To the surprise of many, the United States 2016 election officially launched on Labor Day. What you have been watching all summer was just the warm-up to the event. And on the evening of November 8, all will—hopefully—be revealed. That will be when the College of Electors—that has no campus and never meets—is expected to select the next President of the U.S. of A.
It is all very confusing to Canadians (and many Americans) that there are blue and red states to consider. It is why most national polls in the United States are a waste of time. All but two small states choose their presidential electors on a winner-take-all basis. Only a state-by-state analysis and careful addition can give you an inkling of what portents.
Frankly, Babel-on-the-Bay continues to stand behind its summer Morning Line assessment. Clinton is still 2 to 1 and the Republican is only 4 to 1.
The reasoning behind our assessment is that the Republican candidate has consistently pissed off women, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and college-educated voters. Winning back any of those votes is a tough job. And how does he protect his base vote while trying to win back those he has lost?
His second problem is that his base vote is not among the frequent flyers at this voting business. Of the anticipated 50 per cent vote for President on November 8, the only reliable voters he might have are older Republicans. These people are feeling the pain of his candidacy and just might forget to mark his section of the ballot.
He is hoping his biker friends will go to the polls as his monitors. He thinks they will intimidate people into voting for him. His problem with that is the bikers are intimidated by the voting process. Are any of them registered?
He can hardly expect the Republican Party machine in hotly contested states to have any resources to spare to help him. They are trying to save congressional seats if and where they can.
You can hardly win the party’s nomination and then rub noses in it at a convention you control.
And it will be very interesting to see who funds the Republican candidate down the home stretch in October. Social media will be tired out at that stage of the campaign and someone is going to have to come up with the big bucks for TV. We wonder who?
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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