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From The Reporter’s Notebook
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won’t attend the GOP convention with Donald Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee, as TPM’s Sara Jerde noted. It’s a world apart from the relationship the two had when Romney was running for the White House and Trump endorsed him in New York.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall: “We know who Donald Trump is. You support him or you oppose him. But he’s not going to become a different person over the next few months. Even Marco Rubio could only keep up his “personality transplant” for a week. He might talk differently. He might become less damaging to Republicans or he might improve his chances to win. But he’s not going to change.”
Say What?!
“I’m not interested in doing that for a number of reasons. I don’t want to be a distraction. I’m sure you remember how crazy the media was about me, I don’t want to be a distraction, it’s too important a time in our life.”
– Ben Carson said he had no interest in being Trump’s VP, and that Democrats could be considered for the role.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: “It is true, as Sanders pointed out, that polls show him doing better than Clinton against Republicans in November. But it is also true that Clinton has not hit Sanders with a single negative ad. Not one. Initially, her campaign didn’t take him seriously. Later, it couldn’t figure out a way to go after him where he’s weakest—on the flakier parts of his far-left past—without alienating his supporters. A source close to the Clinton campaign tells me that because Sanders has high favorability numbers with Democrats, Clinton would have damaged herself by attacking him, especially since she didn’t have to in order to win. The source points to the New York primary as confirmation of this view, arguing that Sanders hurt himself by going negative on his opponent. The right, meanwhile, had no incentive to rough up Sanders, a candidate who, by all accounts, Republicans would love to run against in the fall. And the mainstream media often failed to treat Sanders as a plausible contender, which would have entailed a much greater degree of scrutiny than he received. As a result, issues that, fairly or not, would be obsessively scrutinized in a general election have gone almost entirely unexamined.”
Related: Sen. Claire McCaskill warned that Sanders is a liability for Democrats this election.
Have something to add? Become a Prime member and join the discussion here.
What We’re Reading
“I was on the college debate circuit with Ted Cruz.” (Slate)
A Seattle councilwoman’s vote against a plan to bring a new sports arena to the city sparked sexist rage. (The Los Angeles Times)
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