2016 presidential race

The Trumpist catastrophe in Cleveland last week tee-ed up the perfect beginning for a united Democratic Party convention in Philly today. But the "United Together" theme some marketing consultant got paid so much to come up with, turned into "United Apart," complements of Debbie the Destroyer. And instead, the first images on national television were of Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz being boo-ed off the stage at a Florida delegates meeting. And people wondering about Clinton's leadership abilities...

The Woody Guthrie song above, "Old Man Trump" was written in the early 1950s when Woody Guthrie was renting an apartment from Trump's notoriously racist father Fred in the Beach Haven neighborhood of Brooklyn, not far from where I grew up and where my first girlfriend, Doreen, lived. It paints an accurate picture of the bigoted milieu Little Donald-- who has started unambiguously that "my legacy has its roots in my father’s legacy"-- grew up in.

The editors of the Washington Post agreed they would never endorse Trump, calling him "uniquely unqualified" to be president and a "unique threat to American democracy...

Jeb Bush didn't stand up to Trump convincingly enough but he hit the nail on the head in December when he labeled Trump the "chaos candidate." Too bad no one was paying any attention to Bush by then. Trump wants chaos. He's learned how to profit when everything seems to be falling apart; it's part of his business model-- part of whatever passes for a creed he has.

No, Bernie fans are not going to be voting for Donald Trump in any appreciable numbers-- and certainly not in numbers Trump would need to make up for the Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush fans he will be losing, making Florida even more of a stretch for him in November than it should be. Hillary outpolled him in the primary 1,097,400 to 1,077,221. She'll probably pick up Almost all of the 566,603 Bernie and 38,875 O'Malley voters. Will Trump get the 636,653 Rubio voters? The 43,452 Jeb voters? How many of the 403,640 Cruz voters or the 159,412 Kasich voters?

There were always people who made the argument that the Hillary wing wasn't stealing every single primary battle, that there were some decisions that were legitimate. I didn't discount that and there may well have been a few primaries she actually won fair and square-- like in the South. But it was the whole process that was corrupted from start to finish and that makes her-- in my mind at least-- and illegitimate nominee.

You may not have felt inspired by Trump's screaming hate speech Thursday night... but others were. Neo-Nazi/KKK leader David Duke, who was planning to primary House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was so aroused by Trump's signal to white nationalists that he's decided to run for the open Louisiana U.S. Senate seat instead.

After Trump's acceptance speech Thursday night, Meghan McCain tweeted that the GOP is dead. A few minutes later, Elizabeth Warren was Stephen Colbert's guest on The Late Show (video above) acknowledging that “People are angry, and they have good reasons to be angry.

Do you agree with Trump about anything? Even when he gets something right-- TPP for example-- his objections are not credible and invariably for all the wrong reasons. Well, he's wrong about Hillary too-- no matter what he says... and he's said everything! In terms of the election, all anyone really has to know is that however bad she is-- even after filtering out all the GOP/Hate Talk Radio slander and nonsense-- she is in all ways and on any day the far, far lesser evil than he is on his best day. There are some pros and some cons about a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Clinton and Trump, on the high wire, Once side's ice and one is fire, Putting on a show for you and me.by Gaius PubliusI'm preparing for a month-long haitus (vacation, finally), and while I'll be reading the news I won't be commenting on it. Ahead of that, I'd like to offer these thoughts.1. Our "Look Ahead" series will continue as the fall campaign kicks off. The outcome of the election, though, is very hard to predict. Each campaign seems determined to drive its own car into the ditch. Last car with wheels on the road will win this one.