538 has found an electoral map worthy of its name. https://t.co/Lmu3rUjmhS
— AlGiordano (@AlGiordano) March 24, 2016
Exclusive @FiveThirtyEight projection on what the Electoral College would look like if women refuse to vote Trump. pic.twitter.com/kmjxmjnY1l
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 24, 2016
.
I remember the quote in the title as coming from Jimmy Breslin, and yes he was talking about politicians. Hat tip to commentor LAMH36 for the following:
I'll take "Holy shit, this guy is likely a major party's presidential nominee" for $100, Alex. pic.twitter.com/AOSkhFF9Tz
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) March 24, 2016
.@chrisgeidner .@elonjames the final #GOP debate will be a round of The Dozens hosted on a high school bleacher. All Mamas are fair game
— kevin munroe (@kevlarcomedy) March 24, 2016
Apart from buying more popcorn, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Germy
Looking at that blue map, I hear the song “What A Wonderful World It Would Be”…
Face
I want to hear more people go off on Cruz about his 10% flat tax. How everything, everywhere, will cost 10% more. And how his plan to axe the IRS will somehow still get people to pay whatever tax they’re still required to pay (assuming he’s still taxing the poor and middle class). Kinda hard to force deadbeat tax payers to pony up when there’s no longer an enforcement arm of government to enforce the law.
tamiasmin
Women not voting for Trump? No problem for Republicans. They just issue multiple voter IDs to old white guys. ”Honestly, ma’am, that was my identical twin voting this morning.”
OzarkHillbilly
Rained all night so too wet to do much other than cut firewood. About time too, I usually do this in early to mid February.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I find that hard to believe, but on the other hand the California GOP hasn’t been able to hold a statewide office since 2000 outside of a some fluke like Arnold and it doesn’t seem to bother them so that maybe the future of presidential elections.
Betty Cracker
Aside from hoping Trump loses badly because he would be a terrible, clueless, destructive, embarrassing president, I am wishing for his electoral humiliation because he’s such an awful person. I doubt he’d lose all 50 states, but man, that would be a glorious outcome and a concession speech for the fucking ages!
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/23/16
‘Family values’ governor mired in sex scandal
Rachel Maddow reports on the increasing pressure and scrutiny on Alabama Governor Robert Bentley as evidence of an affair with his senior political adviser has become more explicit.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I think that even in the best case, Trump would win a few states– and would probably never concede– He wuz robbed! By the Bitch Queen!
rikyrah
Why do people think that White Women wouldn’t vote for Trump?
They voted, in majority for Willard.
rp
Anyone read Jeffrey Toobin’s piece on Obama and Garland in this week’s New Yorker? I usually like Toobin, but I thought this piece was shallow and poorly thought out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: “THEY STOLE IT!!!!” is about the only concession he’d ever make.
LAO
It just occurred to me, I can be slow sometimes. The biggest difference between Trump and his fellow Republican candidates is that rather than let or use political pacs to attack, he does it himself on Twitter. I mean the Bush’s swift boat attack on Kerry was disgusting and shameful but Bush had a some wiggle room re his culpability. (Not in my eyes, mind you but to the chattering class). Here, Trump is flat out vulgar without providing any cover.
I fully cop to bring an idiot for not actually comprehending this till now. I should the comments more carefully.
Aimai
@rikyrah: older white republican women voted for romney. Younger, northeastern, or democratic whote women voted for obama. If even some people who ordinarily vote republican turn away from trump he snd the republican party are toast.
Dan
@rikyrah:
because overt, casual misogyny is part of Trump’s rhetorical style, and it wasn’t part of Mitt’s. That’s going to turn off a good chunk of white women who ID as independents.
But yes, there’s a big chunk of white ladies that will vote for anyone the GOP vomits forth.
