12 May 2016
Expect the Unexpected
by J.R.Thomas
It is a very odd primary race indeed. The Republicans have now a Presidential candidate who has more negative ratings than any GOP candidate in recent political history, has never held political office of any sort, has no known bedrock of Republican beliefs, and whose loyalties were always rather suspected to be coloured blue rather than red. Mrs Clinton has negativity ratings almost as high as Mr Trump’s, and if she cannot overcome Mr Sanders, constantly tight on her heels, the Democrats will have a candidate who has never been a member of the Democratic Party. There are several great TV box set dramas of high politics in the USA, but none with a plot as far-fetched as this.
But first, apologies to any reader who got up early to read last week’s Shaw Sheet and were slightly surprised to read that Mrs C had won in Illinois. Old news, they must have felt; and they were right, JR pulled down the wrong set of results in his over excitement. The editorial cane has been firmly applied…
We will come to Mr Trump and the new GOP landscape in a moment, but first let us make our way to the smoke and noise that indicate battle and ponder on Mrs Clinton’s continuing difficulties. The Sanders win in Indiana was a bit of a bolt out of the blue – the polls were showing Hillary 6.5% ahead, and Bernie won by 6%, so on the face of it yet another example of how unreliable polls are. But we have defended the pollsters in the Shaw Sheet before, and we will once again. What polls pick up (and usually quite accurately) are voter’s intentions. What they cannot pick up, of course, is the actual turnout on the day and, if one candidate’s supporters are very keen and the other’s lukewarm and attracted more by home pizza and TV than the polling station, that can make a huge difference. That is why exit polls are the only reliable predictors of results, though not really of much use. We suspect that was exactly the case here, Sanders supporters being more determined to turn out and more fond of their candidate than Clinton ones. Here is Hillary’s continuing problem; she really is regarded with suspicion by huge swathes of Democrat voters. Some of that relates to rumours of bad behaviour – the current one being her alleged use for governmental purposes of her private email server, still rumbling dangerously away as the FBI investigate if an illegal use has occurred. But also bad for the lady is her tendency to tailor her speeches to her audiences. Most politicians do that, of course, but if you attack the greed of Wall Street in blue collar unemployment hotspots but also praise those same bankers in New York in speaking engagements delivered at high fees, or if you call for the closure of coal powered power stations then fly to West Virginia and praise the resilience of out of work coal miners, eager journalists tend to point the discrepancies out.
Bernie has few such problems – he is adept at using great themes without engaging in too much detail and has a very sympathetic audience not inclined to interrogate him, just cheer him on. A victory in West Virginia this week was expected – but the margin was not. Sanders 52%, Clinton 36% (there were some write-in candidates also) is not what Mrs Clinton should be polling at this point. Next Tuesday is Oregon which should go Bernie’s way also; and then in early June, comes the biggie, California, with 546 delegates to divide. He can’t catch Mrs C now unless she suffers a total collapse in voter support – the Clinton pledged super-delegates ensure that – but a Sanders major victory in California could bring the elected delegates neck and neck. Would the party grandees then put Hillary in the job anyway? Nobody knows; and we won’t speculate (yet). But we do venture the thought that the elevation of Donald Trump to Republican standard bearer might focus Democratic voter’s minds on how best to prevent him walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in early January next year, and that might, just might, cause them to reflect that Hillary will be a better bet against Donald than Bernie.
And maybe Bernie does not care that much; his mission now is to change the way the Democrats think and act, to bring them to a more leftish and more radical stance, to force the party to reinvent itself on almost European left party lines.
So, to Donald. Did Mr Trump enter this race ever believing for a moment that he might win? Unless he tells us, we won’t know that; but his early behaviour suggests he was more having fun being disruptive than seriously running for office. Or was he? Trump has called for higher taxes on big corporates – but runs one himself; wants to fence out Mexican immigrants and close USA borders to most migrants but especially Muslims – yet employs many low wage immigrants in his own businesses; wants an old fashioned America – but preaches radical change in the values the USA displays to the world; and not so long ago was a generous donor to previous Clinton campaigns. Perhaps this is not so much having fun, but a man having come to a stance which reflects the issues and anger of poor white heartland blue-collar aging Americans, who are getting poorer and feel their government no longer cares about them. Or is this the C21st version of Citizen Kane – or even Julius Caser – wanting power, for the sheer exercising of it?
The answers to those questions will probably start to emerge over the next few weeks as we see if Donald will try to unite the party behind him, who he chooses as his vice Presidential running mate, whether his policies, as he starts to explain them, actually reflect his previous rhetoric or become tempered to the reality of running a vast diverse nation, and how he tacks towards the centre ground to try to form a coalition of interests to pile up enough votes to beat Hillary.
Certainly he is rapidly developing new friendships. Much of the Republican Party is now gracious towards him, if through clenched teeth. There is some “reaching out” – and some “reaching back” as Donald no doubt reflects on the cost of a full Presidential campaign; he needs the party money now. He makes jokes about some vanquished opponents – he has been so nice about Mr Rubio that speculation has grown as to whether Marco might become his running mate (which would be strategically very intelligent, if a bit tricky on things fencing and Mexican). But he has a long way to go to unite the Republicans yet – Jeb Bush, one of life’s mild and forgiving types has refused to endorse him, as have his father and brother. Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker also said he “was not yet ready” to endorse Donald – which sounds like a negotiating position but was treated by Mr Trump as a declaration of war. War has also been declared on Mrs Clinton – if Trump can promote the Sanders candidacy that should be very much in his interests, Sanders probably being easier to beat in November than Clinton. The danger though is that the Democrats will rally round Hillary in anti-Trump enthusiasm.
Rumours also abound that Republican factions may induce an independent candidate to run against Trump, simply to split the vote and deny him the Presidency. But that is unlikely to proceed at least until it is clear that Hillary will be the Democratic contender. Letting President Sanders into the White House in an attempt to deny the keys to Mr Trump must be the Republican strategist’s ultimate nightmare.
That there are a substantial number of Republicans who would prefer a Clinton back in the White House to their elected nominee is wonderful underpinning to both Donald and Bernie’s allegations as to the detachment of the political elite from heartland America. Playing those cards could mean that the official Republican nominee becomes the anti-establishment outsider candidate. Back to that boxed set…
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