Donald Trump brags about standing ovation he received from Republican Senators, not once, not twice, but three times.

So nice being with Republican Senators today. Multiple standing ovations! Most are great people who want big Tax Cuts and success for U.S.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017

This was from yesterday, but Trump was not sure if he made the point about the standing ovation clearly enough so this tweet showed up earlier today.

The meeting with Republican Senators yesterday, outside of Flake and Corker, was a love fest with standing ovations and great ideas for USA!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

A "lovefest" did you hear that Senators Corker and Flake? They lovefest me!

But still that did not seem enough to Donnie, so about an hour later this one popped up.

Jeff Flake, with an 18% approval rating in Arizona, said "a lot of my colleagues have spoken out." Really, they just gave me a standing O!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

Well somebody is feeling a little needy.

I should probably point out right about here that Hitler also received numerous standing ovations as well.  Just thought I would mention that.

CNN's Chris Cillizza noticed a pattern: 

It's typical Trump: he gauges success in large part by how much he is loved; standing ovations -- along with TV ratings, crowd size and "buzz" -- are a direct measure of how he believes everyone feels about him. 

Cillizza then goes on to provide a list of times in the past where Trump bragged about standing O's.

Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott win their party's nomination and will face off to become the next Texas Governor.

Courtesy of TPM:  

State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) and Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) won their respective nominations in the Texas gubernatorial race on Tuesday. 

The primaries were called for Davis and Abbott about an hour after polls closed. 

Davis is the first female Democratic nominee to be nominated for governor of Texas since Ann Richards. 

"And now it's time, it's time for each of us to work as hard as we can and to fight for the very future of this great state, thank you so much for your help," Davis said in her victory speech. "I'm looking forward to working with you on this journey. God bless you all, and God bless Texas."

There is really nothing surprising about this outcome however I decided to write this post because the other day I watched a commentator on MSNBC, Chris Cillizza, say that he did not see a victory for Wendy Davis moving forward.

His claim is that the slight inconsistencies in her personal story, that the Right Wing blew WAY out of proportion would undermine her campaign and that the best hope for Texas to go blue was in the future.

This infuriated me to no end.

Look I don't expect every pundit on MSNBC to be a cheerleader for Davis, or ANY Democratic candidate for that matter, but to unfairly handicap the race as un-winnable against an opponent who thought it was a good campaign decision to have Ted Nugent show up on stage with him is ridiculous.

Especially after others have pointed out that the biography snafu will unlikely have a much of an effect on the election outcome.

But look ultimately it is up to the fine folks of Texas to get motivated and prove people like Chris Cillizza and Fox News wrong.

I swear if I were there on election day I would be offering rides to the polls for those who could not get there on their own. But I'm not, so it is up to those who are to make this the biggest midterm turnout for Democrats in American history.

And not just in Texas, we need to get our people motivated and mobilized ALL over the country.

We do that and we will greatly improve our chances of making some serious and very necessary improvements in our government, and set the stage for a much better future.

And just to help build a fire under folks, remember who is shaking her fake water filled pom poms for the other side: 

It was a great night for conservatives in Texas last night – despite what the D.C. media would have you believe. Voters wisely selected many Tea Party candidates across the board. Congratulations to Greg Abbott, we’ll work hard to make sure he is the next Governor of Alaska’s little sister state. We were proud to support Katrina Pierson as well – a bold conservative woman who has overcome bigger challenges in life than election results. Katrina has a bright future ahead, and we know she will continue her fight for conservative values – after all, you don't need a title to make a difference. We need more bold women like Katrina in the GOP. 2014 is just underway, and together we’ll continue to give a leg up to grassroots conservatives, despite the odds, who embrace inspiration, ingenuity, and integrity. We’re just getting started! 

That's right the Queen of Mean is already starting her victory lap, so let's do everything we can to trip her up, shall we?

Chris Cillizza urges Chris Christie to take on Sarah Palin. Sounds like a plan to me. Update!

So as we all know Palin was asked this weekend about the little spat that occurred between Chris Christie and Rand Paul.  Palin of course replied that she was "on team Rand Paul," because of course she is a incredibly immature person who is attracted to batshit crazy and apparently watches too many Twilight movies.

She also said that Christie “got a schtick going there where he’s got a YouTube videographer following him around, kind of these set-up situations sometimes so he can be seen as perhaps a little bit avant-garde and going rogue on things.”

I know right?

Of course Christie ignored her because, well let's face it she is really beneath his notice.

However Chris Cillizza believes that Christie is missing a golden opportunity. 

Here is his case:

Taking on Palin is good politics for Christie or Jeb Bush or anyone else who is planning to run as a quasi-establishment candidate for president in 2016. (No one will run a public-facing “establishment” candidacy but there are clearly people, like Christie or Bush, who would run with the blessing of many of the people who comprise the GOP establishment). 