Dolly Llama
Trump will lose because people will just be fucking sick of hearing him and hearing about him by then. Everywhere you look, it’s Donald Fucking Trump all the time. Even people who are stupid enough to like the guy are getting sick of it now, and it’s not even April.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@rikyrah: No question that Rmoney got substantial support from that group, but He, Trump is different. However mechanical he seems to us, Romney appeared genteel and civilized. Trump revels in his vulgarity, and I suspect older white women will be horrified by the retweeted wife comparison. It could really cost him in that R demographic.
Betty Cracker
@Aimai: If it’s Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, my guess is there will be a record-setting gender gap. He’s such a sexist pig.
rikyrah
@Aimai:
A majority of White Women voted for Romney. The ‘ Gender Gap’ on the female side that President Obama had in 2012 was provided by Non-White Women.
rikyrah
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
So, not that there’s actual policy differences between Willard and Rat on Top of Head Man.
It’s just how he says it?
bemused
@Face:
It would be privatized tax collection. Business needs more money.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Lemme guess: You don’t work on Madison Avenue, do you?
John
@rikyrah:
Yes, but I’m almost 100% certain that Romney never made any public comments blaming a female reporter’s tough questions on her menstrual cycle. Or criticizing female political opponent for her physical appearance. Or going after the wives of his fellow candidates. Romney was a disgusting patrician jackass, and certainly a sexist as well, but he didn’t parade his misogyny like it was his best quality.
Matt McIrvin
@Dolly Llama:
The problem with this theory is that I think we reached that point with Hillary Clinton sometime around summer 1993.
MattF
@rikyrah: Po-li-cy. Needs to be enunciated sloooowwwwly and cleeeeeaaaarly if there’s a Republican in the room.
Matt McIrvin
…and, actually, I think we reached it with Donald Trump back in the 1980s.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@rikyrah: It’s not just how he says it but his behavior over the past decades. And it’s backed up to some extent by polls, though I’m striking out on finding the ones I saw over the past couple of weeks.
I’d like to see the data for that map Silver tweeted, though. Is it the result if all women voted for Clinton, or is it assuming that R women refuse to vote for either one?
Matt McIrvin
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): That poll result from Utah is really interesting. Ted Cruz would take the state by a huge margin, but they hate Donald Trump so much they said they’d vote for Clinton over him.
It may be the one state where just being a gross, vulgar person is actually enough to horrify conservatives into voting against you.
rikyrah
The sociopath that shot Gabby Gifford is now SUING HER FOR DISTRESS?
WHAT.DA.PHUQ?!!?!?!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@rikyrah: Last I saw, that was believed to be a hoax lawsuit.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
gvg
@rikyrah: How about both? They aren’t really separate. Romney actually wasn’t as bad as trump in either, though I found him bad enough with enough in Congress to push him into doing worse than he said. Romney though seemed to love his wife and have loved his mother. Trump…well we know about his wives, faithlessness, and long involvement with beauty pageants. I’ve never heard or read anything about his mother too. His comments about his daughter have been rather off putting too.
Given his statements about Mexicans, Islam and torture I don’t care for him to have power over women. He hasn’t actually said much about policies that affect only us, its just that he treats women so badly.
PurpleGirl
@Face:
(assuming he’s still taxing the poor and middle class).
Of course he will still tax the poor and middle class; do you honestly think the rich and ultra rich will pay if there is no enforcement. Who pays the taxes now? If they can’t get income tax revenue, they will change to sales taxes and fees. As a proportion of income the poor and middle class pay more because they must use all their income on everyday necessities.
dedc79
The Republican primaries seem to be fast approaching that scene in The Campaign where Will Ferrell’s character sleeps with Zach Galifianakis’s unattractive wife and broadcasts the video in an ad.
Splitting Image
I don’t think that Nate’s map is too far out of the realm of possibility. Trump’s appeal, what there is of it, is based on the fact that people see him as a “winner”. If it becomes obvious before the election that he isn’t going to win after all, he will lose a big part of his base.
I think it was either Plouffe or Axelrod who said that he could see Trump winning narrowly, or losing horrifically. If Utah is still polling as a swing state come fall, it’s going to get harder and harder not to see “losing horrifically” as inevitable.
