Hillary Clinton made a deplorable basket case this weekend. That is, she made the case that "half" of the supporters of Donald Trump belong in a "basket of deplorables." It just sounds funnier to say it the first way, that's all.

Kidding aside, though, while the language Clinton used is being criticized, the point she was making was worth a little political risk. She walked part of her comment back almost immediately, saying she was wrong to use the word "half" -- but not wrong to call some Trump supporters "deplorables." Which means she's definitely trying to accomplish some political goal by saying such a provocative thing. Indeed, she's used the basket metaphor more than once (she only said "half" once).

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Before we begin, we promise we'll get to that rather-provocative subtitle later, as we turn this week's talking points section over to an attempt at providing campaign advice for Team Clinton. We've been long wondering why Hillary hasn't made some sort of effort to put these two large issues behind her on the campaign trail, and our frustration has led us to offering up what she should say in order to achieve this goal.

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One of the risks I regularly take as a blogger is to write and publish my own reactions to major political events (like debates) before I even look at what anyone else is saying. This assures the reader that my opinions and perceptions will be untainted by groupthink, and solely my own. I cannot follow the pack, as it were, if I have no idea where they're headed. But, as with any risk, occasionally it puts me in a position at odds with the political universe.

That's where I largely find myself this morning, after watching an absolute dogpile (is it too early to break out the football metaphors?) of pundits, with the hapless Matt Lauer at the bottom being ground down into the turf. Anyone who read the column I posted last night might now scoff at how easily I let Lauer off, after reading everyone else who is now universally panning his performance. So I thought the subject deserved more attention today, perhaps in a masochistic desire to rub salt in my own wounds, as it were.

I guess my biggest difference of opinion about the non-debate debate that NBC hosted last night was due to my own rather low expectations, after hearing Matt Lauer was going to be the moderator. I mean... Matt Lauer? Really? The guy whose previous big journalistic moment was interviewing Ryan Lochte? Lauer is not exactly known for his depth of knowledge about foreign affairs or politics, so I really didn't expect much. In a world where there was a shred of justice in the political media, whomever made the decision to give Lauer the hosting job would be looking for work this morning. But, of course, that world does not exist, because if it did pundits who regularly get everything they say wrong would also be out of work (Bill Kristol, I am looking in your direction...). Instead, what we get is the trending hashtag "#LauerTheBar" -- which is pretty amusing, I have to admit.

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Tonight we saw the NBC pre-debate. The non-debate debate. Officially a "candidate forum," both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appeared on the same stage -- but not at the same time. The stage was an impressive one, or at least the exterior shots were, since it was held on an aircraft carrier in New York City. This was to highlight the subject of the event: foreign policy and the military.

For some unfathomable reason, Matt Lauer moderated the event. Lauer is not exactly the first person on the NBC bench I would pick to host the kickoff political event of the campaign season's homestretch, to put it mildly. There are plenty of others with much wider and deeper experience, on both the military and on politics in general. I wasn't expecting much from Lauer, but in the end he did a better job than other moderators I've seen this election cycle, so perhaps I'm being too unfair to him. He was competent, if not exactly noteworthy.

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There will be no column today, as I will instead be playing hooky. I posted another Electoral Math column yesterday, while everyone else was on vacation (I like to post them on Mondays), so I'm taking today off as compensation.

I will try to get to answering some comments tonight -- I've been rather busy with offline life stuff for the past few weeks, and while I have been able to continue writing columns I haven't had any time for comments, so I'll try to rectify that this evening.

Tomorrow, unless a more-pressing subject suggests itself, I will wait until after the non-debate debate airs on NBC, and then post the usual snap reactions, so it'll be a fairly late column, just to warn everyone in advance.

In any case, apologies for the interruption in columns, but everyone's entitled to a day off once in a while, right?

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

It's time to take a look at the presidential horserace once again, using the smartest metric available: Electoral Votes (EV) charted over time. The last of these columns ran two weeks ago, and we've had lots of movement to cover since then, as 14 states shifted around on the map.

