BloggeRhythms

Now that the remarkable job performed by coordinated police efforts have resulted in the capture of the bombing suspect, most of the media has returned to speculation about the upcoming presidential election. 

In that regard, while his opponent struggles to attain interest beyond her traditional core supporters, a major trend toward Trump continues to grow nationwide. Several news items confirm that development. 

Frank Newport, Lisa Singh, Stuart Soroka, Michael Traugott and Andrew Dugan @gallup.com, headed their story: “Email" Dominates What Americans Have Heard About Clinton”

“Americans' reports of what they have read, seen or heard about Hillary Clinton over the past two months are dominated by references to her handling of emails while she was secretary of state.

“By contrast, Americans' reports of what they have read, seen or heard about Donald Trump over this same period have been more varied and related to his campaign activities and statements.”

The conclusions came from an ongoing research project conducted by Gallup together with the University of Michigan and Georgetown University. “Gallup conducted more than 30,000 interviews with U.S. adults from July 11-Sept. 18 to measure Americans' daily recall of what they read, saw or heard about the two major party candidates.”

As far as the candidates images are concerned: ’'Americans' frequent mention of "email" in response to the question about Hillary Clinton are followed by "lie," "health," "speech," "scandal" and "foundation," the latter referencing recent concerns about conflicts of interest with the Clinton Foundation. 

In contrast: “The top substantive words Americans use when reporting on Trump include "speech," "president," "immigration," "Mexico," "convention," "campaign" and "Obama." Though Clinton has attacked Trump on several issues related to his character, no specific words representing negative traits have "stuck" to Trump the way the word "email" has to Clinton. Instead, Americans' recollection of information about Trump shifts in response to his campaign schedule, speeches, comments and the resulting controversies that sometimes arise from those comments. 

Most important is the shift in the public’s preferences regarding how, when and where they obtain information, which has become quite helpful to Trump whereas: “With the enormous expansion of news sources and information available in today's environment, it is no longer possible to assume that what traditional news outlets cover is what is getting through to the public. Many Americans now get information about the candidates from social media, bloggers, partisan news sources, television, radio, the internet and social networks. The "read, seen or heard" data reported here encompass all of this election-related information. 

“On most days over the past 10 weeks, at least 60% and often 70% or 80% or more of Americans said they were aware of having read, seen or heard information about the candidates in the past few days. Over this period, an average of 76% recalled information about Trump, compared with an average 73% for Clinton. 

“Clinton gained more attention than Trump again during the Democratic convention, peaking at 82% recall. Soon after the conventions, however, Trump regained the lead on this recall measure and remained on top throughout the entire month of August and early September.” 

Boding far worse for Trump's competitor is that: “Clinton's 84% recall average for Sept. 12-18 -- reflecting the intense focus on her health and brief withdrawal from the campaign trail -- is the highest so far, slightly besting the percentages recorded for her and Trump during their conventions.” 

Which means that although interest reached its highest peak for her last week, the information gathered by the public was highly negative toward her.  

In another indication of how things may trend in November, events in Germany illustrate a growing worldwide dislike for one of the top issues on the Democrat agenda: immigration   

According to Justin Huggle @telegraph.co.uk: “Angela Merkel on Monday signalled for the first time that she was prepared to change her controversial refugee policy in the wake of heavy losses to the resurgent far-Right in regional elections.” 

Mrs Merkel said.“If I knew what change in refugee policy the people in Germany want, I would be prepared to consider it. If I could, I would go back in time to be better prepared for the refugee crisis in 2015, for which we were rather unprepared.” 

“Mrs Merkel was speaking at a specially arranged press conference to address her Christian Democrat (CDU) party’s disastrous performance in Berlin state elections at the weekend. 

The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won the highest share of the vote for the far-Right since the Second World War, with 14.5 per cent. 

"It was the first time [Mrs Merkel] has indicated she is prepared to back down from her “open-door” refugee policy, which has seen the CDU fall to its lowest level in the national polls for four years, and her personal approval ratings plummet."

