At first blush, this ad strikes me as effective and cutting. It intersperses clips of Donald Trump insulting women with shots of tween and teenaged girls looking at themselves in the mirror. The target audience, aside from voters who value personal decency, are married women with kids -- who typically vote Republican. If Hillary can tamp down Trump's margin, or beat him outright, among married women and white college-educated voters, she wins. Hence commercials like this, in which the only voice in the entire spot is Trump's:
The counter-argument to whether this an ad that will have an impact is that it's the third of this genre that Clinton's campaign has produced. They've aired one commercial depicting young children watching Trump's insults and excesses on television, and another one with veterans and military families doing the same. Those were centerpieces of Hillary's August huge advertising blitz, which did nothing to prevent her collapse in the polls over the same period of time. Third time's a charm? Meanwhile, since polling guru Nate Silver threw cold water on the Democratic storyline that Hillary is storming back in the polls after a very rocky stretch. The evidence, he correctly noted, has been mixed. But over the last 24 hours, three separate national polls give Clinton a six-point lead in four-way polling. We mentioned the NBC/WSJ poll yesterday, but now add surveys from the Associated Press and McClatchy/Marist into the mix. In five of the last six nationwide polls, Trump's support hasn't reached 40 percent. Top lines aside, this data set demonstrates Trump's problem:
AP poll (Trump characteristics):
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 23, 2016
Honest: 30%
Civil: 23%
Compassionate: 24%
Racist: 51%
Qualified: 28%https://t.co/LcAv3gpdsF
This is why Monday's debate is so important, especially vis-a-vis that last number. He has three more big opportunities to mitigate these negative perceptions, with the biggest one coming first. Again, he doesn't need a dramatic turnaround; he just needs eat away at the 'unacceptability' margin. Because even with Hillary's apparent polling bump and his fundamental flaws, this race is still within the margin of error nationally. Given the high stakes, this behind-the-scenes report from Politico should be reassuring to Republicans concerned that Trump has done nothing to match Hillary's assiduous preparation for Monday's forum:
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Donald Trump’s team has created a detailed analysis of Hillary Clinton’s debate style — including her body language and verbal tics — with the goal of helping the GOP nominee exploit weaknesses during Monday’s debate, according to three sources familiar with Trump’s preparations. The “psychological profile,” as the analysis is being called, is based on a statistical analysis of videos from 16 years’ worth of Clinton’s debates, dating back to her 2000 campaign for Senate in New York, according to the operatives...The advisers believe that the profile proves that Clinton has significant weaknesses and that they have identified her ‘tells’ — words, phrases or gestures she uses when she’s unsure of an answer, or is trying to deflect her way out of an uncomfortable question, according to the operatives familiar with the preparations...The goal, said the operative, is to get Trump to recognize the tendencies, “so when he hears her say ‘X’ he knows what is going on, and can respond accordingly.”
If course, if this Hillary shows up next week, Trump might win the election right on the spot. I'll leave you with just the latest reminders of Hillary's well-deserved, perennial vulnerability:
Hillary honesty rating: (28/69)https://t.co/LcAv3gpdsF
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 23, 2016
McClatchy/Marist poll has Hillary up six points nationally (four-way), despite:
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 23, 2016
Favorable: 40%
Trustworthy: 36%https://t.co/IF3jtVBAYc
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