Morning Fog

Know Thy Enemy, And Don't Count Chickens

Today's news brought the following items I found interesting:

Political commentator Chris Cillizza rehashes electoral college math:  18 states plus DC (242 electoral votes) have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1992; only 13 states (102 electoral votes) have done the same for the Republican candidate in the same period.  He concludes it is increasingly difficult for a Republican (Trump or another) to win the White House.  Cillizza admits that the electoral math shoe was totally on the other foot as recently as the 80s - but ignores the idea that it might change again. 

One poll indicates that Trump is strongly disliked by 65% of voters, while Clinton is disliked by 55%.

Trump has begun to waffle on some of his more outrageous positions, saying now that he is for a federal  minimum wage, suggesting that women aren't so bad after all and may even "get it" better than men; and even suggesting, on Cinco de Mayo, that he loves Mexican food. (Wait!  Or was that last one actually a parody sketch from some late night comedy show? Well, with Trump, it's hard to tell what is real and what is "reality.")  But five months from now, many voters won't recall what Trump was saying in April.

Clinton, meanwhile, is building a campaign platform with ideas that would appear to entail a greater role for....government!  She will represent the same old solutions, in the minds of those who want to see change.

All these data points and opinions only reinforce the view I expressed a couple of days ago, that Democrats cannot afford at this point (or any time until after the election) about the Trump threat.  One writer - Fred Hiatt - clearly and succinctly flags this concern today, in "Democrats Should Fear Trump ."  He doesn't say Clinton can't win, and neither do I.  Just that "when two thirds of the country is unhappy, a rational outcome can't be taken for granted."  Let us not count chickens before they are hatched.

 

The Hummer, The Fly, And The Donald

Just yesterday, not far from here in Tysons Corner, Virginia, another typical madman case:  A guy in a Hummer drove it into the front of a local diner. Several times!  In the process he pinned down an elderly innocent. Then he tried to set fire to himself and his vehicle but was prevented from doing so by bystanders. (BTW: Why anyone would try to "rescue" such an individual is beyond me.) 

Somehow though, with politics still in the air, it occurred to me what a great analogy this incident is to the Cruz crash-and-burn attempt to become the Republican candidate for President. 

My wife and I were out yesterday evening. When we came home we found that pesky fly that had come into the house earlier in the day, dead in the middle of the kitchen floor. There goes Kasich! 

I don't regret Cruz, who I think would have made a worse and more divisive President than would Trump. I can lightly mourn Kasich's demise as a pragmatic Republican who might have made better headway in a year when primary voters were in a mood for electability.

So here we are, with Donald Trump, the ultimate outsider, locking up the GOP nomination.

Presumptive you say?  Yes, the "presumptive" candidate though things look pretty certain at this point.  Even Mitch McConnell, the clever architect of this fiasco for his party, is saying he'll support The Donald. And hey, despite his race-baiting, muckraking, simplistic approach, Trump has assured us that he can change and be "presidential."

Will we see any surprises coming from the Democratic nomination process?  It seems doubtful, though it's interesting to speculate about the nature of a Sanders-versus-Trump race! 

However, if as predicted, the Dems go with Hillary, they shouldn't be too cocky about their chances.  The campaign will be hard-fought, Clinton has a lot of known weaknesses, and Trump has skillfully mined a vein of discontent in the nation.  The big concern come November will be that everyone "assumes" Clinton will beat Trump hands-down, and voters on her side don't turn out.