Maine Democrats have been traumatized by two successive victories by Gov. Paul LePage. Faced now with a similarly insurgent Donald Trump candidacy, they’re seeing shadows of LePage lurking everywhere. And they worry about a déjà vu experience in November, on a national scale.
If it happened here, they ask, wide-eyed with fear, can it happen to the whole country? OK, Democrats. Time to come down from the tree limb. Leave your keyboard up there. Turn off Facebook. Stop tweeting.
It’s summer in Maine. The birds are singing, the gardens are growing and the cookouts and beaches and golf courses are beckoning. Let’s see if we can’t get everyone to relax a little. Take a deep breath. Exhale slowly. There we go. That’s it.
Look at the bright side. You don’t have half the apprehensions that Republicans have right now. Oh sure, you’ve got your ritual dispute between the candidate of the left, who are always pure and noble, and the mainstream candidate who lives in the nasty real world and can actually win. Sure, you have to slog through that healing process with all those unpleasant steps of denial, anger, grief and acceptance, and then take it to unity at your convention.
But those things pale against the problems that Republicans have. They have Trump. Some Republicans like that, of course, seeing Trump as the billionaire version of the second coming. Social media sites are abuzz with loud bravado and predictions, as though baying at the moon somehow persuades people.
Most Republicans, though, are quietly agonizing over the long-term damage that the Republican brand will endure after producing a presidential candidate so obviously unqualified for the office. In their heart of hearts, they know that Trump would be damaging to the country and that he’s going to lose in the fall. And they won’t do much to stop it.
Their worst fear is that in the course of this election, when the pressure becomes too great, Trump will simply explode into little pieces that will rain down on other candidates in races across the country, costing the Republican party control of the Senate and perhaps even the House.
My Democratic friends are always asking me whether I think Trump could win. Well, yes. Anyone can win. His opponent could be run over by a bus. We could be struck by a massive asteroid. The gravitation fields of the Earth could suddenly take a siesta.
That apparently hasn’t been reassuring enough, because lots of them are still walking around with deeply furrowed brows, looking blankly ahead and muttering to themselves: “LePage did it. What about LePage? Will it happen again? It might, right? It will, won’t it? Tell me!”
I want all those folks to have a nice summer and enjoy the conventions. So here’s what I hope they’ll think about:
• Trump has had a miserable six weeks as the presumptive nominee, including his recent response to the Orlando tragedy. This week, for the first time, polling shows that a majority of Americans will not vote for him. As much as 30 percent of Republicans say they won’t vote for him. And, 25 percent of Americans now describe him as a racist. Major Republicans, including all former Republican presidents, haven’t endorsed him, four weeks before their convention.
• There is no national equivalent to our three-way elections. While there will be others on the national ballot, mounting a national campaign without the national infrastructure and money of a party is more than anyone, including the immensely popular Teddy Roosevelt, has been able to do.
• Hillary Clinton is a seasoned campaigner and debater. Though she has a tendency to run lackluster front-runner campaigns, Clinton knows a lot about presidential campaigns and how the country and the world works. She’s also a very tough debater who comes armed with the facts. Trump has trouble doing his homework and gets things mixed up a lot. Enjoy the show.
• Presidential elections are not like state elections, where all the votes get totaled. There are 50 different state elections. This one will be decided in 10 states, and nine of them lean Democratic in recent presidential elections.
• Clinton’s lead in national polling is growing, after Trump’s clumsy responses to the tragedy in Orlando. Last week’s average of about a 4 percent lead against Trump is now climbing and may be at 8 percent or even 10 percent by the end of the week.
• Both candidates will get a bump after their conventions. The thing to watch is how big the bump is and how much of it dissolves two weeks later.
So relax, friends. It’s summer in Maine. Go have a cookout!
Alan Caron is the owner of Caron Communications and the author of “Maine’s Next Economy” and “Reinventing Maine Government.” He can be contacted at:
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