Well now that Bernie Sanders has endorsed Hillary Clinton the game is over, she is our candidate. But lets not white wash the facts. I am a democrat, have been since I could vote in 2005, but I consider myself a progressive first and a democrat. That’s why I supported Bernie Sanders and and not Hillary. She might call herself a progressive but in reality she is a centrist democrat more in common with someone working in wall street than the average guy. That having been said, she is our candidate and Donald Trump is 100 times worse than Hillary could ever be.
Which is why it saddens me that her chances of getting elected are dismally small. We already have pundits falling over themselves to explain her failings. First Kos was all excited that Trump was broke, remember he only had 1 million dollars in his campaign fund, and then when he did like Bernie and called on his supporters who responded enthusiastically, they overnight donated over 5 million to his general fund and 6 million to the RSC and RCC Kos was enthusiastic again. This time, because as he said Trump would not be removed from the ballot at the Republican National Convention. He’s good both ways. Now the polls are showing that she is virtually tied with Trump. Not that they were not showing it before but then it was only in the battle ground states now its in the national poll. But I see pundits cherry picking the polls for any bright side that they can push about Hillary’s candidacy, Maris over Qunnipac, YouGov over New York Times.
What really depressed me is that most of Trumps supporter are very enthusiastic about voting for him,and those that are not are mostly the establishment hard core republicans the ones that are most likely to vote anyway. Voters that are very enthusiastic about voting for Hillary tend to be the hard core democrats while the independent voters that are not democrats but likely to vote democratic are not very motivate, somewhat likely to vote for Hillary. That tells me that the base on both sides are going to come out and vote for their candidate while the marginalized independent voter is only enthusiastic about voting for one of the candidates.
The reason for this is that the country is not going in the right direction, according to Real Clear Politics the Direction of the Country statistic has been mostly negative 40+ for over a decade. the only time this metric even came close to reversing itself was right after President Obama’s election. And that is because people thought that he was a progressive, but instead he turned out to be another centrist politician. People are tired of sending politicians to Washington and having them ignore their will. TPP, Trans Canadian pipeline, Glass Steagall, anti-bankruptcy legislation and the list goes on. It seems that we have a small, although not that small around 16%, percentage of the population that are enjoying the fruits of this economy while the vast majority either are struggling in a shrinking middle class or are mired in poverty. 36% of the population live in either borderline poverty, which is 26,000 for a family of two and varies from there, or live on less than half the poverty wage of 16,000 for a single person, 15%.
So there is a deep seated anger that wages are stagnating, Jobs are going overseas, prices of medicine and real estate, two of the basic factors of living, are skyrocketing and again as I have said politicians are not doing anything to reverse that. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump spoke to the people that are sick and tired of politics as usual and now there is only one of these candidates left. Most hard core democrats believe that because Donald Trump is a Misogynist, Racist, Homophobe that this will end the end disqualify him. But I’ve listened to his speeches and he speaks to the middle class. Hell I would vote for him if I tough for a second that he was telling the truth. If Hillary was really a progressive and wanted to really win this election she would come out whole hardheartedly against TPP for starters. But from what I have heard in her debate speeches she is going to get as many concessions as she can for the average guy before she signs it. Because when wall street wants wall street gets, they are not going to spend millions and not expect to get something for it.
So since the dice have been cast I will make my prediction, Hillary will lose this election but not only will she lose it but it will be by a significant margin Trump will get over 300 electoral votes. In fact here let me make a more formal prediction.
1. Trump will defeat Hillary with an over 300 electoral vote total.
2. Hillary will out fundraiser him by a 4 to 1 margin.
3. The presidential debates will be called overwhelmingly for Hillary by the pundits
4. This will depress voting in downstream races costing us seats in the House and senate.
Now I will shut up until after the election because we are supposed to unify and get Hillary elected. But once this election is over we will have to really get to work and turn the Democratic party into a truly progressive institution and work to electing a progressive president in 2020.