Donald Trump prevails

Against all conventional wisdom, he has become the GOP’s presumptive nominee for president.

Sheila Liaugminas | May 4 2016 | comment

Against all conventional wisdom, Donald Trump has become the GOP’s presumptive nominee for president.

But the only consistency in this wild political season has been its unpredictability, in both parties. This has been an election cycle far out of the bounds of political models and establishment control and certainly, conventional wisdom. Very different winds have been blowing in America since the early GOP campaigns launched last year and over a dozen candidates joined the crowded field by early 2016. Who would have thought back then that it would wind up like this.

That unforeseen force of nature has caught up American Democrats since Hillary Clinton began what was supposed to be an easy stride to the convention podium this summer to accept the Democratic nomination for president, only to be outshone in popularity by longtime Democratic Socialist Senate veteran Bernie Sanders. She may well be the inevitable candidate, but it’s May and she’s not there yet. That’s remarkable.

It has been a bruising, belligerent, demeaning, undignified and uninspiring battle to date. Conventional wisdom had Ohio and/or Florida as always pivotal in putting candidates over the top. This time, all the states played a key role, but it was Indiana that handed Donald Trump the decisive win that, suddenly, turned him into the inevitable GOP candidate for presidency. It also knocked Sen. Ted Cruz out of the race all of a sudden.

Here’s the New York Times early analysis, one of the few outlets swift to offer anything more than a placeholder paragraph or two until they could process what just happened. Essentially, it shows a matchup of two unpopular candidates, another remarkable reality in this year’s election. Donald Trump packed stadiums and arenas and picked up momentum on ‘the Trump Train’ as time went on, but for all those primary victories, he continually polled behind Clinton in a general election matchup. Until the night of the Indiana primary.

The Times story doesn’t report this, but one of the latest polls showed Trump about even in that faceoff. The bigger story is that polls and predictions haven’t meant much this year, as people at the grassroots defied them again and again. The Times article had to fill the analysis with something, so it resorted to conventional wisdom. Which makes no sense. People reacted. We have become a reactionary nation, visceral and impulsive and driven by emotion. How voting polls show one thing in people registering to vote for the first time or first time in a long time, longer lines at many polling places, reflecting engaged citizens, while popularity polls show the ‘unlikeability’ factor rather high for the now presumptive GOP and Democratic candidate, is beyond reason and virtually beyond precedent.

I recently heard former Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry on a news show, asked for his opinion on Trump. He said: “We have never had anyone on the political stage who is as talented at selling a brand as Donald Trump. Now selling a brand is different from managing a country, so we’ll see.”

We’ll see whether and how the tone, tenor, content and character change in this new stage of Election 2016. And we’ll be watching, and listening, closely.

- See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/donald-trump-prevails/18013#sthash.NNU0aMxv.dpuf

Well, the people of Indiana have spoken. Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for the Presidency and will face the (nearly) presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton in November's election. After months of campaigning the greatest horse race in the world is entering the final straight. The pundits are placing their bets; the crowd is roaring; the jockeys are thrashing their mounts. It will be the most interesting election in decades.

Except that an election is not a horse race. It's a deeply ethical decision for each and every one of the voters. And they have been presented with a cruel choice this year. On the one hand they have Clinton, a millionaire from the big end of town pretending to be a champion of the disadvantaged, under a cloud for dishonesty, a polished politician who has built her career on supporting abortion and gay rights. On the other hand, they have Trump, a billionaire who has never been elected to anything, a man full of vulgar narcissistic bombast, a man who supports torture, who wants to treat migrants like felons, who admires the toughness of gangsters like Vladimir Putin. He says that he is pro-life, but can he be believed?

Is it possible for an American voter who believes in human dignity to support either of them? Or is it better to vote for an obscure third-party candidate? Or to boycott the election altogether? Whatever the answer is, voters have to examine the issues and the candidates deeply.