It's a Strategy, Of a Sort

A couple of stories I ran across that resonated with each other. First, the blowhard himself:

President Trump has told confidants he'll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's "ahead," according to three sources familiar with his private comments. That's even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania.

Somehow, I suspect he'll declare victory no matter what the numbers are:

Speaking to reporters on Sunday evening, Trump denied that he would declare victory prematurely, before adding, "I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over."

He continued: "I think it's terrible that we can't know the results of an election the night of the election. ... We're going to go in the night of, as soon as that election's over, we're going in with our lawyers."

"We don't want to have Pennsylvania, where you have a political governor, a very partisan guy. ... We don't want to be in a position where he's allowed, every day, to watch ballots come in. See if we can only find 10,000 more ballots."

And in line with that, here's Trump loyalist and henchman Corey Lewandowski:

You know, Chris, what the president’s real concern is and the Supreme Court has made some rulings on this, is trying to get as many votes in by Election Day as possible. The concern is when you have some states that don't require a postage mark on theirs, so we don't know when they were filled out, they don't require signature verification, and some states they'll be counting nine or ten days after the election. I think that as the most industrialized country in the world we can do better than that, Chris.

We know that people can vote, we know how to count quickly, so let's get it done because I think this election is going to be won on election night with Donald Trump carrying in Florida and North Carolina and Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and if that's the case, there will be no need to continue to count because it will be a resounding victory.

So there is it -- just stop counting votes when it looks like the Don has won. And just in case:

If you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe that President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electoral [votes] somewhere in that range, and then they’re going to try to steal it back after the election. We believe we will be over 290 electoral votes on election night, so no matter what they try to do, what kind of hijinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense they try to pull off, we’ll have enough electoral votes to get President Trump re-elected.” – Senior Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller, speaking today on ABC News.

It's all of a piece with the barrage of lawsuits aimed at not counting ansentee/mail-in ballots, the repeated mantra of "vote fraud" that the GOP has been chanting for years (and in case you need to be reminded, every case of actual fraud that has been discovered has been perpretrated by Republicans), and the media blitz, led by Fox and enabled by our "free, independent press", and straight out of the Josef Goebbels manual.

Tomorrow night should be a real spectacle.

(All via Joe.My.God.)