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Donald Trump’s closing argument is that he can use a teleprompter. Not necessarily that the words he reads off the teleprompter are true or intelligent, just that he can say all of them out loud and in order. In the final days of this campaign, we have returned to where we began, with an odd fixation on whether this man who aspires to the presidency can avoid saying anything ignorant, bigoted, inscrutable, or otherwise disqualifying for an hour or so at a time, once or twice a day.

“In what many around him took as a hopeful sign heading into the final stretch of the campaign, the Republican presidential nominee did not turn to Twitter to vent his frustration, as he would have in the past,” reports Yahoo News’ Holly Bailey, a campaign vet. “Though he still regularly breaks from his prepared remarks—often to attack the ‘dishonest media’ to the delight of his supporters—Trump has been more pointed in making his case about why he should win the White House.”

Less than a week before election day, his aides consider it a matter of cardinal importance that Trump recede from the public spotlight as much as possible—he is “trying so hard to keep control,” as CNN’s Bash explained Wednesday night, “because when he becomes the story in the general election it tends to be bad for Donald Trump.”

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Everything we’ve seen over the past several months points to the fact that Clinton is at her strongest when she’s disintermediated, while Trump unvarnished is a walking murder-suicide. By leaving this contrast unstated, and saying nothing at all about its implications for the presidency, the media is failing those Americans who have a choice to make by November 8.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1384...r-donald-trump

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They are too young to vote, but old enough to follow the news. For teenage girls, this gender bomb of an election is happening just as they are starting to form their identities as young women.

Hillary Clinton has campaigned with a rah-rah message for girls: “Yes, you can be anything you want — even president.” Donald J. Trump’s message to girls has been more, well, complicated. What are girls taking away from the election? Are they inspired or repulsed? To get a sense, we took a national poll and went to two high schools, one in a liberal city and another in a conservative rural county, to talk to teenage girls.

Almost a quarter of girls age 14 to 17 say that Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy has made them more likely to seek positions of leadership, according to a national online Pollfish poll conducted for The New York Times.

But the more broadly heard message is negative: Nearly half the girls say Mr. Trump’s comments about women have affected the way they think about their bodies.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/up...age-girls.html