"Will Trump Win in a Blowout?"
This is going to be a national security election. I started writing this article before the horrifying news started coming in from Nice, but even then the situation couldn't have been more obvious.
As anyone paying the slightest attention knows, Islamic fundamentalism is at war with Western Civilization. It's not just ISIS, but unfortunately many continually metastasizing organizations based on the same ideology. (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula recommended using a truck as was employed in the Nice attack in its magazine Inspire in an article entitled "The Ultimate Mowing Machine.")Barack Obama's response to our civilizational enemy has been a disaster.
Because of the president's deep neurotic
And further;
"Could it happen here? Of course. Was Barack Obama right to allow so many Syrian and Middle Eastern refugees to come to the United States virtually unvetted? Is Hillary Clinton right to actually increase that number by some huge amount? Are these two leaders crazy - or sadistic?"
The 2016 presidential election has turned, too date, basically on the character of Donald Trump. Although poll after poll shows that Hillary Clinton is hugely disliked and distrusted and there is nothing she can do about that fact the voters have not made their minds up on Trump's character.
Clinton is dropping markedly in the polls after the multitudinous reinforcements of her negative aspects.The Bill Clinton/Lynch tarmac meeting, the ruling on her server/emails further reinforced her negativity to the point that she has now passed Trump in "unlikeability" in key states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Trump on the other hand has stayed basically static, (although the gap is closing) until now, as the latest state and head to head polls are starting to show an uptick in support for him especially in the key industrial states. This is to be expected as there is always a lag between events and their effects in the polling.
The clever and prescient Scott Adams (of "Dilbert" fame) ascribes, colorfully, the reason for Trump's rise to Trump's post Dallas "Cop Killers Versus Racists" meme change which of course has validity in its exploration of the public perception of who is correct in the public mind after Dallas.
Adams concludes (after earlier noting the more "presidential" Trump")
"I still think Trump needs to come out clearly and unambiguously against racial politics. And I expect that to happen. But the police shootings in Dallas probably changed the Clinton brand enough that Trump can glide into the presidency as things stand now, unless there are new developments.
But stay tuned because there are always new developments."
And, yet again, Adams is perfectly correct and the "new developments" came swiftly in Nice France.
The 2004 Bush versus Kerry election (the latter is still a major player in some way in the 2016 scenario, even as a ghostly echo) turned on national security.
That Bush was competitive after the "stolen" election of 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote handily was kept in check of course by the aftermath of 9/11. Bush's handling of that (pre-the Iraq invasion) and the Homeland Security success kept Bush competitive.
It can be fairly said that Bin laden's intervention in the campaign with his video threats ensured that, in the final analysis, national security was the paramount issue that gave Bush the narrowest of wins percentage wise of any re-elected president.
"Kerry blames defeat on Bin Laden"
"Kerry blames defeat on Bin Laden"
Although Bush won the popular vote handily he won Ohio,and the electoral college majority by a football stadium crowd size majority and won Iowa/Colorado/New Mexico, all states that went subsequently for Obama, by wide margins.
If Roger Simon is correct, as I have little doubt that he is, the 2016 election will also, in the end no matter the twists and turns between now and November, also come down to "who is best to answer the 3 a.m. call."
Trump's likeabilty, which will improve over time, is not the deciding factor although his honesty, which polls shows is rated higher than Hillary's may have some input, but rather "who has the strength to keep my family safe in this dangerous world."
President Obama and Former Secretary Clinton have tried and failed. Nice, and the previous international terror examples, plus Ft.Hood, Boston, San Bernardino and Orlando stand as proof.
By themselves they give weight to Roger Simon's considerations and should ensure Trump's election. If, heaven forbid, any further major terror attack in Europe of the USA happens between now and November it will be a "Bin Laden moment" and the question mark in Simon's "Blowout?" will be removed.
Note further;
The Beslan Massacre: Then as American school children were returning to school, the horror of the Beslan (Russia) hostage crisis on September 1, 2004, unfolded before our eyes with 24x7 media reportage. There is probably nothing more frightening than the slaughter of innocents to catalyze action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w
American voters went to the polls with an extra measure of fear and caution in their collective memories. Did they want Beslan-type school slaughters on American soil? I posit that these two key events created an appetite within the general populace for a decisive president that had placed homeland security as Job 1 since 9-11. Lucky or not - before either of these events occurred, the Republicans had tagged John Kerry with the flip-flop image with varying degrees of success.
The Beslan Massacre: Then as American school children were returning to school, the horror of the Beslan (Russia) hostage crisis on September 1, 2004, unfolded before our eyes with 24x7 media reportage. There is probably nothing more frightening than the slaughter of innocents to catalyze action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w
American voters went to the polls with an extra measure of fear and caution in their collective memories. Did they want Beslan-type school slaughters on American soil? I posit that these two key events created an appetite within the general populace for a decisive president that had placed homeland security as Job 1 since 9-11. Lucky or not - before either of these events occurred, the Republicans had tagged John Kerry with the flip-flop image with varying degrees of success.
