Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

No one could have predicted…

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

T R E 4 5 O N

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Come on, man.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Everybody saw this coming.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Friday Morning Open Thread: Gotta Catch ‘Em All

Friday Morning Open Thread: Gotta Catch ‘Em All

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Say this for the HRC campaign, they’re quick. Thanks to commentor Matt McIrvine for news of this Vox explainer:

… So campaign organizers for Clinton, like her Ohio organizing director Jennifer Friedmann, started showing up at PokéStops and gyms to register Pokémon Go players to vote:

The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Mallorie Sullivan reports that Clinton’s Ohio staff spent the past weekend going “from Cuyahoga to Athens to seek out players in their communities to register them to vote.”

There’s even an official Hillary event scheduled in Lakewood, Ohio, pegged to the game. “Join us as we go to the Pokestop in Madison Park and put up a lure module, get free pokemon, & battle each other while you register voters and learn more about Sec. Hillary Clinton!!!” the event description says. “Kids welcome!”…

The Clinton campaign’s eagerness to use an app to organize the same week it comes out is also an indication of the importance of on-the-ground field organizing. This sort of thing only works if you have field staffers on the ground to organize it, and who can do so without reducing the campaign’s ability to canvass, phone-bank, and engage in the other routine, necessary field activities. And Clinton had almost 700 people on staff already as of May’s Federal Election Commission filing.

Trump, by contrast, has only 70, many of them national staff. He’s at a big, big disadvantage when it comes to field work. It’s not just Pokémon Go: Trump’s staffing disadvantage means less contact with voters, and less registration, through any number of mechanisms. And at least when it comes to registration drives and get-out-the-vote operations, there’s good experimental research showing that well-done canvassing really does work….

Hopefully, even if the Pokemon Go craze is ephemeral, the players’ memories will last a little longer. Six years from now, I’d rather be soliciting new voters for the party they remember from that fun afternoon swapping characters than the party of that weird orange dude their parents kept screaming about.

trump locoman go toles

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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Reader Interactions

94Comments

  11. 11.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @rikyrah:
    I’m not sure I agree . . . people who play the game walk out in front of cars, into ravines and potholes and into dangerous areas to be mugged, sound like Drumpf voters to me

  14. 14.

    MikefromArlington

    TBH this may have little to do with actual staffer and more to do with individuals setting up their own events much like Obama’s website allowed for anyone to organize events from within the website but still, cool.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @satby:

    It’s all good until people start competing to be first and get into virtual fisticuffs over whose emojis are cheeriest. We are, at bottom, jackels. ???

  16. 16.

    Another Holocene Human

    Good morning, everyone! I’m not smart enough to figure out those icons. Also, no iphone. (It was money, but I’m happy with my android at this point.)

  18. 18.

    Another Holocene Human

    Was there another terrorist attack in France? We have vehicles drive into crowds on the reg in Florida but it’s usually chalked up to senile dementia. Of course, the drivers are white, so…

  20. 20.

    Patricia Kayden

    Kudos to those brilliant Clinton campaign organizers!! That’s the spirit we need to ensure that she wins in November.

  23. 23.

    raven

    @Baud: I’d like to beat Arlington or the Wall when some of those jackasses are playing their fucking game.

  26. 26.

    bystander

    Just heard Trump say he wants a declaration of war from Congress. Clinton’s response was an analysis based on what is really going on in the effort to crush ISIS and what other options there may be to ratchet up the pressure on them. After hearing the two sound bites, Richard Haas said Trump’s response was meaningless, but Clinton’s was too wonky, policy. These guys are clearly out to Gore her.

  27. 27.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    These young’uns didn’t get the memo that they are supposed be organizing for more serious political activism like Fart-ins and scolding The Establishment on social media for being corporate sell outs.

  34. 34.

    Luthe

    @The Thin Black Duke: Hillary also has Obama in her corner. The value of his support is incalculable. Hillary had a front row seat to Gore running away from his (popular) predecessor and she’s not making the same mistake.

