"What do you think, Reg, of Julian Assange's claim that he has more dirt to dish out on Hillary?"

Actually, not much. Basically, the only way to really nail the Clintons is if there is a smoking gun...and as awful as they are I am not sure one exists. The only thing left really to pursue on them is the Clinton Foundation and all these foreign entities that have thrown money at them. This stuff certainly looks horribly suspicious and way out of line...but then so did the private server and Director Comey determined they needed to prove criminal intent on that and what he meant by criminal intent was the intent to share the information on the server with foreign entities...that could not be proved and honestly, I believe it was not Clinton's intent to share that information with foreign entities so, no prosecution on that. Basically, we were warned on that and that the Clinton people were going to go the "Hillary is just a stupid old lady that does not understand technology." route and that defense actually could work...well, it did. Does not really sell her as a good choice for president but I do think Comey is right it would be hard to attack that defense and to prove his "criminal intent" standard.

Make no mistake though, if elected president, and she will be, the Republicans will look for a way to impeach her and I believe it will be through the Clinton Foundation that they do this. I do believe that Terry McAuliffe being investigated by the FBI is not an accident and will open the doors for people like Judicial Watch to subpoena people and go after records related to the Clinton Foundation. Will they get anywhere? Who knows but the Clintons are two of the dirtiest people in American politics so there is certainly potential for something to come out.

"Also, do you think it's possible that Donald could bow out and someone of the stature of Paul Ryan be deemed the new GOP candidate? I know, it seems unlikely, but this is such a bizarre election. Both of these possibilities concern me."

No, I think the Republicans are good with handing this election to the Clintons. Basically, they know the Clintons have the most potential for something horrible coming out about them and are easy targets for them to go after and to stall and create gridlock around. Also the Clintons are more Republican than Democrats in terms of policy and ideology. So, losing to them you don't lose much. Losing to Bernie Sanders would be a horror show for them as he is a transformative politician that would have possibly brought broad and very progressive change...something people like Clinton or Obama would not do. Sadly, in politics now doing nothing, creating gridlock, is one of the safest routes to reelection.

I also think the Republicans have come to terms with the fact that their party needs to be totally reinvented and reorganized. To do this they need to flush out the crap like Trump and the vile nitwits that follow him for all the wrong reasons. If they do not do this they are dead as an American political party. There is just nowhere for them to go. They can't win a national election, Trump has inflicted more damage in a single election cycle than all their boneheaded moves over the last 4 decades combined.

They are cooked, that is why a bigger question to me than who wins the presidency this time around is what happens to the Republican party. They have reached the critical point where they need to make a serious choice. Continue on in the direction you are going...in which case your base will continue to shrink and you will do nothing but struggle to hold on to the states that are red...and slowly you will lose those...or splinter into two separate parties. One that would go back to being more like the party of Eisenhower and one that would be the vile Tea Party-like racist and bigoted wing...and if they do this I think there is the potential for even more horrible nonsense to occur because that "Tea Party-like" wing would feel more validated and ambitious than ever.

Or they can reinvent, remain the Republican party but reject openly the Tea Party-like nuts. They have done this sort of in the way so many at the top of the party have openly rejected Trump and his horrid inflammatory nonsense. So, we will see.

I would love to hear what all the Republican leaning folks that visit this board think of the party right now. However, I fear that Trump has sort of pushed them to be silent.

Where is Dale when you really need him!