The American election is two months away. The two candidates come from quite different backgrounds. . Clinton comes from a middle class family that was financially comfortable but not really secure; she achieved a good education by hard work in school. She attended Wellesley College, a premier American liberal arts college, and then Yale Law School. Trump is the son of a wealthy New York real estate dealer; after a rocky period in high school, he obtained a degree from Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. The American Election 2016—the Presidency
Clinton is well known to Bangladeshis. She has visited here on several occasions.
She is knowledgeable about this country
Forrest Cookson
The American election is two months away. The two candidates come from quite different backgrounds. . Clinton comes from a middle class family that was financially comfortable but not really secure; she achieved a good education by hard work in school. She attended Wellesley College, a premier American liberal arts college, and then Yale Law School. Trump is the son of a wealthy New York real estate dealer; after a rocky period in high school, he obtained a degree from Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.
Clinton is well known to Bangladeshis. She has visited here on several occasions. She is knowledgeable about this country and has a long standing, close relationship with M. Yunus. Trump is a kind of stranger, he knows little of Bangladesh and most Bangladeshis find him at best odd and usually a highly dangerous person giving forth poorly formulated policies. Those Bangladeshis with a real interest in the American election largely favor Clinton over Trump.
To understand the American political system, you should see it as a deliberate effort to give ordinary people some say in who governs them but to reserve much political power to elites. Political power is split between the Federal Government and the States and between the executive [the President] and the legislative [the Congress]. The election system is an attempt to balance the power of the people with the need for leadership by the elites. [By elites we mean men and now women of good character, good education, and considerable wealth who consort with other elites.] To achieve this balance, the original method for election of the President is for the people to elect persons called electors who get together to choose the right man to be President. The electors are from the States and so one supposes that ordinary people can vote for someone who they know something about. The objective is that you choose someone of good character who thinks about proble more or less as you do. Details of governing are left to the elites selected.
In time this has all changed and the vote for the Presidency is a vote for the person each voter believes the better choice. How does it work? The electoral college has left a complicated structure that confuses everyone and sometimes causes a miscarriage of good democratic process. In a particular state there is a popular vote for the President; whoever gets a majority gets all of the electoral votes. Thus if a State votes 51 per cent Democrat and 49 per cent Republican all electoral votes go to the Democratic candidate. If the State votes 80 per cent Democrat and 20 per cent Republican then all electoral votes of that state go to the Democrat. Thus the electoral college system of voting can award the presidency to the man with the lesser total popular votes. This happened when Bush beat Gore in 1960, more people voted for Gore than Bush but the electoral college gave more electoral votes to Bush.
It turns out that most states have a strong majority for either the Democrats or the Republicans. A few states perhaps eight are closely contested and the vote can go either way. Normally in an election the candidates concentrate on this handful of battleground states as it is these States that will determine who becomes President. It is odd. If you live in Texas, your vote is worth little as this State votes for the Republican candidate. If you live in New York, your vote is worth little as New York votes consistently for the Democratic nominee.
The authors of the American Constitution had a very good idea to place choices that ordinary people make focused on what they knew about and then leaving a group of elite persons the task of selecting the President. But this was quickly abandoned for the present system. The method now used in the United States really makes no sense, but there is no way to change as support for the status quo is too strong. If there were a straight vote for the President so the person with the most votes wins then everyones vote would count equally in the outcome. But with the present system perhaps only 25 per cent of Americans play an effective role in determining who becomes President.
Let us look at the status of the 2016 election as of early September. Dividing the States into those that are probably going to vote for Clinton, the ones that are probably going to vote for Trump and the battleground States we find that out of the 538 electoral votes, . Clinton has 229 from States that are very likely to vote Democratic, Trump 154 from the States that vote Republican and 155 votes are held by the 12 battleground States. [From Real Clear Politics].
Polls indicate that of these battleground States . Clinton is leading in eight and Trump in four. If these polls are correct . Clinton will become President.
If we look at the estimates of popular vote we find that the average of the last few polls gives . Clinton a lead over Trump of 2.8 per cent. This is statistically significant in the sense that there is more than a 95 per cent chance that . Clinton will get more votes than Trump.
However, things are, of course, more complicated. First, in reporting the polls some measure the attitude of persons who are registered to vote. [i.e., on the voting list. In the United States this is a voluntary action so many persons eligible to vote are not registered.] Other polls measure what likely voters report. Likely voters are an attempt by the pollster to determine whether a person is going to vote or not. The lead reported above for . Clinton is for registered voters. When one looks at likely voters . Clintons lead declines to less than 1 per cent. Minorities who are registered to vote are less likely to actually vote than whites who are registered.
Of course one has to remember that the quality of polling is declining as the widespread use of cell phones makes it difficult to obtain good responses. Direct face to face interviews and calls over land lines work quite well. But cell phone polling faces many proble in the United States. Efforts in Bangladesh to poll by cell phones are very uncertain, produce unstable results and should not be taken as serious estimates of what people think.
The combination of actual polling results, the problem of determining who is likely to vote, and the instabilities arising from cell phones used to poll suggest that the two candidates are essentially even as assessed by the number of votes that they might receive. But if one looks at the actual operation of the Electoral College, . Clinton see almost certain to win.
However, there is a long way to go and there are many black swans out there: A major terrorist attack, a major victory over IS forces, one candidate having serious health probable, a Taliban major defeat of the Afghan army, a financial scandal of Trumps behavior, etc.
The quality of the discussions and public presentations by the two candidates is dreadful. Increasingly they are calling each other names like two kindergarten kids. It is, of course, Trump that has dragged the discussion to that level. When there are deep serious issues facing the United States we are subject to one candidate dragging both into an imitation of two screeching cats. This is likely to continue as the two enter into the three debates. I make a prediction Trump will bully . Clinton and the American voter will turn away from him in disgust. Beating up a woman is no way that a man should behave and the debates will expose Trump as a shallow, simplistic bully.
The truth is that the past 70 years since 1945 have been the most successful period of human history: The reduction of poverty, a reasonable level of peace, the destruction of the Soviet system and the moderation of the brutal death-dealing Maoist system, the flowering of science, the tremendous increase of tolerance and freedom have transformed the lives of most people all over the world. This has been accomplished in large part by the leadership of the United States, promoting market economies, international trade, the spread of democracy, and the build up of international organizations and standing firm against the horrors of the Soviet Union and Maos China. . Clinton is a leader in these issues who has worked hard in promoting those values that have led us to the remarkably successful world in which we now live. Trump is in denial of what has been achieved and has no grasp of what has been nor why. . Clinton lives in the real world dealing with facts and recognizing the complexity of issues and proble. Trump lives in a fantasy world where facts are what he believes, where there is no scientific thought, where the devils that live in his mind create an imaginary universe.
. Clinton has dedicated much of her life to helping downtrodden women both in the United States and abroad. She has managed a difficult marriage with a flawed husband. She has an inner direction of goodness and honor. While she is driven by tremendous ambition, this is an essential characteristic of a good leader.
Trump is a selfish bully. Afraid to fight in the Vietnam war, he has taken delight in cruelty, particularly towards women. For myself, any person who bully women should be avoided and condemned.
There is no real choice here. When challenged, the American people will reject this sadistic bully for a woman of character and deep sympathy for other human beings. . Clinton is the President the United States needs.
The writer is an economist
