If Hillary Clinton wins this election she will have done it while battling against more than a quarter of a century of the most overtly sexist campaign of character assassination in the history of American politics. No, make that the longest and most no-holds barred vicious campaign of character assassination in the history of politics. They have lied up stuff about Hillary Clinton they never did against Ted Kennedy, the target before Bill and, especially, Hillary Clinton drew the same fire. The cabloids, the broadcast venues, coast to coast hate-talk radio, if Hillary Clinton defeats their decades of attacks aimed at embedding a content-free, hateful feeling against her, she will have performed a political miracle. She will also have smashed more than the presidential glass ceiling, she'll have done a lot to put a clay cap over the stinking, leaking cholera and typhus ridden shit lagoon that our media has become in the era of all lies allowed, no standard is too low to stop with American journalism.
And, yeah, Ted Rall did declare Trump the winner as did Michael Moore. Even when she wins she loses. But, then, Michael Moore is the same one who said that Romney was going to win on 2012. I suspect there was always a lot less there than met the eye. The camera adds ten times the gravitas, but almost only to men.
Clinton's numbers are showing a sharp up-tick at 538, less than a week after the first debate. I honestly think it had an impact this time, especially with 80-100 million estimated viewers. I don't think that many people tune in just for the entertainment value.
ReplyDeleteThere's also, still, the very subterranean matter of voter turnout. North Carolina was so concerned about this they decreased the number of days of early voting directly because of "Souls to the Polls." Voter turnout does not benefit Republicans, in general, and yet without a GOTV effort, candidates don't win.
Trump doesn't have a GOTV effort, unless he started building one in the last month (which is too little too late). Texas early voting doesn't start until late October, but I'm already getting Democratic GOTV robo-calls. Three polls show the race in Texas is too close to call, between Clinton and Trump. Given electoral history in Texas, nobody thinks that means anything. But if Trump doesn't turn out his voters, and Clinton does, it could be a very different story.
I'm following the numbers at 538; but I'm expecting something of a surprise come the second Wednesday in November.