terms with all of that is just too hard. So many Democrats will choose to believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in a partisan witch hunt. Meanwhile, in that CNN poll: Clinton maintains this edge in the general election race despite a growing perception that by using a personal email account and server while serving as secretary of state she did something wrong. About 56% say so in the new poll, up from 51% in March. About 4-in-10 (39%) now say she did not do anything wrong by using personal email. Among Democrats, the share saying she did not do anything wrong has dipped from 71% in March to 63% now, and just 37% of independents say she did not do wrong by using the personal email system. And positive impressions of Clinton continue to fade. Among all adults, the new poll finds 44% hold a favorable view of her, 53% an unfavorable one, her most negative favorability rating since March 2001. 'Trying to Trap Candidates into 'Gotcha' Answers Does Not Serve GOP Primary Voters' In case you missed it, Hugh Hewitt gave me a sense of how he'll approach his role as a questioner in the next Republican presidential debate: Hewitt tells NR he'll be more willing to let the candidates confront each other — to a point. "Getting out of their way if they want to debate each other seems to me to be a good strategy as well, within the constraints of limited time and fairness to all on the stage," he says. "Trying to trap candidates into 'gotcha' answers does not serve GOP primary voters. Allowing the candidates to speak directly to voters on electability and their plans if they win does." ADDENDA: If you're in the Columbus, Ohio area, I hope to see you at the Defending the Dream Summit in the coming days. Friday morning I'll be talking about how to take your idea from an outline to a published book, along with Guy Benson, Kristen Soltis Anderson, and Christopher Malagisi, editor of the Conservative Book Club. Then in the afternoon I'll be signing copies of The Weed Agency. | 
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