Thinking Citizen Blog — Wrong, Again

Thinking Citizen Blog — Sunday is Political Process, Campaign Strategy, and Candidate Selection Day

Today’s Topic — Wrong, again

At least I’m consistent. In early 2016, I gave Trump zero chance of winning the Republican nomination. Later in the year, zero chance of winning the Presidency. Then, after the inauguration, zero chance of serving out his term. And finally, last week, I predicted a Biden landslide. How could I have been so consistently wrong? I guess I have been living in something of a bubble. Today, the summary of an article by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe arguing that Trump’s failure to curb his worst instincts during the last few weeks of the campaign cost him the election. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

TRUMP SHOULD HAVE WON — Jacoby

1. “Only twice in the last 85 years has an elected chief executive been defeated for reelection — George H.W. Bush in 1992 and Jimmy Carter in 1980 — and both times the incumbent was weakened by a significant third-party candidate (Ross Perot in Bush’s case and John Anderson in Carter’s).”

2. “Trump had no such burden. He had only to contend with a 77-year-old career politician who had run for president twice before and washed out both times.”

3. “Against any other incumbent, such a challenger would have posed little threat.”

THE LAST FEW WEEKS, THE UNDECIDED VOTERS, HOW HE BLEW HIS CHANCE

1. “Of course the majority of Americans made up their minds about Trump long ago. But in the end, the election came down to the narrow slice of voters who were undecided until very late in the campaign.”

2. “Of the more than 90 million Americans who cast early ballots as reported by the polling survey firm Morning Consult, 1 in 5 settled on their choice for president within the last month before voting. Those were the voters Trump should have been moving heaven and earth to woo.”

3. “All he had to do was control himself for few weeks — to show those late-deciding voters a Trump who wasn’t reckless, disruptive, and bellicose.”

THE 2016 PROMISE NEVER KEPT

1. “At some point I’m gonna be so presidential that you people will be so bored,” (Trump, 2016)

2. “But that point never came.” (Jacoby)

3. “Not even at the last minute, when four more years in the White House were on the line.”

All Trump had to do was act presidential — The Boston Globe

Here is a link to the last three years of posts organized by theme:

PDF with headlines — Google Drive

YOUR TURN

Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to political process or campaign strategy or 2020 candidate selection or anything else for that matter.

This is your chance to make some one else’s day or change their thinking. Or to consolidate in your own memory something worth remembering that might otherwise be lost. Or to clarify or deepen your own understanding of something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.