After 52 years of not holding any victory parades, Cleveland is suddenly the city of champions. Mixed martial arts, minor league hockey and now the NBA championship in a 36-day stretch ... and the Republican National Convention will be in C-Town next month. Sure, things look bad for Donald Trump now — gamblers aren't thrilled about his chances — but things looked bleak for LeBron James and the Cavaliers not too long ago. Can Trump draw on the Believeland spirit? Or will Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party capture Philadelphia's winning attitude? (Ha ha OK never mind.)
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up
If Trump is going to stage a comeback, it might look like that one time Bugs Bunny played all the baseball positions at once. Even the Koch brothers are standing on the sidelines saying, "Enh, we're gonna focus on the Senate instead." "It would be nice if the Republicans stuck together ... (but) I think that I win either way. I can win one way or the other," Trump said yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press.
So when does the game start? Analysts say he's spending an awful lot of time hanging out in places like Arizona, which should be considered solidly Republican. And despite the tweet text here, Team Clinton doesn't have just a 100% ad spending edge in battleground states; that would imply that Hillary has spent twice as much on battleground state advertising as Donald. Her advertising counts as 100% of the total, giving her an infinity percent ad spending edge. Ad spending isn't the end game, though ... just ask the big-spending Jeb Bush campaign.
Trump brushed off criticism of his strategy so far. "(Clinton) has a head start, but I've raised a lot of money for the party. We're doing very well. Millions of dollars just this weekend." he told Hallie Jackson. "We start pretty much after the convention, during and after." If the roughly 147-day general election season were a basketball game, Trump seems content to start playing in the second quarter.
Lynch: Email probe 'not a conflict'
Attorney General Loretta Lynch's Department of Justice continues the investigation into Clinton's private email server. But Lynch's boss has endorsed Clinton's candidacy. Awkward? Wait, that's not quite right. Depending on your viewpoint and/or party affiliation, the phrase you might be looking for is either "not awkward at all, why do you ask?," "a conflict of interest," or something written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in a comments section.
Put Lynch down for "this isn't an issue." "We've got career agents and lawyers looking at that. They will follow the facts and follow the evidence wherever it leads and come to a conclusion," she told Fox News Sunday, echoing FBI Director James Comey's words last month.
Not for nothing, but the Democratic National Convention begins five weeks from today.
More from the campaign trail
- Trump suggests 'profiling of Muslims as a response to terrorism (USA TODAY OnPolitics)
- Ken Burns calls 17-hour, sepia-tone anti-Trump commencement speech 'my responsibility as a citizen' (USA TODAY OnPolitics)
- Sanders: 'Spread the Berning everywhere, my children' (Burlington Free Press)
- NRA thinks of a time and place that people shouldn't have guns, thanks to the magic of Trump (USA TODAY OnPolitics)
But if you're looking for really long odds ...
The Green Party's Jill Stein was the only party nominee to tweet congratulations to LeBron and the Cavaliers yesterday, and then caught a lot of guff for doing it.
