I have been a baseball and political junkie for the last six months, reading all the statistics and scuttlebutt I could digest. I found a common thread between the two. All the stats and inside baseball were interesting and portrayed a fairly accurate picture about what was going on, but in baseball and politics there was another crucial ingredient that had to be assessed to really get what was happening. Who had the “energy,” the passion, the enduring enthusiasm?
When I was watching all the “smart” people on TV and reading the erudite compilations of polling data as the election was coming down to the wire, my mind told me that Hillary Clinton had a lock. She had the women’s vote by 15 points, she had 80% of the Latino vote and over 90% of the African American vote. She had the Obamas pushing Black turnout. She had all the plusses that Mitt Romney had identified in 2012 that made a Republican Presidential victory virtually impossible. And, Hillary had the “jerk” factor working for her. She was running against Donald Trump, a narcissistic, crude, discarder of wives who made fun of fat women and disabled reporters. How could she lose?
But as the race wound down, my gut told me that Trump had a very good chance to win. In my job I get to talk to a wide swath of people each day from around the country. They come from different earning categories, small business people, hourly people on the shop floor, all varieties of ethnic groups. They are mostly white, tend to be over 40, and not heavy in college degrees. They were strongly for Trump. They were quite different from my friends and family and the people I encountered at the local Starbucks.
They were enthusiastic for Donald, not passively favorable for Hillary. They were sure about voting for Trump while my Hillary friends were toying with third parties, wishing that Sanders was the Democratic candidate or considering not voting at all for President.
Donald Trump made a brilliant decision early in his campaign. He would double down on his core group of supporters, disaffected white men and women, and try to expand that group rather than convert the unconvertable. He mobilized and energized his base all over the country. He played to his fans, and he built energy, enthusiasm and momentum. This is an example business people should learn from. Go after your natural constituents, don’t waste your effort on those who seem disinterested. Trump made a half-hearted effort to turn Blacks and Latinos to him, but mainly he tried to play to his chorus and build, build, build momentum.
These were the people who would forgive him for being a narcissistic, impulsive jerk. They focused on what they wanted to see in him – strength, confidence, disgust for the status quo in Washington.
On Monday, I read the poll of the polls. I listened to the “experts” who just kept repeating the stats and conventional wisdom, and I knew in my gut that Trump would probably win. Hillary needed Michelle and Springsteen to muster a crowd in Philly. Trump pulled 10,000 screaming believers to a midnight rally in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Believe in the “energy.” You don’t always see it in the stats, but it makes the “difference” for winners.
Question: If you did not vote for Trump, what do you think now?
32 Comments
Not a direct answer to your question but a comment:
I would be surprised if many (any) of your readers voted for Hillary Clinton. Your readers are of a group that surely wouldn’t want another Clinton in office. Especially Hillary. That being said, I voted for Trump. I like the idea of a President that is not of our corrupt, self serving “elite” ruling class of politicians. Maybe our tax dollars will be used for the advancement of hard working Americans agendas rather than the free air conditioners and cell phones Obama gives to the people that just don’t want to go to work for a living but can vote.
I voted for Donald. I have seen what we have gotten for the last 16 years and I was sick of it. Trump can be an ass but I am willing to accept that if he can bring a new way of doing business to DC. He got elected president and didn’t have to sell his sole to get there. I knew all along that this was an election that you were going to have to stay up really late if you were going to see who won. I saw Trump show up for a rally and 10’s of thousands of screaming fans would be there. My guess is the pollsters were not polling those people.
I voted against Donald Trump because I didn’t think he had the temperament to be the President. I hope I’m wrong. I am not sorry to see the Clinton’s go. I’m tired of her email and calls for her imprisonment. They have enriched themselves while “serving” us for the last 30 years. If they choose to go quietly I hope we let them and never hear from them again.
