After a lengthy series of Republican and Democratic primary elections, two challengers for the US presidency emerged, Donald Trump for the Republican Party and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party. The election will be historic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that this is the first time that a woman has been nominated by a major party to contest the presidency. It was just in 1920 that women were granted the right to vote in America. Perhaps even more worthy of note is the fact that her opponent, Mr Trump is a hugely divisive figure, even within his own party with a number of its most senior grandees refusing to openly support their candidate and having gone as far as to indicate that on this occasion, they will vote for the Democratic candidate.
Usually, an American election would have a strong focus on economic matters: as Mrs Clinton’s husband, Bill, put it when campaigning to become President in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid”, but not so to anything like the same extent this time. Indeed, this election has been deliberately moved onto the shakiest of ground, mainly by the Donald, of the cult of personality where success involves not winning the argument as to showing how unelectable your opponent is. Trump has tried to paint his opposite number as “crooked”, an establishment figure in bed (figuratively only, fortunately) with the Wall Street Elite, uncaring about the average Joe an untrustworthy. Clinton has pointed to Trump’s (clearly) non-presidential demeanour, flip-flops, lack of experience in elected office (zero, actually), his dubious tax history and his character. Latterly, the Trump own goal of his misogyny and (alleged) physical mistreatment of women has also been exploited by Mrs Clinton (as a Democrat opposing a Republican and as a woman, this was an unavoidable, but a generally demeaning spectacle for the standing of the US internationally).
The bizarre decision of the FBI to re-open the issue of Clinton’s use of personal e-mails whilst serving as US Foreign Secretary, gave Trumps poll figures a boost, but within the last 48 hours, the FBI has confirmed it found no evidence of wrong-doing.
The fact that many still believe that the election is too close to call speaks volumes of the disconnect between sections of the public and the political class which is hardly a uniquely US phenomenon, as the UK Referendum shows. Polls yesterday seemed to indicate that momentum was with Mrs Clinton and certainly, the US stock market gains and the value of the Dollar would seem to back the idea that the investment community fully expects to wake on Wednesday to the historical development of the election of America’s first woman president.