Trump vs Hillary on the cards

Trump vs Hillary on the cards

It may be time for Trump sceptics to revise their narrative about the presidential candidate
By Leon Hadar

Published originally in the Business Times of Singapore

It was the Trump conventional wisdom that peaked once again in South Carolina on Saturday. Winning close to 33 per cent of the Republican vote, the Donald won big in the Palmetto State.
FEB 24, 2016
Washington
IT has become a pastime of sorts for the media types in Washington: Trying to figure out the number of times a leading journalist or pundit has been proven wrong in predicting the trajectory of Donald Trump's presidential bid. To put it in simpler terms - who has been more wrong than anyone else in Washington in predicting a "peak Trump" or the Donald's crest as a presidential candidate, like in "This time Trump blew it up" or "It's really over for Trump now" or "after saying this or doing that, Trump is finished".
New York magazine has recently given the award for the worst Trump predictor to Bill Kristol, a renowned conservative pundit and editor of The Weekly Standard who according to the tally has predicted a "peak Trump" 11 times since July last year, most recently three days before Mr Trump finished second in the Iowa caucuses and 11 days before his major victory in the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire.
And now after Mr Trump's crushing win in South Carolina last Saturday, Mr Kristol and a few other pundits in Washington will have to add another big miss to their series of totally wrong Trump predictions. In fact, perhaps the time may have come for Trump sceptics to start revising their political narrative about the presidential candidacy of the millionaire and former reality show host from New York. From "Trump is a joke and a lot of entertainment" to "Trump is the 2016 Republican presidential candidate".
Many political obituaries have been written about the Donald in the last days on the eve of the Republican presidential primary in the Palmetto State. First came the Feb 13 televised GOP debate in South Carolina, when Mr Trump seemed to be taking his disruptive modus operandi to a new level, lashing at his primary rival, former Florida governor Jeb Bush. He accused Mr Bush's brother, former president George W Bush, of bad judgment for invading Iraq and for incompetently managing the occupation of the country. Mr Trump also suggested that the former president had known that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein didn't possess weapons of mass destruction and that he had lied to the American people to justify going to war in Iraq.
The accusations not only diverged sharply from the Republican Party's central dogma but as noted by the likes of Mr Kristol, came close to advancing a form of conspiracy theory that, if raised by a Democratic critic, would be dismissed as, well, wacky. The same pundits noted that the former president and his family were very popular among the conservative Republican voters in South Carolina which include a large number of military retirees, and the Iraq War was supported by a large majority of South Carolinians. The Donald had made a Big Mistake here, which was going to backfire Big Time in the coming primary.
The former Florida governor seemed to agree with the assessment and invited his brother and his mom to campaign for him in the state last week, a move that according to the pundits was going to help Jeb and hurt the Donald. Jeb could even emerge as the big winner on Saturday.
Mr Trump also got into a big fight with another Republican candidate, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, a social conservative and devout Christian who is very popular among evangelical Christians, another important Republican voting bloc in South Carolina.
The Donald called the senator a "liar" and promised to challenge the constitutional right of someone who was born in Canada to run for the American presidency. Again, the expectation among political forecasters was that this dispute would damage Mr Trump and Mr Cruz could emerge victorious after winning the majority of the evangelical Christian votes.
And finally, there was the Pope Francis-Donald Trump spat. On a recent visit to the US-Mexico border, the Pope called Mr Trump "not Christian" for his anti-immigrant views, and the Republican presidential candidate responded by characterising the comments as "disgraceful" and suggesting that the Holy Father would be asking for president Trump's help if and when Islamic terrorists overrun the Vatican.
So that was it for the Donald. By picking a fight with the Pope, he was antagonising millions of Catholic voters in the United States and digging his own electoral grave. There was no doubt now. Trump has peaked!
Yet, as we are now aware in the aftermath of the South Carolina primary, it was the Trump conventional wisdom that peaked once again. Winning close to 33 per cent of the Republican vote, the Donald had a big victory in the state on Saturday. Jeb finished fourth and announced that he was dropping out of the race, with Mr Trump winning the majority of votes from military retirees. Mr Cruz finished third after the thrice-married former casino owner had won the support of evangelical Christian voters. And notwithstanding the row with the Holy Father, most socially conservative Republicans voted for Mr Trump.
In fact, Mr Trump has won the votes of Republicans in the majority of the counties in the Palmetto State and after coming in a close second in Iowa, and dominating the field in New Hampshire, history is now very much on his side as he seeks to become the GOP presidential nominee - especially if you consider that a Republican candidate has never won both in New Hampshire and in South Carolina and then gone on to lose the nomination.
Not so fast, the Trump sceptics countered again, noting that Florida Senator Marco Rubio - who had won the support of Republican Governor of the state and came in second in South Carolina - and Mr Cruz could in theory challenge the front-runner in the coming primaries.
But that could happen only if one of them drops out of the race, which is probably not going to happen anytime soon, and certainly not before the Republican caucuses in Nevada on Tuesday and a series of primaries in the major southern states on March 1 (aka Super Tuesday) where the momentum he enjoys now could help the Donald defeat his rivals.
Meanwhile, it's doubtful that the other celebrated political outsider in this 2016 presidential race, Senator Bernie Sanders, is going to pull up a Trump on the Democratic side as he tries to challenge the presidential front-runner, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
After coming in a close second in the Iowa caucuses and beating Hillary in the New Hampshire primary, the 74-year old socialist has mobilised behind him many mostly young and progressive Democrats, who are hoping that Mr Sanders could march to victory in Saturday's Democratic caucuses in Nevada and will go on to win next week's Democratic primary in South Carolina.
But Hillary ended up defeating Bernie in Nevada, and although her margin of victory was narrow, she won the support of the majority of the African-American and Hispanic voters. And in South Carolina and the southern states where the primaries will take place on Super Tuesday, the majority of the Democratic voters will be African-Americans and Hispanics, making it very unlikely that Mr Sanders will be able to pull up New Hampshire-like victories in those states.
So while it may be too early to get out the popcorn, it could be a good idea to get ready and to reserve tickets for the coming attraction: The possible match-up between Hillary and the Donald in November.