Donald Trump's campaign has been like no other presidential primary campaign in American history. The overriding element, which has sustained Trump's significant presence in polling numbers, is due not to Trump at all, but to the MSM and that includes media outlets not normally considered to be liberal. We know that the media is driven by advertising profits, which are determined by the numbers of people exposed to the subject matter each media outlet presents to the public. Ratings numbers determine advertising revenue. The more eyes on the media product, the greater the media profits.
Now we come to Donald Trump, master salesman of Donald Trump and all his properties and his mastery of entertainment, as evidenced by his wildly successful TV program, The Apprentice. Donald Trump knows better than anyone else on how to sell Donald Trump to a political segment of the public hungry for substantial change in politics right now
Donald Trump, for whatever reason eventually to be found, has managed to tap into the most dynamic of forces in a political campaign ever waged in American politics. He has garnered overwhelming attention in all media outlets. Something on the order of 70% of all media presidential primary reports are centered on Donald Trump, with the remaining 30% shared by all other presidential candidates combined. That is an overwhelming advantage.
Trump has managed to amass hundreds of millions of dollars in FREE media coverage, while reported spending less than $1 million dollars on media buys and staffing to date. This has never happened before in American political history as evidenced by several candidates dropping out due to a lack of funds to carry on.
To trained political analysts, it is completely understandable that liberal MSM outlets would cover Trump like a blanket for two prominent reasons. The first reason the liberal MSM has to cover Trump 24/7 is to accumulate a record of Trump's many mistakes, misstatements and boorish buffoonery, all of which will be used against Trump should he capture the Republican Party presidential nomination. Hillary's team is most likely salivating over the prospect of using the plethora of Trump's many outlandish statements captured on video. And the media actually gives Hillary media coverage as she comments and condemns each and every questionable Trump comment. No one in the MSM is seriously questioning Hillary on actual and real political questions pertaining to her positions of the issues that concern Americans or her many scandals that have conveniently been put on the back burner by her sycophants in the MSM.
As previously alluded to, the second serious reason the MSM has to cover Donald Trump like a wet blanket is to provide cover for Hillary Clinton's horrendous life long political record and especially her most recent record as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. By covering Trump 24/7 the MSM essentially has taken up the vast majority of media space and effort that could be investigating and speaking to the issues surrounding Hillary Clinton's most recent behaviors, including her potential illegal behaviors with her private email server and the possible use of that server to send and receive classified government documents in violation of numerous federal laws.
With the MSM concentrating on Trump's campaign it is no great stretch of the imagination to understand why Trump continues to poll as well as he has to date. Now, that's not to say that Trump has no valid message to offer the voting electorate. Trump has played upon a strong populist platform that appeals to the frustration and anger of a meaningful portion of the Republican electorate, who are fed up with what appears to be "politics as usual" among the professional politicians of the Republican establishment.
However, Trump's problem going forward is two fold. He speaks in generalities with few specifics as to how he will accomplish his many bold visions to return America to greatness. Even more important is that Trump, like the other candidates, has yet to be measured by the most accurate of means, the primary ballot box and nomination process.
The better pollsters know several things that are of great importance in prognosticating political primary races and their outcomes. First, national polls don't mean a thing in primaries. It's all about each critical state primary. Second, polls become infinitely more accurate the closer to the date of the actual primary being polled. Historically, the polls in the last days of the specific state primary have been at their most accurate. Third, polls that seek out voters most likely to actually vote are the most reliable and representative of what the specific outcome will be for each and every state primary election.
Whether Donald Trump will be the inevitable nominee for the GOP will not come into clear focus until the first three state primaries have taken place in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The results of those three primaries will set the tone and the direction for each and every GOP candidate's campaign going forward. Almost thankfully, February will see a serious winnowing out of many of the GOP candidates we still see today. Until that time rolls around, I'm not going to get too emotionally exercised over who is ahead in the polls.
Finally, it should be noted that aggregating and averaging polls is the most dependable means to see trends developing. Aggregation also weeds out the outlying and questionable polls we always see with 'explosive' headline reporting, as if this or that poll had magically divined some outcome not reported by others.
No comments:
Post a Comment