My guess is that Donald Trump will govern as he sees fit, ignoring whatever promises he made along the way that don’t fit into the plan that he never shared. That could be a good thing. I don’t think he has any intention of ever showing us his taxes so let’s not even ask. I hope he stays all four years because Mike Pence will get pushed around and never make any real changes. Lastly, I hope that I have the opportunity to vote FOR someone in 2020.
Nick, I sometimes reply here but your post is word-for-word what I would have written!
Agreed. Hopefully he won’t do a lot of the crappy stuff he promised. Now would be a good time for some campaign lies. He probably didn’t plan to have to make those decision because he didn’t think he would be elected.
Still hard to fathom a “President Trump.” Guess this is a country where anything is possible.
I voted for Hillary because she was infinitely more qualified than Trump.
Trump is a racist, amoral jerk! He treats minorities, women and basically anybody different than him, or who disagrees with him, with contempt. He’s a scam artist that ran his campaign straight out of Hitler’s playbook. (There’s a reason no papers or top CEO’s endorsed him.)
http://www.redstate.com/diary/gawken/2016/04/17/trumps-campaign-perfectly-follows-joseph-goebbels-playbook./
Trump will finish what Bush started and either plunge us into a depression, or start a nuclear war (the other option is a more pragmatic Trump, at the expense of his alt right followers, but I don’t hold much hope for that).
If this country is still around in 4 years, I will look forward to voting for Elizabeth Warren or John Kasich.
And most of the readers at this site will be looking for another white guy, Jeb or Billy Bush perhaps, to save them from the evil democrats.
Don’t worry Mike we’ll all be learning to speak Chinese soon enough.
On Tuesday as I walked out my polling station, I lamented that I had just voted for the second worst possible candidate for president.
The next morning I found out that the worst possible candidate won the election.
I didn’t vote for Trump either, unfortunately there were no good choices in this presidential race. When so many of the military leaders and veterans came out against Trump that made my decision. One other thing I fear is the people he surrounds himself with, Newt Gingrich will undoubtedly have a position in Trumps cabinet, this is a man who, during his time in congress, was censured many times for ethics violations and was evened fined $300,000 by congress for such violations. (Not that Hillary is any better). That being said I will respect Mr. Trump as president (something he wouldn’t do for President Obama). I feel it is important that no matter who you are you respect the president even if you don’t agree with their decisions. There is a rich history in this country of questioning authority and the decisions they make, I believe that can be done with civility and respect, I pray Mr. Trump can learn to do this, we are all Americans, we should act as such!
Trump was not in my top 3 Republican candidates. My vote was against Hillary not for Trump. During her time as Secretary of State Clinton placed CONFIDENTIAL government information on an unsecured email server and additionally failed to return it as required when she resigned her position as Secretary of State. Both of these acts are inarguably a violation of our national security laws. Mr. Comey let her off the hook due to political pressure. When faced with the evidence Clinton denied, lied, and and finally admitted that she would not have used a private server if she had it to do over. Clinton’s reckless actions jeopardized the lives of both foregn intelligence operatives and our military personnel. Clinton is the candidate who was unfit to serve. I have serious concerns for the future of this country when 60 million voters are willing to vote for a candidate who is clearly unfit to serve. A coin flip on the unknow Trump beats voting for Clinton who has proven herself to be unfit to serve.
No matter who you supported or, in many cases, voted against, the miracle here is American democracy. We had a bloodless revolution; an apparently wholesale change in attitude and direction, and not a shot was fired. No army had to seize control with generals scheduling elections years out. No one from a campaign was arrested and jailed, to be released only after the votes were counted and the entrenched were returned to office. How incredible that we can do this, especially this time.
I suspect the Donald will do whatever he wants to and can get congress to approve. He’ll throw some early bones to the religious right with his court nomination, and he will take some meaningless steps to placate those who refuse to accept that we work in a world economy or don’t need to use coal anymore, but in the end, he’s a swashbuckler who shoots from the hip. Let’s just hope he shoots straight.
I am more than ready to see what he can do. I am also more than ready to quit paying for those inner city thugs, housing, cars, phones, electric, nike’s and what ever the hell else the dem’s can figure out to give them for my tax dollars. It is real simple, quit handing out free lunches and they will begin to go to work in a generation or two.