In contrast to last time around, the past two weeks have been mostly bad news for Hillary Clinton. Not terrible news, but certainly not good, as she's seen several states weaken considerably and has lost two over to the Trump column, at least for now.

Let's start with the big picture. You'll note that while Clinton's total has gone down, Donald Trump's hasn't really improved that much. This was due to two big states moving only into the "tied" column (white on this graph). As always, Clinton starts from the bottom and Trump starts from the top, and whichever color crosses the halfway mark is ahead in the race for Electoral College votes.

[Click on any of theses images to see larger-scale versions.]

As things stand, Clinton still has a healthy 58 percent of the total, while Trump has 37 percent. In two weeks, Clinton has lost eight points while Trump gained three points. The extra five points is now in the tied category.

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Donald Trump going to Mexico could have had a certain "Nixon goes to China" flavor about it, and he actually was getting some good reviews for crossing the very low bar of "not totally embarrassing himself or his country" -- at least for the first few hours. Then he went to Phoenix, and Mr. Hyde came back out.

Trump gave what was billed as a major speech on immigration, which turned out to be exactly what he'd been saying all along on the subject. The big difference? It was in (gasp!) a numbered list read off a TelePrompTer. As for the policies, there wasn't much difference at all from what he's been saying throughout the campaign so far.

Deportation force? Check! [Trump called it a "deportation task force" which was about the only real change.] Big, beautiful wall? Check! [It will now have magic tunnel sensors!] Mexico pays for the wall? Yep! ["They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for it."] Deportation for all? Oh, you bet! [Only change seems to be that some will have to wait a little longer to be deported.] Dreamer kids? Deport 'em all! Two million "criminal aliens" deported in the first hour he's in office? Count on it! Softening? Pivot? Nope! [Fooled ya again, suckers!]

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Obama Gets Big Convention Bounce

President Barack Obama's job approval polling numbers went sharply up in August, after falling slightly in July for the first time this year. Obama has now seen gains in seven of the eight months of 2016, and August was the third-biggest of these jumps. Obama's job approval is now higher than every other month in his second term except the first one (January, 2013), putting his legacy in pretty good position with the public. The bounce upward can clearly be seen even in the large-scale chart.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

August, 2016

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Earlier today, Donald Trump traveled to Mexico City to meet with the Mexican president. This meeting was pretty spontaneous, as it was only announced yesterday, and it took many observers by surprise. It was a risky move for Trump, with plenty of opportunities for it to turn out badly. But Trump exceeded expectations, as he appeared afterwards and read a prepared statement, then took a few questions from the press.

The bar for the Mexican meeting was set pretty low -- all Trump really had to do was get out of it without a major gaffe of any sort. He cleared this low bar, appearing as statesman-like as he's yet managed on the campaign trail. The Mexican president didn't insult Trump in his statement, Trump didn't insult Mexico and Mexicans in his statement, and the only real news from the meeting was that they didn't actually discuss Trump's outrageous proposal that Mexico is going to pay to build his wall. Well, according to Trump, at least. Within hours, the Mexican president insisted that he had indeed told Trump in no uncertain terms that Mexico wasn't going to pay for any wall. But whatever the reality of what was said in private, the public part of the event itself seemed downright chummy between the two.

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Senator John McCain is, as I type this, awaiting the results of today's Arizona primary election. The outcome will likely be that he will once again obtain the Republican Party's nomination for his Senate seat. But the results will probably be a lot closer than any of McCain's other primary races, because he is facing a Tea Party (or perhaps "Trumpesque") challenger who actually has a chance to unseat McCain. Discontent with McCain (and Establishment Republicans in general) from the Republican base voters is palpable -- so much so that McCain has been forced to support Donald Trump's campaign, even after Trump personally insulted him (and all American prisoners of war, for good measure) in a very public manner. But even if McCain, as expected, wins tonight, he'll then go on to face a Democratic challenger in what could also be a very tight race for him.

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