[ad_1]
George Stefanopoulos is one of the rare cases that went with great success from politics to journalism. The son of a priest, with close relations with Greece and the Greek community, Stefanopoulos is today the main journalist of the ABC channel and presenter of the most popular morning news in the United States. This is “Good Morning America” with about 4 million viewers daily.
I met Stefanopoulos in 1988, when I was on his team Michael Doukaki and covers your campaign as a correspondent. He was one of a small group of Greek-Americans who communicated with their own code when traveling with the presidential candidate, often exchanging jokes or other… conversations in Greek. He then became Bill Clinton’s right-hand man and White House spokesman, before choosing journalism in 1996. Since then, and every four years, we set up an interview about the US presidential election (the one you are reading was given last Monday).
Stefanopoulos comes from the Democratic Party, but he is extremely sober in his opinions and assessments. He knows Trump personally and had pointed out since early 2016 the strong dynamics of his candidacy. This time, however, he considers the most likely scenario to be the choice of Joe Biden, as he even points out that polls haven’t changed dramatically in months. He adds, however, that he and his colleagues are doubly cautious, because they “pressured” her and did not predict the outcome in the last elections. Finally, he estimates that Trump, if defeated, will have to face very serious legal problems.
– Do you think this year is a strange and unique electoral contest?
– It’s the strangest. We have never seen anything like it, that is indisputable. An electoral contest like this, in the middle of the pandemic… I think something similar happened at the beginning of the 20th century, but in modern times we have never seen anything like it. This year has been a crazy year for everyone, especially turbulent for the United States. The overthrow of President Trump, the pandemic, the financial collapse, the unexpected return of Joe Biden, who was deemed “over” after Iowa and New Hampshire. However, he came back and changed everything with a victory in South Carolina.
The strangest thing of all, however, is that the electoral campaign, despite the prevailing situation, has been extremely stable. If you look at the January polls, before the president’s impeachment, before Biden even became the Democratic nominee, he was 7 to 9 points ahead of Donald Trump. Today, two weeks before November 3, Biden’s electoral advantage remains 7 to 9 points, despite what happened in this crazy election.
Another indication of how unusual this year’s election is is that we see a remarkably large number of Americans voting early. The polls are still two weeks away and more than 30 million citizens have already voted, that is, more than 20% of the electorate in the 2016 elections. It is incredible.
– Do you think that the electoral contest will focus on a single issue? Will that COVID-19 be the dominant problem?
– Everything is included under the COVID title. Shortly before our conversation began, President Trump had an impressive outburst to reporters, repeating that “people are tired of COVID-19, people are tired of idiots like Dr. Fauci, whom he would fire if he did not provoke such negative reactions. ” Surely the pandemic colors everything about the election: from the way candidates are campaigning to the way people are voting to the fact that Americans do not believe that President Trump handled the pandemic adequately. This is one of the main factors for extremely low acceptance rates on your face.
In a way, this is a monopolistic electoral contest, at least so far. The president has two more weeks to change the situation. So far, however, the election is also a referendum on Donald Trump, the current president, although generally those presidents in this office present the election as a choice between two candidates. When a sitting president or someone in a similar position tries to win, as George W. Bush Sr. did in 1988, when he had an opponent, Michael Doukakis, he “takes aim” at the opponent, making him an unacceptable option. So far, Donald Trump’s campaign has failed to do that for Joe Biden, who is proving to be a difficult and elusive target.
– I remember, in 2016, Hillary Clinton at this time had an advantage over Trump. Is there a possibility that this year 2016 will be repeated? Have you somehow missed this development?
– This is exactly the question we ask ourselves literally every minute of every day, because I think we were all surprised in 2016. But I think the situation is different today, and here is why: First, at the national level, the advantage of Biden is about three times that of Hillary at the time, 9.2 points to three. Second, Hillary Clinton was much less loved than Biden. One indication is that four years ago, voters who didn’t like either Trump or Clinton turned en masse to Trump. Today, if you look at the voters’ findings that they don’t like Biden and Trump, you see that they are moving en masse toward Biden. I think this is a second difference.
The third, huge and obvious difference is that somehow, four years ago, Donald Trump was the outsider contender, while Hillary Clinton appeared to be the “incumbent president” running for a third term for Democrats. Today, Trump is the one defending his four-year term in the White House. You are no longer the claimant. This is another difference.
I could go on and point more. Another big difference is that the deciding factor in the last two weeks before the 2016 election was James Comey, the head of the FBI. He first appeared and said he was restarting the Hillary Clinton investigation and two days before the election said he had closed the investigation. The analyzes I saw, as well as my personal observations of the time, led me to the conclusion that this was the difference between the victory and defeat of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton four years ago. I think this is proven.
But Donald Trump clings to his voters: working-class whites. I don’t think it is enough to guarantee his re-election, but he does retain around 40% of the electorate. Could something happen in the last two weeks before the election that allows you to increase this influence to the 46%, 47%, 48% that you will need? It’s possible. It certainly doesn’t happen today, but let’s wait and see what happens after the debate on Thursday night.
– However, don’t you expect “October surprises”, that is, those that could affect the electoral result at the last minute?
– Never say never, because we have two more weeks of October ahead of us and it could be said that this year has been a year of so many surprises. Who could have imagined that the president of the United States would be infected with the pandemic virus that he was supposed to be fighting against, four weeks before the election? However, I firmly believe that due to the large number of citizens voting every day, the importance of a last minute surprise diminishes. This is another big difference compared to the last four years. There are not many undecided voters right now. Also, there is no other candidate, p. Eg from the Liberals or the Green Party, which could absorb votes. They are not doing that this year.
The next day
– Do you have any idea what Trump will do if he loses the election? Will he resign without staying until the swearing-in of the newly elected president?
– I don’t know the answer to that. But I will make a comment. In the next few days we will see if Donald Trump’s tax data should be turned over to the Manhattan prosecutor’s office. I believe that if you lose the election, you will face major legal adventures, from the Manhattan Attorney General, the New York Attorney General and even from federal agencies. I think this is what people should see.
As president, Biden will be a stabilizing force
– Many are concerned that if the difference in the election results is small, there may be violence, some form of civil conflict. Are you worried about that?
– For sure. We are seeing it. Certainly. There is no doubt that at this moment the emotions are extremely tense. The president is fomenting tension. Just a few minutes ago he said that the only way to lose the elections is if there is fraud. In the environment of polarization and polarization of the media in which we find ourselves, many of its followers will believe it and interpret it as a call to action. It’s something we all look at.
– What kind of president will Joe Biden be? You have known him for a long time.
– Yes, for a long time. In fact, I was interviewed for a job in his office, right after Michael Doukakis’ election campaign in 1988. In fact, I’ve known him for a long time. I think Biden will be a stabilizing force. This is your commitment to the American people. It will calm the situation and it can be seen in his appearances. He appeared with me last Thursday, at a time when President Trump was on NBC with Savannah Gandry. His opposition to behavior, temperament, experience was so surprising. I believe, of course, that he will try to advance the Democratic Party agenda, “lower” the temperature culturally. It takes a sincere effort to heal the deep divide in society as a whole.
– If you had to bet now, do you think Biden will have a difficult time winning or will he achieve a landslide victory?
– This has haunted me for the last four years. I admit that I would not have predicted Trump’s victory then. The key US election analyst estimates that Biden has an 88% chance of winning the election, so Trump has a 12% chance. While this is not insignificant, the chances of a big Biden win are close to 40%, as he exceeds 35%. That is why I believe that today there is more chance of a clear and comfortable victory, compared to everything we saw in 2016. This possibility increases every day.
