Almost every political and media person I speak to is an expert on the 2016 presidential election.
Some of them like David Axelrod, David Brooks or a David Gergen, are acknowledged by both sides to be well versed in national politics and I respect their opinions.
But, being I ran successfully for state office 13 times, I have the right to weigh in on a number of the issues.
Each and every day we are bombarded with a new set of polls showing a seesaw between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
If you try to follow those polls you will wind up needing treatment for depression or anxiety. I don’t believe any of those polls tell us much as the election will eventually be decided by one or two points anyway.
In fact, one candidate could win the popular vote and the other one may win the Electoral College.
The best way to follow the polls, if you addicted to them, is to watch what happens in some of the key states.
Check out Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire.
There are a few others, but at least these key states could be a barometer on what will happen next.
To confuse you further, all of the experts agree that Donald Trump could win Ohio and Florida and still lose the election.
The reason polls are so confusing is not just because the numbers are all over the place.
If you listen to Fox News, you will get one slant on polls that favor Trump. MSNBC has a tendency to tweak the polls by highlighting the ones that favor Hillary Clinton.
I don’t believe many of the polls because 34 per cent of the country has cell phones as their only phone and the pollsters don’t have easy access to those voters.
Each of the candidates has their own surrogate.
That’s the person who shows up on television representing them.
Without naming names, I can say without fear of contradiction, that some of the surrogates are the dumbest people I have ever heard.
They seem to be reading off a teleprompter with a scripted message, because each one says the same thing, on all of the channels.
Once upon a time if a television station announced that they had “breaking news” I would look up from my dinner or office work and try to pay attention as something monumental was about to happen.
I relate breaking news to the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the downing of the Twin Towers on September 11,2001. The current form is annoying and at times irritating.
The event that may make or break this election is the debate at Hofstra University on Sept. 26.
Because the bar is so low for Donald Trump, if he stick to a teleprompter for two minutes, the media will declare him “presidential.”
Hillary Clinton has to keep her cool, spout facts, provide solid answers and occasionally make Trump look stupid.
Trump is a perfect target for fact checkers and the moderators are more than likely to test him.
Debating a woman seeking the presidency is a tricky task for Trump based on his past comments.
The big question is whether Trump will show up at the next two debates, if the first one doesn’t go well for him?
Trump has succeeded in getting large crowds for his speeches but the question is how many are registered to vote?
Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, has the best ground force in all of the key states, and their main job is to get out the vote.
Let me add to the confusion by predicting that both sides are going to get a lot of votes from people who tell you one thing and then will do the opposite.
Confused? So am I.
Maybe the next election in 2020 will be easier to handicap.
