Hillary\u2019s e-mails are a big nothingburger, says the Left. \u00a0She was careless, but has admitted as such, and no spies have died as a result, and the so-called \u201cclassified\u201d information was really nothing serious.<\/p>\n
Hillary\u2019s e-mails are yet another instance of corruption, says the Right. \u00a0She thought she was above the law, and she set up a private server in order to hide her Clinton Foundation dealings, and it\u2019s all part and parcel of a massive scheme to enrich the Clinton family.<\/p>\n
James Comey is a crook, making decisions in order to affect the election, says the Left.<\/p>\n
James Comey is a hero, impartially seeking justice no matter the personal cost, says the Right \u2014<\/p>\n
Oops! \u00a0Except that prior to Friday those two opinions of Comey were reversed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nuts.<\/p>\n
I am still convinced that Comey knows something we don\u2019t, because the accusations that he\u2019s intervening without justification for his own personal gain or to get his preferred candidate elected, simply don\u2019t make sense. \u00a0What he is doing is destroying, not aiding, his career, and I find it equally improbable that he simply made a big mistake.<\/p>\n
What exactly was uncovered, no one knows. \u00a0But what spooks me is the prospect that, after Clinton is elected, or, if not then, then after she takes office, these various investigations will be quashed. \u00a0After all, the latest news is that the individual heading up the new investigation is another crony, close to Podesta.<\/p>\n
And, yes, I said \u201cafter Clinton is elected,\u201d rather than \u201cif Clinton is elected,\u201d because at this point, so far as I can see, Trump has to win pretty much every \u201cbattleground\u201d state, as currently defined, and that seems altogether too improbably, though, to be sure, fivethirtyeight.com does grant him a 30%-ish chance of winning after the weekend\u2019s news.<\/p>\n
So what, by the way, does that have to do with McMullin?<\/p>\n
Consider what I\u2019ve already said: \u00a0if you\u2019re in Utah, vote for McMullin. \u00a0If you\u2019re in a non-battleground state, vote for McMullin. \u00a0And if you\u2019re in a battleground state?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the challenge, isn\u2019t it? \u00a0There\u2019s an argument to be made that battlegrounders should vote for Trump, even if they want McMullin to win, because the only way a McMullin scenario works is for Trump to win the necessary states, to ensure that Clinton doesn\u2019t get a majority. \u00a0But if you\u2019ve reconciled yourself to Clinton winning, despite it all, because even wide-scale corruption isn\u2019t enough to make Trump palatable for enough people, then McMullin has something to offer: \u00a0if Clinton wins against Trump, end-of-story, then it seems to me that the political landscape post-election would be different if there is a significant showing for McMullin, representing \u201cI believe in conservative\/Republican principles but oppose Trump,\u201d as opposed to Trump or nothing (or write-ins that don\u2019t get counted, or only voting down-ballot).<\/p>\n
After all, what does happen post-election is a big unknown. \u00a0Will the messages of\u00a0protectionism and immigration enforcement\/restrictionism be taken seriously, or laughed away as discredited by Trump\u2019s loss? \u00a0Will Republican principles, broadly speaking, be likewise declared by the media and conventional wisdom, as similarly dead? \u00a0I don\u2019t know, but I do think that, though I don\u2019t know exactly how, the calculus would be different with McMullin, and measurably McMullin votes, in the picture.<\/p>\n
And in the meantime \u2014 well, this is the year when the Cubs have made it to the World Series, and to game 7 of that series, to boot. \u00a0So anything can happen, right?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hillary\u2019s e-mails are a big nothingburger, says the Left. \u00a0She was careless, but has admitted as such, and no spies have died as a result, and the so-called \u201cclassified\u201d information was really nothing serious. Hillary\u2019s e-mails are yet another instance of corruption, says the Right. \u00a0She thought she was above the law, and she set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[374],"tags":[442,488],"class_list":["post-5598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-election-2016","tag-mcmullin"],"yoast_head":"\n