Palin is widely viewed by much of the party — with the exception of her core followers (and she does retain a real following) — as someone who is advocating a direction for the Republican party that could lead to its electoral demise in 2016 and perhaps beyond. 

There is a sentiment — largely expressed privately, still, at the moment — that someone needs to stand up to that wing of the party and say “enough is enough.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who faces a conservative primary challenger back home in Kentucky, won’t do it. House Speaker John Boehner, who hopes to unite his conference on debt and spending matters this fall, can’t/won’t do it. 

But Christie could — and should. He is cruising to re-election in a blue state. He already has a reputation as a guy who speaks truth to Republican power. And, most importantly, he genuinely believes that the path people like Palin want to lead the party down is a giant philosophical and political mistake. 

Wait, you say. Attacking Palin means Christie will a) get into an extended back and forth with the former governor, who has shown she will never back down from a political jab and b) reinforce for conservatives that he is a moderate, and moderates never win primaries. 

To that we say, not necessarily so. 

No one who counts themselves as a loyal Palin backer at this point is going to consider pulling the lever for Christie in 2016. Just not happening. Their bases of support are in the “never the twain shall meet” category. 

It’s possible that a Christie denunciation of Palin would mean that the likes of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, both of whom are considering running for president in 2016, jump to defend Palin — sensing a political opportunity. Maybe. But, our sense is that Cruz and Paul — and their political advisers — will likely steer clear from any too-close association with Palin since she has proven herself to be a sort of free radical in the political process. 

And, even if Christie does take some heat from the right for saying something along the lines of “I believe Sarah Palin is a voice for shrinking the Republican party, not growing it”, the gains he would make among the GOP voters who don’t identify with Palin and her brand of confrontational conservatism would more than make up for it.

I really think that Cillizza is on to something here. 

If Christie were to turn that acerbic wit toward Palin he could crush her like a bug under his shoe, and any attempt by her ghostwriter to respond, on Facebook of course, would only help to illustrate her lack of standing within the Republican party and help to cement Christie as the future of the party and forever label Palin as the living embodiment of how horribly it went off the rails.

Simply put, he could not lose.

Now I'm not fooled by Christie's attempts to appear moderate,. I know that deep within his black heart he is still a union busting, public school bashing, conservative, who talks out of both sides of his mouth.

However that does not mean I would not like to see him get a little Presidential election cred by going after Sarah Palin.

In fact I would LOVE that!

And I think he would do it too. All it really takes is for the right reporter, to ask him the right question, at the right time.

Chris?

Update: Here fire, here's some more fuel courtesy of the Washington Post:  

First, Christie took on irresponsible attacks on anti-terror policies. That incited Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to start popping off, inaccurately, about Christie’s money grab from D.C. (In true conservative style, Christie shot back that it is Beltway pols who take more from New Jersey residents than his taxpayers get back from the feds.) 

Then the gift with a big red ribbon arrived in the form of Sarah Palin’s pronouncement that Christie has too much schtick – if winning a blue state overwhelmingly is schtick, perhaps the whole party needs more of it — and is a “big government” Republican. Where she gets the latter from I am not sure. Christie cut taxes, went after the teachers union, reduced debt and reformed public employee entitlements. But forget the facts for a moment (Palin sure does): Palin, even among conservatives, and even among hard-line conservatives, is a bit of a joke and not a serious person. She was entirely irrelevant to the 2008 race, and she serves as sort of a reverse compass for political judgment. Whichever way she points, it’s a good idea to go in the opposite direction. When she declares she will “Stand with Rand,” she is solidifying Paul as the not-serious candidate and casting Christie in the role of the grown up.

Oooh, THAT'S going to leave a mark.

You can almost hear the screams for RAM to get off her massive ass and write something in response from here. 

By the way, I STILL think Christie should respond. But remember I care nothing for his future in the Republican party. I just want to see the brawling.

Those who are expecting Sarah Palin to make a political comeback, don't know Sarah Palin.

Lately there has been an unending stream of people trying to make sense of what happened to Sarah Palin's rising star that forced it to plummet to the ground so dramatically.

Some of the theories are that she was destroyed by a liberal propaganda machine that feared her. Yeah, okay keep telling yourself that.

Others think that she simply chose bad advisers who led her astray, or that she could have been great if she had simply hunkered down and studied, or believe that she got distracted by the chance at easy money, and went the reality show/book selling route instead of following her true destiny that they are convinced was to be the 2012 Republican candidate for President.

No seriously!

Often many of these are Right Wingers who I simply dismiss out of hand, because....you know...dipshits.

But there are a few that you would think might know better that are STILL convinced that Palin really had a shot.  These are mostly people whose first impression of Snowdrift Snooki was on the convention floor of the RNC in September of 2008.

But here's the thing. For those of us who already knew Sarah Palin, had already seen Sarah Palin, and were used to Sarah Palin, we had NO fucking idea who that lady at the RNC even was! But whoever she was, it was NOT Sarah Palin!

