Scott Lehigh is somewhat of a centrist among the columnists for The Boston Globe. He is certainly not a national name. It is worth noting what he offers given that the paper has a reasonably large circulation in Southern New Hampshire, where a majority of that supposedly swing state’s votes are located.
In a column written yesterday for today’s dead tree edition, titled Voters are getting it right on Clinton and Trump, Lehigh informs us
THIS IS a summer that has shown American politics at its democracy-affirming best.
Noting how some might question that, given all we have seen and heard from Trump, he follows up with this:
Here’s why: Republican Party primary voters may not have been able to see through Donald Trump, but the broader electorate has recognized that he’s unfit to be president. Voters don’t always sort things out on punditry’s preferred timetable, which can lead to some Henny Penny hysteria among the commentariat. And yet this season those voters have done themselves proud. Even with the distractions of this lovely summer, they’ve taken an accurate measure of Trump’s dime-store demagoguery and rejected his dog-whistle politics.
There is much I find delicious in that paragraph, especially Henny Penny hysteria among the commentariat. That I think is fueled in part by the desire to have a competitive contest — after all, it is air time for the punditry class, it is more column inches for those who write for print.
He also writes this:
But this best encapsulates Trump’s plight: He is behind, though narrowly, in Ohio, without which no Republican has ever won the White House. Yet even if you put Ohio and every other toss-up state in Trump’s column, he still loses to Clinton, 272-266, as the Real Clear Politics map currently stands. If you award all toss-up states the way they are currently leaning, then Clinton trounces Trump, 362 electoral votes to 176.
Let me repeat what I wrote back in May: Nov. 8 will be an early night.
In a sense, if one has access to the exit polls, that last statement will be true. As things stand now, I would not expect calls to be made before 11 PM Eastern Time, although if Georgia and South Carolina continue to tilt towards Clinton, it could be as early as 9 PM.
There is more.
Lehigh explores those Republicans who have decided not to endorse/support Trump. He disagrees with those who claim unless they also endorse Clinton it is insufficient. He thinks that they are making it clear that Trump should not win, even if for whatever reasons they cannot bring themselves to publicly endorse Clinton (and I would think that at least some in the privacy of the voting booth may vote for her, particularly if their state hangs in the balance). They are clearly indicating, given the choices, that they believe Clinton should win.
Looking at the country as a whole, Lehigh notes that for whatever reasons, be they actually favoring her or just viewing her as the lesser of two evils, Clinton despite all her baggage (and yes, he went there) is the choice they will have to make. In that penultimate paragraph, there is some delicious comparisons using luggage as a metaphor comparing the two, Clinton with monogrammed carry-on baggage but Trump with a
steamer trunk of controversies, from his sexist and racist comments to his nativism and xenophobia to his belittling manner to his designed-to-fool-the-lightly-informed policy proposals.
I actually found that comparison to be one that I wish more of the punditry (and I am talking about all of you on Morning Joe) would refer to regularly — there is a real imbalance in treating the issues as equal between the candidates.
I must share Lehigh’s pointed final paragraph:
Those who view America as a ship of fools have worried that voters could be duped into putting this modern-day Captain Queeg at the helm. In fact, Americans have arrived at the right judgment before the debates have even taken place. And it’s nigh unto impossible to imagine them changing their minds after seeing these two rivals head to head.
Agreed. In fact, the result of the debates might be to tilt the outcome so completely that it could become a rout.
Yes, merely appearing on the same stage with someone like Clinton is supposed to elevate Trump’s stature. Except he has already appeared on stages with a number of notable public figures and while he was able to win 47% of the Republican primary vote, in the process he created an image of himself that is now fairly firmly fixed in the minds of far more Americans than are normally paying attention in August.
Read the complete column by Lehigh. Perhaps pass it on.