Trump’s beleaguered campaign manager, KellyAnne Conway is running out of shit to say. The poor, dumb sucker has been reduced to parroting Hitler’s famous “phantom army” routine. You remember that one, in the final days, holed up in his bunker, Hitler sent out hysterical radio messages to the old men and kids who were all that was left defending Berlin to hold out, there was a vast army on the way to save the day and repel the barbarians at the gates. There was no such army, it was a pure fantasy.
In desperation Conway is now latching onto the same theory for Trump’s plummeting poll numbers. There is a vast “stealth” army of Trump supporters out there that are underrepresented in the polls. The logic for this? Tres simple Mon Cherie, Trump does much better in online polls than he does in personal interview polls. There are true believers out there who are embarrassed to admit to a living human being that they support Trump, but they are much more open in anonymous online polls. They will shock the world on November 8th by showing up in massive numbers. As my sweet wife Teri would say, “Uh-huh, yeah chure, riiiiiiight”.
But what if it’s the other way around? What if, by the time election day rolls around Trump has so demoralized his own supporters that they don’t bother to show up? Let’s not forget, he’s already told them that the election is rigged against him, so what difference does their individual vote make? Is it theoretically possible that The Orange Julius could end up with even less votes than he’s forecast for now?
The simple answer is yes. On “All In” with Chris Hayes last night on MSNBC, in a great interview with 538.com’s Harry Enten, they brought up a couple of striking similes. In 2012, Claire McCaskill was a stunningly unpopular Democratic incumbent is a normally red state of Missouri. But after Todd Akin’s devastating “rape and pregnancy” interview, he tanked in the polls. Going into election day, McCaskill was ahead in the polls by more than 8 points. But when the ballots were counted, McCaskill won by a 15.7% margin. Disgusted voters just stayed home.
In 2013, disgraced U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner was competitive in a wide field of Democrats running for mayor of New York. But after he was once again caught figuratively with his pants down, his polling numbers dropped to 10%. But on election day, Weiner only garnered 5% of the vote tally. Once again, disgruntled voters may not have voted for someone else, they just didn’t show up to vote for him!
Can the same thing happen to Trump in 2016? Will loyal voters, finally fed up, not only with the neverending scandals, but with the daily bombardment of e-mails from Trump, begging them to contribute to the cause, when he’s the one who brags from the mountaintops that he’s funding his own campaign finally see the writing in the polls, and the obvious scam for what it is and just stay home?
We’ll find out in just 18 days, but it will be interesting to see if Mein Furor goes down the path of those before him and makes just one too many mistakes. Here is the interview, it’s only five minutes long, and well worth the look.
Thanks as always for reading, you are ALL the wind beneath my wings!