At this point, the only thing that can be predicted with certainty about the impending US presidential elections is that the most powerful political office in the world will have a new incumbent seven months from now. Beyond that, it would take a brave pollster to predict a win for either candidate who has breasted the tape for their respective party's nominations: the Democratic Party's Hillary Clinton or the Republican Party's reluctantly nominated Donald Trump.
In one of the strangest campaigns in recent US history, a wild card entry will be pitted against a consummate Washington machine politician for the office of the President of the United States. Till recently, one was deemed a no-hoper and the other a shoo-in. Yet it is Mr Trump, a realtor of such extreme chauvinism as to make the party establishment wince, who has defied all the odds to handily beat his primary rivals. His largely self-funded, bigotry-laced campaign, marked by violence and abuse, gained an extraordinary degree of traction among voters in a party that had already been leaning to the hard right in recent years. Ms Clinton, on the other hand, was seen to be on course to make history as the Democratic Party's first female presidential nominee. Her long exposure to government, as a senator and later secretary of state were considered automatic qualifiers. It is true, however, that the former First Lady has been a polarising figure for reasons that range from the absurd (she is considered charmless, non-empathetic and "ambitious") to the understandable (the lack of an arm's length relationship between her husband, former President Bill Clinton's philanthropic mega-foundation, vulnerability to big business and much-debated record as secretary of state). Many Democrats were unwilling to see a variation of Bill Clinton in the White House, a factor that worked against her when she ran against Barack Obama in 2008. Her weaknesses have been magnified by the federal investigation into her use of a private email server when in office.
But in the absence of credible alternatives, Ms Clinton's nomination was rarely in doubt - until she was challenged by a junior senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Mr Sanders' extreme left-wing positions on many issues (free education, free medical care and so on) were almost a mirror image of Mr Trump's ideology, and not surprisingly, both often grabbed their respective party's primary and caucus votes in middle American states where unemployment runs high - such as Indiana, Oregon, Kansas, Nebraska and Michigan. Absent the crude chauvinism against immigrants, refugees and women, and Mr Sanders appeared a plausible option on the left, requiring Ms Clinton to work the hustings much harder than she bargained for. Now, no matter how much global opinion may view her as the TINA option for the White House, in the latest opinion polls she is just two percentage points ahead of Mr Trump. The fate of the world's most powerful democracy hangs in the balance like never before.
