Midday open thread and a reminder of the state of the race for those who believe that the Democrats will blow it this November.
Polling is not 100% reliable (see Michigan) but I would rather be in Clinton’s shoes than Trump’s at this point. The red highlighted states are states that Trump needs to win if he is to assemble a 270 Electoral vote coalition.
So talk about whatever.
Mark k
I know the liberal generalizations of conservatives are basically some or most of these views: anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-Latino-ish, anti-black, anti-minority, anti-Muslim, anti-abortion, pro-guns, pro-white, pro-men pro-Christian, pro-business, anti-worker. My question is, what are the current real conservative generalizations when they look at us? not the news sites or blogs. is it really as nuanced and simple as an inverse of all that? Do they get so enraged just thinking its pro-immigrant, pro-gay, pro-Latino, pro-black, pro-minority, pro-Muslim, pro-abortion, anti-gun, anti-white, anti-men, anti-Christian, anti-business, pro-worker?
I know there’s an additional group that’s just pro-business above anything else and gets clumped in with a generalized “pro-rich anti-rich” but I still think that’s the small number of independent-ish right, not the majority of regular folk. and the right thinks we’re pro-tax v anti-tax, but no one wants or likes paying higher taxes.
NotMax
Looks suspicious.
Stewardess!
:)
Trollhattan
But Trump’s shoes are yooge, Italian, polished (by immigrant labor, but whatevs) and classy!
Trollhattan
What’s the deal with NH–is beer trending upward in a 3rd party bid?
p.a.
Have to make sure we’re looking at polls of likely voters. I suppose someplace as sophisticated as 538 can do a state-by-state and factor in voter suppression attempts and how that will affect minority and college voters when looking at raw Clinton/Trump polling numbers.
NotMax
Open Thread.
Dunno if she/he is around.
Happy birthday, Shell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Trollhattan: his best state, in terms of MOV, wasn’t it? wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a reluctance to give in to him
(I’m assuming ‘beer’ means Bern, thought I might be persuaded to vote for President Beer…. now that would be a nasty blog fight, the beer primary. I almost wrote :”bitter” but I don’t want to start fighting about hops)
ETA: MSNBC in the next room saysHRC is dropping almost $200K in KY. Bernie: nothing.)
ETA, a: and Dickhead Bernie is still running against Clinton
Redshift
@Mark k: I don’t think you can figure out their generalizations of us by taking our generalizations of them and reversing them. Based on the anti-tax/pro-tax canard, you have to take their generalizations of themselves and reverse them. That’s how they come up with BS like “libruls hate America” — because they know they love ‘Murica, and they’re the opposite of liberals, QED.
They would never think of us as being “pro-” anything good, so it wouldn’t be pro-immigrant, pro-gay, pro-Latino, pro-black, it would be pro-illegal immigration “invasion,” anti-family, pro-handouts to the undeserving (paid for by taxes on good ‘Muricans, aka white people.) All of which is to buy votes or import people to vote illegally, since they know conservatives are a solid majority, so the only way they can lose is if liberals cheat.
schrodinger's cat
Wednesday moment of Zen:
Remo D’souza, won the award for best choreography in 2016 National (India) Awards for Deewani Mastani. I have posted a promo of this number before, this is the number in its entirety. Its visually gorgeous.
A movie about the Maratha General Bajirao and his half Muslim lover Mastani. Remo is Goan and a Catholic, while Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the director is Gujarati and the movie is in Hindi. Ranveer Singh is Sindhi (Sindh is now in Pakistan) and Deepika’s family is from Karnataka and speaks Konkani, a dialect of Marathi. Shreya Ghoshal whose voice you hear is Bengali.
Its like German director making a movie about a French General in English, with choreography by a Belgian. India’s diversity is amazing and Hindi movies for all their flaws have been a good mirror of that fact.
randy khan
10 points in Virginia would be pretty impressive for a state that was pretty red in 2004.
different-church-lady
So we have data: based on the first two charts, 3% will sit out the election rather than vote for Clinton, and Bernie would draw 1% away from Trump.
Chris
@Mark k:
They think we’re pro gangsters and drug dealers and rapists coming over the border, pro-government oppression of Christian businessmen just trying to live their faith, pro-affirmative action that disadvantages poor beleaguered white people out of political correctness, pro-terrorism or at least soft on terrorism, pro-babykilling, pro-stripping-people-of-their-ability-for-self-defense, and pro-union-thug. You gotta phrase it the right way.
piratedan
@Redshift: it comes across as… anti-military, anti-freedom, anti-religion or pro-illegals, pro-death, a negative almost always has to be reinforced somehow with the label.
Trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Actually meant beer. My brother lives in NH. :-)
Iowa Old Lady
I was just told today that liberals support giving away so much free stuff that people aren’t motivated to work.
PaulWartenberg2016
to the Florida Horde, uh Juicers, LET’S GET THE VOTE OUT FOR HILLARY.
Try to get that to 54 percent.
Jeffro
@randy khan: …and then went and elected Obama in 2008 and 2012? What’s with going back to yesteryear (2004)?
On a more general note, while I’m sure some additional portion of the GOP will eventually support Trump, it’s interesting to see him polling in the mid 30s or right around 40%. Why, it’s almost as if about a fifth of the GOP just can’t support the guy at this point, possibly more. It’s almost as if half of all GOP women, and/or maybe some extremely large portion of GOP minority voters (who, granted, are not a big # of voters to begin with) just won’t get behind the guy.
I see no reason for that to change much, so while I’ll still work hard to get HRC elected, I’m not gonna sweat it. Much.
Trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
That would be Huckabee’s Uncle Sugar, an uncle heartily embraced by the Bundy clan, BTW.
Corporate welfare is just ducky, however.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Iowa Old Lady:
Well that explains why all that corporate welfare and billion dollar subsidies ends up being wasted on the rich.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Jeffro:
The GOP base can support Trump just fine. It’s the general voters, the NPA and Independent voters, who are so down on him.
Romney garnered about 54 percent of the NPA vote… and still lost at over 47 percent of the total popular vote. Trump is polling with them somewhere in the high 30s last I checked… how that calculates with the GOP support (Mitt had 93 percent GOP support), it does not look good for the general Presidential election for the Republicans.
A Ghost To Most
Heidi Cruz likens HaTed campaign to anti-slavery movement
Fuckin book bangers.
PaulWartenberg2016
@randy khan:
It went for Obama both 2008 and 2012, and 2012 was the nice surprise (pollsters were of two minds that it could flip).
Major Major Major Major
That NH graph is deeply confusing.
GOTV! You know… in October.
Trollhattan
@A Ghost To Most:
I found Willard and Princess Ann to be profoundly odd, aloof and removed from common society, but they’re fricking Woody Guthrie compared to these boobs.
Davis X. Machina
@Mark k:
Yes. It’s a Manichean, no-compromises-with-the-Devil, with-us-or-against-us world view.
benw
@Trollhattan: Lite beer for Veep!
Major Major Major Major
@benw: I demand an attack dog. Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA.
Jeffro
Another general note: it would be nice if all these GOP non-Trumpers would do the sensible thing and vote for HRC, but I have a feeling that half of them (at best) will do that. So, even if Trump tops out at say 42-43% nationally, I doubt we will see Clinton at 55%, although it’d be nice (and actually would be historic, given the past 5-6 presidential elections).
My guess is she ends up with 52% to Trump’s 43%, with the remainder being split between all the other parties and write-ins. That’s almost 10% but of course the media will report it as her ‘barely’ making it over 50%.
If there’s a significant conservative third-party movement, I think Trump comes in with about 30% of the vote and the third-party candidate comes in with about 17%.
Rathskeller
What is the best way to support GOTV in the general election? I have money and spare time then.
Redshift
@randy khan:
It would require less of a swing than what happened between ’04 and ’08. And it could definitely happen. We won all three statewide offices in 2013, and the Virginia GOP is a complete cluster, because their purity ponies keep having enough sway to demand that they nominate True Conservatives instead of people who can win. A former Speaker of the House of Delegates is publicly saying that their grassroots organizations sucks. And so on.
JMG
@Rathskeller: I don’t know where you live, but contact your town or state Democratic committee and they’ll be happy to put you on what path they see as best. They’ll also be very grateful. As research shows, just talking up your side with neighbors, friends and acquaintances is BY FAR the most effective means of political communication, so do that in the meantime.
benw
@Major Major Major Major: Lite beer will help carry the south/flyover states!
ruemara
@Rathskeller: check out voteriders.org and check in with your local League of Women voters, Moral Mondays and/or your local democratic party.
Mike J
@PaulWartenberg2016: If you want to motivate people to work, make cap gains 3x income tax rate.
randy khan
@Jeffro:
@PaulWartenberg2016:
It was a 6.3% margin in 2008 for Obama, and about a 3.9% margin in 2012. In 2009, the awful McDonnell won the governor’s race by better than 17% and McAuliffe won over the incredibly bad Cuccinelli by just 2.5% in 2013. If 10% holds, it’s an enormous margin.
Mary
@Jeffro:
Seems much more likely that people will just stay home, which could actually help considerably on down-ticket races.
randy khan
@Redshift: On the other hand, their 2013 purity pony lost by only 2.5%, so it’s not like the state has turned dark blue. (And let us not discuss the horror that is the Virginia House of Delegates.)