  37. 37.

    Travels with Charley

    I didn’t mean it as competition, but as imitation. I love rikyrah’s good mornings, and couldn’t believe I was looking at a shiny new thread without a good morning! And we need some cheer after this last week….

  39. 39.

    NorthLeft12

    Trump’s responses to incidents like this are completely predictable and utterly worthless in the real world, although there are a large number of people that it is effective with.
    These are the same people that initially cheered on the fiasco in Iraq, and now are attempting to rationalize it’s outcome. Thomas Freidman [the worthless d’bag] will be pontificating shortly.

  40. 40.

    JPL

    Trump had a big fundraiser in CA last night, but is making news, because he delayed the Pence announcement citing the Nice terrorist attack . hmmm

  42. 42.

    Mr. Mack

    For the record, I once beat Rikyrah to the good morning thing and felt kinda bad the rest of the day. It does seem like her domain.

  43. 43.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NorthLeft12: Friedman has already come out saying voters need to utterly crush Trump and the Republicans in November. Evidently he has limits. It was a statement of a magnitude that would be hard to walk back, though knowing Friedman I suppose he could just ignore that he said it.

  45. 45.

    hovercraft

    Good Morning,
    Team Hillary learned from the best, the Obama team. Democrats have to work hard to maintain their digital edge and their gotv efforts. A nice story to wake up to after the horrors of yesterday.

  46. 46.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: Exactly. Is Trump going to send any of his children into an endless, bloody war against ISIS terrorists? Hell naw. But he sure loves cheer leading wars from a safe distance for other people’s children to engage and die in.

  47. 47.

    bystander

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Let’s hope, but it’s not going to stop the Moanin’ Joe/Andrea Mitchell crew from trying.

    @rikyrah:

    Sane, yes, and how about reasoned and based in reality as opposed to empty posturing? But Haas, a guy whose entire life is based on analyzing international relations, had to call it “wonky”.

    I may have to put a childguard on MSNBC until after the election.

  49. 49.

    Mustang Bobby

    Pokemon Go is just more proof to my theory that smartphones are the emissaries of an invading species that is culling our population by making us walk into walls, traffic, and fountains and so stupefy us so that their overlords — cats — can finally take over.

  51. 51.

    hovercraft

    @bystander:
    It’s the usual bullshit, remember the foreign policy ‘establishment’ has always been gung ho about going into Syria, they blame Obama for not doing so. Even though Clinton was for intervention they fear that she’s become less enamored of the idea now that Syria and Libya are both a mess. Drump they feel is malleable enough to do as told. Tell him it will make him look tough and he’ll do it. They want more war all the time, and republicans are more reliable at it.

  52. 52.

    Peale

    @Another Holocene Human: unfortunately, it does not appear that the driver had dementia or bad brakes. My guess it will be another little shit with a history of petty crime and drug use who decided to get some meaning in his little shitty life.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    Sherrod Brown is holding one of his small, local events next week. It’s a lunch at a restaurant. It was supposed to be last month but it was cancelled- I don’t remember why. Anyway, he’s very good at politics and is Clinton’s Number One Surrogate in Ohio- he seems to be campaigning constantly- so I’m hoping he’ll give us a blunt opinion on where we are in Ohio as far as Prez and Senate race. He generally doesn’t sugar-coat.

  58. 58.

    Immanentize

    @Baud:
    That comment kinda reminded me of the “X” name movement in th 60’s associated with the Nation of Islam. it started off as a very real effort to reject the historical ‘slave names’ African Americans carried. But a very funny thing happened in that it began to develop its own hierarchical system. Soon enough some guys were adding “X”s to distinguish themselves. So, for example, in reporter jail and prison cases you can find John 3X vs the Warden or Jerome 5X vs The City of Miami Etc.

    Maybe not jackals but certainly a competitive species.

