We got a new entry into the “fuzzball” Trump endorsement category: Paul Ryan.
But wait, you say, he’s saying he can’t endorse … yet. Please. Let’s go back to the explanation of the “fuzzball” category in the TPM Trump Endorsement Scorecard.
Several times over the years I’ve told the story of the first big political prediction I got right – less than a year into my first job in journalism. It was the fall of 1998, in the build up to President Clinton’s impeachment, and I was telling my officemates that I thought Democrats would pick up seats in the November election. I tried to write about it but my editor wouldn’t let me. (He said I would embarrass the publication.) This was contrary to what virtually everyone else predicted. So what special insight did I have? Really, none. I watched the public polling and paid attention to what those polls were saying. Contrary to the widespread predictions of a GOP wave, they suggested a modest Democratic gain, which is precisely what happened. Everyone else saw the same polls. But almost everyone else had come up with explanations for why they couldn’t be right.
Big news today on the Official TPM Elected Official Trump Endorsement Scorecard. Still pretty few endorsements for Trump but “the nominee” continues to surge with numerous elected Republicans saying they’ll support him. (“the Nominee 2016” shirts are selling like crazy.) Meanwhile, Paul Ryan and other go into the Fuzzball category. (Keep your email tips coming – a huge resource for our team assembling the Scorecard.)
So many stories in presidential politics, in all politics, are more sound and fury than substance. This one isn’t. It’s hard to overstate how big a deal it is. Donald Trump caught a lot of grief during the primaries for putting several of his companies through bankruptcies during his career. He’s also made a point of arguing that he’d bring his brand of “deal-making” to the presidency. It now seems like both of those things may have been way more significant than maybe anyone realized.
Keep an eye on our Official TPM Trump Elected Official Endorsement Scoreboard next week as we continue to add new names to each of the five categories. I will say that I am mildly surprised at how many elected officials have essentially decided to sit out the election.
Here’s what I mean.
Donald Trump is out with a new statement this morning, attacking The New York Times for distorting what he said about reducing the federal debt by deal-making with bond holders to reduce the amount the US government has to pay out to them. In truth, it’s more than just the Times, though Trump seems to have decided they were the best target for his broadside. You can read the statement here.
I wanted to share a couple thoughts on Paul Ryan’s statement that he’s happy to step down as convention chair if that’s what Donald Trump wants. First, it’s important to recognize that the nominee owns the convention. It’s his show. If Trump wanted someone else to chair the convention, Ryan would really have little choice but to step aside. But that’s really not the point.
One of the great privileges of being in Congress is the relative anonymity, the anonymity of numbers. That may sound counter-intuitive or even nonsensical; but it’s true. Very few pieces of legislation are sufficiently politicized to focus a spotlight individually on the hundreds of members of the House of Representatives. It’s scarcely less true of the Senate. Even when issues or bills do gin up sufficient attention members can usually skate by with bromides about considering all the relevant issues or giving this important issue careful consideration and other such can-kicking nonsense. Then there are all the parliamentary complexities that help further muddy the picture. Without any way to get a clear sense of where people stand and which votes count, politicians can do what they do best, which is to keep their options open as long as possible and hope that hard decisions never have to be made at all. The key is that there’s safety in the herd. As long as there’s some diffuse, collective decision-making and no real way to pin particular people down, everybody is safe.
If you missed Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s powerful statement on transgender rights, it’s worth a watch.
Paul Ryan’s spokeswoman pleads with reporters to stop asking questions about Donald Trump.