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Traditionally political campaigns are considered to get their real start on Labor Day.

So why have so many "experts" decided that Hillary Clinton will easily defeat Donald Trump on Nov. 8?

If you check this summary of the polls at the 538.com website, you'll see the results are literally all over the map.

Anyone who tries to predict this thing at this point is either real smart or real stupid.

The smart ones are all those pro-Clinton people in the media who want to create the impression this is a done deal. That would depress the Donald's fund-raising.

The stupid ones are those who truly believe this race can be called at a point when there are so many variables, such as the impact of third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

The one thing we can say for sure as of this Labor Day is that Trump has the momentum.

Typical was the experience of a friend of mine who was in a bar in Sparta Wednesday when the Donald came on the TV with the Mexican President to discuss immigration.

"Everybody just sat quietly and listened," he said. "There were none of the usual wisecracks."

All watched intently as the Donald laid out his point-by-point plan for addressing immigration.

"At the end some of the people at the bar started clapping as if they were watching it in person," my friend recalled. "I've never seen that with a politician."

Neither have I. Trump's followers are really passionate about him.

Clinton's followers are anything but passionate about Hillary. They just prefer her to Trump.

Trump's fiery speech on immigration Wednesday night gave him a good jump out of the blocks.

For a moment there it looked like he was going to do a flip-flop on amnesty. That might have pleased the Republican Party bigwigs. But it would have killed his campaign.

Instead he wisely reverted to his original position that the law must be enforced.

There was one line that epitomized the debate he will be having with Hillary Clinton over the next two months:

"There is only one core issue in the immigration debate, and that issue is the well-being of the American people."

Later in the speech Trump reinforced that message by stating, "We need a system that serves our needs, not the needs of others. Remember, under a Trump administration it's called 'America first.' Remember that."

Contrast this with the speech the prior week in which Clinton attacked what she called "the alternative right" - which she misidentified as a recent phenomenon linked to the Breitbart website. (In fact, the alternative right long predates Breitbart's distortion of the term.)

In it, Clinton made numerous references to "nationalism" - all negative.

Here's a typical one:

"So the de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign represents a landmark achievement for this group. A fringe element that has effectively taken over the Republican Party. This is part of a broader story. The rising tide of hard-line right-wing nationalism around the world."

Right-wing nationalism?

Is there such a thing as left-wing nationalism?

Certainly not in America.

Actually Clinton's on to something here - something that could doom her campaign if she keeps it up.

Nationalism - preferring one's nation over others - is indeed associated with the right in politics.

The left is more concerned with internationalism.

So is Hillary. She has made that plain in that foreign-policy speech last week when she said she views the U.S. as an "exceptional" nation.

This is a line usually associated with Republican politicians of the "neo" conservative persuasion.

I've watched over and over again as Republican presidential candidates get a rise out of the boobs by invoking "American exceptionalism" to justify spending our tax dollars and risking our military to advance the interests of foreign nations.

In fact, as I wrote years ago, the term was invented by a communist and handed down by the left-wingers to the neocons, who of course are every bit as right wing as Hillary - which is to say not at all.

The neocons are liberal internationalists through and through. Nothing irks these people more than the Donald's repeated use of the slogan "America first," which he repeated in that big immigration speech.

But how can they respond?

"America second?"

"Foreigners first?"

That's a tough one for the Clinton crowd.

Trump has turned the tables on the neocons - and Hillary - by questioning all of the tenets of liberal internationalism.

They were shocked when he raised the question of whether NATO has a reason for existence now that the Cold War is over.

They were appalled when he questioned the wisdom of toppling secular dictators in the Mideast. The inside-the-Beltway consensus, which Clinton follows slavishly, is that the U.S. needs to depose Syrian dictator Bashar Assad - even as his busy defeating ISIS.

The neocons are in agreement with her on this, even though it would almost certainly bring about the slaughter of the Syrian Christians.

Clinton also wants to set up a no-fly zone in Syria that could bring us into direct conflict with the Russians.

The U.S. has no vital interests in Syria yet she wants to risk starting World War III there to aid our Mideast "allies" - which I put in quotes because we don't have any.

The governments of those countries all put their national interests above ours.

Good for them, but let's not kid ourselves that anyone in the Mideast puts America first.

If the Democratic candidate for president won't, then why should they?

Most Americans, of course, have no idea where Syria is or who's fighting there. Most have only a vague idea what's going on in Eastern Europe that merits the attention of NATO.

But there is widespread understanding that Trump's positions on foreign policy, immigration and trade are all calculated to advance the interests of Americans over foreigners.

As for Clinton, I can't imagine her even speaking out loud the idea that the U.S. president should put the interests of Americans over the interests of non-Americans.

Anyone driving along busy Princeton Avenue in Brick Township over the past week came across this rather unusual display of pro-Trump enthusiasm. I considered it my journalistic duty to inquire of the homeowner just what this impromptu sign meant. The guy told me that he hadn't erected the sign on these two objects, which are inflatable boat bumpers meant to keep a boat from hitting a dock - and which are for sale for $250 if you're interested. He said he was away for a few days and came back to see the sign. He left it there for a laugh, he said. In Ocean County this sort of thing is the very height of wit.

She comes from a long tradition of doing the exact opposite, dating back to when her hubby got us involved in the fighting in the former Yugoslavia - another place the U.S. had no vital interests after the Cold War.

I suspect that's one of the reasons Clinton has been ducking press conferences for almost a year.

She doesn't want to face tough questions on policies that she supports - but most Americans oppose.

Then there are the revelations concerning those emails and the Clinton Foundation that keep piling up.

I don't know how Clinton can explain wiping that personal email server right after the New York Times disclosed its existence.

Even the liberal New York Times had to cover that incredible effort to wipe out emails that should have been public record.

That news dominates the headlines in the absence of any campaigning by Clinton.

Meanwhile Trump just goes out there every day and grabs a whole lot of headlines, most of which further fire up his already fired-up base.

If I were his adviser, I'd tell him to keep doing what he's doing.

If I were Clinton's adviser, I don't know what I'd tell her - except that she should ignore all those people who tell her she's got this in the bag.

BELOW: Note how the commentator here pushes the pro-Clinton argument on Chris Christie - and how he refutes it. All of the energy is on the Trump side as we go into the real campaign post-Labor Day.