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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Trump's Secret Plan

I have figured out Trump's secret plan--to deny political scientists the ability to understand why he lost (he is going to lose, might as well put it in the past tense already).  What is the problem?  He is doing EVERYTHING wrong, so it will be hard to discern what mattered the most--his failure is going to be over-determined.

Trump could lose because:
  • careless statements alienated key constituencies (veterans, women, disabled people, etc).
  • his campaign staff were third string at best and some (Bannon) seemed more focused on destroying the GOP.
  • he alienated the GOP establishment, attacking Kasich and thus losing the chance to turn out the vote in Ohio and other places.
  • he spent more money on hats than on ads.  Seriously, do campaign ads matter?  This would be a perfect time to draw the contrast since HRC has many more and much better ads, but the effect of this will be hard to discern due to the other stuff
  • he has no real Get out the Vote effort--I have been joking that Trump can't spell GOTV.
  • he is a misogynist and women happen to be more than 50% of the electorate.
  • Pence is just an awful sidekick.  Would be Palin-esque if not for Palin and Trump lowering expectations.
  • he didn't spend much money compared to HRC.
 I could go on and on, but you get the idea--Trump is a thoroughly craptastic candidate so political scientists will have a harder time explaining his loss than his rise.   Oh wait, there is Trump's Razor....

2 comments:

  1. While much has been said about the failure of 'The Party Decides' this year (http://bit.ly/2fh9hDX), most poli-sci assumptions about the effectiveness of presidential campaigns have have not been wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Grifter emulates tried-and-tested strategy to enter the race for a quick buck, then things got out of hand"
    is the easiest summary.

    https://twitter.com/PGourevitch/status/775909945225142272

    ReplyDelete