After a relatively quiet few weeks, election news is starting to pick up again. Trump picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, and we've got new CBS/New York Times poll showing the Clinton/Trump race in a practical dead heat. RealClearPolitics has Hillary leading by a measly three points when everything's averaged out, Over at The Hill, there's an article about Senate Democrats "freaking out" about the poll numbers, while John Cassidy at the New Yorker is telling people not to panic, at least, not yet. My view is that there isn't any real need for panic or general freak outs, since we've reached the point in the election where the numbers are going to pretty much stay where they are.
This is obviously no comfort to anyone; no Hillary supporter wants to know that the best they can do is beat Trump by the skin-of-their-teeth and no Trump supporter wants to hear that the campaign has plateaued five months from the election. But here's the thing, anything that could have dislodged or destroyed the campaigns has already happened and we're where we are anyway, there's no other shoe to drop to swing the momentum in any significant direction for one side or the other. The CBS/New York Times Poll asked if people hadn't heard enough about Trump or Clinton to form an opinion about them, what they got back was on 3% and 4%, respectively, hadn't heard enough. When they asked about if how committed the supporters where to their candidates, Trump got 90% saying they wouldn't change their mind, Clinton had 88%. Both Trump and Clinton are known entities with decades of scandals, baggage, and bullshit behind them, there is no significant part of the electorate who hasn't already decided who these people are and there is nothing either candidate can do to shift those perceptions.
"But, the e-mail scandal!" someone will surely say. Well, since Hillary wasn't charged, it's just the same old story of powerful elites avoiding the justice system because of their power. And to be sure, it's hurt Hillary, at this point, people think Trump is more trustworthy and honest than she is. And, don't get me wrong, Trump is going to mine that situation for all the "Washington cronyism" that he can; and it'll stir people up for sure, 46% of the respondents said that Clinton had done something criminal. But when you break that number down among political affiliation, that number isn't as exciting. 78% of Republicans thought she did something criminal, and only 51% of independents thought so, too (Democrats, obviously, where the lowest, at 14%). So here's a prime example of people already making up their minds on an issue because of their ideological preferences and the people who aren't, are pretty evenly split on the issue. Trump will do everything he can to push that Independent divide up in his favor, but if a year of coverage hasn't already swayed people's minds, five months of soundbites and talking points isn't really going to change that. Cassidy also thinks the issue will die down when Clinton admits her mistakes in the whole affair but, considering that she still insisted that the Inspector General reported validated her claims that she hadn't any differently than Colin Powell and that State knew what she was up to even though the report literally said the exact opposite, I doubt that's going to happen as well
Both The Hill and New Yorker article make a lot of hay over Trump's lack of a ground game", basically campaign personnel who do the door-to-door campaigning and get-out-the-vote initiatives in local neighborhoods. This is a criticism you're going to see thrown a lot over the next month or two, depending on how much Trump's campaign can get its shit together. In my view, using this an example of how bad Trump is at managing a campaign is misguided. Presidential elections are, more than anything, contests between cults of personality. Trump understands this, if nothing else, which is why he was able to mop the floor with the 16 other candidates in the primary and it's why he's basically even in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.
Where that criticism has a point though, is that it may hamper how effectively Trump can mobilize his voter base. Again from the CBS poll, 27% of the respondents where very enthusiastic about the vote, but 24% weren't enthusiastic at all. Among the parties, 84% of both Republicans and Democrats said they where going to definitely vote, but since those votes are already locked one way or another, the key to winning will be whoever can get the 69% of independents to come out. In a race this tight, knowing where your weak spots are in terms of voting districts and how to best get them out is going to be essential, and whatever else you can say about her, Clinton knows how to turn her machine on to grind out as many voters as possible. Trump's lack of experience in this and his apparent decision to foist everything off on the RNC, which is honestly better at suppressing the vote than turning it out, could cost him in the long run.
One last thing that's just funny to me more than anything else, in The Hill article one of the Senators quotes Clinton that the reasons for her bad poll numbers are that there are other things going on, like people being unhappy and not trusting institutions. Those things are true, but the implication that Clinton can overcome those prejudices to turn her numbers around is hysterical. There is no one in recent history who embodies the official political culture of D.C. more than Hillary Clinton; when people think of politicians getting rich off their connections, they jump to the Goldman Sachs speeches, when they think of insiders protecting each other from criminal charges, they jump to the emails. Basically, Clinton can check off every single thing people think of when the phrase "Crooked Politician" comes to mind, that she seems completely incapable of seeing that or understanding what that means for her campaign is kind of awesome in its own delusional way.
Anyway, that's where we stand today and where we will most likely be standing five months from now. The conventions start next week, and there will probably be no shortage of drama as a result, but overall, we've seen the talking points and the strategies from both camps in how they'll deal with each other and we've seen the polling results. The worst part about all of this politicking and horse-racing though, is, in five months, one of these assholes is going to be our next President.
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