| She 'Has Made This Campaign Entirely About Her and Her Accomplishments' Salena Zito, now with the New York Post, is smart. Brad Todd, long-time GOP consultant and ad-maker, is smart. Put them together and you have the clearest explanation of why Hillary Clinton's campaign seems so much more technically proficient but is losing ground. "The reason is pretty simple: She has not identified any tangible benefits for the voters in her campaign message," explains Republican strategist Brad Todd of OnMessage, one of the country's most sought after GOP ad-makers. "Everyone keeps talking about why she is not 50 points ahead of this guy. She even wonders that herself," says Todd. But Clinton "has made this campaign entirely about her and her accomplishments." So when she has a bad day as a candidate, it's devastating. On the other hand, when Trump has a bad day it doesn't hurt him. "For Trump, even on his very worst day, his campaign knows they get change out of the equation," says Todd. "With [Clinton, voters] get the experience, and someone who is not Trump." Yet, that's the exact opposite of what voters want this year; there is just no market for experience. Rather than a benefit, it's a determent. But the Clinton campaign keeps selling it anyway — so the race is close. Baylor University political science professor Curt Nichols, an expert on American populism, agrees. "What she's looking to sell isn't very interesting to buyers, her strengths are tenacity and experience. And her novelty is being the first female [major-party] presidential candidate," he said. "Her skills and cache simply continue not to match well with what the electorate wants." Yelling at Staffers Doesn't Change What Everyone Saw Monday Night Is the problem that Trump's aides — people who have every incentive in the world to perceive events as favorable to their boss, and to see the glass as half full — think he didn't win the debate . . . In a conference call with surrogates Wednesday afternoon, Trump aides made clear the Republican nominee is upset that his allies publicly acknowledged they pushed him to change his preparation and tactics before his next bout with Hillary Clinton. And he wants them to stop it immediately. The message was "not subtle," a source familiar with the call said. Trump wants his supporters to make an energetic defense of his performance and refuse to concede that he didn't nail it. Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller denied the account. "The entire description of today's call is completely false and anybody saying otherwise is just making it up," he said. . . . or is the problem that Trump didn't actually win the debate? If you want to change the perception of something, the easiest way is to change the reality of something. Forget the polls that ask people who won. In almost all cases, people who prefer Clinton will say Clinton won and people who prefer Trump will say Trump won. The bigger question, affecting a much, much smaller sub-sample of people is, did the debate change who you are going to vote for? Show me any movement in the polls since the debate. We haven't gotten many polls with samples that include people surveyed after Monday night. We do have the Los Angeles Times tracking poll, which continues to show Trump ahead, with not much movement. For the First Time, Congress Overrides President Obama's Veto You've never seen President Obama rebuked by both parties like this before: The Senate approved the override on a 97-1 vote, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid the lone Senator voting to sustain the president's veto. Hours later, the vote in the House was 348-77, with one Democratic member voting "present." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said aboard Air Force One before the House had voted that the Senate's override is the "single most embarrassing thing the Senate has done since 1983," referring to the last time the Senate overrode a veto by such a large margin. The remark immediately infuriated lawmakers and staffers. "It's amateur hour at the White House," one Democratic aide said. "Asking us to stand between 9/11 families and their day in court is asking a lot," Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said in response. The editorial board of the New York Times tried to make the case against allowing American citizens to sue Saudi Arabia or other foreign governments for alleged aid to terrorist groups. While the aim — to give the families their day in court — is compassionate, the bill complicates the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia . . . Well . . . so what? The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is complicated by a lot of things --our once-huge and now shrinking demand for their oil, their territorial claim to Mecca and Medina, their awful human-rights record, the fact that they don't allow Jews to work in their country, the fact that they see us as a hedonistic, materialistic, corrupt influence on their youth . . . We enact our own laws and policies to serve our own citizens and our own interests, not to avoid offending other countries' rulers. Why is "complicating" a relationship with a foreign state a sufficient reason to deny an American citizen his or her day in court? "Everyone is entitled to their day in court." When we say that, what do we mean? We mean that every American citizen, if he believes he has been wronged unjustly in violation of criminal or civil law, is allowed to make their argument and seek a remedy from a judge or jury (or both). You're not entitled to victory. You're not entitled to those remedies. But you're entitled the opportunity to make your argument to impartial fellow citizens and let them decide if an unjust act has been done. If you want to get that remedy or redress, you had better have a strong argument and a lot of supporting evidence, or else the judge will toss it out. If we feel like the current system doesn't do enough to discourage nuisance or frivolous lawsuits, we can and should enact a variation of "loser pays" tort reform to deter baseless suits that can still cost a defendant time and money. We've all had days where we've lost faith in the good judgment of juries . . . 
. . . but this is our system, and so far, no one has found a better one. "The new bill would clarify that foreign governments can be held liable for aiding terrorist groups, even if that conduct occurred overseas." If the evidence to suggest that the Saudi Arabian government or royal family helped the 9/11 attacks is sketchy and unpersuasive, then either the lawsuit will be dismissed or Saudi Arabia will win the case and no harm will be done. If the evidence to suggest that Saudi Arabian government or royal family helped the 9/11 attacks is through and persuasive, then getting sued in U.S. court should be the least of many, many severe consequences. Then there's an argument that other countries are likely to retaliate by permitting civil suits and criminal suits against the U.S. government in their court systems. But this already happens! George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia. At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. We never expected Americans to get a fair trial in North Korea or Iran or any other hostile state. Foreign governments have the power to allow suits against the United States government with or without this new U.S. law. The argument seems to be that the U.S. government should deny its citizens the right to seek redress, hoping that foreign governments will reciprocate . . . when it's already clear that many foreign governments won't. ADDENDA: Chuck Schumer isn't likely to face enormous headwinds in his reelection campaign, but at least one new super PAC wants voters in upstate New York to think twice about what he stands for and embodies. Asking New Yorkers to "strike back at the liberal media bosses who are corrupting American journalism" by defeating "their chosen candidate," America Is Worth It, a new Super PAC, has launched an upstate New York TV media blitz against U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY). The 120-second TV spot is playing in New York's three major upstate media markets (Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester) starting Thursday and continuing through Wednesday of next week. (Ad money goes far up there!) The ad features news headlines that its sponsors say backs up the allegations. "This is not a right-wing rant against media bias," said America is Worth It spokesman George Landrith. "We cite specifics about how media bosses are suppressing their own reporters and corrupting journalism. That's why Schumer is their chosen candidate." You're probably asking, "why a two-minute ad?" "We believe our ad imitates how people, especially Millennials, get their news today, with a flood of headlines and twitter-length messages," said Landrtih, about the TV spots' unusual length. "At the same time we put a narrative around all this and we find viewers are very grateful for the context. They find it a lot to take in at first, but they also recognize the rush of truth and want to see it again." | 
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