As expected, we are seeing the beginning of an exodus of members of the Democratic National Committee leadership associated with disgraced chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who were revealed in the email leaks as tilting the primary process in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders, rather than remaining neutral.
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Much has been made of the fact that Hillary Clinton is the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major political party in the US and if elected would be the first woman US president. This is undoubtedly an important step and I can see why so many Americans are savoring the moment. For me personally, my reaction is “What took America so long?” since Sri Lanka elected the first woman head of state back in 1960 and many, many other nations have done so since.
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It is the custom for presidential nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties to get security briefings from members of the intelligence agencies, presumably so that they have a better awareness of foreign policy issues and are better prepared when one of them eventually takes office. They do not have to get security clearances for this purpose. This briefing process is not required by law but has evolved over time and has been uncontroversial.
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It is clear that Donald Trump is anxious to not follow the tradition now extending back many decades of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns. The practice began in 1963 with candidate George Romney (father of Mitt) who released 12 years of returns. Since then, almost all presidential candidates and every eventual Democratic and Republican nominee has done so.
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Homer Simpson is exactly from the kind of demographic that amongst whom Donald Trump is supposed to be strongest: male, white (ok yellow, but that’s close enough), low-information, solidly middle-class, and beer-drinking, and not one of those politically correct elitists. And yet, Homer has defected.
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I am finally back home in Cleveland after being away for about ten days to deal with some personal matters and am now catching up with a lot of the political news that I could only superficially skim while away.
Following the two conventions much commentary has been devoted to contrasting ‘the sky is falling rhetoric’ of the Republican convention with the more sunny vision of the Democratic one, which challenged Donald Trump’s claim that he will make America great again by saying that America is already great.
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