Nicholas Lemann:

People in politics love to quote from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”; Clinton seems to exemplify its famous maxim that in order to win you have to know both yourself and your enemy. She realizes that she doesn’t have the spectacular political talent of her husband or of Barack Obama, and she makes up for it by being obsessively prepared and organized.

On Hillary’s characters, Lemann writes:

Clinton’s biggest mistakes, like setting up her private e-mail server, spring from excessive fear and caution, rather than excessive confidence. She works hard and doesn’t give up. She attends to details. She doesn’t have an exaggerated sense of her own powers. She seems unlikely to believe that she can remake vast swaths of the world with one or two bold strokes, as George W. Bush did after the 9/11 attacks. And, as this summer and fall have shown, she can expertly defenestrate an adversary when the situation calls for it. None of this may thrill those of us watching her campaign, but these aren’t bad qualities in a Presidential candidate, or, for that matter, in a President.

Amy Davidson:

Paul Ryan does seem to be conflicted. But, on the basis of the evidence, the conflict is not between his principles and his partisan obligations but between his intellectual vanity and his opportunism. He is not emblematic of a party that got hijacked but of one that hoped to simultaneously achieve a radical agenda, play to its base’s worst fears, and still be celebrated in polite society. And that is not, in the end, a very interesting study in character. Paul Ryan may just be a very ordinary politician.

Not just an ordinary politician, Ryan is Trump’s little bitch.

Claudia Eller and Andrew Wallenstein:

For the first time in its 111-year history, Variety is endorsing a presidential candidate — Hillary Clinton. While it is commonplace for mass-market newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post to endorse candidates, that’s not the case for trade publications. But this year, the editors-in-chief and our publisher, Michelle Sobrino-Stearns, feel strongly that we should buck tradition and take a public stance on this historic election; for the same reason that The Atlantic endorsed Clinton (marking only the third time since its 1857 founding to back a candidate), we didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and come down on the wrong side of history.

Editorial Board:

The bitterness of this campaign has sometimes made it difficult to remember the substantive differences between the candidates, or to believe their acrimonious contest will even end.

But end it will, and a vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton will move the nation at least incrementally down the path of reconciliation, equitable economic growth and international stability.

Jeffrey C. Isaac:

She is being attacked by the right wing because the right wing hates her. And the right wing hates her because she is a liberal and a feminist and a woman and because she supports the things that most anger the right wing: gender equality, reproductive freedom, equality for gays and lesbians, gun control, racial equality, and civil rights.

These things that she supports are the things that we support. The things she supports have their limits. She has her limits. But she is not evil, and she is not an enemy.

This article is a must-read for the Democrats.

Jill Filipovic opens:

The first woman is just days away from (probably) being elected president of the United States, and so of course her candidacy has been fraught by two guys obsessed with their own penises, including one whose last name is literally Weiner. If there’s one lesson to draw from this historic election, it’s that even women a hair away from the most powerful position in the world can still see themselves quickly derailed by badly behaved men.

And she ends:

The great irony of it all is that little else could make a better case for putting more women in positions of power—women can be as craven, evil, and corrupt as men, but rarely do they act so pathetically like adolescent boys, distracting from the real issues with lizard-brained sexual stupidity. Yet here we are, in an election of historic feminist significance, and we aren’t talking about the hard-earned power of a groundbreaking woman. Instead, the hard-ons of has-been men and the hard heads of quietly powerful ones might just screw Clinton’s shot at the White House.

I refuse to let this happen to our first female president.

FT View:

The 2016 election, more than any in recent memory, is a test for the legitimacy of the US political system, with profound implications for the liberal world order. Mrs Clinton carries enough baggage to fill a Boeing 747. She is not trusted by the majority of voters.

But she is manifestly more competent than Mr Trump whose braggadocio, divisiveness and meanness are on daily display. Despite her faults, Mrs Clinton is eminently qualified to be the first woman elected to the White House. She has the Financial Times’ endorsement.

Editorials:

What Clinton lacks in charisma she makes up for as a policy wonk. This should make her a better president than a candidate.

She has plans to help seniors and the impoverished with medical expenses; students with debt; parents with child care costs; small business with taxes; and our planet with progressive environmental policies. She strives to craft a humane version of immigration reform and reasonable gun safety laws. She may be too traditional a policymaker during a time when the people of American are starving for change, but she has demonstrated an ability to work with rivals to mend breaches.

Editorials:

If Clinton had been facing a formidable Republican opponent – Ohio Gov. John Kasich, say – this would have been an entirely different general election. But she’s facing Trump. And that alone should make the decision as easy as pie.

On Election Day, the informed, practical, experienced, highly intelligent and reliable Clinton will be on the ballot against a huckster, an entertainer whose act, so distressing from its opening in June of last year, has been increasingly difficult to endure over the past 16 months.

What would be best for Clinton – and the nation – is a convincing win in which she handily dispatches Trump.

Ryan Lizza makes a good point:

Think of the decision from Comey’s perspective. He could either disclose the new development now and risk being accused of influencing the election, or he could keep quiet; then, when the news of Abedin’s laptop inevitably leaked, he could be accused of caving to Lynch and her staff and keeping the information from voters. If the news leaked after the election and after Hillary Clinton was President, Republicans would turn the non-disclosure into a monumental scandal and allege that Comey played a role in a Lynch-instigated cover-up. If Clinton were President, the ensuing scandal would taint her victory, with Republicans arguing that voters were kept in the dark about a major development in one of the central issues of the campaign.

Let’s hope this will be the case. Lizza concludes:

It’s far better for the public to have this information now than after the election. Perhaps it’s possible that this revelation will swing the election to Trump. But it seems highly unlikely. Clinton is still favored to win, and, if she does, Comey will have done her a favor.