Iowa Old Lady
@Mary: On behalf of the downticket races, I was very amused that Trump told a WV rally that he had the nomination all sewed up so they didn’t even have to go out and vote today.
Face
Iowa really went from that huge GOP lead to now a Dem lead? No way. Shenanigans.
Hungry Joe
When the nitty gets gritty, most GOP’ers will come around to voting for Trump. The keyword, of course, is “most.” If Hilz is the candidate and, say, ten percent of the Bernie types leave in a huff,* that’ll be just fine because I suspect that twice that percentage of Republicans and Indies who vote GOP will bail on Der Donald.
* I know, I know — or “a minute and a huff.” (And Hail, Hail Freedonia!)
Iowa Old Lady
Also apparently Joe Biden said he’s confident Clinton will be the next president.
Prescott Cactus
@Rathskeller:
I just started looking into this. I think getting people registered is pretty important. GOTV for the election is too. I’m trying to find where I can donate time locally to do both and concentrate on registration up to my states deadline and then flip over to GOTV.
Registration will probably be locally, GOTV efforts are likely cell phone and a computer and done nationally. I’m not sure they will do door to door stuff in my red state (AZ). They got the loyal and adventurous to go over to New Mexico as they needed / wanted the help there.
Hope that helps. When I find something solid out I’ll pass it along.
schrodinger's cat
@Iowa Old Lady: Just like he doesn’t understand macroeconomics and foreign policy, he doesn’t understand politics/
rk
I’m just confused. According to this, Clinton will easily win. But a Quinnipiac poll today said she is losing Ohio and is narrowly leading in Florida and Pennsylvania. I hear that only a minority of republicans support Trump, but I saw a bit where Rachel Maddow said that 81 percent of republicans are o.k. with Trump being the nominee. So what are we to believe? I find it hard to believe that such an obvious moron has managed to get so far. And yet here we are. I just hope I’m not saying this the day after the election.
? Martin
@Mark k: Broadly speaking, I would argue they feel that Democrats are ill informed, focused on identity politics vs broad policy, and looking for easy answers to get votes while pushing the cost of those answers onto others. They have never dropped ‘bleeding heart’ from their lexicon and they feel that Democrats are insufficiently nationalist (‘racist’ being the logical unspoken extension to that for some).
Policies really don’t apply here. I think it’s much more of a ‘take care of ones own’ vs ‘take care of others’ attitudes. Policies may or may not reflect this and may even invert, but the argument is the same. Most policies can be sold either way, so I reject that most policies held by the parties is durable. And each side is often forcing the other side to stake out ever more clearly delineated positions. See Lynch’s comments regarding inclusion yesterday. She’s not just staking out the Dem position on the issue of civil rights, but forcing conservatives to do the same. Their position after yesterday could be different than it was before yesterday, all in the interest of protecting their desire for a victory, for keeping the coalition together.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, if you’re in a red state and think there’s nothing you can do, focus your attention on making sure there are enough polling places and ballots for everyone. Arizona was a HUGE problem during the primaries, so start contacting your local county clerk and state reps to demand that they ensure voting access for everyone. The League of Women Voters may have some tips or contacts, but there are other nonpartisan voter access organizations as well.
Matt McIrvin
@Trollhattan: There was one weird poll from Dartmouth that had a huge “Other” response. Not many other recent polls there, so it futzed the HuffPo model completely.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
I also vote for attack dog. Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA. I like the flavor, and ordering it loudly in a family pizza place is big fun, even the waitresses giggle.
Prescott Cactus
@JMG:
@ruemara:
Thanks for the heads up !
Major Major Major Major
@rk: Listen to the poll aggregations and don’t put too much stock in any given poll. This is especially important as the daily tracking polls arrive later on in the cycle. Nate Silver uses a three-day rolling weighted average, or at least he did last time I read about his methodology. I prefer Sam Wang at Princeton, tho he doesn’t post much until after the conventions.
Just uses averages from Pollster of 538 in the meantime.
And avoid headline-generating polls, they’re often massaged into saying what the pollster wants them to say, especially Rasmussen.
@Rathskeller: Time is more important than money. Contact your local offices. You know, in September, that’s when the big registration push starts in most states, and then October for early/mail-in voting and November for the general. Before that, money helps hire field people, especially money between now and the convention.
Mnemosyne
@rk:
Read the internals of any poll. Many polls (especially Republican-leaning ones) still poll 50:50 Republican and Democratic voters, but we’re not split 50:50 in registration. More like 55:45 Democrat.
Also check the demographics. Any poll you see that doesn’t have minority groups and women running away from Trump is probably bogus.
