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From The Reporter’s Notebook
TPM’s Tierney Sneed reported on a consent decree from the ’80s constraining the RNC’s poll-watching activities that has become the subject of scrutiny as Donald Trump has amped up his calls for vigilante election monitors. The decree has been modified multiple times, and the most recent modification, approved by an appeals court in 2012, put a December 2017 expiration on the agreement. If the RNC is found to have violated it before then, however, it will be extended for eight years.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall: “Clearly a significant part of the move from a 4 to 8 percentage point lead for Clinton is a significant number of Republican voters dropping out of the likely voter pool. They appear to be concentrated among non-Trump Republicans who came around to Trump after he won the nomination. Where this matters is not so much in the presidential race — where a Clinton victory seems increasingly likely — but down-ballot in Senate and House races. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a drop off in likelihood to vote which is so rapid and so soon before an election.”
Say What?!
“No, I wish we were in high school—I could take him behind the gym.”
– Vice President Joe Biden had some fighting words for Trump.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: “Trump’s only mildly funny line was the one about Melania — so the closest he gets to “self-deprecating” is a dig at his wife. Getting booed at a charity roast — another first for Donald Trump. I just went back to McCain’s presentation — really funny, Obama enjoying it as much as anyone. Mitt Romney’s was just hysterical. How does he prepare for the debate? ‘First, refrain from alcohol for 65 years before the debate…’ And later, talking about the campaign against Obama: ‘Fortunately, we don’t carry the burden of disliking one another. Our president has had some very fine and gracious moments. Don’t tell anyone I said so, but our 44th president has many gifts and a beautiful family that would make any man proud.’ Obama was also very funny in 2012. Trump’s performance — well, I thought, not a glimmer of light in that poor man’s soul.”
Related: As Trump’s pointed jabs at Clinton escalated, the audience reaction at Thursday’s Alfred E. Smith Catholic charity event turned from laughter to boos.
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