Nobody seems to be talking much about the limp turnouts for Hillary speeches and the overflow turnouts for Trump speeches. This enthusiasm gap should mean something with respect to voter turnout on November 8 and in the mail-in balloting prior to that date.
Our difficulty, mine and that of other, better-known pundits, is we don't know how much weight to give enthusiasm. Conventional wisdom is that enthusiasm is a big plus for a candidate.
In this election cycle the enthusiasm has been with Trump and Sanders. The rest of the yahoos running, not so much.
Another factor nobody wants to talk about is whether the minorities who turned out in big numbers for Obama - a minority himself - will turn out for an old, tired white woman who claims with some authority to be on their side because she's also a Democrat.
How much of the black, Asian, Hispanic turnout for Obama was the kick of seeing a non-white face in the White House? Of just knowing it was possible?
Versus how much of the minority vote for Obama was driven by cold, calm political calculation of self-interest? Nobody seems to know, and those who claim to know are guessing.
We'll have a better idea of the answers to these questions on November 9.