That said, Mormons and Cubans are probably the two demographic groups to watch. Utah may only be six electoral votes, but the Republicans can’t afford to lose it. If Cubans don’t come out big for Trump, Florida might be out of reach. And that really would be game over.
AkaDad
My girlfriend will do the right thing and vote for Trump since she only gets irrational at the end of the month.
cleek
Trump vs Obama on Women
but all good liberals know it’s OK to vote for Trump if Sanders doesn’t win.
dogwood
@Matt McIrvin:
Utah is different because of Mormon culture. Mormons are reliable right-wing voters, but their personal sensibilities don’t align with the white working-class or the southern evangelical resentment norm. Trump is vulgar, and that’s a deal -breaker for most Mormons. And while the LDS doctrine is undeniably fosters patriocracy, I have never heard a Mormon man speak about women the way Trump and his followers do. Also too, while there are exceptions to every rule, Mormon women are not door mats.
Soylent Green
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
SFAW
@AkaDad:
Election Day is at the beginning of the month, so you might be worng about that.
ETA: Oh, you weren’t saying that voting for Trump is irrational? Do tell.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
Question for the forum? What happens to the delegates of the also rans like Rubio? Are they freed up? Still dedicated to voting for Rubio etc.
Thanks!
japa21
Found this interesting. Tends to point out there could be problems if Trump doesn’t get the nomination, no matter what.
As of right now, he is probably the only one who could get a majority. He needs 52% of the remaining delegates up for grabs and Cruz needs 77%.
japa21
@SFAW: Snark meter needs adjusting.
kindness
Completely an aside, but because I’m curious. Why does every picture of Donald’s current wife have her with her eyes mostly closed? Is that a modelling thing I’m unfamiliar with?
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Yes, it’s how he says it. You know how they’ve sold ‘polite’ racism. It’s the same with sexism, but more so because they can aim it at women to oppress themselves. Trump going overt is a big deal. How big? We’ll see.
phoebes from highland park
Since this is an open thread, I thought I’d ask if anyone knows anything about that ad that plays without sound, with a blonde woman, Larry King, and Jesse Ventura? It’s on a bunch of sites but I can never get the sound activated so I don’t know what the ad is saying. Anyone know?
JustRuss
So I’m getting old and Twitter annoys the hell out of me. WTF is Trump saying? I guess the hottie on the right is Mrs. Trump, who’s the blond and what does “spill the beans” have to do with anything?
AkaDad
@SFAW:
I have the testicular fortitude to say what Trump supporters are thinking.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@phoebes from highland park: It’s Ora TV.
Frankensteinbeck
@JustRuss:
I don’t get it either, only that he thinks women’s beauty is their defining characteristic.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Nope.
I’m one that doesn’t see the difference between dogwhistles and being blunt about it – says the same damn thing. Never had the luxury of believing that there was a difference.
NonyNony
@JustRuss:
There’s a whole lotta context left out of this if you aren’t paying attention to the ongoing Trump shitshow on Twitter[*] what happened was:
* A Cruz loving Super PAC ran an ad in Utah before the primary attacking Trump’s wife Melania for being a former supermodel who has semi-nude pics floating around on the Internet.[**]
* Trump assumed it came from Cruz directly, and started off by threatening to “spill the beans” about Heidi Cruz, then moved on to attacking her looks. That pic up there is him comparing his wife to Heidi Cruz.
If you’re reading this and thinking “WTF – is this really what politics has come to in the 21st century”? Then congratulations – you have functioning brain cells.
[*] which I only pay attention to second hand because, really, Twitter is awful if you don’t have the time to sit down and figure out which conversations are happening where – I can see why journalists like it, and I can see why teenagers might like it because they’re young have have time to burn, but I don’t see why everyone else likes it so much
[**] I believe it was a Facebook ad, so it wasn’t even like they spent real money on it or that any significant percentage of people saw it, but still – attacking his wife for being a model is such a stupid and yet also low blow that only a Republican would come up with it. It was Liz Mair’s “Make America Awesome” SuperPAC who apparently did it, and it’s pretty obvious that that group was set up to bilk gullible yet fearful Republican billionaires out of contributions, so I can only assume that she wanted them to think they were getting their money’s worth.
