How Trump Can Win Crucial Swing Voters

If Donald Trump could figure out a way to bottle his daily TV briefings he’d have a cure for insomnia.

Watching him drone on and on, reading off of his notes as if he never saw them before (and he probably didn’t) is downright painful.

Sure, news about the virus is important, but I’d rather be water-boarded than hear one more word about ventilators or about how we’ve done more testing than any other country.  Then there are the mind-numbing statistics that nobody cares about. When I hear them my eyes glaze over. Here’s something you thought you’d never hear:  Donald Trump has become boring.

He calls Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe” but Mr. Trump comes off as barely awake.  His heart isn’t in it.  He sounds like a defeated man.

But fortunately for the president, the campaign is about more than his boring TV briefings. It’s mainly about, as Karl Rove points out in his Wall Street Journal column, “creatively raising doubts about the other candidate.”

“Red-meat attacks that rouse the parties’ respective electoral bases will reinforce, not persuade,” Rove says. “What will be persuasive are themes that resonate with that 10% or 12% of voters who are still on the fence or leaning one way, particularly suburbanites. Carefully and creatively raising doubts about the other candidate will be more effective than taking a figurative baseball bat to his head.”

So here’s my advice on what Donald Trump and Mike Pence should do to raise doubts about their opponents.  In their respective debates, they should say something like this … looking right at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris:

“I believe black lives matter – every single one of them.  And that includes the black lives that are snuffed out in Chicago every weekend.  That includes the black children shot and killed as they play in the street.  But it’s interesting that you don’t talk about those black lives … only the ones that involve white police officers.

“So let me be clear: I think blue lives matter too.  Too many police officers are being shot and killed by ruthless criminals. You don’t talk about those lives, either. I wonder why?  I hope it’s not because you’re afraid your hard left progressive supporters might not approve.

“I also believe that Latino lives matter … and Asian lives … and gay lives … and straight lives.

“So let me be clear:  I believe that all lives matter.

“Now let me ask you a question (Mr. Biden/Senator Harris):  Can you look into that camera and tell the American people – unequivocally, with no ifs, ands or buts – that you also believe that all lives matter?”

The answer to that question might not change a single Democrat or Republican vote, but it just might make a difference to that 10 or 12 percent that Karl Rove was talking about, the voters who haven’t made up their minds yet.

Frankly, I don’t think either Biden or Harris would have the backbone to say, “Yes, of course, all lives matter.”  That’s because the progressive faction of the Democrat base thinks saying that is racist.  They believe it downplays and demeans the value of black lives.  A sportscaster in Sacramento was fired for tweeting nothing more than, “ALL LIVES MATTER.”

And if Democrats who are labeled as “moderates” by their liberal allies in the media can’t utter those words – All Lives Matter – then even voters who don’t like Donald Trump’s character, even they, may reconsider -- and think about whether they’d vote for him over a Democratic ticket that can’t bring itself to say those three words.

Who knows, I might even reconsider.  I'm no fan of  Mr. Trump’s defective personality -- and despising what the Democrats stand for still isn't a good enough reason for me to vote for the president. Not right now anyway.  Let's see what happens at the debates.

Conservatives have long been convinced that Joe Biden is under the influence of Bernie Sanders, AOC and their progressive base.  If neither he nor Harris can acknowledge that all lives matter, even those crucial independent voters might come to believe that Biden and Harris are captives of the hard left -- and that if they win, their captors will have the green light to fundamentally transform America ... and not in a way a lot of those undecided American voters want.