Presidential Campaign Wrap-Up

As the Presidential campaign nears its close the race seems to be getting tighter and tighter. Early in the race Hillary Clinton remarked that she should be leading by fifty points. Now Democrat politicians and pundits are acting as if they are in panic mode.

Democrat big guns including President Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice- President Biden, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and even ex-President Bill Clinton are traveling all over the country to drum up votes for Hillary even though privately none of them can stand her.

The left-wing media is acting as if every word counts. My Yahoo home page is full of headlines claiming that Trump is failing and Clinton is winning.

11/4/16: Will Melania’s Leaked Photos Damage…
11/4/16: LA Times Tracking Poll: Trump’s Lead Shrinks to 4…
11/4/16: Former Trump Supporter Looks Back with Regret…
11/4/16: Bernie Sanders Goes ‘All-in’ for Hillary…
11/5/16: Melania worked in U.S. Without Permission…

On Friday night CNN panelists tried to explain away declining African-American votes in the early balloting by bringing up the bogeyman of voter suppression. It was as if they were preparing to claim that the election was “rigged’ against Clinton.

It is instructive to watch these CNN panel performances. It is hard to call them discussions because the panelists are all party stalwarts with little trace of being impartial reporters of the news. All we get is the official party line. For over a year now they have been acting as if every one of the millions of words they have uttered is so important.

Nevertheless, I think that most voters will not be influenced by the avalanche of words coming from cable news. Nor do I think that they will be influenced by political or media endorsements. Last week my wife noted that this year’s Presidential election is not so much about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton but about what voters think will happen in the next four years. Will we have a continuation of the policies of the Obama Administration, or will we see something new?

Obamacare, the signature issue of President Obama, is repealing itself. It is imploding right in front of our eyes with double digit premium increases and huge deductibles on the handful of policies available to consumers. The so-called Affordable Care Act was supposed to provide coverage for 30 Million uninsured, but a recent statistic indicated that only 11 Million have been covered. It would seem that more people have lost coverage than have gained it. What kind of insurance is it if the deductible is $16000?

Overseas, the world is in a mess that has often been exacerbated by the policies of President Obama and his one-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Attempts to aid and arm rebels in the Middle East have proved disastrous. We intervened in Egypt to overthrow a dictator but brought the Moslem Brotherhood into power. Now they are ruled by a military dictatorship. Our intervention in Libya produced even worse results. The assault on the American embassy in Benghazi and the murder of the American ambassador were just the tip of the iceberg there.

Syria is probably the worst example of failed American intervention in support of rebels. Donald Trump was right when, during one of the debates, he remarked to Hillary Clinton that she doesn’t even know who the rebels are that she is supporting. We have to take a good part of the blame for what happened in Aleppo. Moreover, Clinton’s support of a no-fly zone in Syria is inviting an incident with Russia that could have even worse consequences.

Speaking of Russia, at one point during the campaign the candidates were asked what they considered to be the most serious problem facing the world today. Clinton thought it was “climate change,” but Trump believed it was the threat of nuclear war. Democrats claim that Trump cannot be trusted with the country’s nuclear arsenal but in eight years the Obama administration has not been able to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. At the same time, we have no way of knowing if the costly deal with Iran will work.

Finally, are race relations in this country any better than they were when President Obama took office?  He was the son of a black father and a white mother, and his overwhelming victory in 2008 gave him a unique opportunity to usher in a new era of racial harmony in this country. Instead, he has politicized the Justice Department and the Attorney General’s office to the point where it would now be better called the Department of Injustice. Hillary Clinton has offered no solution other than to double down on the President’s misguided efforts.

This summer Donald Trump appeared to an enthusiastic crowd that filled the Sacred Heart University gym in Connecticut to overflowing despite record heat. At about the same time, Hillary Clinton spoke at a private $40000 per plate fundraiser in Greenwich. His speech appeared on television. Her remarks to the multi-millionaire donors were private, but we know from other such meetings that she believes that private truth is not always the same as public truth.

This election is about more than Trump and Clinton. It’s about who and what they represent. Trump may be a rotten s.o.b. but I tend to stand with the people in that sweltering gym rather than with those at the private $40000 per plate dinner.

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Note: Here is the latest Electoral College Map from Real Clear Politics. Blue States are for Clinton, Red for Trump, and Grey are toss-ups. I don't like to make predictions but I believe that Arizona and Nevada will go for Trump, and Colorado and New Mexico for Clinton in the West. In the South I believe that Georgia and North Carolina will go for Trump, and Virginia for Clinton. In the Mid-West I believe that Iowa and the key state of Ohio will go for Trump but that Michigan will go for Clinton. The race will then come down to Pennsylvania and Florida. If Trump wins Florida and loses Pennsylvania, he could still eke out a victory by winning New Hampshire and one of the Maine electoral districts.