The 2016 Daisy moment has arrived (updated)

— 08.03.2016 07:50 AM

From MSNBC this morning:

 Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.

If this is accurate – and given Trump’s past policy pronouncements, it almost certainly is – a critical point has been reached, 52 years later (almost to the day). I wrote about it in my book The War Room.

The background to “Daisy,” Tony Schwartz explained to me many years later, was simple: conservatives of Goldwater’s ilk scared people. Even before he won the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in a nasty fight at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in July 1964, the hard-line conservative had alienated many Americans with words and deeds that were inarguably extreme. 

In fact, near the end of his acceptance speech, Goldwater resolved any doubt about that, when he hollered: “I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

Goldwater wanted to use the bomb, too, just as Trump now apparently seeks to do. So Schwartz and the Democrats came up with the ad that changed everything – an ad so powerful I later named my company after it. 

Here it is. Time for a rerun, wouldn’t you agree?




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Poking through the entrails with less than 100 days to go

— 08.02.2016 06:42 AM

Real Clear Politics:


What’s it mean?

  • It means Hillary got a much bigger convention bounce than the short-fingered vulgarian did. 
  • It means the DNC convention – with better visuals, more flags, more patriotism – is the way to go for the next three months. Keep doing what works, folks. 
  • It means that the media, who cannot resist chasing every shiny ball Trump rolls past them, are not helping the bilious “billionaire” as much as they once did. 
  • It means that being organized and disciplined (as the Dems are, as the GOP isn’t) still works. 
  • It means that terrorist attacks – eg., Nice, Munich, etc., that I have always feared as an October Surprise – don’t appear to impact public opinion for long periods of time. These attacks have (sadly) become frequent enough to command less of a hold on passions in a way that benefits Trump (happily). 
  • It means – as I’ve always said – the American people are like people everywhere: they will always gravitate towards the candidate who isn’t a prick. 

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