The Washington Post’s Daily 202 yesterday posited 12 reasons Hillary could lose yesterday, which might be summed up as, “she’s not very good at this.” I’d add five additional reasons why Trump could win:
- He’s bigger. One reason that Trump bested all his rivals in the GOP primary is that he was a bigger personality than the rest of them — he commanded a stage in a way none of the rest of them could, and at times they actually seemed afraid of him. He will have the same advantage over Hillary.
- Full-spectrum dominance of the press. It looks like Trump will dominate the media coverage, and continually set the pace of the media discussion, just the way he did in the primaries.
- Unmatched media skills. Look at how Trump effectively pushed back against the New York Times women story yesterday, including a call into the CNN control room. This is not going to be a Republican candidate rendered helpless by media bias (I’m thinking in particular of John McCain in 2008).
- Centrism. Trump already is all over the ideological map and will only get more so. As the New York Times notes,
And even when he has hit Mrs. Clinton from the left, he has also shown a flexibility that has positioned him on both sides of some issues. He has called for a higher minimum wage, for instance, but has also said the issue should be left to the states rather than have a federal increase. On foreign policy, too, his cautious approach to nation-building and intervention has been juxtaposed by bellicose remarks and a promise to be tougher on Iran and the Islamic State.
One thing Trump isn’t is a “far-right populist”; he’s a centrist populist. This is going to make the attacks on him trickier than the usual paint-by-numbers attack on the typical Republican. (The match-up is going to be Trump, moderate in substance and outrageous in demeanor, vs. Hillary, left in substance and moderate in demeanor.)
- Change the course. The public has thought the country is on the wrong track for a very long time, so the kindling is there for Trump’s populist brushfire to catch on in the general.
Of course, all the usual caveats apply about Trump vulnerabilities, but it’s a mistake to overlook the ways in which he’s pretty good at this.