You must live in a red state that receives more federal tax dollars than they pay in.
My suggestion would be to get into real estate development. I hear you don’t have to pay taxes.
Another option might be picking veggies in the fields, or cleaning houses. There are supposed to be a lot of openings come January.
Most Americans did not vote for Trump. He is losing the popular vote by hundreds of thousands of votes.
We have a broken system. Let’s make every vote count.
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com
and then the democratic nominee need only campaign in ten or so major cities and the rest of the country can be just taken advantage of and irrelevant.
Look how suddenly a small state such as New Hampshire became relevant.
Realize that this requires an amendment to the US Constitution, that is 3/4 of the states must ratify. The small states will never give up their power.
This is the beauty of the framer’s brilliance.
Enthusiasm or energy are qualities that most winners have, or they would just be “players” or team mates. Most American over 40 expect the US to be winners and the pollsters missed the impact of a group that was tired of getting kicked down, ignored or told they just did not matter cause there was another group that had the “size” to keep them in check. Democrats have worked the system to create a larger “following”, just a group where there was not a lot of people with the energy or enthusiasm to succeed on their own volition or expose themselves to failure in an attempt to succeed. Those of us who did vote for Trump in a lot of ways were inspired that here was someone that had pushed his way thru various battles, not always pretty, but he was never convinced he could not be a winner. Take no prisoners, ends justify the means in many cases, but his past showed he didn’t have to get everything his way, but he would make a deal and negotiate to get all he could and then look for the next opportunity to improve again. That is the part that intrigued me. Where as a Ted Cruise could tell everyone else they were wrong, and if you don’t follow me or believe in my way exactly then I’ll shut the place down. Same mentality that both sides of congress shared over the last 8 years, my way or nothing. If Trump does nothing more than to reverse the Executive Orders of the last 8 years and start making compromises that move the country forward then he has a chance to change America’s trajectory away from a permanent nanny state.
My prayers are that some individual or group of jerks does not make the ultimate mistake of attempting to harm him or his family. A wounded dog won’t behave in the manner that will lead us forward. But given a chance he could break up the grid lock that has been acceptable to so many for so long. I’m looking forward to having a winner even in a game as screwed up as the one they play Washington.
Mike,
You have to be very young based on the things you say. (Millennial is my guess) The Dems have people like you so brain washed it is scary. If you have it your way will we just admit out loud we are now a true socialist country under the dictatorship of whatever boob the Dems put on the pedestal? Hillary? seriously? you voted for Hillary? She is the worst of the worst and exactly what is wrong with our political system. Are you in college and believed you were going to get to go for free as she promised? Maybe you have a government supplied air conditioner or cell phone you don’t want to give up. Could it be you don’t have or keep a job and need government assistance to survive? Maybe your an illegal immigrant and are mad that the American free ride on the backs of tax payers is coming to an end. Maybe your just ignorant in general.
Noah,
What “crappie” stuff did he promise to do?
Nicky
Rounding up immigrants, limiting freedom of the press, making the database for muslims, building a ridiculous wall.
Those kind of crappy things.
But I’ll keep an open mind and won’t judge until he actually acts.
No one ever said a word about rounding up
immigrants. It’s illegal aliens that will be rounded up and deported as they should be.
amen Noah
Noah,
Dont swallow everything the Mass Media takes, twists and feeds you.
He said illegal immigrants!! Not ALL immigrants as the Mass Media wants you to believe. And you accept as truth!! I would not support rounding up immigrants we are a country of immigrants.
Limiting Freedoms of the Press – I believe it is the left who is wanting to ban “fake news stories” and in the effort to do so will also try to destroy the thousands of bloggers who will report on items the Mass Media wants to suppress. They KNEW Hillary wasn’t doing good and they didn’t ring the bell and let Sanders get torpedoed and then ultimately lose the election. If there are any groups reporting “fake news” it is Mass Media and their allegiance with the Left and democrats. Can you imagine what would be said if it was found out that Trump was leaked questions before the debates?!?!