Matt McIrvin
@rk: The Quinnipiac poll is one data point in each of those states. The aggregator combines it with other recent polls.
Much of the day-to-day motion that gets people excited or upset is some combination of random noise, and the differences in the house bias of whichever firm last released a poll. Quinnipiac has been showing weaker numbers for Clinton than other polls all season, for whatever reason (probably their model of the demographics of the electorate). As for whether they’re right or wrong, nobody can say. But it doesn’t mean the race has suddenly gone sour every time Quinnipiac releases a poll, and better when somebody else does.
Calouste
@rk: Qpac are pretty crappy polls. Not as bad as Rasmussen, but they tend to oversample GOP leaning constituencies. I think their structural problem is that they base their Presidential year turnout models on the midterms, which just doesn’t work that way.
Amir Khalid
@J R in WV:
If they served this beer would you try ordering it?
? Martin
@rk: Byproduct of polling is understanding what the stakes are for the person being polled. It’s a lot easier to say you oppose abortion when your 14 year old daughter isn’t pregnant.
Polling far ahead of elections is capturing aspirations more than reality. I may like the concept of Sanders as president and want to express that desire in the poll, because right now nothing is on the line. As we get closer to the election we move from aspiration to reality – a vote will be cast and a person will win and the stakes of that opinion changes. I move from the concept of Sanders to the reality of Trump, and I choose to oppose Trump almost without regard to who is running against him. Everyone can say they’d run into a burning building to save someone, but when standing in front of such a building not many people can bring themselves to do it.
Pollsters really have a responsibility to make this clearer and they don’t. Nate at least has acknowledged that with the Dem race not yet decided that Clinton’s support will be lower due to Sanders supporters emotional commitment to his victory. That’s fair – everyone does that. Probably some of that on the GOP side hoping that something prevents Trump from being the nominee at the convention. But it means that polls this far out are pretty weak. Not useless, but not that useful either.
Matt McIrvin
Also, when you look at the little thumbnails on the Huffington Post page, keep in mind that the vertical and horizontal scales aren’t the same on all of those charts. The difference between Sanders’ performance vs. Trump and Clinton’s is significant, but if you look at the numbers, it’s not quite as large as the two pictures seem to imply.
Betty Cracker
@PaulWartenberg2016: Damn straight! 2008 and 2012 were both squeakers in Florida. We can do better in 2016.
Matt McIrvin
@Calouste: Quinnipiac’s national model actually converged to a dead-on projection right at the end of the season in 2012. They did better than most other pollsters then. But they’d had a significant R bias earlier in the year. (I doubt this was any sort of deliberate manipulation; their demographic models probably just improved.)
Prescott Cactus
@Mnemosyne: Surprisingly, AZ has voting by mail is available. Seeing the train wreck of our last vote was a bit of a shock to me. Locally, I’m going to try and make sure people make sure they get a ballot by mail.
P.S. Hope all is going well with your world !
Frankensteinbeck
@Mark k:
Here is where Rationalization and psychology theory comes to your – and their – rescue! A lot of the stuff they like is overtly bigoted. They can’t admit that, even to themselves. It’s too important for them to be the righteous ones! So they declare themselves to be Pro-Liberty, Pro-Constitution, Fiscally Conservative, and other crap that I know you’ve heard and noticed is blatantly not true. Their actions loudly contradict their stated motivations. But with that cover story, they can label US as tyrants, traitors out to subvert the constitution, irresponsible children destroying the economy with giveaways, and so on. Listen to them. That’s what they call us.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: Rasmussen always does well in the last few weeks too. There’s a sort of ‘reversion towards accuracy’ that happens then for most pollsters, but especially for Rasmussen.
Peale
@? Martin: Yep. On a good day, we’re the naive sots who probably think we mean well, but will let, say, crazy Muhammad carrying a nuke into the country and even when he says “Imma gonna blow you up with this here nuke!”, would blindly accuse anyone who tried to stop him of Islamophobia. On our worst days, we’re actively cheering him on because we hate America and can’t wait for our neighbors to go up in a mushroom cloud.
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: In 2012, they didn’t; their national-popular-vote numbers were calling it for Romney right up to the end.
Mnemosyne
Since this is also an open thread, I want to say that 1-800 Flowers can go fuck themselves. Not only did they screw up a delivery to my mom for the second time, it hasn’t even left their warehouse yet. For a Mother’s Day order. Fuck those guys right in their fucking ears.
Why can’t there be a single reliable online place where I can order flowers for both my mom and my mother in law? I gave up on FTD for my MIL after a couple of screwups, but they’re fine to my mom. 1-800 Flowers sucks donkey dick when it comes to my mom, but is fine going to my MIL. I do not want to have to place separate orders for all of this crap.
