August 4, 2016
Is Trump Trying To Win? Because It’s Not Clear To Me
In the week after the two conventions, Donald Trump is suffering from an existential crisis of candidacy, something you’d expect to happen during primary season, resulting in an exit from the race. The only problem for Trump is that he actually won the Republican primary and was nominated by his party to be our next president. So what else can explain Trump’s post-convention failings? Is it just Trump being Trump? I guess for most of his supporters nothing has changed, save for the “lamestream media” being unfair to their candidate, as they’d like us to believe. His supporters have already established that in their minds Trump can do no wrong, and some actually say this out-loud. The problem for Trump, however, is that he needs to win over people less inclined to believe he can do no wrong, and he is failing miserably.
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President Obama delivered what started out as a safe speech but turned into an optimistic vision for America’s future. People don’t want to be told what is wrong with America, they want a leader to tell them what is right with America. And they want a leader to tell them how we can make things better. Obama’s speech was a renewed message of hope and change but this time he said that change was not him, it was us, and he challenged all of us to strive to make this country better for future generations, just as generations did before us.
Elizabeth Warren is a financial expert, particularly in bankruptcy law. She is also a consumer advocate and a Senate candidate for the state of Massachusetts. But most importantly, Elizabeth Warren is a champion for the average low and middle-income American. She is right to say the system is rigged. Rich and powerful interests have greater access to our elected officials and that leads to legislation that favors narrow agendas. The people who already have everything get even more and the people who have little or nothing continue to be overlooked. As Jon Stewart put it, “Poor people have shitty lobbyists.” — Here are two resonating quotes from Elizabeth Warren’s Democratic National Convention 
Former President Bill Clinton delivered a lengthy, issue-specific speech and he did so in a way that was both entertaining as well as informative. His speech delivered much needed context on the economy and President Obama’s record after the Great Recession, and it destroyed Republican lies and out of context talking points.
