2016-04-29 11:21:42 -0400

I hear you, Eyes.



And it may well be that Trump can somehow convince more Republican voters to turn to him after Cruz is sent packing. It is also true that both Trump and Hillary are polarizing figures who have large unfavorable ratings. It will be very difficult to do anything with large numbers of voters who have already made up their minds that they strongly dislike Trump or Clinton or both.



That being said, I’ve noticed that Trump’s belief that non-white voters will turn to him as a positive alternative has not been going over well. This hasn’t been helped by awful displays such as his parade of “Victims of Illegal Immigration” at his rally last night in Southern California (which predictably caused a riot).



Trump’s idea of buttering up Bernie Sanders voters and suggesting that Sanders run as an independent is hilarious. Sure. Sanders is going to suddenly declare an independent run and siphon voters away from Hillary Clinton to help Trump? Not so much. He’s mad clear that he’ll support Clinton and he’ll tell his supporters as much during the convention and afterward. (There was an article out yesterday indicating that Trump’s notion here is way off – Sanders voters have indicated that at least 80 percent of them will never vote for Trump or anyone like him. It’s true that some will refuse to vote for Clinton – but that doesn’t mean that they’ll vote for Trump – at best, they’ll vote for Jill Stein.)



Eyes is absolutely right that Trump is hitting the sweet spot for the right wing radio listeners – the guys who love the Rush Limbaugh approach – “Well, SOMEBODY had to have the guts to say it!” when it comes to saying the most vile racist, sexist or just generally offensive comments. That’s not a group that’s inclusive in any way. It’s an almost completely white male group with a laundry list of grievances against everyone else.



The fall campaign we’re about to see is likely to be the nastiest and most personal one we’ve ever seen. Trump will throw every bit of personal mud he can at Clinton, including every single affair Bill Clinton ever had. Clinton will respond by using Trump’s repeatedly offensive statements against him. Nobody will be campaigning positively for voters. The votes will mostly be to say NO either to Clinton or Trump. On both sides, there will be some stalwarts who will refuse to vote for their party’s choice. But based on the tendencies of conservatives and liberals, it is far more likely that Democrat Sanders voters will reluctantly pull the lever for Hillary than embittered Cruz supporters will opt for Trump. This is simply because liberal voters pride themselves on being more open-minded, while conservatives tend to be angrier and more fixed in their opinions. I tend to think that Ted Cruz will either refuse to endorse Trump or will play the card of saying that his supporters will have to decide for themselves what to do. I believe that most of them, and most of the Kasich/Rubio supporters will similarly have a big problem with giving Trump their vote.



On the Dem side, with Sanders openly supporting Clinton, that ratio should reverse. As I said, there will be some stalwarts who will make a point of NOT voting for Clinton but instead voting for someone like Jill Stein as a protest. There may even be a very small number of Sanders voters who somehow decide to vote Trump as a protest – this will be much likelier if the national polling holds and Clinton runs away with it. But Trump’s values are diametrically opposed to everything that Sanders has been saying. The media is assuming that Sanders voters will like Trump because he’s opposing “the system”. They’re forgetting that the reasoning behind each man is completely different. Sanders opposes various policies because they’re not inclusive enough. Trump’s opposition is based on the fact that he personally thinks he’s being mistreated and that everyone should love him because he’s the greatest. Sanders has actually proposed multiple serious policies. Trump has offered hollow promises to do things like build a wall with someone else’s money and somehow make everything so much better. Sanders voters are intelligent enough to see right through that.



When Trump actually has to debate Clinton this fall, we’re likely to see him quickly resort to the most vicious personal insults, just to try to throw her off. Right wing radio hosts are already salivating over this – they’re hoping he can “get under her skin” and “take it to her” by personally attacking her early and often. After having seen Clinton easily bat away that kind of nonsense from multiple GOP tribunal hearings in Congress, I think it’s far more likely that she’ll calmly point out that his behavior is not something that most people want to see from their President, and that the American people deserve to hear real answers to debate questions. I wouldn’t be surprised if her speechwriters aren’t already preparing more zingers like “Deal me in!” after Trump fumbled his “woman card” insult.



It’s true that Clinton has included Sanders’ perspective in her campaign – and that’s a very good thing. Back in 2000 and 2004, Ralph Nader practically begged the Dems to take his issues. He even sent people to the Kerry campaign offices with platters bearing his various ideas on little cards. Both of those times, the Dems ignored Nader to their peril. This time, Clinton has taken Sanders in a serious way, and while some Sanders voters will still never accept her, the rest will go with her in the end. It would be a different story if she’d given him the Nader treatment. And it’s true that Clinton is just as much of a policy wonk as her husband. For me, that’s a stronger option than someone like Trump who keeps demonstrating he has no idea what’s actually going on in the country, let alone the world.



Trump and Clinton are extremely unlikely to move many voters from the opposite camp – although there have already been some interesting rumbles on the right about finding Hillary less repulsive than Trump. They’re also unlikely to move many of the independent voters, most of whom made up their minds about both candidates a long time ago. Trump and Clinton are both at about 100 percent name recognition in this country, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see much movement before November. I also note for the Trump cheerleaders that we’re not in a situation like 1980, where Reagan was able to come from behind. We’re not in a full-on recession, we don’t have gas prices and inflation going through the roof, we don’t have a badly perceived President trying to be re-elected, and we don’t have anything like the nightmare of the massive hostage crisis we had in Tehran at that time. Reagan was able to appeal to voters as a strong, calm, confident voice during a time of crisis. Of those qualities, Trump only shows confidence – he’s certainly not calm and his bullying tactics are not that of a strong person. And the demographics of the country have shifted a good deal from the primarily white look of the voting populace in 1980.



My expectation is that Trump will remain solidly upside-down in the numbers with all groups other than white males and conservative white females. I don’t see him getting anything north of 20 percent of the Hispanic vote. I certainly don’t see him getting much from other groups. And without those voters, this election could be a disaster for him and the GOP . From what I can tell, the GOP is already preparing for the disaster – they’re only other option is to block him at the convention. (I note, by the way, that the endorsements toward Ted Cruz by people like Lindsey Graham are not meant as votes of support for Cruz – they’re intended to stop both men at the convention and allow the GOP to substitute someone a lot less objectionable.)



I do agree that EVERYONE needs to turn out for this election and not just assume that Trump will defeat himself. We as a country will need to show up en masse to make the statement that Trump’s self-promotion is nothing we want in the highest office of the USA . The good thing that I’ve seen lately is that left wing voters are showing they’re aware they need to make their voices heard this year. Nobody is taking this election for granted, and nobody should. My hope is that the voting statement this fall will be an extremely strong one.