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LeMieux: Trump paying for lack of discipline

 
Published Oct. 5, 2016

Nothing good happens after midnight is sage advice given by parents across America to their children. Recent late-night tragedies we have all watched on television reinforce the point. The same is true for politics. Donald Trump learned this truth the hard way last week.

Having lost a debate he reportedly did not prepare for, Trump again gave into his inner demons. In an overnight Twitter screed starting at 3:20 a.m., Trump first advised that we should not listen to unnamed sources from his campaign-— a fair if not strangely timed pronouncement — disastrously attacked former Miss Universe Alicia Machado sometime after 5 a.m.

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" Trump tweeted.

That is a breathtakingly horrible comment unbecoming a candidate for our nation's highest office.

Like many observers, I have been wrong more often than right in my predictions about this election. One prediction I did get right is that Hillary Clinton would repeat the tactic of luring Trump into attacking another sympathetic figure and revealing his worst self. Having played this master stroke with the Kahn family at the Democratic National Convention — which baited Trump into attacking the parents of a fallen soldier — Clinton mentioned Machado during the presidential debate and attacked Trump for previous comments about her weight (he allegedly called her "Miss Piggy" and an "eating machine"). Instead of ignoring the bait, Trump in the days that followed seized it like a rabid dog and took his campaign once again over the cliff.

The resulting media attention propelled Machado into hundreds of print articles, hundreds of thousands of tweets and appearances on the Today show, Good Morning America as well as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Univision and Telemundo. A tactical blunder to say the least. As Clinton struggles to solidify her base with young women and Hispanics, Trump made Machado a poster child of his misogyny.

Machado was happy to elevate her faded profile and fight back. As CNN commentator Ana Navaro noted: "Hell knows no fury like a Latina who's been called fat."

To add injury to insult, revelations soon followed that Trump likely paid no taxes for 20 years due to a declared $916 million real estate loss in the 1990s, that his company did business in Cuba in violation of the embargo and that it did business with an Iranian bank linked to terror groups. The combined effect was to make last week the worst week of his campaign.

The vice presidential debate on Tuesday night was a reminder of what could have been, and for conservatives, may be again some day. Mike Pence persuasively, methodically and humbly made the case why Hillary Clinton should not be president and why our federal government is badly in need of a course correction. He bested Tim Kaine in style and substance. Trump would be well served to follow Pence's approach in not taking the bait during the next debate. If the election were between Pence and Kaine, Pence would win. If it were between Pence and Clinton, Pence would win by more.

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The playbook for Trump is still there. When he stays on message and does not give into his inner demons, he starts winning. With just a little bit of message discipline he brought the race to a tie in the days before the debate! But that winning approach requires restraint and self-control, qualities also needed in a commander in chief but qualities that for Trump are in short supply. If he would stick to the message points Pence articulated in his debate — the need for a strong and consistent foreign policy, the need for less government spending and taxes, not more, and the need for border security and a coherent immigration policy — Trump could still win.

Of course, that's if someone takes away his smartphone.

George LeMieux served as a Republican U.S. senator, governor's chief of staff and deputy attorney general.