Can Trump do a 'Dewey defeats Truman' (2020 edition)?
But the Trumpists are learning now that the populist surge is fizzling and they could be making the same mistake the Clintonites made in 2016.
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FOUR years ago, after Americans - contrary to pollsters' predictions about a Hillary Clinton victory - stunned the world by electing Donald Trump as president, I could still comfort myself that I had been able literally at the last moment to save my reputation as a political forecaster.
Longtime readers of The Business Times may recall that in the months leading to the 2016 presidential election your Man in Washington tended to echo the then conventional wisdom in the media, that the former first lady, New York senator, and secretary of state, if not one of the most famous women in the world, would be occupying the White House in the coming four years. Remember the jokes about Bill Clinton becoming first gentleman?
Like other pundits in Washington I had expressed my doubts that a man with no government experience nor basic knowledge in policy issues - a former reality TV host who was boorish in manners and was accused by many as being racist - would be elected to the most powerful job in the land, although I had never referred to Mr Trump as a "joke".
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