Russian President Vladimir Putin sits before the start of the opening ceremony of the G20 summit, Hangzhou, China, September 4. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/POOL/REUTERS
The Hill: Former US ambassador: Russians now think Clinton will win
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on Tuesday said it seems Russia now believes that Democrat Hillary Clinton is likely to win the presidency.
"I am totally convinced that the Russians now have made an assessment that Secretary Clinton is likely to win," McFaul told The Hill in a phone interview.
"I think they have — you know, are resigned to the fact that they are going to have to start dealing with President-elect Clinton," said McFaul, who served as ambassador from 2012 to 2014.
McFaul said he is basing his belief off of "anecdotal" evidence, namely conversations that he's had, including "both with Russian officials and other intermediaries."
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WNU Editor: I have to concur with US Ambassador Michael McFaul's assessment .... I have been hearing the same thing from my family and friends in Russia. The reason for this shift in opinion are the polls that are being reported that predict a Clinton victory .... everyone that I know believes that they are accurate. As to what is my take .... I have been following U.S. elections since 1980, and I have learned one thing about polls .... they are used to influence public opinion, but they always shift to more realistic numbers a week before the vote. And while I do not know who will win this year's U.S. Presidency, I do remember the 1980 election when all the polls were indicating a few days before the vote that Ronald Reagan was going to lose big to U.S. President Carter .... until the day of the actual vote.
Update: The polling for this year's Brexit referendum is another case study on how polls say one thing before the election .... but a completely different story emerges when the vote is cast and known.
Update #2: Yup .... War over polls intensifies (The Hill).
4 comments:
WNU, you're 100% right about polling. Polls can be a fantastic indicator when done properly. However, it seems that some organizations are inserting 'biases' into their presidential polling, likely to manipulate voters.
This bias is very clear when some organizations consistently have Clinton up by double digits while others consistently have the election within a slim margin of error. Despite what some "pollsters" would say, there isn't a good reason for polls to be off by this much. Unfortunately, we won't find out for sure which organizations are conducting honest operations until election day.
WNU,
I tend to agree with your assessment, unfortunately. When Mr Tump first got the nomination, I predicted he would win. This prediction was based on several assumptions that seemed so obvious to me at the time that it didn't even seem worth considering the possibility that these assumptions might not materialize.
The assumptions were 1.) Mr Trump would learn to control his tongue/twitter finger, stay on the issues which are solid winners, and avoid being distracted. 2.) His team along with the RNC would develop a ground game worthy of a POTUS camoaign along with the neccessary ad buys. 3.) Never Trump personnel would do what normal what normal people do when faced with two unpalatable choices they can't change.
These assumptions have not materialized to the degree I expected. Had I have known at nomination time what I know now the prediction probably would have been different.
Now here we are. We are probably going to have HRC as the next POTUS. She is likely to increase confrontation with Russia. Russia's military is the world's most powerful. Being in adversarial relationship with the world's most powerful country is NOT a good situation for America or anyone for that matter to be in.
While there may be time and a place where it might be neccessary for America to confront the world's most powerful country, Syria, Ukraine, and eastern Europe aren't it. Essentially HRC and her team are either mad or complete idiots. All that can be done it seems is pray America can somehow survive this.
If there is a bit of good news, when DJT got the nomination, it was expected by most pundits that HRC would "wipe the floor" with him and she'd have long put the race away long ago. In other words, it's proven to be a much closer race than most would have thought and we still do not "know" who is going to win.
B. Poster,
Where do you find that Russia is the most military powerful of the world? I strongly agree that Russia is a very great military power, but the first? In any case that's not in the interest of Russia or USA to be in a full conflict.
The Bush administration was not very good with Russia, but the Obama one is horrible! We have no reason to be enemy. All the NATO countries are in competition with each other in every fields....are they enemy? We can do that with Russia. America and Russia need strong allied...not as European one who are afraid of the first shot.
Jac,
I believe Russia's combination of its upgraded nuclear arsenal, superior cyberwarfare capabilities, superior training, superior morake, superior leadership, and anti-ship capabilities make it the world's strongest military power. I would add also that Russia's messaging apparatus (some might call it propaganda and the ability to spread it both domestically and abroad) are way beyond anything America can match in anything like a reasonable time frame.
With that said I could be overestimating Russian power. I've acknowledged that on this site and elsewhere a number of times. We cannot "know" for certain what would happen until an actual shooting war started.
I think we can agree it is not in America's interst to have an adversarial relationship and that, at the very least, Russua is a great power. Is NATO an enemy? They and Western European nations are "strategic competitors" of America who would gladly harm it and its people if they thought it would help them nor will they ever lift a finger to help us in a time of need.
At the very least, NATO needs to be renegotiated. We probably need to withdraw from this "alliance" and the sooner the better.
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