Origuy
@dogwood: Also, Mormons aren’t usually xenophobes. Nearly every Mormon man and most women have done a mission, often in a foreign country. If they didn’t, someone in their family did. The church sees its future in Latin America. Trump’s wall isn’t playing well there.
JustRuss
@NonyNony: Thanks. The more I learn about Twitter, the less I want to know.
schrodinger's cat
Republican party is a giant con with zero interest in policy. Trump and Cruz are just two different flavors of hucksters. Cruz is worst because he is a religious zealot in addition to his other considerable failings.
Matt McIrvin
@Origuy: I recall seeing some survey, possibly based on people Googling for racist insults as search terms, that implied that racial animus was extremely low in Utah.
Which is kind of surprising given how amazingly racist the LDS church used to be (the first time I ever realized that racism was something like a full-blown ideological system rather than a personal dislike was talking to a Mormon kid in the 1970s, just before their president had the revelations about how black people didn’t carry the Curse of Ham after all).
It may just be that Utahns are too polite to Google for those kinds of things. Or just that there are few black people there, though there are a moderate number of Latinos and it’s not as white as northern New England.
MaryRC
@NonyNony: Cruz actually came back with a classy reply, something like “Your wife is lovely and Heidi is the love of my life, let’s leave our wives out of this”. Way to go,Trump, only you could make Cruz look good.
Aimai
@rikyrah: @rikyrah: @rikyrah: @rikyrah: the white population skews older. Older voters tend to be republican. White male voters,also older, voted for their traditional candidate. White democratic women supported Obama. I agree that white women are not, by and large, more liberal than their specific communities. But ultimately the difference between the women’s vote comes down to the age of the demographic. Younger voters are more liberal. The minority vote is a rising demographic.
gogol's wife
@rp:
It infuriated me. I mentioned it here the other day and got no response.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Betty Cracker:
Trump is certianally in a bind of his own making with Hilary. Trump has to hit below the belt to keep his fans and the second he does that on Hilary every woman who can vote will be offended.
Betty Cracker
@Aimai: Seems like a lot of this controversy comes down to how you define “gender gap.” All women, including white women, voted for President Obama in higher percentages than men did in both 2008 and 2012.That’s what I mean when I say “gender gap.”
In 2012, the gender gap among white women was 7 points, but the majority of the white female vote still went to Romney — just not by as much as the white male vote did.
If the Republicans are dumb enough to put an openly sexist pig up against the first female candidate for president, I have a feeling that gender gap will become a gender chasm. Looks like we’ll get a chance to test that theory.
Origuy
@Matt McIrvin: I read an article a few weeks ago about how the institutional racism of the LDS came about. According to it, the early Mormons welcomed blacks; it was after the persecutions that forced them to Utah that they tried to be acceptable to mainstream America by adopting the racism of their persecutors.
jl
That Trump tweet was not a hoax?
Unbelievable.
So far, Trumps’s stated plan of changing himself into a candidate with appropriate civility and presidential gravitas seems a little rickety. Trump said he can change himself into whatever he wants to change into very easily. I suppose his world historical genius has decided that the time has not yet arrived for the transformation.
Capri
@MattF: I believe that Trump will win the exact same states that Wallace did in ’68
chopper
@Matt McIrvin:
that’s the thing that never made sense to me with the LDS crew. ham is fucking delicious. the only people who can rationally consider ham to be a curse are jews.
NickM
@Dolly Llama: I I’ve been thinking the same thing. Aren’t people getting sick of Trump’s shtick yet? Even the idiots – especially the idiots – can’t pay attention to anything else this long. And prior to this race he was like a C List celebrity at best.
alan
If it’s ‘my old lady can beat up your old lady’, maybe we should try David Lee Roth..