Major Major Major Major
@Peale: You forgot to include a joke about trigger warnings.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Turnout models are notoriously difficult. Nobody has a clue this far out, particularly in an election like this one or 2008. Registered voter polls are easy, likely voter polls are really, really tough.
Just One More Canuck
@rk: The q poll over sampled whites and under sampled blacks (compared to 2012 general election) giving a better result for trump
Original Lee
House Republicans looking for another big stick and failing rather badly at it. No surprise there. Highly amused that they insisted the math is wrong while simultaneously claiming there are only 49 states. Obviously, they would love it if everyone forgot Hawaii was a state.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: Oh that’s right, they drank their own kool-aid that year.
Matt McIrvin
Other valuable things the above image will immediately tell you: Michigan and Wisconsin are not the same as Ohio, and Virginia is not the same as North Carolina or even Pennsylvania. Suspect any argument to the effect that Clinton’s weakness in Ohio means she’s going to lose the entire upper Midwest, or that a close race in PA means she’s got to be behind in VA as well (the latter probably just comes from a notion of the electorate that is 15 or 20 years out of date). Though, again, check the vertical scales.
Prescott Cactus
@Mnemosyne: Righteous rant ! ! !
Redshift
@randy khan:
McDonnell was not at all an awful candidate, he just turned out to be an awful governor in some ways (though not in any that would turn GOP voters against him.) He was running against the weakest Democratic candidate as a result of a divisive three-way primary where the two strongest candidates with appeal to a similar pool of voters split the vote.
Yes, 10% would be a big deal if it holds (and it almost certainly won’t), but that doesn’t mean you have to go making GOP strengths and Democratic weakness out to be more than they are. We can be realistic about both, and the realistic conclusion is that the race will tighten in VA, but we’ll almost certainly win if we all do the work of getting out our voters.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: Very true, but trends within a consistent model can tell you something. It’s all kind of voodoo this far out though.
Mnemosyne
@Prescott Cactus:
So far, only First World Problems this year. Fingers crossed!
Trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major: @J R in WV:
My favorite cycling jersey is “Doggie Style” with the Steadman artwork. Don’t think I have the nerve to wear that other flavor on public roads.
Trollhattan
@Original Lee:
Duh, Hawaii=part of Kenya.
Prescott Cactus
@Mnemosyne: First World are the best problems to have !
Bunter
@Mnemosyne: I use Calyx Flowers and have only once had an issue and that was with the UPS driver. Calyx then sent another bouquet to my Mom as a sorry for the late delivery. They’re more expensive than 1-800-FLOWERS and you have to order well enough ahead of time for delivery but you might want to take a look at them.
Gimlet
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-carolina-federal-funding_us_57320239e4b096e9f092b9c6
Margaret Spellings is a former Bush administration official now leading the University of North Carolina system, which has 17 campuses.
She insisted in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday that the public universities under her leadership are not violating federal civil rights laws.
Spellings’ letter shows UNC intends to continue following the controversial new law, H.B. 2, despite the U.S. government telling the university system that it violates federal law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, where North Carolina sits, ruled last month that Title IX does extend to protect trans students from discrimination based on their gender identity. The defendant in that case, the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia, has appealed for a new hearing, and so the ruling is not yet final.
Spellings, a former education secretary under George W. Bush who has made controversial comments about LGBT couples in the past, told the DOJ in her Monday letter that because the Gloucester County case is still pending, the court’s ruling is not yet a mandate for UNC. In other words, Spellings is arguing that currently, it’s just the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX that says the law protects against discrimination based on someone’s gender identity.
North Carolina received around $38 million over four years from various Justice(?) Department grants, but its K-12 schools took $1.3 billion in just 2015-2016 through federal grants focused on improving education, helping students with disabilities and addressing childhood poverty. Federal funding at the K-12 level covers the salaries of about 7,700 employees, or 7.4 percent of all school personnel in the Tar Heel State.
On the higher ed side, research would be decimated without federal grants. The 17-campus UNC system takes around $2.6 billion a year from the federal government, but that’s not counting how much of its $3.1 billion in tuition and fees are covered by government financial aid, like Pell grants and student loans.
piratedan
@Prescott Cactus: my understanding is that in AZ, there’s a push by the state party to get latino and native voters registered. You also might find more local oriented information on the old blog for arizona site:
http://www.blogforarizona.com/
NonyNony
@Jeffro:
My guess is that this election ends up looking a lot like 2012, with Trump carrying the same states that Romney carried and Trump getting around 46-47% of the popular vote and Clinton getting around 50-52%.
