Having said all that about the unreliability of polls in May, I’m now going to go about making predictions in May, because Freedom!

On Friday, January 20, 2017 at Noon, Eastern Time, the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton will take the Oath of Office to become the 45^th President of the United States of America.

First, let’s look at the candidate.  There’s not going to be an e-mail indictment. Benghazi is not going to slow her down. No one is going to care about Whitewater, or Rose Law Firm billing records, or Bill’s bimbo eruptions. The shade of Vince Foster is not going to appear in the President’s chair like Banquo at the banquet.

We who sit inside these drum circles on a daily basis often forget two words I have always tried to drum into my colleagues and clients: inside baseball. Most fans don’t care about inside baseball.   On the GOP side, that disconnection from the process of elections and governance is so total that they don’t even try to engage with the hard stuff. Hence, Donald Trump.

NOBODY CARES about these things that Hair Drumpf coalesces into “Crooked Hillary” partly because they don’t care to understand them; even if there was any THERE there, that there is still inside baseball. Hell, Drumpf couldn’t even spell Clinton Global Initiative, much less explain what it does, much much less explain how not breaking any laws is somehow crookeder than his own doglegged backstory.

How do I know that nobody cares? Because think about this: in 24 years, the Clintons have been in 6 national races – 4 primaries and two generals – and in every single one, people have questioned their character.  And in every single one they’ve won the popular vote. (Yes, in 2008, Hillary won the primary popular vote.) So far, over 30 million votes have been cast for HRC in Democratic primaries, more than any other Presidential candidate from any party in American history.

So the “Clinton record” and all the mud-slinging that will be attempted against them has not yet and will not ever put any hitch in Hillary’s giddy-up.

Now, let’s look at the map. Hillary has been running fairly overtly as Obama’s third term, thus we take as our departure point the 2012 election for his second term. Obama carried 26 states + DC for a total of 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 24/206. Obama carried 51.1% of the popular vote; that victory was largely based on carrying the following demographics: Women 55-44; AfAm 93-6; Asian 73-26; Hispanic 71-27; LGBT 76-22.

Do you see Hillary’s numbers going up or down in these growing constituencies against Trump? Then consider these opportunities for growth against Obama’s performance in 2012: He lost married women 53-46; he lost independents 50-45; he lost college graduates 51-47. Do you see Trump improving or worsening on Romney’s numbers in these areas?

My cosmic political pendulum was already moving away from Republican victories, as Republicans moved away from ideas and governance because their ideas about governance were failing. In their stead, they’ve won some elections channeling on fear and ideology, tapping into the basest beasties in the darkened authoritarian mind. Far from being a change, Donald Trump truly represents the ravening Republican id. He stands as the avatar for everything that is worst about the GOP, which is exactly everything that has been turning voters off for the last quarter century.

Given that Gore and Kerry each lost by one state – and those contested! – and that every other election in the past 24 years has been won by Democrats based on demographics, then two hundred and seventy electoral votes are a lock. Hillary could underperform Obama’s 2012 map by Florida, Ohio AND Wisconsin and still win 275. As always, I am saying this based on current conditions, and people need to turn out, and there might still be some Deus in the machina that could finally make something stick against the Clintons.

But I wouldn’t bet the farm on that being Donald John Trump.

Next: 400 EV and The Perfect Storm