Politics, specifically the odd start to this campaign season, was the centerpiece of The Business Council of Westchester”™s “The Road to the White House” event on Nov. 20.
The featured speakers included Steven Greenberg, a pollster at the Siena Research Institute in Loudonville, Beth Fouhy, a senior political editor at MSNBC, Lane Filler, a columnist and editorial board member at Newsday, and Adam Edelman, a political reporter at the Daily News.
There were two common threads that weaved through the panelists”™ speeches.
First, each panelist took a swing at trying to debunk the strong-polling, political enigma that is Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“Nobody yet has figured out how to dislodge Trump,” Fouhy said and noted that he has consistently polled more favorably compared with the other Republican candidates. “Trump is there, he”™s solid. Nothing that he is saying or doing is weakening him in the eyes of Republican voters.”
Edelman said Trump ”“ who is known for his indiscreet Twitter usage where he engages with followers to unabashedly criticize and compliment ”“ has turned this campaign year on its head using social media as a vehicle.
“What I think is really going on is Donald Trump”™s incredible, extraordinary expertise with social media,” Edelman said. “We just don”™t know if this is a short-lived thing for him and for any other candidate who wants to try to replicate it or if this is the recipe for success in 2016.”
But Greenberg urged the audience that they should “take the early presidential polling with a serious grain of salt.”
He pointed out that this time eight years ago, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was behind Hillary Clinton, this year’s leading presidential candidate for the Democrats, by 20 points in the polls.
“Now, Bernie Sanders” ”“ another Democratic presidential candidate and senator from Vermont ”“ “is not Barack Obama so I don”™t think Hillary has as much to worry about,” Greenberg said. “But again, I would point that out because early primary polling is historically wrong.”
One thing that all the panelists could agree on is that Clinton will most likely become the Democratic nominee.
Filler summed up this thinking in a simple, joking way: “Nobody”™s going to beat Clinton in the Democratic primaries. The media invented Bernie Sanders just so we could kick him around so we have something to do.”
Filler also mentioned another conundrum about the history of presidential candidates.
“There”™s one paradigm that”™s been absolutely true: When the voters of this country want an old, established, hand on the tiller, known you since I was a kid, next in line (president) ”“ they always vote Republican,” Filler said. And when the Democrats choose the “established” candidate, it never works.
Filler noted that the last Democrat presidents ”“ Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson ”“ have all been progressive choices. And the last Republican presidents ”“ George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower and Herbert Hoover ”“ were well-known names.
But Filler said this theory might not prove true this year because the “next-in-line” candidates are Clinton, for the Democrats, and Jeb Bush, a Republican and the former governor of Florida who has struggled in the polls and in securing campaign financing.
However, Greenberg said, “We could all get out our 1992 bumper stickers, Bush v. Clinton” because “I think Jeb Bush is being underrated and written off too early.”
Fouhy said the key to winning the 2016 presidential election will ultimately come down to who can keep up with the changing demographic landscape the country is seeing in voters.
She put this in perspective by comparing Reagan’s run for president in 1980 and former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who ran against Obama in 2012.
“In 1980, President Reagan his first win won 56 percent of the white vote and that for him meant he carried 44 states, 489 electoral votes. In 2012, Romney carried even more of the white vote, 59 percent, and he only won 24 states; 206 electoral votes did not win the election,” Fouhy said. “You can”™t win a national election in this country by pushing for the highest turnout of white voters.”
Therefore the challenge for Republicans, Fouhy said, is finding a candidate who can reach the changing face of America, which, she said, is “getting browner and younger.”