  59. 59.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I’d like to know what he thinks about the Strickland campaign.

    This morning, in an interview with the head of the Ohio Tea Party, it came out that they were determined to unseat Rob Portman. Surprising, but it may be Strickland’s only hope to eke out a victory.

  60. 60.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Matt McIrvin: I believe Friedman is indicative of a growing number of “moderate” Republicans who are beginning to understand that a Trump presidency would be catastrophic for them financially. To be blunt, it’s not a moral decision; it’s business.

  62. 62.

    Immanentize

    @The Thin Black Duke: Whatever the reason, I’m for people turning against Trump. This seems to be Trumps one big failure as a full on fascist — he has not/cannot convince people he would be really good for corporations and the military industrial complex.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I was really down on Strickland but I talked to a UAW retiree last week – he (now) works part time for some org that protects Social Security- and he told me I’m wrong, that it will be very competitive. He’s been active in Democratic politics for 40 years and I consider him credible. His wife is the same- really active- but on different issues. She’s an environmentalist. They go to every Dem political event w/in like 100 miles. In 2012 I went to a Cleveland voting rights event where I met a group of AA leaders from urban areas and my sense was THEY weren’t strong Strickland supporters so that’s what was worrying me- that Strickland had kind of a 1990’s approach- an appeal to older rural Democrats rather than relying on huge turnout in Dem areas. I think they all need huge turnout in urban areas or they won’t win. There just aren’t enough Democrats in low population counties to add up.

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    I’m a bit pressed for time at work today, so lemme just say:
    1) Love how Trump can’t make up his mind/make an announcement on the VP thing due to the attack in Nice…HRC could win this whole thing 30 seconds into the first debate by offering The Donald a piece of gum, then seeing if he can walk back to his podium while chewing it. (Hint: he can’t)
    2) Looking for some mainstream media comparisons of the two conventions, side-by-side: one party with an all-star lineup of its top officials, all on the same page, all fired up and ready to go for November…the other party with a lineup of C-list weirdos and washouts, agreeing only on their own lack of brains/spine and the most unappealing party platform in decades (and THAT, my friends, is saying something)
    3) Love Charlie Pierce!
    4) Love the Clinton campaign’s harnessing of PokeGo or whatever it’s called…GOTV GOTV GOTV!!!

    Ya’ll have a good one and stay out of the 110% humidity (I know I will)

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    @hovercraft: Meanwhile, there are people who are still convinced that Clinton is a worse warmonger than Trump, peace candidate.

  66. 66.

    Peale

    @Immanentize: there isn’t an actual crisis so why would business turn to the Trumpenfuhrer for help? labor unions out of control? Need a bushel of cash to buy a loaf of bread? Crime really out of whack? Marxism growing anywhere?

  68. 68.

    Peale

    @Matt McIrvin: yep. When Trump declares that he’ll double or triple the size of the military, he’s only joking. He’d never find a use for that. That’s just a comical threat to creat a big stick so that he can speak so softly.

  69. 69.

    Another Holocene Human

    @raven: Right, none of those oldsters did it on purpose. You have the folks that panic and confuse gas with brake. Then you have the folks that didn’t make any mistake at all. Is it the number dead? Maybe I’m a little bit dense, it’s just the way we talk about crimes seems to distinguish between crimes committed by an in group member and an outgroup member. And that’s … irrational.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    There’s only so many things they can control. Clinton is doing everything right in her campaign. That’s all she can do. A lot of the commentary on her personality or (perceived) shortcomings just doesn’t matter to me. We all saw the Democratic field. It’s not like there were wildly popular people we skipped in order to make her the nominee.

  77. 77.

    Cat48

    @Kay:

    Kay, would you ask him about the folks who were removed from the polls for not voting? Is anyone trying to reregister them? Most were from Cuyhoga County.
    Hillary won the primary by 20 pts thanks to Brown & Tim Ryan’s help I think.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    @hovercraft:

    It’s the usual bullshit, remember the foreign policy ‘establishment’ has always been gung ho about going into Syria, they blame Obama for not doing so

    .