Any changes to his vote totals will come from the 27% of Hispanic/Latino voters who voted for Romney in 2012 – I’m not holding out at all for Republican women who seem very likely to eventually come around to deciding that a vote for Trump is better than a vote for Clinton in the end. And as we all know, once you hit that 27% territory you’re in crazification-factor levels of craziness – there’s no telling how those folks could end up voting. They may be crazy enough to vote for the guy who is insisting that people who look like them be rounded up on trains and sent “back to Mexico” because they’re sure he doesn’t mean it – or at least he only means it for immigrants, not folks like them whose families have been in the country for multiple generations.
Set your expectations accordingly – Trump will be as easy to beat as Romney was and no more than that despite the fact that this should be a blow out. And it doesn’t matter who the Dems run either – the floor for Republicans is 45% of the popular vote. It will all come down to GOTV in the end – just like it always does.
Brachiator
The NPR Election Map has Clinton with an advantage over Trump
Obviously nothing is written in stone, but it is better to start out with a lead, rather than play catch-up.
Remember to get out the vote.
Calouste
@? Martin: I don’t even like the concept of Sanders as President. Who is he going to put in his cabinet? All the Democrats are corrupt according to him, so is he going to pick some independents who don’t have any more experience than being on the city council in Burlington? If he would be able to get anyone confirmed.
NR
@Just One More Canuck: Don’t assume blacks will turn out for Hillary like they did for Obama. So far, the primary has indicated otherwise:
Major Major Major Major
@Calouste: after the way he’s run his campaign, and after the NYDN interview, I don’t think he’d make a competent executive *at all*.
wvng
@Mark k: Regarding “current real conservative generalizations”, at a WV Polling station today, I talked to a poll worker about how good it is that turnout is high, and wouldn’t it be good if every eligible citizen voted. He looked at me and said “depends on what you mean by citizen.”
Prescott Cactus
@piratedan:
Thanks, I’ll check them out !
I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t think of canvassing my own neighborhood because it’s 90% + percent Republican and I’d be helping “the enemy”. . Old, white and with grey tops all over the place.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
OT, but In the Heights is really good too!
Chyron HR
@NR:
It’s going to be hilarious watching you lose your shit when Clinton wins the election.
WaterGirl
I don’t think that any of these maps or any polls or any pundits are reliable for predicting what happens this November. They are all worthless this year. We are completely in un-chartered territory! All we can do is vote and get other people to vote democratic.
Mai.naem.mobile
As of right now, I think Clinton will win with a decent percentage. But, I am a little concerned about the emails,not because I th ink she is going to be indicted. I don’t trust the House committee to drag stuff out and have a fake October surprise. Also, I don’t trust the FBI around the Clintons. Louis Freeh fncked Bill Clinton real good and Clinton appointed him. HRC and her campaign unfortunately also seems prone to self sabotage.
Xantar
@NR:
Because primary voter demographics are good predictors of what will happen in the general election.
Are you always this stupid?
patroclus
@NR: The Dems didn’t even have a contested primary in 2012, so I think the turnout that your link is reporting is from 2008 because there’s no way turnout is down from 2012 (in SC or anywhere else). The voting population has changed significantly in the last 8 years, so I question whether your stats are all that relevant. That said, there might be a slightly lower percentage of AA’s voting for Clinton than did for Obama, but, given Trump’s views on Latinos and walls and trade wars with Mexico and banning Muslims, I think there’s gonna be a slightly higher percentage of Hispanics, immigrants, Muslim Americans and others that will vote for Clinton in greater percentages than in 2012.
gwangung
@NR:
Aren’t African Americans one of the most loyal Democratic voter segments in terms of voter turnout? And aren’t you assuming blacks won’t vote against Trump, he who have had housing discrimination suits filed against him and still rails against the Central Park Five? And aren’t you again comparing primary voting to general election behavior?
(And….you do seem to speak from an external, theoretical perspective about the black community….)
randy khan
@Redshift:
To be clear (because I wasn’t), I didn’t mean that McDonnell was an awful *candidate,* just (just!) that he is an awful person, which I think nearly everyone in Virginia agrees is objectively true.
Sadly, if anyone in that race was an awful candidate, it was Creigh Deeds, who by all accounts is a good guy who’s had to deal with some pretty terrible things in his personal life.
glory b
@Matt McIrvin: I’m more hopeful for PA, my state. The last three statewide elections were won by dems, except for one state legislative seat. The last election had Dems over performing by about 15%, and we elected all Dems to the three vacant seats on our Supreme Court, which is doubleplusgood because the Supremes get the final word in redistricting and all of them will be there in 2020.
