27 October 2016
Bad For Business
The US Presidential election is the only show in town.
by J.R.Thomas
If you are an American media mogul you must be very pleased with the way the Presidential campaigns are panning out. The three Presidential candidate debates might be horrific to the student of serious politics, but they are just great for TV viewing figures. To audiences brought up on the Simpsons, South Park, or even more relevantly, Tom and Jerry, this is great stuff (we offer no opinion as to who is Tom and who is Jerry). Knockabout comedy indeed, by two seasoned practitioners; better even than House of Cards (though Kevin Spacey is a far more convincing President).
But for most other business folks this is all a disaster; cinema audiences are down by between fifteen and twenty per cent. Eating out in all manner of restaurants is down (whether this is because the diners have gone off their food or are staying at home transfixed by the debates we cannot say); clothes shopping and footfall at retail malls is suffering too. We have not seen any figures yet, but if gas consumption turns out to be down as Americans leave their auto’s in the garage, then something strange really is happening.
Though not as strange as what seems to be happening in the streets, if the folk with clipboards are getting it right. As Mr Trump faced accusations of sexual behaviour unbecoming a gentleman, his support seemed for the first time to melt away, slowly, but noticeably. Donald put up a classic blocking defence (if the allegations are false, the only one available), denying it all, and said the various accusers were motivated by malice and put up to it by the Democrat election machine. (Certainly, the timing of all this is a bit odd: given that most of the accusations relate to alleged behaviours more than a decade ago, and Trump is a well known public figure, one would have expected some of this to come out before; though the wretched Jimmy Saville and other UK cases suggest that there is reluctance and fear about taking on a big powerful celebrity, until finally one case busts the dam for others who have held back.
Then Mr Trump really upset things; he said that if Hillary won, he might not accept the result of the election as it could have been “rigged”. The founding fathers did their utmost to make sure elections in their new republic could not be rigged; that is why the system is so durned complicated. It is a bizarre thing to say indeed; the time to allege vote rigging surely is after the election, preferably with some evidence to hand. Raising this as a possibility three weeks before the event suggests that you are trying to influence the result by inflaming your supporters, and, worse, priming them to create trouble afterwards. Even if Trump was joking (and his supporters say that some of the time he is joking), it is a stupid thing to say. Note to Donald: maybe hold up a placard saying “Joke” in future if your humour is likely to be misunderstood.
As it happens, Mr Trump’s joke, if it was, has badly misfired. A lot of the electorate, even core Trump supporters, seemed to take offence that the constitution could be undermined in this way, and his ratings took a serious dip; putting Hillary 12 points ahead nationally. From her point of view his “misspeaking” (he hasn’t said that it was, we are just putting some words in his mouth for possible use) has gone down especially badly in some battleground states, Florida and California in particular. These two tend to be crucial because of the large numbers of electoral college votes they provide – 29 and 55 respectively. Vermont does not really do much one way or another with 3 votes – sorry Bernie – but loose California at your peril. We should say perhaps for British readers, that apart from two small states these are winner takes all contests. They really do matter. Hillary knows that – she is concentrating almost all her efforts now on those vital swing states, along with the bulk of her spending – and she is outspending Donald very significantly.
Not just the electors were turned off by threats of trouble on the streets. Those GOP big noises already moving smartly away from the Donald over the sexual misbehaviour allegations increased their pace of retreat over his rigging allegations. That is not to say that many of them don’t believe that Hillary isn’t capable of rigging the election; they just can’t see how she possibly could. (They really don’t like Hillary in the GOP.) That shrinking back may not be bothering Trump much – his whole campaign is based on the premise that the USA political system is run by an oligarchy who should be fired wholesale, so this type of behaviour by the great and the good rather reinforces that message to the electorate.
(This all rather suggests, as a side issue from the rest of the campaign issues, that vote rigging causes more offence to the average voter than allegations of groping and unpleasant behaviour; or perhaps that the American faith in the justice system is stronger than it is sometimes given credit for – no condemning a man until he has had his day in court – on either charge.)
But then, the unexpected happened once again; Mr Trump’s polling has started to improve once more, and the latest poll suggests that yet again, he is close behind Mrs Clinton, with perhaps two or three points between them. Can this be true? And if you at all buy into this column’s theory that poll support for Trump may be underdeclared, as it was in the UK Referendum for the “Leave” side, then it is far from clear that the election is in the Clinton bag yet.
Hillary meantime is also now after another objective. Control of the House of Representatives is firmly in Republican hands and is likely to stay there; although the House is all up for re-election, as it is every two years, the Republican majority is viewed as pretty unassailable this time. But the Senate is different, a third of the seats are up for grabs and as it happens many are marginal Republican seats. It only will take four of them to slip to Democrat control and Hillary, for the first time for a recent Democrat President, will have control of the Senate. Not the House, but she will have a lot more chance than her political forebears to make a legislative mark. That really would make for a historic Presidency. No wonder she is looking radiantly confident on stage and nail bitingly anxious in candid photographs.
She ain’t there yet though. Yet more allegations this week over those improper emails, with journalistic and Republican investigations (not at all the same thing) looking at that odd decision by the FBI to reprimand the lady over her actions but forebear to prosecute. Was there improper influence to reach that conclusion, political or financial? The latest accusation has money flowing from a Clinton political associate to assist a campaign for office by the wife of a senior FBI officer on the case – now promoted to a very senior job. “Garbage” says Mrs C’s team; “Smoking gun” says her opponents; “Told you so all along” says Mr Trump.
And now a look at the important political and socio-economic issues between the two campaigns.
Just a joke, nobody is talking about such things at this time, and when they were, any differences were pretty imperceptible. This campaign is virulently personal; though we conclude with a startling insight by the Cardinal-Archbishop of New York, who sat between the two candidates at a dinner last week, and rather incautiously spoke to the press afterwards as to how well the two rivals got along, “saying nice things to each other”. Aren’t priests supposed to be discreet?
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the ShawSheet