    Not only them, but the MSM. They have been mad ever since POTUS said, Nope…not sending any troops there. They wanted their WAR, dammit.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    so I’m hoping he’ll give us a blunt opinion on where we are in Ohio as far as Prez and Senate race. He generally doesn’t sugar-coat.

    Looking forward to your report back to us, Kay.

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I believe Friedman is indicative of a growing number of “moderate” Republicans who are beginning to understand that a Trump presidency would be catastrophic for them financially.

    Hence, another reason that the real GOP Crime Bosses aren’t opening their checkbooks to Ferret Head.

  81. 81.

    Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill

    OT, important pet safety tip post:

    Yesterday, I made an appearance at a rural court 4 hours away. On the way back, I was stopped by an ugly wreck where a compact sedan was destroyed in collisions with a FedEx double trailer and a flatbed. I was at the head of the stopped line in the left lane – everyone had been running at about 80 at the time of the wreck. The couple in the car were young (college students, judging by stuff and attire). They were beaten up and bleeding, but in a panic as they were looking for the young mans dog, which had been thrown from the wreck into a large stand of trees that ran from 50 feet below to 10 feet above the berm upon which the W KY parkway rested. One of the truckers in stopped in the right said he saw her fly at the impact, and from what he said, it sounded like she was launched a few hundred feet. It was unlikely that she survived to flee, given the distance, but there was no finding her, and it was starting to get dark.

    I drive my dog all the time, but don’t restrain him in the car. I’m getting a restraint today to clip him when we travel – it is so important, and I never want to find myself in the position of those young people.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    that Strickland had kind of a 1990’s approach- an appeal to older rural Democrats rather than relying on huge turnout in Dem areas. I think they all need huge turnout in urban areas or they won’t win. There just aren’t enough Democrats in low population counties to add up.

    Hope someone is talking to his campaign. Setting him straight.

  83. 83.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    There’s only so many things they can control. Clinton is doing everything right in her campaign. That’s all she can do. A lot of the commentary on her personality or (perceived) shortcomings just doesn’t matter to me.

    You know I’m not the biggest Hillary fan, but she does seem to seriously have learned a lot of lessons from 2008. I’m hoping so.

    For those unenthusiastic about Hillary…I just say this..

    THE.SUPREME.COURT.

    I don’t know why I have to remind people, but remind, I will.

  84. 84.

    Cat48

    @rikyrah:

    I’m beginning to actually sorta like her myself. I’m donating money on a regular basis and may eventually phone bank. I really hate that part bc it makes me nervous.

  85. 85.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @rikyrah: There are a lot of eager reporters who didn’t have a chance to get embedded last time around who’d like to have the opportunity. Why, look at what war reporting did for Walter Cronkite and Wolf Blitzer!

  86. 86.

    cmorenc

    @bystander:

    Just heard Trump say he wants a declaration of war from Congress. Clinton’s response was an analysis based on what is really going on in the effort to crush ISIS and what other options there may be to ratchet up the pressure on them. After hearing the two sound bites, Richard Haas said Trump’s response was meaningless, but Clinton’s was too wonky, policy. These guys are clearly out to Gore her.

    Actually, I sort of understand what Haas was getting at with his critique of Clinton’s response, and it’s at the same time intended to be practically constructive rather than subversive to Clinton, and discouragingly cynical about the electorate’s ability to comprehend information. He means her answer may come across to many voters as too abstractly analytical and too lacking in emotional resonance to connect with voters’ visceral concerns about ISIS and terrorism. Too much Dr. Spock and too little Captain Kirk.

