So how is Hillary Clinton's "run-out-the-clock" strategy looking now? With the presidential race essentially tied, that is. I don't know any game in which you run out the clock when you don't have the lead.
In reality, despite all the media hype about insurmountable Hillary, it took only a relative handful of moves for Donald Trump and his new team to catch up to Clinton. That and a few not at all atypical Clinton missteps.
But taking things the rest of the way for Trump will require more. Among other things, some potential Clinton voters need to be dissuaded by becoming disheartened about the candidate. By, say, someone who knows her well and would reasonably be expected to support her expressing his general dismay about the former secretary of state.
Cue Russian intelligence to shape the coming the battlefield with another information war/psyops move. (Note: It's a near consensus view among US cybersecurity experts that the rash of high-profile political hackings are being carried out by Russian intelligence. I have no direct knowledge of that, but this is view is certainly in accord with my understanding of why the Russian government dislikes the Clintons. This is something, as I knew from my own efforts to help Russian liberal reformers in the 1990s, which goes back to the Clintons' promotion of the post-Soviet expansion of NATO to Russian borders and their perceived lack of major help to Russia when it was in deep trouble. I laid all that out here at the end of July.)
In trumpeting a supposed widespread anti-Trump rejectionist movement in Republican ranks, the Clintons always hoped to get the living Republican secretaries of state to come out for their Democratic colleague over the neo-fascist know-nothing with a seemingly itchy trigger finger who has taken over their party. For a variety of reasons, as discussed at the beginning of September, it was not to be.
One would think that Colin Powell would be most likely to back Hillary. After all, he crossed party lines (and won much notice with the famed Obama coalition in the process) in 2008 and 2012 to champion Barack Obama's candidacy. No one would expect him to admire the unschooled bully boy Trump.
And of course the hack of the former US secretary of state/national security advisor/Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman's e-mail amply demonstrates his disdain for Trump.
But, far more importantly, it showcases even more his corrosive view of his fellow former secretary of state, about whom he writes knowingly and negatively.
Powell evidently considers the Clintons to be sleazy, grasping, greedy, dishonest, and not all that capable hacks.
"I would rather not have to vote for her," he says, a "70-year old (sic) person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos."
Yikes.
Powell is furious that Clinton kept trying to cite his purported advice as the reason she set up her disastrous private e-mail system.
"Dumb. She should have done a "Full Monty" at the beginning. She was using email when she took over. They put the personal system in the basement a few months later. The dinner was June 16th. She didn't need any advice or ok from me; she was already doing it. I gave her written guidance on why and how I had been doing it. I warned her staff three times over the past two years not to try to connect it to me. I am not sure HRC even knew or understood what was going on in the basement.
"Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris. I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn't (pay) any (speaking) fees for awhile. I should send her a bill."
The Persian Gulf War hero who was wounded in Vietnam and earned six Distinguished Service Medals reports that most in his circle who know both Trump and Clinton detest Trump but also "intensely dislike" Hillary.
What is the effect of these revelations?
They make elite US political culture look decidedly two-faced, venal and corrupt, something very much in line with the Russian agenda to degrade whatever moral authority the US has in the wake of Iraq and other misadventures.
And with specific respect to Hillary, they seriously undermine any potential enthusiasm for her among constituencies which already have major doubts about her.
The notion of a supposed Democratic lock on the White House depends on activating the famed Obama coalition, which is heavily reliant on overwhelming strength among young voters and people of color.
Since the reality is that Democratic electoral strength has actually dropped to pre-FDR levels during the Obama presidency, we already know that Hillary had a very big challenge in that department. Since she is clearly not Obama.
Throughout the primaries we saw an especially dramatic weakness for Hillary among millennials and other young voters, who flocked in massive numbers to Bernie Sanders.
Even in California, where Hillary is approaching a 2 to 1 lead over Trump, over a third of 18-29 voters are picking minor party candidates.
In a close election, and, barring some big mistakes by Trump, this is a close election, any significant drop-off could be fatal to Clinton chances. Just trying to stir up still more doubt about Trump is not good enough; there has to be some positive reason to turn out and vote for Hillary.
You can be sure that Russian intelligence understands this very well. Back in the day, the KGB, in which Vladimir Putin was a career intelligence officer, had a much more sophisticated view of the US than our services had of the Soviet Union.
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