Washington: When Trump goes low, the Obamas go high – and Hillary Clinton lies low.
It was a clever rallying call by Michelle Obama as this campaign descended into the gutter – "when they go low, we go high!". But perhaps just as clever is Clinton's interpretation of the "low" bit – she has withdrawn to the shadows, is doing fewer public appearances and is leaving Donald Trump at stage centre, where he consumes himself in his fury, his conspiracy theories and his denials that don't amount to much.
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Trump: I am the victim of a great smear
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he's a "victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history" of the US.
On Friday there was more to deny, as the women of America fleshed out what they know of the GOP candidate. And because Trump can't help himself, his counter-attacks ensure that the story of his hands, his "big" wandering hands, remains at the centre of discourse that nominally is about who should be the most powerful individual in the world.
But the Obamas have become the frontline force of the Clinton campaign – Michelle first, with a Thursday one-punch excoriation of Trump on his treatment of women that went viral; and on Friday, a two-punch hammer blow by Barack that shredded Trump's pretensions to high office.
Clinton has gone off the grid – on Thursday she had a softball appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, lots of laughs and a dance clip that will play well on social media. She was in Seattle on Friday, for a private fundraiser; and next stop was playtime and a game called pocket-the-cheques with Broadway friends Billy Crystal, Matthew Broderick and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I think we all know who won the debate. This guy. pic.twitter.com/hAahAJVCji
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) October 14, 2016
It would be wrong to assume that Clinton has taken her eye off the prize. They are in the home stretch now – 24 sleeps to go. Virtually all the polls point her way and between now and election day, the biggest hurdle is the last of three candidate's debates – in Las Vegas next Wednesday.
Right now, Trump is losing this election. Clinton is fortunate that he is doing it in such explosive style, that his negatives far outweigh hers.
As she has demonstrated, Clinton does prep for the debates – and the record shows that making time for it pays dividends.
Trump was more agile in the second debate in St Louis but the consensus among talking heads is that the score in debates to date is 2-0 in Clinton's favour. Given Trump's escalation of his attack-intimidate-harangue strategy in St Louis, Clinton will need to hone her own jujitsu tactics before she heads to Nevada and, at the same time, work on simplifying her wonk-like policy presentations.
The last debate, on October 9, is still factoring into polls, as is the gift-that-keeps-giving story of Trump's mistreatment of women.
But after stumbles in September – including Clinton's literal stumble when suffering a bout of pneumonia – and the political stumble of her deplorable "basket of deplorables" speech, she is almost seven points ahead in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.
By the latest assessment of The Washington Post, we should "forget Virginia. Or Colorado. Or lots of other traditional swing states. Right now, Donald Trump's campaign is in such bad freefall, states that haven't voted for a Democrat in generations are suddenly coming into play as the Republican nominee's path to 270 electoral votes collapses all around him."
Late polls in Alaska, Texas and Utah show Trump narrowly ahead of Clinton, and Arizona and Georgia are even tighter.
But here's The Post's point: "That's absolutely remarkable when you consider the historic trends in those states. The last time a Democrat won Alaska was 1964, when Lyndon Johnson carried it over Barry Goldwater. Texas hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter eked out the state in 1976. In Utah, like Alaska, LBJ is the last Democrat to win."
In Florida, a must-win state for Trump, but in which Clinton has a three-point lead, the Democrats are killing the GOP in new voter form submissions – 503,000 to 60,000. And analysts' ratings of the likelihood of a Clinton win now range from 84 per cent to 97 per cent.
All of which dictates a no-risk-taking strategy for Clinton – if Trump supporters are offering cash rewards to protesters to front at Clinton rallies, wearing "Bill is a rapist" T-shirts, why give them an opportunity?
By the count of The New York Times, Clinton has held 19 rallies in the 38 days since Labor Day, the official kick-off of the general election campaign, compared with Trump's 32 rallies. But after the showdown in Las Vegas, her aids say she'll be stepping up public appearances as she closes her case for the presidency.
"You take nothing for granted," Joel Benenson, Clinton's chief strategist and pollster, told The Times. "You campaign all the way to the end, and you regularly look at what's ahead and you manage time and resources to get the most value out of the candidate's time around the country."
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