Monday, October 31, 2016

Trump's Bradley Effect

By Douglas V. Gibbs
AuthorSpeakerInstructorRadio Host 

Conventional Wisdom, according to the liberal left Democrats and the mainstream media, says that Hillary Clinton is destined to win the Presidential Election of 2016.  Hillary Clinton is so confident that she should win by a landslide that at one point she actually cried about why she's not ahead by 50 points.  If Hillary Clinton were a racehorse, a football team, or a boxer, betting against her would be only something a sucker would do.

Donald Trump says the system is rigged.  Rumors circulate each and every election.  I am a firm believer that Romney won that last election, but lost only because of the fraud and corruption committed by those supporting Barack Obama.  There were, after all, in 2012, instances where in some districts the number of voters exceeded the number of those registered, and other instances where in some districts 100% or 99% voted for Barack Obama - a situation that is a statistical impossibility.

In this election we have learned from the Wikileaks released Podesta emails that the polls are being skewed by an oversampling of Democrats, but even with the manipulation Hillary is only barely ahead.  Does that mean that a number of the Democrats polled say they will be voting for Mr. Trump?

I have talked to people who support Trump, but won't put Trump bumper stickers on their cars for fear of the car being keyed.

Wait a second.  The Founding Fathers were willing to put on the line their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, and we are worried about a paint job?

Which brings us back to the polls.  Are some of the people being polled afraid to admit they will be voting for Trump?

In 1982 the governor's race in California included candidate Tom Bradley of Los Angeles.  All of the polls said the first black mayor of L.A. was a shoe-in for governor.  Yet, on election day, Bradley lost.  A number of people had said they were voting for Bradley, but didn't.  They were too afraid they'd be considered racist if they said otherwise.  So, it turned out the polls were wrong.

The Bradley Effect may also apply in the 2016 Presidential Race.  How many people who haven't admitted they will vote for Trump will be happy to pull the lever for him in the privacy of the voting booth?  Could it be that Hillary Clinton is leading in the polls, be it because of a manipulation of the polls, or the fact that some persons are too afraid to tell the pollsters they are voting for Trump, but in the end she will lose?

Aside from oversampling Democrats, the pollsters say they are targeting "likely voters."  How many people who have voted in the past might not be this time, and how many folks who have not been voting in recent elections will be?  After all, more than 40 percent of Americans eligible to vote have not cast a ballot in the last two presidential elections.

Remember, the polls four years ago predicted Romney would beat Obama.  But Obama had pulled into the voting booths a large number of voters who were considered "not likely" to vote.  Might that happen this year with Trump supporters?

This election also has another unique factor when you campare it to past elections.  Trump is like no other candidate in recent history, so how can it be determined from traditional methods if any particular voter will be voting for him, or not?  He defied conventional wisdom in the primaries, and he is defying those ideas now.  While a good portion of Obama voters are not likely to vote for Trump in this election, a few might be.  And, Trump has activated a silent voting block that has been sick of the system, tired of the political machine, and then here comes Trump claiming to be the champion of bringing down that system.  He's anti-establishment, and a number of voters, though they may not be in full agreement with all of his policies, like the fact that he's the stick in the spokes of the establishment, and will vote for him because, as Michael Moore put it, Trump is the biggest F-You to the political elite in American History.

All of this has also been terrorized by recent events that makes Hillary look even more untrustworthy than she already is.  We have the Wikileaks email releases, Project Veritas videos exposing the Democrat Party and Hillary Clinton election campaign corruption, and then there's the FBI stuff going on which has been re-accelerated by Anthony Weiner's computer.  The emerging information that the media has been trying to ignore reveals how much of a corrupt and unlikable person Hillary truly is.  And don't think voters aren't paying attention.  With the latest revelations, Hillary's lead has plummeted, and in the case of the Washington Post ABC News poll, she's lost 11 points in one week.

While the Democrats and media are busy Borking Donald J. Trump, is it possible he's going to pull off a victory despite their corruption and deception?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

No comments: