Hope and Change

The 2016 election is a choice between old vs. new, same-old vs. change.

Prediction:  President Trump

Kaine: safe, boring, same-old 

Voters are restless and are looking to surf the channels of potential new programs.   Hillary Clinton does not offer much change.   She has had the chance to suggest "new directions" but she isn't doing it.   Had she picked Elizabeth Warren or Julian Castro there would have been a whiff of "New and Improved Formula!" but she did not.

Tim Kaine is solid, safe, boring, more of the same.

So the die is cast:   Same-slog Hillary vs. Crazy Trump.   

Trump has added some sensible-steady to the Trump brand in the form of his adult children who gave credible speeches.   They are attractive and poised and polished.  Trump is getting credibility from them.   (Voters figure Trump couldn't be a total jerk and family failure if his kids look so nice and presentable.  Not Kardashians.)

Hillary's campaign has an opportunity here, if there is a good witness or two.   Many readers will have experienced watching the privileged path of the children of a business owner.  I have a few real-life observations, including times when I was the entry level employee and observed the jobs given to the children of the business owner, the teenagers and young adults my age.  I was sweating in the sun; they were in an air conditioned car, supervising my work.  It is good to be a rich kid, I observed.

Ivanka Trump

Still, the Trump kids presented themselves as work-oriented and endlessly praised their father-employer and the RNC crowds bought it.   They acknowledged their privilege.

If Hillary's campaign has some witnesses of ugly spoiled-brat behavior it would probably be a good time to present it. The Trump son's tweet praising the groundskeeper who worked instead of attending his sister's wedding was the right kind of data.

Of course the Trump kids did not work themselves up by merit alone.  But they admit it, which makes them harder to criticize.  At this moment Trump has added some youthful glamour to his mix.  They are attractive and apparently hard working.They didn't coast on their privilege.   And that is the Trump message: he will use his privilege to work on America's behalf.   As Ivanka put it, her father will make the extraordinary sacrifice of giving up his current splendid life in order to become our president.  

The presidency as sacrifice.  Smaller house.  Smaller jet.  Harder work. I  have observed no blowback from that comment so the public apparently accepts the idea.  It is good to be rich.

Trump is positioned to win the election.   Trump's big problem is that he seems like a temperamentally risky vessel for the change he offers.   His assertions that he alone can make Americans safe has a grandiloquence that some people will find off-putting, which is why his kids help his brand.  But his message of security and change is what a great many voters want to hear.   

Irrelevant:  People don't feel better

Obama failed to communicate the notion that the past 8 years have been years of solid economic improvement: full employment, low inflation, low gasoline prices, stock market tripled, housing prices back up, crime generally down.  The facts do not matter.  Voters don't believe the data.  Objectively Obama was an enormous success--but people do not believe it.

Terror worked, and people feel nervous.  They feel the economy is weak and security is low.   Terror incidents terrorize people.  It works to unsettle people and goad them into self-destructive behaviors.  Americans are ready to give up privacy and liberties and start quagmire wars against a religion which will alienate our allies and increase the likelihood of greater wars.   It was the geopolitical equivalent of the "draw play" in football.   The defense (America) rushed in exactly the direction the offense wanted, getting totally suckered.

Trump is winning on his message and Hillary does not appear to be changing hers so Hillary's focus is to convince people that Trump personally is unsuitable and that is what the election will be about.  Steady-but-Crooked Hillary vs. Says-Good-Things-but-Crazy Trump.  Voters may choose message over messenger.  Trump could easily win this election.

Notice to progressive readers:   I have repeatedly warned that Trump is a far more formidable candidate than progressives understand.  Progressives are in a media bubble.   Progressives talk to one another.   Progressives don't understand and relate to the xenophobia and white identity resentment that motivates many Trump supporters, so they do not incorporate it into their political calculus.   I have warned that a significant number of progressives will vote for Jill Stein or not vote or otherwise be never-Hillary and that I have thought this would be decisive.  No longer.

I now feel that Trump is likely simply to win outright, winning a majority without a peel-off of votes to Jill Stein or some other never-Hillary alternative.  This has the benefit for progressives that they can now conscience-free vote against Hillary, without the burden of thinking they are doing a Nader-sabatage.  Progressives need another cleansing bout of a McGovern 1972 loss to help them re-callibrate their understanding of American politics, and they are on track to get that lesson.  Progressives have not laid the groundwork for a Sanders revolution; meanwhile the right has laid the groundwork for Trump.  Oh. 

The lesson will be better learned if they in fact vote their conscience and support an alternative to Hillary Clinton. That way they will not think this was simply a matter of a Nader glitch.  In hindsight, Gore really would have been a better president than G W Bush and there really was a difference.  Oops.

Thad Guyer adds a comment on this election, which I share here:

"Yes, Trump says "he will save us", and we Democrats know he is far more likely to doom us. We listen to Hillary Clinton on this, and the mainstream media (MSM) reinforces that almost self-evident message. But Hillary continuously tries to tell us something that the MSM is simply pathologically unwilling to say (following the MSM humiliation that Trump would never be the Republican nominee)-- Hillary and the Democratic Party are in an electoral fight for our lives against Trump. 

The MSM doles out a constant diet that Hillary is far ahead, that Trump is unelectable, and that the Republicans are too divided to win. Hillary rightly urges us not to listen to that comforting message. Today on the NPR program, Diane Rehm, the panelist echo chamber assured listeners once again that Trump will not win. One panelist said without contradiction that Clinton is ahead in polls by "7 points" and soon may be so far ahead that Trump will have no chance of closing the GAP. Yet, RCP Poll Average shows Clinton behind in several major polls and now has only +2.7 point lead in an aggregate of all major polls-- within the margin of error. (See RCP http://goo.gl/ia5ffn). The New York Times gave great fanfare to the FiveThirtyEight.com statistical projection three weeks ago that Clinton has a "78% chance of winning". There is no MSM reporting that the same statisticians as of today say Clinton's chances have dropped TWENTY POINTS since that projection just a few weeks ago with the FBI report in the interim-- the probabilities for her win are now down to "58.7% and Donald Trump up to 41.3%". (See, http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast). 

Michael Moore: Trump will win

For the past two months, the MSM has touted Obama's alleged stellar approval ratings, which all leading statisticians say will be a major electoral factor. Ignored is the fact in the past seven days several major polls show Obama's approval in the negative, and his combined poll number is now below 50%. (See http://goo.gl/ToXyjT). As UpClose noted today, America's famous and ultra-liberal documentary film maker Michael Moore warned Bill Maher's audience that Trump is in a trajectory to win-- the audience booed Moore. (See http://goo.gl/3LyjSa). Moore's alerts have been ignored by the major MSM.

If the MSM is the voice of our party, it is an irresponsible one. To the contrary of "Hillary will surely win", the urgent message needs to be "danger,danger, complacency will doom us"."