Friends, it's worth considering whether this year's polls might be seriously flawed, both because of the vagaries of the pandemic and mail-in voting, and because of the elusive "shy Trumpers", who prefer not to admit their allegiance to the President to pollsters, or even to their closest friends and immediate family members! I'm extensively quoted in this Sputnik News piece about this phenomenon. Take a gander.
In other news, you may have heard that there was a little debate last night... Well, here are my thoughts.
I would regard this debate as, by and large, a draw, in the sense that both Biden and Trump performed well, by the low standards of political rhetoric currently en vogue. Trump was obviously determined to make Hunter Biden's business deals, in which Sleepy Joe may be implicated, an issue. He did so, but he might have needed to explain the issue to voters first, since many of them will know next to nothing about it, given the media and social media blackout on all anti-Biden narratives. In addition, I thought Biden did a good job of parrying the attacks. He got Trump talking about his tax returns as much as he was talking about Hunter Biden. The question that Trump should have asked is: Does Sleepy Joe stand by his claim that he never discussed business with Hunter? That question is something of a trap for Joe, since more and more evidence is emerging that he was in the loop... Be that as it may, Trump successfully seeded the minds of the voters with rising doubts about Joe Biden's honesty and integrity. Now it's up to campaign ads, Trump surrogates, and journalists still willing to their jobs to tell the rest of the story...
Will the debate alter the race? Probably not much, since both candidates accomplished more or less what they set out to. Frankly, this debate will be hard to weaponize against either man. Maybe, just maybe, Biden's continuing denials about the "family business" will catch up with him. Maybe, just maybe, Biden's opposition to the oil industry will emerge as a blunder. The more likely scenario, however, is that any points Trump might have scored will be nullified by media spin, which will pick at any imperfections in his performance and arguments, and will simultaneously dismiss Biden corruption as a Russia-induced fantasy.
The real question, then, is: what is the state of the race? Is Biden comfortably ahead, as most MSM polls show? Or is the race very close, perhaps even with a slight electoral college edge to Trump, as Trafalgar (and possibly Rasmussen and IBD-TIPP) would have it? And that question, as we all know, can only be definitively answered by the voters themselves.
So, one month from now, will The American People know who their next great leader is, Duce Trump or State Commissar Biden?
ReplyDeleteNo matter what, I'm getting ready for a major political shit storm next month. I'm willing to bet (almost) that this election won't really be finalized until January 2021. A real cliff hangar to be sure.
ReplyDeleteRay, that could be true. I personally regard a close, contested election as "advantage: Trump". Did you know that the electoral votes are compiled by the V.P and then conveyed to Congress? You better believe Pence has America's best interests at heart. If there were multiple slates of electors, as there easily could be, then Pence would pick the BEST ONES, surely. Indeed, this election might be subject to gamesmanship up to the last minute of overtime. First, though, we MUST keep it close.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: In my conversation with a friend recently he said, yeah but if you say anything" they " don't like you get jumped on and even your job could be in danger. I don't fault him one bit. He knows which side the bread is buttered on these days. But in the voting booth? He'll vote his beliefs without fear. Stand by . . . .
ReplyDeleteGood to hear, Jack! Thank heavens for the secret ballot. In California they're trying to dispense with it, but in most of America it still obtains. Can you imagine how the election would go if all votes were recorded and publicly available? Yikes!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: If it's anti American democracy, if it's anti leftist totalitarian political correctness, if it violated any canon of the far leftist creed . . . ? Its Ca orNY. "If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium"; oh I know all you arthritic boomer contemporaries of mine remember that!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy et al: Sorry, I meant " leftist totalitarian" alone .
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