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Clinton vs. Trump - a dispassionate analysis
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The following article was written for all my Lexington friends who will vote in the November US presidential election. I post it herefor possible interest of Science Net readers.
A“Dispassionate” Analysis of the Two Presidential Candidates: Clinton vs. Trump
First a word about “dispassionate”. I used the word in the sense that at my age (82.7) the outcome of this presidential election cannot possibly make much difference to me personally. Even if Trump after being elected and starts an accidental nuclear war and I perished as a result, I have few regrets since I have already lived a full and rich life. Also being retired and a political junkie, I have watched up to 4 hours per day both conservative (Fox news) and liberal leaning (MSNBC) TV channels since the beginningof the political season as well as including all 11 hours of the Benghazi hearing where it was Hilary alone against 6 prosecuting Republican senators. Thus I shall attempt below a summaryof my findings and conclusions as objective as possible for those of you intend to vote coming November.
Of course, no person can be completely impartial. Thus, let me next confess my political leanings so that you know where this writer comes from. This is analogous to “Truth in advertising” in commercials. I came to this country in 1950 (66 years ago). For the first 30 some years I voted straight Republican.Reagan was the last Republican president I voted for. Then sometime in the 80s I switched to become an Independent. For the last two decade plus I am a registered Democrat. For a background on my political thinking and rationale See The evolution of an immigrant's political philosophy http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-820046.htmlandPrivilegeWalkhttp://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-795599.html. Now to my analysis:
1. Of course all candidates promise you all kinds of things if elected. Some may promise things you happen to like others not so much. Otherwise, it is difficultand complex to analyze the consequence of these promises as well as the likelihood that s/he will keep the promise after election when reality sets in. Remember the famous Bush promise “Read my lips, no new taxes”. Unless you carefully analyze and consider these promises, they don’t mean very much beyond a reflection of the candidate as a person and his/her ideas, practical or not. Thus, on the surface, you can say the promises of the two candidates canceleach other out. It is a DRAW.
2. Next you can listen to media opinions and/or their evaluations. However, here you must take into account of the political leaning of the station and that of the speakers/reporters/analysts. Just togive an example: in the reporting of the recent (Sept 17-19 2016) New York city- New Jersey bombing suspect Rahami, the Republican Vice
Presidential candidate Pence said that the Father of Rahami reported to the FBI as early as 2004 that his son is a “terrorist” but nothing was done by the FBI (this fact is true)and hence implying the incompetence of the current administration. However, a deeper reporting revealed that in a family altercation in 2004, Rahami stabbed his brother on the leg, and his father in the heat of the moment used the word“terrorist”. When questioned by the FBI he admitted the use of the word butwhat he explained to the FBI is that he is really concerned that his son was associated with local gangs which has bad influence on his son. Later investigation by FBI confirmed this fact but there were no indication that he as any “terrorist” intentions at that time and the case was closed. At thetime of this writing, we still don’t know how Rahami became self-radicalized inthe next two years to become an actual terrorist.
Thus depending on what you hear and from whom you can get a distorted view of what is the truth especially when facts are taken out of context. Strong supporter of one candidate tends to register only what they like to hear and what confirms their convictions. They either ignore bad news or contrary opinions or excuse the candidate for missteps and unwelcome pronouncements. By the way, such distortion of NEWS is worldwide. Just listen to the reporting of the same news by CNN, BBC,Deutsche-Wella, Nippon New, and Chinese CCTV.
3. However, over a long period of watching both Fox and MSNBC, I found that on balance Clinton received less unflatteringcomments than Trump. She is also judged more critically and applied against ahigher standard (Not many people seemed to care that Trump refused to releasehis tax return even though every candidate since the 1950s have done so). Trump having made so many wild and outrageous statements that the press became de-sensitized. But on balance, I’d say Clinton has an edge in the news reporting and media evaluations
4. The two candidates also offer a stark contrast in profiles. Trump is anti-establishment, tell-it-like-it-is straight talker, and brand new guy in the running. Supporters tend to give him a pass onhis ignorance, flip-flops, and inconsistencies. On the other hand, Clinton has 35 years of public service has accumulated a lot of experience andknowledge on the job as well as baggage further accentuated by her desire for privacy and secrecy. Support of one versus the other can simply be boiled downto a personality preference.
5. Thus, in the final analysis a voter comes down on the issue of character of the candidates. On this point, you may not trust Clinton because of her preference for privacy and lack of transparency onsome issues. But I believe she is a principled and well informed person. Trumpis on the other hand demonstrated ignorance and no principle. He can tell a bare faced lie in your face. This is best illustrated in his final 66 character of retraction on the Obama birth issue. First he lied that Clinton started the birth controversy which is not true, In the next breadth he claimed credit that he is the person who put the issue to rest when in the five years after Obama showed his birth certificate he repeatedly inflamed and insinuated that a darkconspiracy surrounds the Obama birth issue. Personally I cannot see how such an unprincipled person (as contrasted with John McCain in 2008) can be fit to be the president of the US. Trump’s ignorance of world and defense affairs (he didnot know what is the “Nuclear Triad” on which the US builds her nationaldefense; he also wanted Japan and South Korea to develop nuclear weapons; lastly he proposes actions which are clearly unconstitutional) also tends to disqualifyhim.
