I awoke this morning to a headline on my iPhone: A new poll shows Donald Trump within three points nationally of Hillary Clinton.
We have 169 days until Election Day. We still don't know how the economy will be in five months. We don't know who Donald's running mate will be. We don't know who Hillary's running mate will be. We don't know what kind of international incidents (if any) or terrorist actions (if any) will occur between now and November 7.
We don't know what stupid things the candidates will say between now and then. We know there will be many but we don't know what they'll be or how they'll impact anyone's vote.
We don't know if there will be third party candidates or who they might be. With each passing day, it looks less likely that anyone meaningful will run but it ain't impossible.
We don't know who'll win the debates. We don't even know for sure that there will even be debates. I have a hunch there will be major fights over how many, who'll moderate them, what the rules will be, etc.
We don't know what Opposition Research will uncover about each candidate. I think it is safe to say that before Election Day, Hillary and Donald will each be accusing the other of some heinous, immoral act of wrongdoing that is totally unknown to us (and probably to them) at this time.
My friends who are wildly for Bernie Sanders would probably insist that I toss in here that we don't know for sure that the Democratic nominee won't be Bernie Sanders and they're right. It's pretty unlikely but it's possible.
I could go on — and I probably will when I post more messages like this over the next few months.
Oh — and there will be polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and polls showing Donald crushing Hillary. And then there will be more polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and more polls showing Donald crushing Hillary, followed by more polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and more polls showing Donald crushing Hillary. And accusations that the polls that the accuser doesn't like are rigged or dishonest or just plain inept.
An awful lot of this is advertising and a lot of it is clickbait. The media doesn't get you to visit their website or tune in their channel to see that the polls are unchanged. A lot of it is like those web ads that ask you to vote on whether Hillary should be in prison or Donald should release his income taxes. They don't care about your votes. They care about your clicks.
Whoever you're for, don't believe your candidate is winning or losing based on clickbait or on any one or two polls far in advance of Election Day. At this point in almost every recent presidential election — especially when there was no incumbent in the race — there were polls aplenty saying that the guy who eventually won didn't have a chance.
If you want to believe that your candidate will win, just believe it's because he or she is the superior candidate. If you want to believe that your candidate will lose, just believe it's because there are a lot of idiots who vote in this country. At this stage of the race, those views are probably just as valid as any polling or pundit's analysis.