Also a good hedge against the Republican controlled legislature trying voter ID shenanigans again.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
That’s what I hear! It sometimes cracks me up to see commentary about LMM when the writer doesn’t do his/her research and thinks he’s some kind of overnight success instead of a previous Tony winner.
Also, my imaginary future ex-husband Daveed was on Jimmy Fallon last night, so I gotta watch that.
NR
@Chyron HR: Hey, since 2016 is in the bag, let’s start looking ahead to 2020. What do you think Hillary’s reelection slogan should be?
NR
@gwangung:
Black turnout was significantly higher in 2008 and 2012 as compared to 2004. The candidate makes a difference.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Depends… I would be interested in the flavors they are working with. How hoppy, how sweet, how much alcohol, etc. I would try it out, if it was attractive in flavor profile. I like hoppy pilsners and pale ale, middle European styles.
I suspect they put too much emphasis on outrageousness and not enough on ingredients.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Uh, no. It’s not uncharted territory.
Polls are not magic. Polls, especially early polls are not necessarily even highly predictive. But they can indicate trends. And as you get closer to the election, polls, especially if multiple polls start telling you the same thing, can get close to likely outcomes.
There are new variables this year. Gender, for example, may be as important, even more important than ethnicity in some states.
But no, good polls are not worthless.
And of course, people have to actually get out and vote. And this year, some voter suppression efforts are going to have to be anticipated and defeated.
Eric U.
@Matt McIrvin: I feel like many pollsters are really dishonest about how they approach polling. They adjust their models to get the answer they want when the election is further away, and right at the end they tweak them to their best estimate of reality. Nobody does polling without a voter model.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Do you think he’s gonna finally dish about your future imaginary relationship?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Did you remember to specify WHICH Mother’s Day?
What a screw up. Did they apologize or do something to make up for the missed delivery?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Not exactly. Over the past 12 years, African-Americans have become the Democrats’ most loyal voting bloc for ALL candidates. McAuliffe won in Virginia thanks to a solid black vote. African-American women are now THE most loyal Democratic voters, and a larger percentage of them turn out than any other demographic.
What 2008 and 2012 did was embolden Black voters. Anyone who thinks they’re going to stay home while Trump is running is a damned fool or a Republican (but I repeat myself).
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I hope so! I really want to hear what our imaginary first date was like.
Poor G thinks I have a crush on LMM, but little does he know it’s just a cover for my true love. ;-)
bluefoot
@Mnemosyne: If you know a good florist that’s local to your mother, you could call them directly. I’ve done that before, and a lot of places will have photos of their “special occasion” arrangements online so you can see what you’re buying. Though my sister did once ask a florist to send a photo via smart phone so she could confirm. She’s more of a control freak than I.
NR
@Mnemosyne: I hope you are right.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Oh, my…I just clicked on some images of him and Lord…he is *quite* a dish in a frock coat and stock, ain’t he? (he ain’t bad without ’em, either).
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
They’re refunding me, but I’m still pissed. Fortunately, I sent her a separate gift (Death Star kitchen timer) as well, so she was not giftless or cardless.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Depending on where your mother resides, you might try Petalpushers.
Of course, there’s also always Amazon.
My usual method bypasses the ‘net altogether. Find a florist in on near her town, call them up, place an order. YMMV.
gogol's wife
@Miss Bianca:
Really good rapper too. (I’m now an expert. Not.)
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
He is a total fashion plate. He can wear stuff that other men would look ridiculous in and just be the epitome of cool. I think it was his Instagram where he was wearing a purple plaid suit and floppy bow tie to the White House and managed to look totally elegant. (This while LMM was wearing a turquoise sport coat that I’m sure his wife had conniptions about — People are going to think I let you walk around dressed like that!)
I also saw his shirtless photos from Carnivale in Rio on his Instagram feed. Woof. Why does his girlfriend have to be so pretty and sweet? It’s not fair to the rest of us who have dreams.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Idly curious how many fainting couches in your abode, what with the attacks of the vapors and all.
;)
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: Why are you guys not posting links to the eye candy???
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: LOL! Well, to be fair, her Imaginary Future Ex-Husband is quite swoonworthy….I had to fan myself a bit, and I don’t think it’s just that there’s no air in my office….
Mnemosyne
@bluefoot:
@NotMax:
Honestly, I want to be lazy and be able to order flowers for both my mother and my MIL at the same time from the same website, especially if I can do it at the last minute. This is apparently the impossible dream.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: feast yer eyes
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I stand by my comment. I think this year is uncharted territory. This year, I don’t think we can predict anything based on what has happened before. I’m not even sure that polls a week before the election will be predictive this year. YMMV.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
Whoops, sorry.
