The late race dynamics we are living through today reminds me of a post I made in another neighborhood back when I was cheerleading from my keyboard for Fred Thompson to be the Republican nominee for President. Back then I was a fan of a wonderful national sport that was loosely based on the concept of stock car auto racing. Unfortunately, it no longer exists. Anyway, being against the humiliating concept of clearing the field early for the “marketing gimmick maverick”, I used a not-uncommon scenario in those ancient racing events. It went something like this:

It is not uncommon near the end of a given NASCAR race – say, during the last 50 laps – for the focus of all the cameras and commentary to center on 3 or 4 cars out in front of the pack all the time knowing that none of them can win the race – they don’t have the gas to get there. All the while another driver, significantly behind and maybe even slower than the lead pack actually has the best chance to win. By choice or by luck, his team ended up in a refueling (pit) strategy that was not conventional or in tune with the “right” way to do it but nevertheless, he now has the best platform to win the race. But, until the inevitable plays out, a significant amount of airtime can be spent focusing on those lead cars and pretending (for the benefit of the sponsors) that they actually have a chance.

Alas, Fred didn’t listen to me. 

The point for reviving this under current circumstances is just to wonder “out loud” how much of the chatter over the last three weeks or so has just been filling airtime with shallow, static non-analysis instead of acknowledging the probable dynamics to come based on the known-knowns of the system. Selective headlines allowed to hit my screen continue to drive such thoughts:

CNN’s Harry Enten: Trump Outperforming His Current Numbers ‘By Just a Single Point’ in November Will Lead to Victory

Trump Takes Shocking Lead in Top-Level Poll, Completely Shifts Perception of the Race

Hilarious Cope Flows Like Fine Wine After Times Poll Shows Trump Beating Harris

Discussion within that first link touches on the known-knowns of the “Trump bias problem in polling” that would already indicate that the Democrat car is out of gas. (Do you imagine that the internal polling for both sides doesn’t spell this out rather clearly already?) I suspect that the NYT poll discussed in the other two links is a face-saving admission that the post-convention bump was not real…which nicely circles back to the Mark Halperin quote from August 28 documented in the first link above:

“There’s some public polling already, there’s more coming. There’s some private polling that suggests that nationally in the battleground states, she’s not ahead. She might be ahead on paper, but well within the margin of error. And there’s some battleground states now where I think Donald Trump, on this trajectory, is going to be ahead,” Halperin said.

“And it may be, regardless of what happens in the interview and regardless of what happens in the debate — it may be that by the middle of September when things have calmed down, when the Trump campaign has had time to prey on some of the weaknesses that I suggested, that he’s ahead in all the Sun Belt states, and ahead in Pennsylvania and competitive in Michigan and Wisconsin,” Halperin said.

…

“I’m warning those of you who want Trump to lose that by the middle of next month, there’s a real possibility, based on what I’ve seen in terms of public and private data … that Kamala Harris could be where Joe Biden was … Only one electoral college path and not a particularly strong hold on it.”

[Emphasis added]

As they say, don’t get cocky. But I will stick to what I was getting at in an earlier post: Winning the election at all costs my be a hollow victory:

If second term Trump is going to be anything but another four-year pause in the progressive march into the abyss, then he must win and “President” his way. More importantly, if second term Trump is going to be anything but another four-year pause in the progressive march into the abyss, then he must exit at the end leaving a solid voting base that is faithful to the Constitution, American Liberty, and the Republic regardless of the narrative-of-the-day.

In the context of this post and the trajectory that seems to be playing out, to me that means Trump does need to drive smart but he also does not have to embark of a failed strategy of bending over backwards to court every possible “feeling” undecided voter and every possible “virtue-signaling” independent voter. They should be invited to enter his tent on his terms…nothing less. But he knows that, he gets it…it is the condescending chattering class that thinks it knows better.  As I said in the earlier post on the True Maverick subject:

Fifty-Seven days out from Election Day (whatever that even means in this unserious, rotting husk of a Republic) and our Maverick is in the arena. He has been well aware of the war he is in since (at least) the day he was told that Trump Tower was “bugged” in 2016…and fully engaged in the war against America being waged from the inside every day since. I’m fine with him calling the plays from here on out and tuning out the noise from the cowardly crowd. 

As for the debate this week (whether it happens or not), I suspect things are going to get even more interesting (from the Left) for the rest of the road to and through the election. That “interesting” is not in a good way. Hold tight.