Wednesday, February 17, 2016

WHY ARE WE SO CONFIDENT?

Predictwise says the Democrats have this in this bag, Hillary in particular:



So do the Iowa Electronic Markets:



And yet Democrats lose seven out of eight matchups in the new USA Today poll:
In hypothetical matchups in the general election:

• Clinton loses by 2 points to Trump (43%-45%), 1 point to Cruz (44%-45%), 6 points to Rubio (42%-48%) and 11 points to Kasich (38%-49%). That's a weaker standing than the former secretary of State showed in December's survey, when she narrowly led Trump and Cruz and trailed Rubio by just 2 points.

• Sanders loses by 1 point to Trump (43%-44%), 3 points to Kasich (41%-44%) and 4 points to Rubio (42%-46%) -- each of them a slightly stronger showing than Clinton -- and he leads Cruz by 2 points (44%-42%).
Clinton and Sanders both lose to Rubio, Trump, and Kasich, and Clinton loses to Cruz. Yes, the margins are tight, but why are they even tight if this is a Democratic lock?

Yes, as Kevin Kruse says, other recent polls show better Democratic results (though they're not much better, except in matchups with Trump or Jeb), and maybe Republicans are doing better in the polls because they're having a more interesting race and getting more attention.

But what if a sense of resistance to Clinton is just building and building, exactly the way it has in the GOP toward Jeb Bush? What if -- as seems to be the case with Jeb -- it's irreversible? And what if Sanders is struggling to make a positive first impression because he's being attacked by black activists as a Johnny-come-lately on civil rights, by Clinton supporters as the leader of an army of boorish simpletons, by the cocktails-with-hedge-funders punditocracy as a dangerous radical, and by everyone else as Grandpa Simpson? And let's not even talk about the massive money gap if Sanders somehow wins the nomination.

I think Joe Biden could at least have engendered broad-based goodwill this year -- and if you're going run a guy prone to embarrassing utterances, wouldn't the best year to run him be a year when Donald Trump is saying things that are much worse? But we didn't get Biden.

I continue to have a really bad feeling about this election. I don't see Sanders having the war chest to win and I don't see the public rallying around Clinton. The most optimistic scenario is that the Republicans really might be handing the election to the Democrats as a gift. Is that it? Is hat enough? Should I stop worrying?