Donald Trump Goes All-In on Bill Clinton’s Past

Hillary Clinton was in Florida ahead of two separate rallies there Friday, and it’s likely part of her agenda will include ramping up her rhetoric to appeal to black voters in the key swing state.

She linked this behaviour to a 1973 lawsuit brought by the federal Justice department that accused Trump of discriminating against non-white tenants in his real estate properties – a skeleton most presidential candidates wouldn’t want in their closets. September is now almost over, so it’s worth revisiting that data to assess how plausible a Trump comeback is given the current polling.

Clinton 50, Trump 27, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson 15 percent, Green Party candidate Jill Stein 2 percent. She has said she and Clinton had an affair and he has admitted to one sexual encounter.

“The whole notion of trying to get Hillary Clinton to pay for Bill Clinton’s infidelities is just strategically a bad choice”, said Katie Packer, a longtime Republican strategist opposed to Trump’s candidacy.

But post-debate polling suggests the Democratic nominee may have improved her standing.

It remains to be seen whether Trump, under pressure because it is widely considered – and recent voter surveys show – that he lost the first debate and Clinton has gained several points, resorts to using the former president’s romantic escapades to attack his rival.

Younger voters overwhelmingly supported Clinton’s primary challenger Sen. PPP’s last survey showed her ahead by five, but it was conducted in late August.

The possibility that Donald Trump’s presidential bid may have suffered a serious setback is, of course, heartening.

The Fox News poll found that 53 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, while 55 percent view Trump in a negative light. The problem is that Trump can’t ever seem to resist taking the bait and is compelled to defend himself against personal criticism, to the point of distraction on the substantive issues and to his overall detriment. The WBUR poll finds Trump still struggling to win over women in New Hampshire – but he’s won over the Harringtons. He would then just barely hit his late September/early October benchmark. There is no more flawless representative of this pattern of behavior than Hillary Clinton. If that ends up being the case, she will likely hold a small lead but that lead will not be safe.

She also didn’t let him slither away from his role in fanning the flames of “birtherism”, noting that he’d built his political career by pandering to racists wanting to cast doubt on Barack Obama’s United States citizenship. The Republican presidential nominee’s decades in the spotlight, including as a reality television show host, have given the Democratic contender an unusual bounty of ad material.

David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former chief campaign strategist and data guru, is feeling confident about Clinton’s chances in this must-win state and others.

Not one major broadcast network found time for the story in the aftermath, according to Mike Ciandella, an analyst for the Media Research Center, a conservative press watchdog. Trump has also assailed a 1996 Miss Universe pageant victor for her weight gain – an incident Clinton used in this week’s debate to portray Trump as sexist. Remarkably, Clinton hasn’t been able to do that.

Presumably he would not be quite as disingenuous as one supporter, former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has suggested Clinton is “too stupid” to be President because she appeared not to know her husband was unfaithful to her.