And that was the thing. She was playing the part of Sarah Palin as imagined by the John McCain presidential campaign. You can read about that process plain as day in the book Game Change (Or see it in the wonderful HBO movie of the same name.),

The problem of course is that when the campaign could not strictly control how Palin was perceived, as in those Katie Couric interviews, THAT was when people started to see the Sarah Palin that was much more recognizable to Alaskans (Why do you think we tried so hard to educate you people? We knew what was coming.)

To Alaskans it was almost a foregone conclusion that she couldn't keep up that act for long. We were just concerned that she could keep it up long enough to fool the American people into letting her and John McCain into the White House. (I don't think I ever understood just how low functioning many of the American people really were until Sarah Palin burst onto the scene. These people were literally taken in by a short skirt and a wink. THAT should frighten all of us!)

For the purpose of illustration let me use one of my favorite reporters, Chris Cillizza, who I have a great deal of respect for, but who totally makes my point in his Washington Post article from a few days ago.

After much effusive praise and excuse making, this is how he wrapped up the article:

The Palin story is, in the end, one of tremendous talent misused. Like any number of playground greats who never make the NBA or, when they do, wind up disappointing, Palin had as much natural ability as anyone this side of Barack Obama or John Edwards, but was unable to translate that talent into results once the bright lights came on. That she never made good on her remarkable natural talents is a sign of how the political process can chew up and spit out those who aren’t ready for it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Sarah Palin's natural talent was to bullshit people into thinking that she was something that she was not. To play the con woman in a sting designed to take you for everything you've got. To, like a common street walker, charm you out of your pants, and then run off with your wallet while you were peeing in the bathroom.

She was NEVER going to give you what she promised, she was just going to dance on that pole until you had run out of money before picking up her political g-string and moving onto the next mark.

Which, if these idiots were paying attention, is exactly what she did.

Now in Chris's case he actually seems to be one of the few who was seduced by Palin's "charms" even before she mounted that stage in Minnesota.

Here is an interview he did with her in February of 2008. (BEFORE, by the way, she decided to fake her pregnancy.)


As you can see even then, Palin was talking around in circles, and bullshitting her way through interviews, but you can also see how easily Cillizza is sucked in, to the point of actually helping her with the answers and making sure that the questions were dumbed down enough not to embarrass her.

The one thing I will give her credit for is that at least during THIS interview Palin made no bones about wanting to be John McCain's VP choice. Which as we know from our friend Bill Fulton she was convinced she had in the bag only a month later.

So to sum up, will Palin make some sort of political comeback? No!

Could she have been a real political player if she had just made a few different choices ? Not ultimately, no!

Does this mean we have seen the last of Sarah Palin? Sadly probably not.

Will the press jump up like hype active pekinese if she does something in a few months to get their attention?  Of course they will.

However for all intents and purposes Sarah Palin is no longer any threat except to the pocketbooks of the most ignorant paint chip eaters on the planet. And hey, SOMEBODY has to take advantage of them now don't they?

P.S. For those who were paying close attention, you might have noticed that the iconic facial expression above is obviously from this interview. I always wondered what made her make that face.

Chris Matthews covers Bill Clinton's defense of President Obama.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As a rule I try to avoid posting too much from Hardball here at IM, but Matthews had the best clips of Clinton from his joint fundraiser with the President that I have seen, so I sucked it up and posted this video.

You can ignore Matthews if you want, but definitely make sure to listen to Clinton, because HE knocks it out of the park.

Chris Cillizza lists the Top Ten Republicans to watch. Guess who did not make the list.

Who are the faces that will emerge to rebuild the Republican party following its decimation at the ballot box in 2006 and 2008?

10. Steve Poizner
9. Haley Barbour
8. Jon Huntsman Jr
7. Eric Cantor
6. Mark Sanford
5. Bob McDonnell
4. Mitch Daniels
3. Mitt Romney
2. John Thune
1. Bobby Jindal

What? But where, oh where, is the ubiquitous Sarah Palin? Does Chris Cillizza not understand that EVERYBODY just assumes that she will be the "it girl" of the Republican party?

I was also very surprised that Mike Huckabee did not make the cut. I mean the guy has his own show on FOX, the support of Chuck Norris, and of course God is his co-pilot. Definitely a force to be reckoned with.

As for the Cillizza list, I only agree with a handful of his picks. I agree that Bobby Jindal is the main threat for the Democrats to deal with in the months ahead. Like Obama he represents a new face for the GOP and he has the actual brainpower to make that dangerous. And though his fundamentalist beliefs repel liberals it makes his supporters absolutely froth at the mouth.

Mark Sanford and Eric Cantor are also a real threat as they have the good looks and conservative credentials that the GOP is guaranteed to go all fan-boy over.

But one I certainly don't believe is a threat is Mitt Romney. I mean the guy is simply a cardboard cutout of a Republican politician with so little charisma that even with multiple millions at his disposal could not buy the Republican nomination.