Donald Trump, sinking lately in the polls, is to "reboot" his campaign, writes the Wall Street Journal.
Part of the issue for the New York businessman is that he has run his campaign much like his family business, with his grown children as his top counselors and surrogates. That has meant he hasn't developed a strong connective tissue to party stalwarts and activists that can sustain a candidate through difficult times. Reports of Republicans leaving the party, lining up behind Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or even backing Mrs. Clinton gained momentum last week, after the nominee criticized the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.
This means he's going to be more of a good ol' Republican: less talk of China and returning jobs to the heartland, more talk of freeing banks from regulation and "strengthening intellectual property protections" and other exciting policies sure to delight the Trumpkin base.
Trump will take direct aim at the Clintons and Obama, pointing to Detroit as an example of their failed economic policies. He will argue that their "record-breaking pace of new regulations, tax increases, restrictions on private-energy production and one-sided trade deals" have hurt Detroit and other cities, according to excerpts of his remarks shared with Bloomberg Politics. He will call Obama's Clinton-backed regulations a "lead-weight on the economy, an anchor dragging us down." And he will say that Americans "need to hit the pause buttons on these regulations so our businesses can reinvest in the economy."
After all, the GOP is still his to lead, whatever their paper scruples used to be. The coveted John Kasich nomination is still on the table!
"We still have time. That's something I think about a little bit but not a lot," he said. Kasich also attempted to explain his decision not to attend the convention, saying, "If I weren't prepared to get up there and endorse the nominee, I thought it was inappropriate to go."
As for Mrs. Clinton, his latest rants suggest that she is the crazy, unhinged one.
But before taking the stage in New Hampshire, Trump previewed the "short-circuit" line of attack online, tweeting earlier Saturday that "anybody whose mind 'SHORT CIRCUITS' is not fit to be our president! Look up the word 'BRAINWASHED.'"
And in a video posted on his Facebook page earlier Saturday, Trump's campaign suggested Clinton was "melting down," calling her "robot Hillary."
Clinton is often regarded, even in damnation, as a cool and calculating political animal, so even Trumpkins are a little baffled by it. One headline sums it up best: "Trump accuses Clinton of being angry orange-skinned man with bad combover"
