Trump takes the lead. Clinton takes another dive

The architect of the form of campaigning and strategic thinking that is in the process of going bust was Bill Clinton. The former President and his team in the early 1990s were so successful that their redesign of centre-left politics was adopted by New Labour and set the tone for everything that followed until the financial crisis of 2008.

The emphasis in the early days of Clinton and Blair’s effort was on building a broad coalition of voters, attracting them with an agenda that could comfort floating and independent voters who wanted prosperity and competence. To achieve this, both the Democrats and New Labour reconciled themselves to markets and the financialisation of the economy, with the aim of using the proceeds to pay for progressive policies.

It was all underpinned by a ruthless approach to message discipline and communication, on the basis that the centre-left had tended to be out-gunned by the Reaganite and Thatcherite Right. The only way to win, ran the logic, was to be more ruthless and better organised. Some of the architects of this process got completely carried away, fell for their own hype and still cannot process the collapse of their project. In the UK it is culminating in the potential split or annihilation of the traditional Labour party.

It is highly appropriate that the candidate in the US who is in position just as this all shakes down, as the administrators are called in to pick over the wreckage, is a Clinton. Almost a quarter of a century since her husband won the presidency, and since Hillary became a famous figure, she is up against a Republican candidate who breaks every rule in the Clinton 1990s playbook. Donald Trump is new kind of candidate, a post-modern populist built for an age characterised by the meltdown of the mainstream media.

For a start he is a stranger to message discipline beyond one vague phrase about greatness. Otherwise, he says whatever he wants, often in long, contradictory, rambling passages that make him sound like a boastful bully standing at the bar giving the other customers the benefit of his “wisdom.” He is not interested in reassuring or soothing voters. He angrily voices their rage about crime, fear of terrorism, political correctness, the hollowing out of the American middle class and the downsides of globalisation. And while ostensibly being pro-market, he is actually a protectionist economic nationalist.

Trump’s quixotic campaign has a mesmerising, terrifying quality. No matter what happens – a shambolic convention in Cleveland, plagiarism by his wife’s speechwriters, rabble-rousing on race and vile slurs about opponents -‎ it only seems to make him stronger.

Today, Trump takes another step towards the White House in the form a six point bounce in the wake of the Republican Convention. The first poll (for CNN) suggests “the bounce is back” after a 16 year period in which conventions have made little impact on voters. In a two-way contest Trump now leads Clinton 48% to 45%. With the other two minor candidates included, the libertarian Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein, Trump is ahead 44% to 39%.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are gathered for their own Convention this week, mired in yet another row about emails. This time the Democrat Establishment (the DNC) is accused of aiding Clinton in her battle with rival Bernie Sanders, when it was supposed to be impartial. The leaked correspondence also shows the workings of the mad, undignified scramble for donors.

Despite this, Clinton retains several advantages. She is experienced and although she may be wrong – as PJ O’Rourke puts it – Hillary is wrong “within normal parameters”. Women voters tend to be decisive in US elections and although they are not great fans of Hillary, Trump is a candidate made to be off-putting.

Still, terrifyingly, Trump can win in this craziest of years when the common standards by which commentators have judged candidates for decades have disintegrated. Trump’s good fortune is to be a new kind of candidate up against a Clinton, the personification of politics as usual.