A database for Muslims? How are you on databases for gunowners in the US. You probably never bat an eye if someone passed mandatory Gun Registration.
And his comment about vetting Muslims entering this country was blown way out of proportion just like the “illegal alien” comment was.
And there is no need to respond to your last comment when I see you consider border security “ridiculous”… I bet you lock YOUR car and YOUR house.
Nicky
“Renegotiate” federal gov. debt obligations: this means defaulting on U.S. Government bonds! Can you think of anything more catastrophic! Even just talking about it can rattle the bond market which is many times larger than the stock market.
Try to control illegal immigration by building a wall at the Mexico border when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) says the problem is not illegals walking in across the border, but rather legal “visitors” overstaying their visas.
Middle class Americans who’ve been disenfranchised and ignored by both parties for 20 years, that’s what caused Donald Trump. Hard working people who watch their jobs outsourced to slave labor by corporations that buy the very politicians who are supposed to protect them from all to powerful big money, that’s what cause Donald Trump. Democrats and Republicans who ignore the will of the people for the will of the super wealthy over and over again, year after year, that’s what caused Donald Trump. A whole political party that has for decades called anyone who could possibly dare disagree with them neo-cons, racists, neanderthals and deplorables, just to name a few. A DNC that rigs the primaries in favor of one of the most dishonest, self-serving Washington DC machine politic insiders that We the People have ever known! A media that ignores the real news in favor of one political party and then constantly bashes the other party and calling the other party’s supporters “the uneducated white voter”.
President elect Trump tapped into all these frustrations and many more. Is it really a surprise to anybody on how an ego maniac with no political experience and a ship load or wealth could become the next leader of the free world?
I voted for Gary Johnson. Not a protest vote. Only guy saying that we should
be out of the regime change business. U.S. involvement in the middle east has
produced no real winners in my life-time. Sure, some Americans have profited,
but that makes them something other than winners. Also, smaller government
would be good in my book. Despite the rhetoric, neither major party has shown any signs of shrinking spending.
Not scared of Trump, as I believe he will surround himself with smart people.
He has a history of doing this. Also looking forward to better relations with Putin.
Wasn’t scared of Hillary either. But seeing the way the DNC and the Clinton machine
worked to exclude someone that might have beaten Trump, I was left with a distaste
for the party.
Get up, go to work, keep an eye out for opportunities. I believe that we will be fine.
Being a Canadian national living up in Canada I was unable to vote in your recent election. However had I been an American I would have plugged my nose, held my breath and voted for Hillary. She was just the lesser of 2 evils. Hillary may have been living off of the public trough for 30 years but she seemed to be much better suited as a world leader than Mr Trump. But we both live in democratic nations and the voting public chose the person that they felt would serve the USA best. We all need to remember to cherish and respect democracy and that means giving President Trump the opportunity to do what he was elected to do. BTW all of these post election Trump protesters have it backwards… they should have been out there garnering support and voting for Hillary before the election not after!
Whoa, everybody is taking politicians WAY too seriously. I thought we elected a president, not dictator in Chief. Most campaign rhetoric is just that. 2 rotten choices. Trump won because many were tired of the Clinton machine dictating policy and fleecing everyone. May not be any better but at least the money gets spread around.
we dont need a world leader, we need an american leader. we cant even take care of ourselves, how can we possibly take care of anyone else. the middle east, who cares, it is unfixable.
