Counting Chickens Before They Hatch
The 2016 Election is over, Hillary Clinton has won decisively and there is no “path” for Donald Trump to win the election- this according to pollsters and pundits, alike. Even the vaunted Dr. Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, has projected a landslide win for the former first lady and Secretary of State, with Donald Trump projected to garner merely 191 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 348- well above the 270 required to gain the U.S. presidency. Even Karl Rove, the former White House Deputy Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush, and the “mastermind” behind Bush’s wins in 2000 and 2004, has jumped on the crowded bandwagon of those who have written off any chance for the Republican nominee to come anywhere close to winning the November election.
Talk about “counting chickens before they hatch”…
One should file such prognostications under the Latin phrase bovis stercore. For those who are unfamiliar with this phrase, consider its English translation to be something shoveled up in a bullfighting arena.
In order for anything close to these predictions to come true, a certain set of assumptions would all have to materialize on Election Day:
First, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as African-American would have to turn out in numbers and vote the way they did for Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008 (dream on, Hillary).
Second, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as “staunchly conservative” and “evangelical” would have to stay home and not vote, the way they did when moderate Mormon Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee in 2012, the way they did when moderate mainstream John McCain was the G.O.P. nominee in 2008, and the way they did when other moderate mainstream Republicans, Bob Dole in 1996 and George H.W. Bush in 1992, ran for the presidency (keep dreamin’, Hillary).
Third, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as Democrats would have to vote with the same level of enthusiasm and support as they did for both Obama and Bill Clinton when each of these candidates won consecutive elections, respectively. Not even the staunchest of Democrats pretend to believe that Hillary Clinton carries the political assets of charisma and likeability in the same vein as did either Obama or Bill Clinton (she doesn’t).
Lastly, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as “independent” would have to vote the way they did overwhelmingly in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, handing Bill Clinton and Barack Obama the presidency four times (rest assured they won’t).
Essentially, the dire predictions of a Hillary Clinton landslide are based solely upon a house of cards constructed of these four assumptions, over-the-top-to-a- level-not-seen-before biased reporting by the mainstream media, and outcome-based polling, jiggered to exaggerate support for Hillary Clinton- the same Hillary Clinton who is viewed as untrustworthy by two-thirds of the American electorate and half of Democrat voters, most of whom supported Socialist Bernie Sanders, to boot.
So as all of the pundits and pollsters, all of the mainstream media types and “neverTrumpers,” and all of the “Republi-can’ts” are busy “counting their chickens before they hatch,” the American people stand to prove them all wrong, and it is on the faces of the so-called “experts” that the proverbial “eggs” will likely splat.
-Drew Nickell, 19 August 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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