On A Clear Day, I Can See My Barn.

On A Clear Day, I Can See My Barn.  Over the next three months, American voters will be deciding who they will choose to lead our nation for the next four to eight years.  It is not a reach to say that the candidates available for that choice are two of the most flawed in history.   Some have even gone as far as to say that the vice-presidential candidates for each party are superior to their presidential candidates.  Perhaps so, but the choice remains either Trump or Clinton.  There will likely be many from each side of the political aisle that will remain home in protest on Election Day.  Bernie’s legions and the army of Cruz will not totally accept the candidates that vanquished their idols.  Will this advantage break for either Trump or Clinton?  Not likely.  It is more probable that an equal number from each party will abstain in protest.  As perhaps never before, at least in modern history, this will be an election where the winner can legitimately be labeled the “least of two evils”.  

There are many today who know exactly who they will vote for in November.  Their visceral dislike for one candidate or the other is cemented in their consciousness and nothing that occurs between now and Election Day will change their mind.   These “already decided” voters might very well be in equal numbers for each party.  That would leave the “yet to decide” voters to determine our next President.  That group would be composed of Independents, crossover voters from each party, and yes…the members of each party who remain voteless in protest.  In reality, a Republican non-vote for Trump is indeed a vote for Clinton; and likewise, a Democrat who chooses not to vote for Clinton might as well be casting a vote for Trump.  It could be that close.

If this election cycle has proven nothing else, it has proven the remarkable limits on the abilities of political prognosticators to accurately predict election results.  When all is said and done, I suspect the same will be true of pollsters.  All that being said, it is such good sport to speculate on how this race might end, especially with a race that promises to be very entertaining (or depressing?), that I will render a notion or two about its possible results.

Hillary Clinton has been a government addict her entire life.  With the exception of her brief and controversial work at the Rose Law Firm, her entire professional life has been involved in some form of civic performance.  It is amusing that the Democratic National Convention attempted, once again, to reintroduce her to the American public.  I hardly think there are many among us who do not have a pretty solid opinion, one way or the other, of Hillary Clinton.  It is also true that her extensive experience with governmental affairs is a two-edged sword; it both qualifies her for public office and exposes her weaknesses and failures in public office.  From her First Lady of Arkansas chapter, to her First Lady of America chapter, through her New York Senator chapter, to her Secretary of State chapter, she has worn many hats and costumes.  The opportunities to promote and advocate for varied causes and principles have been plentiful and one can simply read the history pages to arrive at a verdict on her effectiveness as a public servant.  The more relevant, not my meaning but the reality of the situation, aspects of her many adventures in elected office will be her many brushes with controversy, corruption, and legal gymnastics.  Whether or not Hillary Clinton should currently be residing in a big house somewhere with “three hots and a cot” is a matter of opinion; but the fact that she has so often been associated with matters of questionable ethics must pose a cautionary concern to any person considering her for the top office in our nation.  While she will proclaim her resume as great presidential qualification, she must also answer the many questions left unresolved by her scandalous adventures.  Clinton’s argument of competence will have to be proven beyond the list of offices she has held; a list of accomplishments will be necessary.   She will have to either effectively address the public mistrust that so many hold for her and win them over to her abilities or convince the people that Trump is so incompetent as to pose a real danger to the nation; leaving herself as the only logical choice.  One other balancing act that will test Clinton’s political skills will be the tricky feat of clinging to Obama’s support by essentially painting her election as a third (and fourth?) Obama term while also convincing a clearly uneasy American citizenry that she has the recipe for necessary changes; changes that will address the many troublesome issues that have flourished under Obama and are currently vexing this nation.  No matter what else she or her campaign managers might say or do, Hillary Clinton will represent Obama and his policies and the WDC establishment in general; she is the personification of status quo and business as usual.  Her task will be to spin those connections in a fashion that casts a favorable light on their continuation.

While Donald Trump cannot be painted as a career politician or even a politician at all (in the conventional sense), I have no doubt that an effective argument can be made that he has gamed the government system no  less than Hillary Clinton has over his lifetime.  The difference is that his gaming has been from outside of government.  As with Hillary, careful and thorough research will no doubt find ample proof of Trump’s dalliances with moral and ethical ambiguities.  It is easy to picture that each other’s charges of character failure will be basically off-setting and will garner neither an advantage of any worth.  Trump is a new phenomenon in American politics that most observers are still trying to figure out.  How much of what he does is calculated and intentional and how much is simply “seat of the pants” spontaneity and Donald simply being Donald?  Throughout the Republican Primary season, political insiders tried to solve this mystery and the fact that Trump now stands as the Republican nominee speaks to their inability to effectively answer that question.  This is the double-edged sword that Trump bears.  His seeming obliviousness to accepted political behavior and correctness is no doubt a large part of his appeal to many of his most ardent supporters.  But the risk that he runs every time he goes off script (which is MOST of the time) carries a high price and could be that particular sound bite that ends up destroying his campaign for President.  Just as Hillary will tout her varied public office experience and simultaneously be forced to defend her possible conflicts of interest, Trump will crow about his business acumen, his outsider status, and at the same time be forced to explain his corporate bankruptcies in that context.  Can this man convince the American voter that he is competent to be President?

As the title of this blog suggests, on a clear day I can see my barn from my front porch.  There is not much between here and there and I am certainly far removed from WDC and the political power epicenters of the American establishment.  But this I do believe: Two arguments will likely decide who will be our next President.

Either Hillary Clinton will convince voters that in spite of the reservations that most people hold about her public and personal records regarding honesty, corruption, and abuse of power, she nonetheless represents a more competent choice for President.  She will try to persuade people that even if they do not agree with her policy positions, she will put seasoned and capable people in charge of governmental departments and agencies and the machinery of this nation’s administrative systems will begin to function with some greater degree of efficiency and effectiveness.  Oh…and while she is attempting to convince people that she is the sane choice, she will be trying to convince people that Trump is a raving lunatic and is the insane choice.

Or Donald Trump will convince people that Hillary Clinton represents business as usual.  She represents more of the nanny state intrusions into our private lives that Obama has spent eight years pursuing.   He will try to tie her to Obama’s many foreign policy failures and attempt to lay the blame for today’s global chaos at the feet of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.  He will say that our government needs to be changed in order to function properly and that change must come from someone with a new perspective; an outside the government perspective.  He will not be specific, but will instead simply emphasize all the domestic and foreign policy maladies that ail this great nation and indicate that he knows how to fix them.  He will say, repeatedly, that Hillary Clinton’s quest for the Presidency is simply a naked reach for an opportunity to fuel her greed for money and her thirst for power; a chance to rename the American government as Clinton’s Playground.

Are people so fed up with the status quo that they will take a chance on an outsider?  Are people so frustrated with government that they will franchise someone to implement unspecified wholesale changes?  Will people be so distrusting of Hillary Clinton and her aversions to the truth that they will discount her litany of government experience?  Can Trump manage to go three months without that damning fifteen second sound bite that will cripple his campaign and convince people he is a loose cannon?  Can Hillary mange to play a three month long game of dodge ball with her scandals; keeping the focus on her opponent and off of her problems?  Has Clinton learned from her extensive government experience how to make it work better; or has her extensive government experience jaded her and made her even more susceptible to her appetite for power and corruption?  Has Trump’s burgeoning capitalist conglomerate given him a fresh insight as to how government might be modified to make it more functional; or, is he so indoctrinated in the bottom line obsession and greed that drives corporate America that he is unable to see any other business model?   If this election is framed as competence versus change, which way will the American voters choose?  On a clear day, I can see my barn.  On even a really clear day, I cannot see the answer to that question.