ATTENTION ALL VOTERS: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HILLARY AS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

….Donald VS Hillary

 

The GOP’s on-going smearing of Hillary probably isn’t enough to stop her from winning.

 

OK, let’s take a look at what Hillary will be running against, now that she has Senator Bernie Sanders working on her side. 

 

Let’s consider what the real issues are with Donald Trump’s so called policies.

 

Let’s remember that Donald Trump actually stood on a debate stage and argued that Americans are being paid too much.  He also actually talked about getting rid of the national minimum wage altogether.  For those that actually have looked at Trump’s policies to date, what little we know of his economic policies, he would be running up our debt, starting trade wars, would let Wall Street run wild.  All of which could cause another market crash that would devastate working families all over the country. Trump’s economics are a recipe for lower wages, fewer jobs, and much more debt. (And he is the one that keeps criticizing the current administration for the nation’s terrorist problems and high debt….?)  Trump would bankrupt America like he’s bankrupted his own companies.

 

Today, the media is focusing on Hillary Clinton’s limitations as a candidate.  But her past appearance many weeks ago at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) convention in Detroit showed how effective she can be against Trump. She declared:  “At a time when families are struggling to pay for childcare and so much else, Donald Trump actually argued that Americans are being paid too much.”  For helping Hillary, many traditional Republicans are still saying to themselves that Donald Trump is a disaster just waiting to happen.

 

Hillary has asked a key question about one of Trump’s bankruptcies that many people are now also asking, “Ask yourself, how could anybody lose money running a casino? Really?”  Trump has had four major corporate bankruptcies that took away many good paying jobs.  Sorry Donald, but as the US president, you can't use a bankruptcy to get the country out of financial trouble.

 

Now that Clinton is running only against Trump, she can start to bond with the audience.  This is something she wasn’t able to do with ease, especially when battling Bernie during the primary.  Hillary is already mocking Trump and regaling it with accurate tales of his loony policy pronouncements.

 

 

Sure, the SEIU was a union audience, where she was able to throw in plenty of goodies about paid leave or subsidized child care.  But the message that Trump is a danger domestically and internationally is also highly compelling. And it is one in which Hillary’s personal deficits in the primary, such as her lack of exciting or soaring rhetoric, could become major assets against the highly erratic, demagogic and blustering Trump, regardless of his pick of Mike Pence as his VP running mate.

 

Clinton’s ad where she highlighted an interview with Trump where he rooted for the 2008 Great Recession so he and other billionaires could acquire those unfortunate people’s homes for pennies on the dollar, that really hit home.

 

If you recall how Mitt Romney had his problem with the “he cares about people like me” question, just wait until the anti-Trump, Great Recession ad and the ones that highlight Trump saying things like “she had blood coming out of her where ever”, or “You can tell them to go Fxxx themselves”, running wall-to-wall for months in the swing states.

 

On top of all this, Hillary is very popular in the polls over Trump with Blacks and other minorities, with women, and with the elderly.  You know, those that will work hard to be sure to vote against someone like Donald Trump.  Even over 70% of the younger Millennials that supported Bernie Sanders have said they will vote for Hillary now that she is the candidate.  On top of that, the Republicans keep saying they will turn out more and more of the white vote, when there are fewer and fewer white votes as a percentage of today’s electorate. The Post’s Chris Cillizza recently reminded us of the numbers behind this fact.

 

Today we have a “browning nation”, and the aging voting public is becoming less and less white.  In fact, in the nation’s largest state, California, whites are already a voting minority as the Hispanics and Asians have surpassed the number of white voters.  In addition, the Republicans continue to prove that they are incapable of winning over non-white voters.  This is causing a number of US states to move toward becoming first a Purple state, and then turning into Blue states, as most minorities tend to vote Democratic.

 

Trump has his dreams of “rewriting the voter’s map”.  But he is battling the hard realities of electoral math. The number of states trending more Republican with high percentages of white voters are few and far between.  As a browning nation, the number of states with more diverse populations continues to grow. It is hard to imagine which of the traditionally Blue states that Trump could flip.  If you consider the following states, I would think that they will continue as very Blue states.  That includes: New Jersey, New York, California, Florida, Colorado and Nevada. 

 

 

But what about states like Ohio?  Well, according to the Center for American Progress, that idea is not looking very good for the GOP.  The Democrats are taking comfort in the analysis from groups such as these.  The fact that many key Republicans including the Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasick, didn’t attend the GOP Convention in Kasick’s own state, that still doesn’t bode very well for Trump.  When Ted Cruz wouldn’t endorse Trump, when none of the Bush family and Mitt Romney wouldn’t attend the convention, none of that showed the unity that is needed by the end of a national convention week.

Due to the nation’s demographic changes, regaining 2004 levels of Ohio support simply will not be enough for the Republican presidential candidate to win in 2016.  When President Bush won Ohio in 2004, voters of color collectively comprised less than 14% of the state’s electorate. By 2016, African Americans will constitute more than 12% of the electorate, and people of color collectively will account for over 17% of the state’s electorate.  In light of these changes, if the Ohio voters vote as they did in 2004, the Democratic candidate will win by a margin of ~3.6%.

 

If you add in Trump’s considerable problems with women voters, you see the advantage that Hillary Clinton appears to have in states like Ohio.

 

To sum it up, if the experts are correct, even though Hillary is not the greatest candidate, she is likely to be a better candidate in the general election than she was in the primary election.  Just given her demographic advantage, and you add Trump’s racist and misogynist approach to running, Clinton becomes a formidable opponent.  Those Republicans that take comfort in national polls from back in May are probably kidding themselves.

 

Yes, the Republicans have been going after both of the Clintons for decades, and yes, some of that has succeeded in making Hillary Clinton as being “untrustworthy”.  And as Trump calls her. “Crooked Hillary”,  the Republicans have shown that they have a very efficient ability for smearing any of their competitors.  Hillary’s problems with the e-mail server and the GOP's false accusations about Benghazi have not helped the situation,

 

But the Republicans have been going after the Clintons for so many decades that those in the know are aware that they need to do their own Google research for understanding what is the truth and what is fiction.  The overall reality is that Hillary Clinton should not be underestimated as a potentially formidable presidential candidate.

 

And I reiterate the words from the ghostwriter of Trump’s business book, “Art of the Deal”, and in regards to Trump the candidate: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!!!”

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016