On November 3, 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune published the headline: "Dewey Defeats Truman"---as incumbent United States President Harry Truman went on to win an upset victory and a second term in the White House.
On Election Day in 2016, a German newspaper published this front-page headline: "Good Morning Mrs. President" over the smiling, joyous face of Hillary Clinton.
There's a smugness about the Biden people---even more so within the press---a sense of inevitability about tomorrow's election.
Most all the polls show Biden leading. Most all the people who create the polls and report those same polls see a headline about to be published: "Biden Defeats Trump."
Could it be, as the great New York Yankee baseball player Yogi Berra once said, "Deja vu all over again?"
Be informed, not misled.
There were lengthy explanations, by both the Chicago Daily Tribune and the German newspaper, but the fact is they both blew it. In front of the world.
But this time, the press and the masters of information are certain Biden will win.
With just 24 hours before the final votes will be cast (theoretically), many see Donald Trump's obstacles to re-election as insurmountable.
In recent articles, Republicans Peggy Noonan, Andrew Sullivan, Charlie Cook and others have even suggested that on this Election Day eve we may be poised for a Joe Biden landslide.
The press, in their favorite yoga stance, is repeating their most sacred mantra, "Biden Defeats Trump," while Biden and crew get cockier and cockier: "After all," Biden and his mainstream media tell us, "We are having a third wave of the Chinese virus, and it's all Trump's fault, Trump's 2 points further behind in the polls than McCain was in 2008 and almost as far behind as George H.W. Bush was in 1992.
Striking similarities.
Niall Ferguson is a Senior Fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a previous professor of history at Harvard, New York University, and Oxford.
The similarities between Truman's circumstances and Trump's are stunning. While Trump and Truman are of different political parties, and Truman's run for re-election was 72 years ago and many things have changed----but people have not changed.
Ferguson notes that like Trump, Truman had bitter opponents within his own political party's elite---"Initiatives such as the 'Never Trump' movement and the Lincoln Project would not have surprised Truman, who likewise faced grave doubts over his reelectibility from powerful forces within the Democrat Party."
Party bosses in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Florida actively fought to 'dump' him in the summer of 1948.
"Like Trump," Ferguson says "the institutional 'deep state' opposed him."
In fact, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover volunteered his services of the bureau to aid Truman's opponent's campaign.
One of J. Edgar Hoover's assistants would later say: "No one in the Bureau gave Truman any chance of winning."
Yogi Berra also said, "It ain't over till it's over."
Ferguson writes that there were two things that changed the course of events---Again strikingly similar.
First, he says, "the incumbent sought to dominate the political battlespace by scheduling thrice-daily events in dozens of states---even invading territory (like Dewey's home turf in New York) that was assumed to be hostile. Airport rallies and whistle-stops in battleground states (California, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania) leveraged the incumbent's 'populist everyman' image."
"Secondly," Ferguson says, "Truman's attacks on Dewey were direct, personal, and visceral, causing the press to censure him for his ungentlemanly methods."
One New York Herald reporter characterized Truman as a "bumpkum piled higher than haystacks, and demagoguery tooting merrily down the track."
But Truman kept telling people, "You are the government"--"if you back me, we're going to win."
He covered 21,928 miles by train, delivering 275 speeches---mostly in what we call today "fly-over country"
Truman appealed to the "forgotten" people that the elite doesn't even know exist.
Meanwhile, Dewey had been promising the country that he would bring us together--unite us. Every speech was about "unity"---but in the end, the call for unity did not translate to votes.
The three most well known and most reliable polling companies; Crossley, Gallup, and Roper, missed it.
I'm not suggesting that Election Day 2020 will be a repeat of 1948, only God knows today. We'll all know at some time probably much later than tomorrow.
But last week, political pundit Mark Halperin noted that in what he called the "significant six" states---Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas--- Biden was ahead in just 3 and his leads were within the margin of error.
Real Clear Politics, not a left-leaning news organization, is showing support growing for Trump in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio. There are also signs, RCP says, of a late Trump rally in Pennsylvania and Arizona.
If Trump would win those 8 states, it wouldn't matter if he would lose Michigan and Wisconsin: He's a two-term president.
Some Democrats having a shadow of doubt.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/11/01/john-fetterman-pennsylvania-donald-trump-rally/
Another picture was posted by a reporter with Politico. Fetterman again tweeted: "She is with Politico. This is not MAGA propaganda. Can't fake a crowd like that. But you can make sure you show up and get every vote in. Every vote matters."
The takeaway.
Recently I heard some self-identifying "Christians" suggesting that God doesn't really care about political elections---He simply leaves those decisions up to us.
That isn't true. God cares about everything that affects our lives---including who our leaders will be and how our society will be governed.
That's why He commanded us to pray for our government and its leaders.
The Bible says:
"I urge you then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made...for kings and all those in authority" (I Timothy 2:1-2).
Would He have told us to do this if He didn't care about good government?
Pray for America. This election will send our country in one of two very different directions.---one toward more freedom and liberty, the other toward secular humanism and the bondage of a godless culture.
Pray.
Remember--God is in control.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.....And if you have not yet done so, VOTE.