Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Hillary Clinton surges in the polls

Following the debate, Hillary Clinton has surged in the polls. After a couple of weeks where her lead had reduced to around 1%, she has surged back up to about a 5% lead which, in electoral college terms, would translate into a comfortable win.

The enormous audience for the debate (probably more than 100 million) allowed many undecided voters to see Trump for the first time with more than soundbites. And they didn't like what they saw. Hillary Clinton brought up the fact that Trump had attacked a Miss Universe winner, Alicia Machada, as fat and also called her "Miss Housekeeping" as she was a latina.

Instead of letting this go, as always Trump is extremely easy to bait. He went on television doubling down on calling Machada fat, a slut and part of a conspiracy against him. The following day, he kept the argument going posting a number of tweets between 3am and 5am calling her "disgusting".

Trump completely lacks the temperament to be president. Someone who can be baited so easily with a tweet is not someone who should be in control of the nuclear codes. Can you imagine how easily Trump would get pushed around by Putin? Trump already holds Putin in breathless admiration and has shown he is willing to serve Russian interests; can you imagine how simple it would be for the Russians to manipulate Trump alternatively with flattery in their own name and insults and psychological operations from unattributable sources? He is so simple and predictable, psychologically, and his psychopathologies are so evident, that it would be very easy for Russian intelligence to develop a psychological model that would allow them to manipulate him into going down the path they want him to go down. In fact, they probably already have the model and have been using it for a year.

Anyone who considers themselves a small-c conservative, who values the United States and is a true patriot, who is in favour of traditional conservative values like free trade and open markets, support for the military, not being a sex pervert and so on should support Clinton rather than Trump with his insane mix of isolationism and military belligerency, his support for Russia and contempt for allies like Britain. That is why George H W Bush, who was quite a good president, is voting for Hillary Clinton. He knows what a threat Trump is to the security and prosperity of the United States.

Fivethirtyeight's "Polls plus" algorithmic model, which includes masses of polling data, economic data, historical data (and which was very successful in predicting exactly how the electoral college would be configured in 2012) suggests that Clinton has a 64.4% chance of winning the election, and a 74.9% chance if the election were held tomorrow. The day before the debate, she was on 52% to Trump's 48%. The more people see of Trump, the less they like him.

I hope Clinton wins, and I think she will. I can't wait to see the response of not only the Trumpites, but also the conspiracy nuts and hateful Bernie-or-bust people who have been driven so insane by losing the primary to Clinton that they would prefer Trump won. Everything we know from Clinton's past is that she is terrible at campaigning, but once she is in office (both as senator and Secretary of State), she has very high approval ratings and is widely respected. I think she will be a very good president.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 1

Vav Sartrean Po

Thanks for that relevant and helpful information.

Spoiler

Reply 2

AlexanderHam

Original post by Marshall Taylor

Going to watch the debate highlights now

Trump did okay in the first 20 minutes or so of the debate. Even though a lot of what he was saying was false or taken out of context, from a pure perspective of communications effectiveness, he did reasonably well attacking Clinton on trade issues (though bizarre for him to attack her saying "You've been in power for 30 years". She was the first-lady of Arkansas 30 years ago, no power whatsoever in federal matters).

But after the first 20 or 25 minutes, Trump starts to meander and lose focus while Clinton (who seemed a bit nervous for the first 10 minutes or so) really starts to drill on him relentlessly, like a steamroller. She stays looking fresh, alert, in command all the way to the end, whereas Trump is looking quite tired and irritable. And of course his tiredness and irritability leads him to say bizarre things like, "No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your whole adult life"

This video here is a fairly good compilation of highlights (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRCle4shmY)

(edited 7 years ago)