View from England: The British media were full square behind Hillary and denouncing Trump at every opportunity , for example , one guy stating ‘ this is the most scary thing I have ever witnessed ‘ . Trump has been aligned to Hitler and so on. However, most of the people that I know and speak to in business and on a personal level all felt that while Hillary was obviously the more experienced of the candidates , Trump was almost as equally well known worldwide now and if he follows advice and combines that with his instincts he will make a success of his term as US President which will hopefully benefit all. It is also noted here that so many of your free loaders who take your state benefits are up in arms against Trump and that this is exactly the situation here in the UK with our free loaders and left wing hand wringers constantly criticising the Conservative party for fear of losing benefits and free hand outs. I am happy to report that since the Conservative party took power from the useless coalition government , they have really cut back state benefits and bogus disability payments and student grants , mostly being claimed by black and various Asian origin people. The people of Great Britain voted by a majority to BREXIT in the hope that it will stop all the blacks and muslims from further flooding into the country from the EU. It does seem there are many similarities with your election to the BREXIT vote. The main voter group for BREXIT were the middle aged , middle class workers and those retired . All the bought in votes ( immigrants ) were not sufficient to prevent the BREXIT as most of them do not even realise what is going on so long as they have their hand out and it is filled and are just too lazy to even go out to vote now that they have what they want at the expense of the British tax payer. Only now are they beginning to demonstrate against the wishes of the majority of the people. Anyway , I wish Donald Trump all the best and I am confident that the US public have made a wise choice and hope that he serves you all well and looks after the genuine hard working American people whom I have had the enormous privilege to have know and worked with for most of my working life and hope that the UK can work even more closely with the US after we leave the European Union.
Well Glad I am not making AR-15 parts . Or for that matter any so called assault weapon.
So gun sales go down.
And so do pants suits.
Of course Hillary`s were most probably designer made and perhaps in the USA.
All other Dems who are fond of them doubt USA made.
I did stay up too late . Celebrated too much. Had a hangover.
And Darn glad of it. Could have felt worse had election went the other way!
I did the early ballot thing. It was nice to be able to sit in front of my PC and actually do some research on the “down ballot” candidates and make some thoughtful decisions.
The bad part about the ballot is the use of the word “for”. There was not a person on the presidential section of the ballot that I could say I was “for”.
As I listen to the pundits and talking heads after the “shocking” events of Tuesday I am still left with the impression that they do not get it. We did not need more visits by Hillary to various states and cities, she did not need more advertising, she did not need more volunteers scouring the neighbor hoods. In practical fact people knew enough about Hillary to make them decide they did not want her as president. It would be interesting to know how many votes each candidate received was actually “for” them rather than “against” the other person. It is a sad commentary on our system when the main selling point of either candidate is that they are not the other person.
This morning I looked at the CNN website and read a piece by Wold Blitzer. He could not believe Donald had the audacity to do something yesterday without alerting the press pool first. Really?! Maybe step 1 is for the media to understand that they report rather than influence. What a pompous, arrogant attitude from the same people that could not get out of there own self absorbed bubble to see that they were wrong on what was coming on Tuesday!
The electoral map also reinforces the wisdom on having the electoral collage instead of a straight popular vote. Without it I can see the very real possibility of the urban population centers being about to place the people in power politically that would turn the rural bread basket of this country into a service class for the cities. The Hunger Games movies come to mind.
I hope this country is left with a long lasting bad taste in their mouth after this election is over. Maybe we will remember it next time and we can put up candidates that compete on the level of ideas rather than picking the most divisive people we can come up with.
Time for less “divide and conqueror” and a lot more “unite and succeed” in our political system.
I truly believe the vote for Trump was a vote for change. Many Americans knew our nation was heading the wrong way. You just need to view the National Debt clock. This is not a fancy calculator, it is more like a ticking time bomb… Many American citizens were tired of loss of jobs in our country, National debt increasing 2.48 billion per day, trade agreements not in our favor, a broken and unsustainable Obamacare, bad foreign policies, and government overspending. We need to re-evaluate how America conducts business by making sound decisions and make necessary changes to bring jobs back to the US. I believe a savvy business man and political outsider might be our best bet to make these changes. It is also very sad to here so many try to turn this into a racist or sexist topic. It is not. It was a simply vote for needed change. We are all neighbors in some since, and although we might not agree, we must all come together and move forward to do our part in making this NATION STRONG again.