Today's news brought the following items I found interesting:
Political commentator Chris Cillizza rehashes electoral college math: 18 states plus DC (242 electoral votes) have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1992; only 13 states (102 electoral votes) have done the same for the Republican candidate in the same period. He concludes it is increasingly difficult for a Republican (Trump or another) to win the White House. Cillizza admits that the electoral math shoe was totally on the other foot as recently as the 80s - but ignores the idea that it might change again.
One poll indicates that Trump is strongly disliked by 65% of voters, while Clinton is disliked by 55%.
Trump has begun to waffle on some of his more outrageous positions, saying now that he is for a federal minimum wage, suggesting that women aren't so bad after all and may even "get it" better than men; and even suggesting, on Cinco de Mayo, that he loves Mexican food. (Wait! Or was that last one actually a parody sketch from some late night comedy show? Well, with Trump, it's hard to tell what is real and what is "reality.") But five months from now, many voters won't recall what Trump was saying in April.
Clinton, meanwhile, is building a campaign platform with ideas that would appear to entail a greater role for....government! She will represent the same old solutions, in the minds of those who want to see change.
All these data points and opinions only reinforce the view I expressed a couple of days ago, that Democrats cannot afford at this point (or any time until after the election) about the Trump threat. One writer - Fred Hiatt - clearly and succinctly flags this concern today, in "Democrats Should Fear Trump ." He doesn't say Clinton can't win, and neither do I. Just that "when two thirds of the country is unhappy, a rational outcome can't be taken for granted." Let us not count chickens before they are hatched.