My point is relative performance versus recent events. Oddsmaker changes are much more responsive to recent developments than polls because of the time it takes to conduct polls.
If you wish to speculate... I suspect Manafort had to prove to the Russian with real pools that the media polls were rigged and that real polls with appropriate templates show the race to be in the margin of error and therefore realizing Hiillary's emails would put hillary in true a light thereby giving Trump a chance to win. A wonderful service was done for our country. Putins's decision put a light on the rats in the deep state. and we got a better supreme court. In fact the world owes Putin a debt of gratitude for taking that risk. Because make no mistake Hillary would have started a war in Syria just to teach him a lesson and she was backed by the crooked deep state.
This says more about the sorry state of Republican intellect then the 1% would like to admit. I'm certain such observations make them very uncomfortable. At least I hope so.
When the goal of voters is simply to piss off democrats. We've all lost. When hate, ignorance, and racism outweigh logic. It'll all be over soon. An examination of history shows the average age of an Empire. History will also reveal why those Empires eventually failed. And due to our ignorance and/or disregard of history, we'll repeat it. The only cure for overt and closeted hate, ignorance, and racism is a proper, national educational system. Good luck with that. We had a good run though.
Hillary beat all the other Democratic contenders only to lose to Trump. What might an intelligent person conclude about the quality of the Democratic opposition?
As you know, political parties make their own rules and it is party insiders that determine those rules, not the general public. The internal operation of these parties at the headquarters level is not necessarily democratic (small "d") . The party may legally operate to strongly favor one candidate over another. IMO this isn't something that is necessarily good or bad, but rather something we should think about and try to decide.. Based on recent experience, I would think both Democrats and Republicans would want to be closely examining their procedures and methods of choosing their presidential candidates.
I am optimistic that we may fix our primary and secondary public schools, the ones that need fixing, because we know how to do it, we just haven't done it yet. Choosing priorities, and what our long range investments should be are key. That may require political transformation to achieve. Bad education has an unfortunate feedback result in that it impairs our national judgement and causes us to get our priorities in the wrong order and invest too much in wasting assets and not enough in appreciating assets. It will take not only the right message, but also the right messenger to get us out of the hole we are digging. It could happen.
Your optimism is refreshing, but I prefer to deal with probabilities and likelihoods (even if only anecdotal)--rather than possibilities. You suggest that "we know how to do it." You can file that alongside "we know that global warming is real," and "we know how to stem it." The truth is, "We" don't know anything. "We" suggests unity. There is no unified, "we" mindset in the U.S.--not politically (K-12 educational curriculum is, ultimately, political); not scientifically; not religiously; not at all. "Some" know stuff. "Others" disagree; Some know that global warming exists; others disagree; Some know what should be taught in schools; others disagree; Some know that the earth is a sphere; others believe it is flat; Even facts must battle with "alternative" facts. The U.S. has become a clown show of corruption, ignorance, hatred, and racism. A microcosm of that can clearly be seen in these forums. The only way I see a path away from 'this' is via some non-corrupt, charismatic anti-ignorance/-hate/-racism leader. (Not corrupt leaders that encourage ignorance, hate, and racism.) But considering what happened to MLK and JFK; we may just be relegated to simply get the future we deserve. ________________ "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? ... They both burn up from the friction"