DES MOINES — Back when I was an IT guy, we used to joke that we’d like to work at a place called “In Theory.” Why? Because everything works in theory.
This election cycle has often made fools of pundits and political prognosticators. They have made a series of predictions during this campaign for which they have highly plausible rationales. These predictions just haven’t always come true.
Here are three things I’m never going to predict in print until there is evidence they are actually happening.
1. Donald Trump’s collapse. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, maybe it’s the fact that he’s such an unconventional candidate. But with each politically incorrect or even outlandish statement, with each controversy, there has been a flurry of predictions of the Republican front-runner’s political demise.
Similarly, a Google search for “Trump has peaked” produces 37,800 results as of Monday morning. But this collapse has never happened and his poll numbers sometimes leave the 25-30 percent range and break 40 percent.
It’s still possible that Trump will not have the ground game to keep up with Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses, which could have an unpredictable influence on his standing in other states. Trump’s favorable ratings even among Republicans are not high for a front-runner and maybe he wouldn’t be well situated in a two-man race.
I’ll let you know when that actually happens and not a minute before.
2. Marco Rubio is the real front-runner. Even now there is a heated debate among poll watchers whether the Florida senator is “surging” in Iowa. And if you like Rubio’s foreign policy, then you know surges always work.
Rubio is in a good position in Iowa. He has moved into a strong third place. He has neither skipped a debate nor been chastised by the Iowa secretary of state. He’s attracting large crowds on the stump. He seems to be gaining and some more obscure pollsters are suggesting he is doing even better than that.
From there, a logical case can be made that Rubio will become the anti-Trump candidate coming out of Iowa. This is especially true if Trump defeats Cruz, as most polls indicate (with the caveat that Trump is most likely to under-perform his poll numbers if the conventional wisdom about his Iowa organization is correct).
But aside from movement in the Iowa polls, and The Des Moines Register still has him well below Trump and Cruz, this has frequently been predicted but has never happened. Rubio seems stuck in the teens, worse in some other pivotal states. It’s still not clear where he gets his first win. Team Rubio has emphasized peaking at the right time, but some of his supporters see him surging always.
I’m not saying all this can’t change. There are good reasons to believe that maybe it all will change. Until it happens, however, I’m done talking about it.
3. A Clinton scandal will derail the Clintons. Yes, the latest developments in the Hillary Clinton email story are bad. Yes, she could lose one or both of the first nominating contests to Bernie Sanders. But as someone who lived through the 1990s, I’m not going to predict that this hurts her much in the primaries, much less results in her indictment.
Note that Sanders is least likely to attack Clinton on the “damn emails.” Recall that Clinton’s husband saw his approval ratings rise after admitted misconduct. Remember that Republicans and other Clinton foes always seem to overreach and make the story about themselves, allowing Bill and Hillary to blame the vast right-wing conspiracy for keeping them from the people’s business.
Maybe things are different, since scrutiny of the email situation isn’t confined to the conservative press and the FBI is looking into this rather than Republican congressional committees or special prosecutors. But I’m not going to believe it until I see it.
