Did Hillary Sucker The Republicans Into Nominating Trump?

Quote Elliot Weinberger via Drew Dad:

Who the heck marked you down? That was a great line, and also right.

No, I from where I sit that sounds very outlandish.

Why outlandish? There was a dump Trump movement underway before the Republican convention, as the Republican convention neared Hillary's lead went down to only 3 points or so, and so the momentum to get rid of Trump dwindled at the convention.

Today the Monmouth poll showed Hillary with a 13 point lead over Trump. If the polls were showing 13 and 15 points leads for Hillary before the Republican convention, don't you think the Republicans were far more likely to find a way to get rid of Trump? 3 weeks after their convention, they are already lining up to publicly state they are voting against him. Senator Susan Collins, (R-Maine), just did tonight.

It's a convoluted conspiracy theory that requires that a lot of things that are hard to predict go right and that it doesn't leak. The much simpler and much more likely explanation is that both Trump and Hillary are interested in being president for their own reasons and that this is just playing out in many ways outside of their control. If Hillary could manipulate polling as easily as it would need to for this theory she could just win easily and wouldn't need the convoluted, outlandish conspiracy theory.

It is indeed difficult to manipulate the polls so that your numbers go UP. It is rather easy to manipulate the polling so that your numbers go DOWN. Just don't give it your best effort for a couple of weeks. She was coming off an FBI report that said no criminal charges would be filed, but that she was quite careless with Emails, and all she had to do to let Trump get back up near her in the polls was not to put find more things with Trump to make an issue of. That's what she did-she went through the motions, made her speeches, but didn't raise anymore issues about Trump. Then after the Republican convention, she turned on the gas and found quite a few more things about Trump, and her numbers are going up.

In my opinion, Hillary just plodded through the pre GOP convention weeks in pedestrian manner, so as to lure the Republicans into foolishly thinking they had a chance nominating Trump. Once they fell for that, it was easy pickings by Hillary about which weak point of Trump's to attack. And Trump goes down in the polls.

Trump is falling due to unforced errors, it's quite a stretch to credit Clinton for his stumbling through every news cycle.

Hillary's popularity rating has gone up quite a bit since early July:

.......................Fav............Unfav..........Unsure
8/1-4/16.........48................50.................2
7/11-14/16.....42................54.................4
Source: ABC News / Wash Post Poll

She's now almost even in the favorable / unfavorable rating. Trump is nowhere near even in that. This indicates that Hillary pumped up the gas since the convention to bring people to her, people are not just being driven away by Trump, (though I am sure that is happening as well).

For a change, Blickers, I'm not agreeing with you on this. I don't think she is a Machiavellian sort. Maybe the campaign helpers are clever, who knows, but I think she would veto concocting something like your premise. It could make a good novel though.

Trump is his own worst enemy. He doesn't know when to shut up. He loves the spotlight too much.

You are free to disagree, of course, but I don't see anything Machiavellian in what she did. When you have a fight or conflict, changing your behavior so that your opponent defeats himself is completely legitimate. Look what the Republicans did to Hillary throughout the campaign-slamming her at every opportunity, setting up anti-Hillary websites, and doing nothing against Bernie at all. Heck, after he had the delegates he needed, more than once Trump publicly told Bernie that he was treated unfairly by the Democrats and advised Bernie to go third party. All of this was the GOP trying to manipulate the Democrats into not nominating Hillary.

What's so bad about Hillary just easing up on the tone and intensity of her campaign for a few weeks just enough to allow Trump's poll numbers rise a bit so that the Republicans don't stage a last minute reversal and give the nomination to someone besides Trump?

It indicates nothing of the sort. The notion that she can just "not try as hard" to influence the polls is risible. And the entire premise that she did do do that Trump would not be replaced as the nominee ignores that as much as the Republicans want to they have their hands tied. They don't want to split their base even more than they don't want to lose.

This theory is simply nonsensical on multiple fronts and lacks fundamental understanding of the political events that have taken place.

You really are the true Hillary adorant.

That you are seriously trying to make the case that she engineered the candidacy of Trump is laughable.

Quote Robert Gentel:

Why? It's a three week period prior to the conventions, which are being held a month earlier than normal. Holding up on her attacks on Trump slightly, introducing no new lines of attack, (though so many are available), and allowing Trump to creep back up in the race served her purpose. Why not do it, if it makes it less likely the GOP will dump a supremely flawed candidate?


So you are saying that there would be just as small a chance that Trump would be dumped at the convention with him down by 15 points at convention time as there would be with him down by only 3 points? That conventioneers will be no more tempted to get the rules committee to change the rules so that primary votes are suddenly cut to less than 50% of vote total and the votes of party leaders elevated to more than 50% if they knew for sure at the time that they were sending their party right into a bloodbath on Election Day? You are naive.

You must understand, there are normal electoral losses that the losing party shakes off the pain, gets rid of the leaders who led them to defeat, and rebuilds for the next election cycle. And there are losses so great that the existence of the party is threatened. If Trump were down by 15 points at convention time, the Republican Party would realize that Trump must not be allowed to get the nomination, period.

Quote Finn:

I never said that she engineered Trump's candidacy, I said that once Trump had achieved the necessary primary votes much over the protest of established party leaders, that Hillary just went easy for a few weeks and let Trump sneak up closer to her in the polls, making Republicans think that perhaps Trump might not be a total disaster in the campaign.

If Trump was down 13 points in the polls at convention time, the dump Trump movement would be much stronger at the Republican convention.

I misunderstood your premise. It's possible that she may have tried something like this but I doubt it and even if she did, it didn't have the effect you suggest. Trump is dropping in the polls since the convention because of his lack of discipline and big mouth. She certainly didn't create that.