While reporters climbed over each other to bring you the latest Trumpadillo, Democratic presidential candidates are crashing and burning under the radar.
This time, it was “The Donald’s” lawyer, Michael Cohen, who made national news by claiming “you cannot rape your spouse.” He then threatened the left-wing reporter at “The Daily Beast, saying, “I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know.”
That made it a national story, even though Ivana Trump said Donald never forced himself on her, that it was her lawyer who believed the false accusation would compel Donald to give her more money in the divorce.
Oh, and there’s the ever-so-compelling “Donald Trump Breast Pump Bump and Dump” in which he freaked out at a lawyer allegedly wanting to pump baby milk during a deposition. She denies desiring public pumping. He denies freaking out.
Meanwhile, real political stupidity was being committed by real candidates.
Democrats Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley thought it would be a peachy idea to visit the liberal Netroots Nation gathering in Phoenix and ask for votes. When the #BlackLivesMatter protestors started chanting, O’Malley foolishly said, “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter.” The crowd didn’t even hear his last three words over their booing and jeers.
This was not a time for rational discussion. They only want to hear that he would serve their interests their way before any others. He blew it, slinking off stage.
When Bernie Sanders followed, he said, “Of course black lives matter” and tried to move on to another topic. Again, #epicfail.
O’Malley has actually apologized for saying, “All lives matter.”
Hillary’s team watched this and crafted the message, “Yes, black lives matter. We all have a responsibility to face these hard truths about race and justice honestly and directly.”
It almost seems sincere, especially if you willfully forget that Hillary, too, has made the apparently unforgivable claim that “all lives matter.”
Good thing they didn’t talk about the ten year study by the Centers for Disease Control that found police kill nearly twice as many white people than black people. They wouldn’t be able to get to the follow-up that more blacks are killed as a percentage of population than whites without being shouted into the freshly baked parking lot of the Phoenix Convention Center.
They really don’t know their audience, and if Trump weren’t such a shiny distraction, maybe there would have been significant mainstream coverage of their inability to relate to this influential constituency.
Hillary’s next failure demonstrates her belief that the government can and should solve everyone’s problems.
Inspired by a worker protest at what is described by the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto as “a dysfunctional company ... owned by a dysfunctional family,” Hillary claims the government should fund profit-sharing at all businesses, declaring her admiration for “a generous profit-sharing program that gives all employees a stake in the company’s success and puts much-needed extra money in their pockets as well.”
The problem is, the employees were protesting over a long dispute within the family ownership; different factions wanted ownership and control. The protestors liked one family member because he paid for their loyalty.
As Taranto reports, the family member they supported “used company money ‘to make up $46 million in losses in the employee profit-sharing plan from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock.’ You can see why the employees would be loyal to him.”
From this, Hillary determines everyone needs a profit-sharing plan.
Hillary’s bold economic plan is to give tax breaks to companies that provide profit-sharing plans. She wants to give businesses taxpayer money to give to their employees as “profit-sharing”.
It Trump said that, it would have been on all the networks.
Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL