Interesting comments by Clare Malone and especially Nate Silver of 538:
clare.malone: I think now that the conventions are past, the big event that had so much build-up, I wonder if Trump isn’t feeling a bit adrift? I.e., maybe the reason he’s responding so much to the controversies of the moment is because he was slightly disappointed by his polling bounce from the big event he had been looking forward to, and now he heads into the abyss of the true general election.
...
natesilver: What if he’s in an abyss, mentally? He’s been keeping up this act for more than a year now. It’s exhausting (and nobody would accuse Trump of being lazy). What he tried before in the primaries isn’t working, and maybe he sort of knows it deep down, but he doesn’t quite have the willpower to change.
Yesterday I found Trump's "nobody's laughing at me now" comment on a write-up on the Iowa caucuses. I saw something else Trump said, that if he didn't win the caucuses it would be the "biggest (beautiful), and expensive, by the way, waste of time" of his life. And he lost the caucuses! Actually gave a nice concession speech before becoming convinced that Ted Cruz had "rigged" the vote.
We know Trump reads the polls as nothing else. He reads the polls now and he knows he's losing, "he knows it deep down," and maybe he's thinking this has been the biggest (beautiful) expensive waste of time of his life.
clare.malone: I think now that the conventions are past, the big event that had so much build-up, I wonder if Trump isn’t feeling a bit adrift? I.e., maybe the reason he’s responding so much to the controversies of the moment is because he was slightly disappointed by his polling bounce from the big event he had been looking forward to, and now he heads into the abyss of the true general election.
...
natesilver: What if he’s in an abyss, mentally? He’s been keeping up this act for more than a year now. It’s exhausting (and nobody would accuse Trump of being lazy). What he tried before in the primaries isn’t working, and maybe he sort of knows it deep down, but he doesn’t quite have the willpower to change.
Yesterday I found Trump's "nobody's laughing at me now" comment on a write-up on the Iowa caucuses. I saw something else Trump said, that if he didn't win the caucuses it would be the "biggest (beautiful), and expensive, by the way, waste of time" of his life. And he lost the caucuses! Actually gave a nice concession speech before becoming convinced that Ted Cruz had "rigged" the vote.
We know Trump reads the polls as nothing else. He reads the polls now and he knows he's losing, "he knows it deep down," and maybe he's thinking this has been the biggest (beautiful) expensive waste of time of his life.
