Tim Blair: Clinton’s troubles are only just beginning
IF the polls are accurate, we’re looking at a narrow Hillary Clinton victory on Wednesday. If enthusiasm among Trump supporters are more accurate guides — it’s a Trump blowout.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Miranda Devine: Clinton doesn’t deserve to win
- Must see TV — how to watch the US election circus
- Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the ultimate frenemies
If the latest US election polls are accurate — and they’ve been very accurate in recent elections — we’re looking at a narrow Hillary Clinton victory on Wednesday.
If the polls are wrong, and the big rally crowds and evident enthusiasm among Trump supporters are more accurate guides, we could be looking instead at a Trump blowout.
At a Florida rally on the weekend, the Republican candidate was either bluffing about his chances or was alert to the potential for unexpected results in non-Republican states.
“We’re going into what they used to call Democrat strongholds, where we’re now either tied or leading,” Trump declared. “We’re going to Minnesota, which traditionally has not been Republican at all.”
That’s something of an understatement — perhaps the first of the entire presidential campaign. Minnesota hasn’t voted for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972, and was the only state in the US to support Democrat (and Minnesotan) Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan in 1984. Minnesota is to Republicans as the Bermuda Triangle is to aircraft.
Current polls give Clinton anything from a six-point to nine-point break in Minnesota. In previous elections, no candidate trailing by that margin would waste valuable final hours campaigning there. Better to consolidate advantages in states where you’re competitive.
Still, at least Trump is sounding like a winner. By contrast, Hillary’s last few days have seemed desperate. “Here’s what I want you to remember,” she told her own Florida rally, before it was rained out. “I want to be the president for everybody: everybody who agrees with me, people who don’t agree with me, people who will vote for me, people who don’t vote for me.”
Peta Credlin: Why Trump could happen in Australia
People not voting for her are the least of Clinton’s problems. Many of Trump’s fans would prefer to “lock her up”, which is one of the more distinctive chants heard at campaign events this year. That chant became slightly more urgent following the FBI’s announcement of a renewed investigation into Clinton’s sneaky email concealment.
Perhaps one of Clinton’s musical fans could write a song about it, once they find a handy rhyme for “Espionage Act of 1913”. Last week, Clinton appeared at Jennifer Lopez’s Miami concert, then she turned up at a show starring Jay Z and his wife Beyonce. Next up, another concert with Katy Perry. Overnight she was scheduled for a campaign stop in New Hampshire with James Taylor.
She’s got the sensitive singer-songwriter, profane rapper, soft-porn video chick, once married to creepy Russell Brand demographic all sewn up, for what it’s worth.
Trump’s rallies generally just feature Donald Trump. “I didn’t have to bring J-Lo or Jay Z,” Trump told a typically large crowd Pennsylvania on Friday. “I am here all by myself. Just me. No guitar, no piano, no nothing.”
Well, not always. Over the weekend Trump was briefly joined on stage by anxious security staff when someone at a Nevada campaign visit shouted about a gun. No weapon was found, and Trump resumed his speech after 10 minutes or so. “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us,” he said, “but we will never be stopped. Never ever be stopped.”
That’s not exactly Trump’s decision to make. If the pre-election polls are precise, he’ll be stopped sometime on Wednesday afternoon Sydney time by about 65 million voters, after which we can get down to considering a US led by someone being pursued — and with damn good reason — by the FBI. Just like that charming Nixon fellow.
Besides their shared compulsion for concealment and evasion, Clinton also exhibits Nixon’s grotesquely obvious craving for authority. Subtract political ambition from the woman and she’d be just a few rogue atoms floating untethered in the atmosphere.
It won’t be the end of civilisation if Clinton does win, of course. Likewise, a President Trump won’t be nearly as disastrous as some fear. The apparatuses of the US government is so vast that it can absorb an oddball commander in chief. After all, the place is still running following eight years of Obama, whose primary accomplishment was taking America’s $10 trillion debt — accumulated over more than two centuries — and doubling it within just two terms.
By some estimates, the US debt is now greater than all of the world’s physical currencies combined. It’s around 25 times the size of Australia’s debt. During the third debate, Clinton said the debt would not rise by a penny under her watch. It actually increased by another $150 million by the time the debate ended.
Worry all you like about an orange-haired vulgar chap or a pant suit powered by lies.
America’s real problem is numbers — and they have nothing at all to do with polls, whether they turn out to be accurate or not.
STUPID CELEBRITIES PACK THEIR BAGS FOR PLACES UNKNOWN
IT’S an election tradition older than kissing babies, or, in Hillary Clinton’s case, dementedly pointing at someone and acting startled. Every four years, America’s stupidest celebrities announce they will leave the US if their preferred candidate doesn’t win. This was an especially popular vow during George W. Bush’s two election campaigns.
These dopey celebs generally nominate Canada as their future home. Then they stay exactly where they are. None of them even call any real estate agents in Manitoba or Saskatchewan.
This time around, however, politically jittery show business types are looking at regions far beyond the Great White North. Some are even claiming they’ll move to Australia rather than endure a Donald Trump presidency.
During an interview in August with Australia’s 60 Minutes, elderly singer and devoted Democrat Barbra Streisand pledged: “I’m either coming to your country, if you’ll let me in, or Canada.”
Try Canada first. Please.
Actor Ali Wentworth, who once played Jerry’s girlfriend on Seinfeld, also has Australia on her mind. “If Trump wins, we’ll start looking at real estate in Sydney, Australia. No crime, no guns,” the wife of former Bill Clinton circus midget George Stephanopoulos said.
No crime in Sydney? No guns? Ali doesn’t read much.
Someone called Raven-Symone, an actor according to the internet, went with convention. “My confession for this election is if any Republican gets nominated, I’m gonna move to Canada with my entire family,” she told TV viewers.
“Is that bad?”
Only if you’re unaware that at least one Republican is usually nominated to run for president. Just as well Samuel L. Jackson isn’t coming to Australia, because he’d immediately be up on 18C charges.
“If that motherf ... er becomes president, I’m moving my black ass to South Africa,” the actor declared.
Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart is so distressed by the possibility of President Trump that he might leave the Earth. “I would consider getting in a rocket and going to another planet,” he said in 2015, “because clearly this planet’s gone bonkers.”
Cher is another Trump hater pondering interplanetary relocation. “If he were to be elected,” she wrote on Twitter, “I’m moving to Jupiter.” Which will at least finally prove if plastic cheekbones can survive in an atmosphere completely composed of hydrogen and helium.
“I am moving if this is my president!” screeched Miley Cyrus on Instagram, declining to nominate any particular country. “I don’t say things I don’t mean!”
If only, dear.
Maiden: Cashed-up Albo is rubbing young voters’ noses in it
It’s one thing to be loaded after decades in parliament but it’s another to flaunt it so close to an election, writes Samantha Maiden.
What your private school says about you
The school you went to says a lot if you ask Sydneysiders. But the private school circuit is exclusive and elusive, and we’re here to help decipher it.