Hillary’s Collapse

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Nov 2016

Today is Election Day in the United States.  The LA Times Daily Tracking poll has Trump up by three, while the IBD daily tracking has Trump up by 2.  All the other polls lag in time and report the history of last week.  Three weeks ago everybody forecast that Trump’s campaign was doomed, and now he is poised for victory.

Hillary will run up her national vote in states like California, Oregon, and Washington. Cities like New York, Philadelphia, Alexandria, Pittsburgh, and a few others will provide her with wide margins of victory that the hinterlands of those cities will have to overcome to provide Trump his margin of victory.  Battleground states like North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and New Hampshire look like Trump victories, while Democrat strongholds Michigan and Pennsylvania have become closely contested.  Trump may well win either the popular vote or the Electoral College.

Hillary’s collapse in the waning weeks of the campaign began the moment people thought she was poised for victory and started to contemplate what a Clinton presidency might be like.  In the midst of this disturbing thought, FBI Director James Comey announced the discovery of another trove of Clinton emails on the laptop of disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner.  People then realized that it might not be over.

Hillary’s felonious handling of emails might come back to bite her as president.  Meanwhile, the cascade of leaked emails from WikiLeaks poured into the coverage of the campaign.  The corruption of the Clinton Foundation was laid bare.  The arrogance and contempt of the Clinton team towards outsiders and even among themselves became public knowledge.  The unsavory sale of favors by Hillary while Secretary of State in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation or for money to Bill directly became impossible to hide.  Whatever campaign message Hillary had became buried under this avalanche of new scandals.  A tide had turned.  Hillary was reduced to a totem, immobile and representing nothing new and potentially nothing but trouble.

Trump, meanwhile, recovered.  He pounded on the theme of the American people having to rise up to deliver justice themselves, of themselves having to destroy a corrupt and rigged system.  His message resonated.

During his speech to the Democrat National Convention in July, President Obama spoke of people having to help “carry Hillary across the finish line.”  I remarked at the time that it spoke poorly of the candidate, and would indeed be necessary.  The last five days of the campaign have shown it to be the prophesy expected.  Hillary’s rallies have had to count on Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Bruce Springstein, Lady Gaga, and others as headliners to attract people.  Hillary makes her appearance at the end, as incongruous as if the Phillie Phanatic waddled on stage after an act featuring Beyoncé wiggling.  President Obama, Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Vice President Bite-me have hit the campaign trail trying to drum up support among minorities for Hillary’s dead-in-the-water campaign.

Meanwhile, Trump by himself has been drawing between 10,000 and 30,000 people at his rallies.  Getting 10,000 people together in New Hampshire in November is no mean feat.  Even rural Virginia was amazingly mobilized by a recent Trump rally.  Trump has momentum, and he has the determination of large numbers of people behind him.

We will learn later tonight if Hillary banked enough votes in early voting to stave off her final collapse at the end of the campaign.

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