Cheerless

I spent the long Columbus Day weekend in West Philadelphia hunting US citizens not yet registered to vote and campaigning for Clinton/Kaine and the downballot Democrats. I bagged none of the former and had only a little trouble selling the latter. One woman said the campaign was such a mess so she wouldn’t think of voting. She repeated that refrain with every attempt I made to get past it. A man of 45 or so said it was a big decision given the state of the country and the world. My suggestion that Clinton was far better than Trump for both made no headway with him. My best guess: he was a military retiree, judging from his upright bearing. Why military people support Trump, who has been brutal in his criticism of both leadership and troops, is beyond me.

Other than that, I found a lot of mostly black people unhesitating in their support for Clinton. Many were elderly. It is surprising how many require oxygen or are otherwise severely disabled. Some were Muslim. There is often a sign on the door announcing that fact and asking that people remove their shoes to come indoors. I also found a lot of empty homes, especially Sunday afternoon, when many people were presumably at church. Or just didn’t want to answer an unknown door knocker. Functioning doorbells are few and far between. We left a bit of campaign literature most places, and stickers announcing that the deadline for voter registration in Pennsylvania is Tuesday.

The mundanity of the door knocking was a sharp contrast to last night’s debate, which we tuned into only towards the end after enjoying a really good dinner with a former college professor at Talula’s Garden, one of Philadelphia’s finer. Too many words have already been spent for me to add anything new about Trump, but let me just confirm that the man knows nothing about what is going on in Syria and has more in common with the world’s petty dictators than he has claim to lead the free world. Besides, an avowed sexual assault perpetrator blaming her husband’s infidelity on Hillary Clinton is a strange strategy for winning women’s votes.

Trump still has a 20% chance of winning the election, according to 538’s “polls plus” forecast. But as the Trump sex tape and last night’s debate debacle sink in I imagine he’ll go lower, before the race tightens again as election day approaches. A big issue for Republicans now is whether to cut themselves loose from Trump’s sinking anchor, in a desperate effort to save their House and Senate majorities as well as the dignity of their party, or stick with him until he hits rock bottom. Speaker Ryan has chosen the former. I’ve heard people argue that the Rs shouldn’t abandon the angry white working class men who are his core constituents. But if they don’t, demographic change will make it virtually impossible for them to win the White House for a long time to come.

My candidate may be doing well, but this is a cheerless election. Trump is fighting with low blows, including Russian intelligence leaks of Clinton-related emails, fulfilling one of his foolishly expressed day dreams. Now Trump is even imitating Putin by promising to jail his opponent. He is desperate and will stop at nothing. But he also has a significant portion of the electorate backing him. It was never going to be easy to elect the first female president. Doing it right after the first black president is doubly difficult.

The best antidote for Trump’s poison is a decisive victory for Clinton, which I would define as more than 300 electoral votes. That would not erase the memory of Donald Trump’s ugly campaign, but it would send a clear message to future candidates that they can’t win with misogyny and racism.