There are very few men these days who you can say have that “damn your eyes elegance,” but he’s definitely one of them. And he can still rock an Oakland-style tank top and trucker hat, too.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I always love the one of him being muscular with a puppy.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: I *just* clicked on that one, thinking, ‘you know, if I had to pick just one…’
Great minds etc.
ETA: btw, for some reason I thought you might get a kick out of this – I would definitely watch this movie! http://imgur.com/a/hon7Y
joel hanes
@Face:
Most Iowans, even Republican Iowans, will find Trump to be repulsive and non-Presidential.
Iowa nice is like Minnesota nice. Iowans want to see some decorum and some humility.
Chris Christie and Donald Trump just don’t play well.
Trump’s hard core supporters want to flip the rest of the nation the bird; pretty much every other Iowan I’ve talked to finds him apalling.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
@WaterGirl:
Did you see the webseries where he plays Hobbes the tiger? DID YOU SEE?!?!?
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Thank you! He is especially hot in the frilly coats. I am not big on huge muscles, but that is one fine looking man.
So what’s with the women that show up on that page? Women who post photos and say they want to bear his child?
Mai.naem.mobile
@Mnemosyne: actually surprisingly its Asians who are the most loyal Dems. Even with Obama. Within the Asian sub-groups South Asians are the most loyal. I think Obama helped. I have never seen so many South Asians in a presidential admin as Obamas. Also all the anti-muslim stuff the GOP has spewed, they managed to screw it up with Muslim Minorities who tended to be pro-GOP. I believe the only non white minority groups which are pro GOP are the Cubans and Vietnamese and even that is changing with younger generations.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I bet Helen Mirren would love to play that role. She was great in “Red” even though the rest of the movie sucked.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Oh that is *so* cute! And he totally steals the show, too!
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: That’s a good one! Even in the hobbes movie you can see that he is comfortable in his body. Very sexy. I bet he’s smart, too.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
@WaterGirl:
LMM is my artist crush, but Daveed is my crush crush. And he does appear to be smart, too, damn him.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I understand. But what do you base this on? gut feelings or any actual determined error in polling?
In any event, we will see what happens.
By the way, some past polls did not have some explicit gender breakdowns. They will need them this year.
gogol's wife
@WaterGirl:
He’s an Ivy League grad (Brown).
Brachiator
@Mai.naem.mobile:
This is not entirely true based on past polls. And it depends on which Asian groups you talk about.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Brings to mind a classic line from Torch Song Trilogy.
Harvey Fierstein, lookng down at an unconscious tuxed-clad Matthew Broderick sprawled on the bed:
“If you’ve got an I.Q. over 80, there is no God.”
Emma
@Miss Bianca: Whoa Nellie.
@Mnemosyne: Well, howdy.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
I have felt your pain but its probably worth finding a really good local florist for each of them and call that florist for orders… Its worked out well for me as I had your bad luck a couple of times and it sucks….
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
I think the Whedonverse response is, “I’ll be in my bunk.”
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: The Adam Baldwin response, at any rate.
WaterGirl
@gogol’s wife: Of course he is! :-)
WaterGirl
@NotMax: That’s awesome. I laughed out loud!
shomi
Buh…but WaPo had a headline saying there is a poll that Trump is beating Clinton in Ohio. There ya go. Case closed. They found a poll somewhere that shows Trump wins so it’s a horse race. Cue wrong way Cole saying “Oh noezzz…Drumpf is pivoting to the left and everyone it buttfuk West Virginia believes it so we are screwed”. Next comes DougJ with some tacky lyrics he can fearmonger to.
The Lodger
@J R in WV: Just checked the brewery. Probably not easy to locate in the Northwest, but we’ll be in DC later this month and I’ll keep an eye out for it.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: What do I base that on? We have never seen a candidate like Trump before. There has never been so much overt hate and racism, at least not in decades. I can see people saying that they will/won’t vote for Trump and then doing the opposite when they get into the voting booth.
I don’t think the conventional wisdom holds true this year – if one party has held the office for xx years, then this happens, blah blah blah.
We have never before had a black president followed by the possibility of a woman president. It’s been decades since we’ve seen a republican candidate who is a racist hateful ignorant buffoon who cares NOTHING for this country. Voting this year feels more like a mob mentality than anything else.
I don’t think the press has been this totally useless before and totally in the tank for “both sides do it”, not caring at all about the truth.
So it’s part gut feeling and part “conditions on the ground are unlike anything we’ve ever seen before”.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
Honestly, my gut feeling is good. My gut feeling is that everybody hates Trump except for the white guys who have the easiest access to be on the teevee. I think polls are going to show things are kind of close, and then Trump will get squashed by everyone the MSM ignores as not important.