"3. The public doesn't really want either of them. Clinton, at the moment, has a clear - although slightly shrinking - lead over Trump in key swing state and national polling. But what comes through loud and clear in those polls is that voters - especially Republican voters - are making up their minds not based on whom they like but based on whom they do not like. The aversion to Clinton is so massive among GOP base voters that they are beginning to rally to Trump's cause despite having major issues with much of what he says and lingering questions about how committed he is to the conservative cause. And Democrats are fearful and astounded at the idea of Trump anywhere near the White House."

The headline is item 3, of six, this AP carry by Chicago Trib. Another AP item beginning:

Two months from Election Day, Hillary Clinton has a clear edge over Donald Trump in nearly every measure traditionally used to gauge success in presidential races.

She's raising huge sums of money and flooding airwaves with television advertisements. A sophisticated data team with a history of winning White House contests is meticulously tracking voters in key battleground states. Clinton also has multiple paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win in November — so many that she could lose Ohio and Florida and still become America's first female president.

But Trump's campaign believes there are pockets of voters eager to be persuaded not to back Clinton. While Trump squandered a summer's worth of opportunities to court those voters, his campaign heads into the fall suddenly confident in its ability to make up lost ground.

Trump aides were gleeful Friday over the release of FBI notes regarding Clinton's controversial email practices while secretary of state. His campaign plans to come out of the Labor Day weekend wielding the report as a warning about the Democrat's judgment.

Getting Trump to make that kind of consistent case against Clinton has been a herculean task for much of the campaign. But advisers say he's more receptive to his new leadership team's more scripted approach, mostly because it's coincided with a tightening in the public polls he monitors obsessively.

What? Clinton's attention to polling is less? Get real. Both have to be looking in the mirror in the morning saying, "I like you." Believing it too, one hopes.