    An extreme manifestation of the same fault is what was wrong with Mike Dukakis’ response to Bernard Shaw’s infamous “gotcha” question about whether Dukakis would still oppose capital punishment if his wife Kitty was raped and murdered. Dukakis’s coolly analytical response about how the death penalty didn’t work failed to address or engage the visceral emotional resonance the question evoked for most viewers. Yes, that was perhaps the most unfair “gotcha” debate of all-time, but OTOH it’s not difficult to conceive how Dukakis’ could have effectively disarmed the question while still giving the same net answer about too many problems with the death penalty – i.e. he should have started by acknowledging that such an event would have provoked a desire for hot vengeance against the killer, and then gone on incorporate that into his analysis of why the death penalty is a poor fix for the situation.

    Back to Clinton, a critique of “too wonky” really means her answer, while analytically correct, fails to adequately engage and address voters visceral emotions about ISIS. Of course, that critique presumes something very discouraging about how voters react to candidates. Unfortunately doesn’t mean there isn’t some validity to the critique, nor that the critique is out to intentionally sabotage Clinton, even though if gets picked up as a drumbeat meme by the media, it can be corrosive the way it was to Gore.

  87. 87.

    chopper

    good west coast morning. today I find out if our bid is accepted and we have a house.

  89. 89.

    aimai

    @cmorenc: While this is a very accurate analysis of the journalists’s remark–that is,that it is part of the “horse race”coverage that we are used to in which what is really being assessed is the candidate’s ability to get over on a really stupid class of people (voters), that’s still pretty seriously wrong. Its wrong because it leaves the impressionable viewer with the idea that what is important in a President is how well they suck up to the lowest common denominator of voter, not how well they perform the complex task of being a President.

    Rikyrah, I think, linked to an article about why Senator Angus King is now supporting Hillary. The guy is a Senator, for fuck’s sake, and he takes a ride on a special Air Force mission which imitates the crisis surrounding a massive attack on the US. He rides up with the guys impersonating the President who is going to solo make the decision whether to launch missles in an attack. In King’s own description he realizes, viscerally, for the first time the awesome and terrifying power that is embedded in the Presidency. That will be wielded by the President regardless of which person wins. And he realizes, as though for the first time, that this power simply can’t be held by Trump. No sane newspaper reporter or journalist at this point should be leaving any reader with the impression that its ok if they get suckered by Trump. Its not ok. HRC is literally the only option at this point in this race. It doesn’t matter whether her hair isn’t perfect, or if she sounds too wonky–she is the only choice.

  90. 90.

    J R in WV

    @debbie:

    We are getting incessant TV commercials from probably some PAC supporting SENATOR ROB PORTMAN. We receive over-the-air channels that broadcast into SW Ohio, and since it is relatively flat, probably get good penetration deep into the state.

    One is all about COAL JOBS which Obama has killed, with the enthusiastic help of Hitlery Clinton. One is about the Dreaded OBAMACARE which is killing the steel industry in Youngstown Ohio, which I thought died off and was reclaimed 20 years ago when my brother got laid off from Youngstown Sheet and Tube. The last is a Doctor telling everyone how Obama is going to kill Medicare so that no one can see their own doctor. But ROB PORTMAN is going to keep OBAMA and EVIL CLINTON from killing the good people of Ohio.

    So Sick Of Rob Portman Ads – he looks like a grinning skull~!!!

    Work HARDER KAY!!!

  91. 91.

    Miss Bianca

    No flies on HRC *or* her campaign, despite what the naysayers are meeping.

    Myself, I will be hiking in the Pecos wilderness with my sister this weekend, so I doubt we will see any Pokemon, but you NEVER KNOW…

  92. 92.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @cmorenc: YPISIDNT. (You Posted It So I Didn’t Need To.) If that ain’t already an accepted acronym for the Net, IMHO it oughta be.

  94. 94.

    Miss Bianca

    @cmorenc: I want to go back in time and have Dukakis ask that reporter, “what if it was your son who raped and killed my wife? Would you still want me to come out hot for the death penalty?”

    Visceral, my ass. (still fuming about that after all these years, who knew?)

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