And then, on another issue, there’s more bad news today for the Democrat campaign as reported by Bill McMorris @foxnews.com/politics.

 

“The AFL-CIO’s endorsement of a pipeline project expected to create thousands of infrastructure jobs has rankled liberals activists, including a member of AFL-CIO’s coalition. 

“AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced his support for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a proposed 1,200-mile project capable of transporting nearly 500,000 barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota to Illinois. Trumka said that union workers and the region will benefit from the 4,500 jobs the project is expected to create and touted the safety and efficiency of pipeline transportation of crude oil. 

“The AFL-CIO supports pipeline construction as part of a comprehensive energy policy that creates jobs, makes the United States more competitive and addresses the threat of climate change,” he said in a Friday release. “Pipelines are less costly, more reliable and less energy intensive than other forms of transporting fuels, and pipeline construction and maintenance provides quality jobs to tens of thousands of skilled workers.” 

In this case, the situation highlights one of liberal ideologies most significant faults, whereas leftist idealists leave no room for middle ground at all. For them it’s a take no prisoners approach to total destruction of their adversaries positions completely. And, most often, that leads to eventual self-destruction helped along by refusal to help one of their strongest supporting constituents.

An indication of a move toward that eventuality can be seen in an article titled: “Larry Sabato's Electoral Map Prediction Shifts In Donald Trump's Favor”

The following took place on Fox News Channel, as follows:

STEVE DOOCY: “Here now with his brand-new and improved electoral map, Larry Sabato, director of the UVA Center for Politics, joins us. Something curious has happened. While it looked a few weeks ago like Hillary Clinton was marching toward the White House, suddenly Donald Ttrump is getting much more popular in some states that were kind of going her way. 

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: “Yes. That's especially true in Ohio and Iowa which we've now leaned to Trump. Iowa, it seems pretty certain. Ohio is close, but clearly Trump has gone up and Clinton has declined. And then there's some others that are now so close they have to be called toss-ups, that would include Florida as well as North Carolina and Nevada. 

“So the new and improved map is more competitive....”

Which brings us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife and some very damaging news that’s surfaced. Especially important because of the medium for its delivery. 

In keeping with Gallup’s research indicating that the public’s newsgathering methods are increasingly moving to alternative sources, particularly the web, a story appeared on thepoliticalinsider.com, this morning. 

A reader, Rusty, submitted the following: “Paul Combetta, an IT specialist who helped Hillary Clinton wipe her server clean of evidence requested from federal authorities, took to online forums to find advice on how to commit the crime. 

“Combetta cited his Fifth Amendment rights in refusing to answer questions before a congressional committee last week, but was pretty talkative when trying to find out information from fellow IT experts on how to forge Clinton’s e-mails. 

“Under a posting on 8chan titled “Here is clear proof that Hillary sought to destroy evidence,” Combetta can be seen posting under a username he uses multiple times across multiple platforms, ‘stonetear.’ 

“In a screenshot of the discussion, Combetta (or stonetear) can be seen telling others “I need to strip out a VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived emails.” 

“Presumably, that VIP would be Secretary of State Clinton.” 

While the article might face blowback from Bill’s wife’s supporters as being suspect due to it’s source, the story was confirmed by usnews.com, where Staff Writer, Steven Nelson, wrote: “An army of reddit users believes it has found evidence that former Hillary Clinton computer specialist Paul Combetta solicited free advice regarding Clinton's private email server from users of the popular web forum. 

“A collaborative investigation showed a reddit user with the username stonetear requested help in relation to retaining and purging email messages after 60 days, and requested advice on how to remove a "VERY VIP" individual's email address from archived content. 

“The requests match neatly with publicly known dates related to Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state.” 

All of which means that campaigning has changed dramatically, particularly in the aspect of the MSM losing both audience and credibility at an alarming rate. And since it’s the Trump operation that’s adapting to new techniques consistently while his competitor has not, the ongoing question needs asking again: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Jerry Brown, and Starbucks chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz; are you guys reading this?      

That's it for today folks. 

Adios