Conventional Wisdom is so...conventional

Lessons to be learned so far in political punditry 2016:

1. The impossible can become the inevitable. Everyone, and I mean everyone, said when Donald Trump announced he was a joke and his candidacy was doomed. His candidacy now is the talk of politics worldwide in 2016. For better or worse.
2. Conventional wisdom is conventional. Conventional wisdom (CW) took a major hit. Of course, CW looks backward not forward. It reviews past voting trends and lays them over the future. Used to work. No more. Bernie Sanders was an issue candidacy but he caught fire. Trump was a joke. No more. Even after a big stumble in Iowa. And even after realizing he didn’t understand the rules of the GOP nominating process. He just keeps winning.
3. A huge GOP field is blocking the true numbers. Not true either. Since the field has winnowed to three, Trump’s margins become greater, not smaller.
4. Gaffes hurt candidates. Not Trump, for sure. He is Mr. Gaffe. Mr. Say The First Thing That Comes to Mind and never apologize.  And none of it has hurt him. At all. Ever.
   
5. Polls rule campaigns. Well, unless we learn at some point that Trump’s campaign really was spending money on polling but not listing it on their disclosure forms, the Trump Campaign seems to be running on instinct, not data. And it’s winning.
   

What do those lessons mean for the general campaign, assuming Trump does win the nomination (which is looking more likely by the day) and assuming CW holds true, which it hasn't, this year:

• Hillary will romp. Yes, that’s CW and that’s what the polls say versus Donald Trump, but please see lessons number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 when it comes to Trump. Toss the rule book out the window.
• Women will save Hillary. We’ll see. Eight years ago, for sure. Today, the “woman thing” doesn’t seem to be The Most Important Issue to Women. But versus Trump? It’s hard to explain why any woman would support him based on his rhetoric on the trail. But he is getting votes from women.
• Trump can’t steamroll Hillary. I don’t think so either. She’s smart. She’s tough. She’s been through the mill. But she hasn’t come up against anyone who will say anything and do anything. He calls her “crooked Hillary.” There’s no evidence that’s she’s “crooked” but it feeds the view of a lot of the Republican Party. They already believe that. He’s just giving it voice, true or not.
  
• The establishment will abandon Trump. Not from what we’re seeing so far. If I were a potential VP candidate and Trump offered it to me, I’d turn it down. But I have a feeling there are many “legitimate” potentials who will gladly accept it. And, I have a feeling we’ll start to see more “establishment” folks endorsing Trump in the weeks ahead. Not because they support him, but because they are Republicans and because they like to be with a “winner.”
  
• Trump is funding his own campaign. Well, he’s lending his campaign a lot of money but when the general election rolls around, my guess is he will start taking in more money from folks not named Donald Trump.

This is an amazing and unbelievable political year. It has altered the boundaries for presidential politics. Well, at least for Donald Trump. Will those boundaries remain changed in future cycles? The CW would say no. But the CW has been consistently wrong this year.