About this time last year, I wrote a column handicapping the Republican field. Because it's the sort of thing columnists do, especially when they are so-called political scientists who write columns.
I had Donald Trump at 250-1. The only candidate with worse odds was George Pataki (who most readers probably didn't even know was running). The Donald was well behind Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee. At the top of the pack were Marco Rubio (2-1), Scott Walker (3-1) and Jeb Bush (5-1).
Ouch.
My only consolation is that just about everybody else dismissed Trump at the time as well, and some of them had a lot more skin in the game than I did (see Bush and Rubio).
Now just about everybody is saying Trump doesn't stand a chance in November against that alleged political juggernaut, Hillary Clinton. So just to play devil's advocate, here are 10 reasons (plus one) why he not only can but probably will win (God help us).
(1) The enthusiasm gap: Watch a film clip of a Trump rally. Then watch one of a Clinton rally. This will matter when it comes to turnout in November.
(2) Trump's ideological incoherence: There's nothing to grab hold of here. He pulls his positions out of a grab bag with no consistency or thought and then changes them the next day, just in case. You can't fashion an effective critique of something you can't make sense of.
(3) The populist mood: This is a good year to play the populist (Trump and Bernie) and a very bad year to be tied to the "establishment." If such guilt by association destroyed Bush and Rubio, why would Clinton, the ultimate establishment symbol, suffer a different fate?
(4) Preference falsification; otherwise known as lying to pollsters. Trump has been so vilified by so many that openly supporting him becomes dangerous. So the hunch is that many who do will tell pollsters they don't.
This could make for a very big surprise on Election Day.
(5) The "hope and change" thing: when the vast majority of voters say the country is on the "wrong track," they don't vote for the devil they know (Hillary). They vote for the devil they don't (Trump).
The Trump approach will be simple but effective: Do you want a third Obama term? If so, vote for her. If not, vote for me.
(6) Hillary's lying problem. People don't trust her. Because they think she is dishonest and lies. Trump lies too, perhaps even more, but that's because he simply makes stuff up to disguise the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about. For many this is more forgivable than Hillary's kind of lying, which always seems to involve the premeditation and careful parsing of words that lawyers are despised for.
(7) The email scandal: Bernie blew it in the first Democratic debate when he said we were sick and tired of hearing about Hillary's "damned emails." He thereby threw away perhaps the strongest argument he could make against his opponent, because it went to the heart of her greatest weakness--character and trustworthiness.
Trump won't make that mistake. Although most voters probably don't understand what the whole thing is about, it isn't hard to figure out that she's been lying about it from the get-go (an impression that the State Department's Inspector General report confirmed).
However it plays out in the end, it reinforces suspicions of "crooked Hillary."
(8) The "beer test:" As predictors go, this one seems to work every time. So who would it be more fun to have a couple beers and a hot dog at a ballgame with, The Donald or Hillary?
OK, stop laughing. And don't even begin to start with all those stories about how she is so warm and cuddly and funny "in person." Nobody buys it.
(9) Trump's enemies: Who hates you might be more important in politics than who loves you, and Trump has had all the right enemies arrayed against him from the beginning--the more he is condemned and despised by progressive media types, the stronger his support grows.
The film clips from his rallies featuring thugs burning the American flag and waving the Mexican flag could have been organized by the Trump campaign. Who knows, maybe they were.
(10) The "new" politics. The more politics comes to resemble reality television entertainment, the more we slide into the gutter and serious analysis of public policy disappears. This is Trump's domain; as America becomes a banana republic, Trump becomes our caudillo.
In a mud-wrestling match, who would ever bet against Trump? He doesn't know squat about the issues but is unrivaled at smearing opponents. And there is this big target in a pantsuit toting more baggage (think husband Bill here) than perhaps any candidate in modern times named Hillary.
Finally, terrorism, post-Orlando. Clinton and President Barack Obama, engaged in the usual political-correctness contortions, say it's about guns (what if Omar Mateen had strapped a belt of explosives around his waist instead?).
Trump says it's about Islamic terrorism (two words that Obama and Hillary are afraid to even position together).
On that issue alone, game, set, and perhaps match to Trump.
------------v------------
Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 06/20/2016