What is the campaign strategy for the two political parties? Clues can be had from the responses to a question I asked about a dozen dignitaries of each party at their conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia. What’s your best guess, I asked, emphasizing guess, of your nominee’s percentage of the popular vote in November 2016?

I understood the responses, being on the record, were not entirely frank. Only two Republicans guessed Donald Trump would lose; only one Democrat said he was uncertain about the result. It would be churlish to ridicule the responses of those who turned out to be less than prescient.