IT’S 1948 ALL OVER AGAIN
By Jackson Omondi
The consensus around the country was that the incumbent Democrat President Harry Truman was going to lose to the Republican challenger, New York’s Thomas Dewey. The Chicago Tribune, a marquee national newspaper rolled out its early morning edition with the infamous headline: “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”
But when the raw numbers kicked in, much to the chagrin of electoral observers and pollsters, the Democratic incumbent emerged victorious!
All major polling organizations had Hillary Clinton easily winning Decision 2016.
Yours truly, predicted that Hillary would win by a comfortable margin but of course, the voters had other ideas. I, together with a motherlode of politicos out here, will have to wipe the proverbial eggs from our faces. Trump, on his way to victory, bucked conventional wisdom and he deserves full credit for waging a campaign like no other.
There will be a litany of reasons as to why this happened; the FBI , the minorities turnout, the Latino turnout, wikileaks, but one thing is clear: Hillary underperformed in all Gore, Kerry and Obama States while Trump carried all GOP States and dug into the blue States. That’s how we got here.
America has weighed in and it’s incumbent on all political actors to give credit where it’s due.
I will be remissed if I didn’t mention what this victory means for President Obama and the women around the world.
President Trump will have both houses of Congress at his beck and call. That means that Obama’s landmark achievement dubbed “Obamacare” will be history! All Obama’s milestones are now firmly on the chopping board. Trump now has the mandate to undo many Obama initiatives.
Hillary lost tonight but Obama is weeping! As for the Democrats out here, this is the time to go back to the drawing board. They will have an opponent who shot to prominence and ultimately, the White House purely on high octane rhetoric and colourful verbiage and in 2020, with the benefit of incumbency and all the trappings of power, he will be 100 times bolder and stronger. The Democrats have their work cut out for them.
The polls were wrong and with that, all conventional wisdom went down the drain. Political decorum dictates that we honor the verdict and I am bound by the rules of my trade. Congratulations are in order for the Republican Donald J Trump.
Yet, the women, after agonizingly coming this close to the ultimate prize, will have to wait for another trailblazing leader to get it done.
America has spoken.
Note: Analysis on the implications of this colossal loss will come out shortly after the confetti has settled on the Republican side.
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