6. Thus, It is “better the devil you know” or the “Lesser of two evils”. You may not like Hilary, but I sleep a whole lotbetter and visualize a much stable and better future for my children and grand children with Hilary at the helm. Just my personal opinion you should make up your own mind. Here are my other blog article sassociated with the 2016 election in chronological orde r (these are my personalopinions):
1. Who will be the next US President in 2016? http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-930275.html
2. My takes on the US Presidential Election 2016http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-973442.html
3. Observations-the 2016 US PresidentialNominating Convention http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-993117.html
http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-1004288.html
How Trump Could Win the Debate
Hillary Clinton will almost certainly win Monday night’s epic presidential debate on points — and still could lose.
It’s hard to see how Clinton, who has marinated in public policy for 30 years and is preparing for the debate like it is the invasion of Normandy, won’t repeatedly best Donald Trump on substance.
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Her strength in this area perfectly matches Trump’s weakness. Trump has appeared to learn for the first time such basic information as that the Trans-Pacific Partnership doesn’t include China and that Russia has already invaded Ukraine on the debate stage or during a media interview. He sometimes reads his speeches as if they include revelations to him — “so true,” he’ll interject after coming across a striking fact or observation in the text.
If Trump has spent time hitting the briefing books, his campaign has kept it under wraps and he has yet to reveal any hint of a new policy depth in anything he’s said over the past few weeks. So Trump won’t be particularly well-informed, and figures it won’t particularly matter — and may well be right.
Trump has a significant built-in advantage in that there is a lower standard for him — not because the media isn’t tough enough on him, as all the media mavens agree, but because he is the de facto challenger and candidate of change in a change election. Trump can win by clearing a bar of acceptability, whereas Clinton has to do more than that and either significantly wound Trump or make a compellingly positive case for herself that has so far eluded her in both 2008 and 2016.
This is not to say that Trump won’t be on treacherous terrain. He can’t bully and mock Clinton the way he did his Republican rivals. He won’t have a crowd to feed off of. Without a teleprompter, message discipline still tends to elude him. The one-on-one format for an hour-and-a-half could make his thin knowledge painfully obvious. And any misstep or outburst that reinforces the idea that he lacks the qualities to be commander in chief would be devastating.
But Trump just needs to seem plausible and the very fact that he is on a presidential debate stage, the most rarified forum in American politics, will benefit him. During the Republican primary debates, the intangibles worked in his favor and they presumably will on Monday, too. Trump is a big personality with a dominant physical presence. His critics often sneeringly say he is a reality TV star, but you don’t become one without charisma and a performative ability that are major political assets.
The fact is that Trump will have to stumble badly — and probably sabotage himself — to live down to Hillary’s critique of him. She has made her campaign almost entirely about how Trump is a monstrous madman. This was an understandable calculation — she wanted to disqualify him out of the box and differentiate and isolate him from other Republicans. The cost is that she has done more than anyone to lower the standard for Trump. It’s not as though he needs to mount a convincing, detailed defense of his tax or child care plan or anything else to invalidate Clinton’s critique of him; he just needs to seem a reasonable person.
That is why Trump doesn’t need to be the aggressor. As long as he’s firm and calm, he is implicitly rebutting the case against him on temperament. And then he can look for a big moment or two that will be memorable and drive the post-debate conversation in the media that is arguably as important as the debate itself.
These contests aren’t evaluated by college-debate judges. Trump won one of the Republican primary debates with his barbed quip in response to Vicente Fox’s vulgar declaration that Mexico wouldn’t pay for the wall, “The wall just got 10 feet higher.” This wasn’t an argument or a policy; it was a sentiment. No one would have written it down in a briefing book. And yet, it punched through. If Trump has taught us anything, it is that simple, evocative statements can make up for a multitude of evasions and confused non-answers.
In the past, most presidential debates have had a slight or ephemeral effect on the race. Monday could be different because it is an event tailor-made for Trump to change one of the main factors holding him back. By roughly 60 percent to 30 percent, people think Clinton is prepared to be president; by roughly 60 percent to 30 percent, people think Trump is not. A credible performance could move that number for Trump, and appreciably increase his odds of winning the presidency.
Hillary is both formidably well-prepared for Monday, and at significant risk. Such is the dynamic of the race and the way most voters absorb information that she could “win” on points, and still lose ground.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/how-trump-could-win-the-debate-214272#ixzz4KxtHtT00
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