We are so well and truly fucked:
The head of the Commission on Presidential Debates has some advice for debate moderators this fall: leave the fact-checking to the candidates.
Janet Brown, executive director of the commission, told CNN’s Brian Stelter that moderators should let the candidates check one another on “accuracy and fairness.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the Encyclopedia Britannica,” Brown said Sunday on “Reliable Sources.”
While Brown said the commission depends on “independent, smart journalists” to make their own decisions about how to moderate, she said that historically, correcting the record has been left to the candidates.
And if Trump wins, this from Nick Kristof will have been eerily prescient:
In watching the campaign coverage this year, I’ve sometimes had the same distressing feeling I felt in the run-up to the war in Iraq — that we in the media were greasing the skids to a bad outcome for our country. In the debate about invading Iraq, news organizations scrupulously quoted each side but didn’t adequately signal what was obvious to anyone reporting in the region: that we would be welcomed in Iraq not with flowers but with bombs. In our effort to avoid partisanship, we let our country down.
When some in cable TV cover Trump endlessly without sufficiently fact-checking his statements or noting how extreme his positions are, because he is great for ratings and makes money for media companies, we are again failing the country. We are normalizing lies and extremism.
There’s no real upside to telling the political truth in our society any more. You won’t be held accountable. In fact, those who are honest, admit their flaws, and try to deal with reality are punished because the other guy, who lies at will or just makes up fantasy scenarios (this was true to some extent with Bernie and all the things that would just magically happen and voila PROGRESSIVE NIRVANA) looks so much better by comparison.
redshirt
If the Repuke candidate were Jeb or even Cruz, I’d be a lot more nervous about the Press tipping this election.
Trump is such an obvious clusterfuck, even the MSM can only do so much to fluff him.
Blueskies
And so setting up the next round of “he said, she said.”
Ms. Brown is pure evil.
Kryptik
The truth is a liability, empathy is a sin, and objectivity is literally defined as “he said she said”.
Modern politics, everyone.
trollhattan
At dinner last night the inevitable politics discussion hit its zenith with the host announcing that both Trump and Hillary should be behind bars. Chose to keep my yap shut rather than ruckus on the birthday girl’s night but am still wondering what Hillary’s felony might be.
November can’t be here soon enough.
Another Scott
The only thing that the MBAs and MoTU that run our corporate media understand are eyeballs and advertising revenue. The NY Times daily circulation is 590,000. About 1/3 of the world has seen Gangnam Style (if you don’t count muliple clicks).
Around 63 M watched the 2nd debate in 2008.
We’ve got to vote with our eyeballs and our dollars. That’s the only way things are going to change when it comes to coverage.
Oh, and vote to make sure Hillary and Team D wins in November, of course. I plan to vote absentee next Saturday.
Cheers,
Scott.
Citizen_X
I’ll copypaste what I said in the last thread (which maybe didn’t need apocalyptic questions), referring to this poll:
OT: Anybody want to talk me down over this ABC/Post poll? It’s got Trump fucking tied with Clinton! And people trust Trump with the economy over Clinton, 50 to 43%??? What the everloving fuck? He’s a conman and crook who mused about bankrupting the country because everything would be wonderful after that!
Feathers
And the gamergatification of the political system is nearing completion. The abortion protestors really were the beginning. If anyone believes that the purpose of scary, screaming, just-short-of-violent protestors outside of abortion clinics isn’t to stop women from having abortions, but to stop them from ever publicly advocated for abortion or even admitting to having one, you are naive. The open carry people are just following their lead. And now the Trumpsters, most of them fresh from gamergate, have put fear of retribution into the people who should be talking the truth about him. They are so new to fear, they don’t know what to do. Shameful.
James E Powell
When was it not like this? When was the last time that the bar was not lowered for the Republican candidate?
Another Scott
And another thing…
The Commission on Presidential Debates was set up by the two national parties. It’s in their interest to keep control over it, so that means putting on a show that isn’t offensive to either party and thus stays inoffensive to either party’s candidate. Of course they tell the moderators not to challenge the candidates veracity.
Why anyone finds this surprising is beyond me…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Citizen_X: I haven’t looked in detail, but results like this are usually based on how they do their “likely voter” screen and how they adjust for the fact that lots of people don’t answer the phone for unknown numbers any more.
Don’t panic. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Davis X. Machina
@Citizen_X:
70 million people say “So what? He hates the same people I hate. Hand me the ballot.”
Welcome to America in this, the second decade of the 21st century.
Steeplejack (phone)
This clearly disadvantages Clinton. If she has to spend part of her debate time debunking Trump’s bullshit, that’s less time she has to make her own points.
Meanwhile Trump just spouts his crap and doesn’t have to worry about debunking anything, which he’s not interested in doing anyway.
And if Trump’s lies don’t get debunked, that will lend them some kind of truthy authenticity, because Clinton “let them stand.” Ugh.
The best hope is that some of the news media will do the debunking as part of their belated effort to rectify their dismal performance through this campaign.
James E Powell
@Citizen_X:
Wish I could, but I can’t give you any information or analysis that you don’t already have.
Although the press/media have done and will continue to do what they do to keep this thing close, the real reason for polls like that is that we live in a nation where about half the people are assholes.
Botsplainer
@Citizen_X:
Broke ass poor white trash doesn’t care about putting the economy in the shit, because they live like poor white trash.
There’s nothing wrong hey’d love more than a great downward leveling, because pain is what they would deliver.
JPL
Hillary overwhelming is losing the white non-college voters. Some of those voters, don’t blame the banks for causing the recession, they blame blacks who were allowed to get mortgages. I’m not sure how you reach them.
I agree with John’s sentiment. We’re fucked.
Trump is a white supremacist and wants a fascist government.
redshirt
@Steeplejack (phone): I don’t think Clinton should try and rebut specific Trump bullshit – she’ll get bogged down in the BS.
But rather, rebut the overall bullshit that is his entire candidacy and career. Attack the man, not whatever lies he happens to be saying.
Iowa Old Lady
@Steeplejack (phone): Viewers take moderators as a kind of authority, so when the moderator lets a lie go, I think viewers feel it’s been validated.
father pussbucket
@Another Scott:
“This is the perfect time to panic!” — Woody.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@trollhattan: I’m sorry, but y’all got to stop this.
Have the moral courage to confront these people in real life, EVEN IF IT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE.
If you want a better country, be better citizens.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Seriously, John, given the context of Donald Trump participating in debates for the general election of the President of the United States, an implicit comparison of Sanders to Trump is completely uncalled for and off-base. There is just no way that Sanders progressive campaign rhetoric in the primary rises to anything near the lies, bigotry and authoritarianism advocated by Trump.
At a time when we, as Democrats and as Americans, are trying to come together, do you really want to implicitly draw unwarranted parallels between a candidate in the Democratic primary – whom a lot of Democrats supported – with the most dishonest, criminal, bigoted, and dangerous presidential candidate in US history?
Way to undermine a really good point about Janet Brown’s comments with a crap comparison, dude. That’s just fucking stupid.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (phone):
He may not actually debunk anything HRC says but I bet he will repeatedly say things like “that’s a lie”, “she’s lying when she says X” or “no one believes that lie, Hillary”.
Chris
@James E Powell:
Yep. The ultimate problem is the voters.
SenyorDave
There’s no real upside to telling the political truth in our society any more.
There’s certainly no downside for lying. We are screwed a s a country. Its GOTV, and definitely make sure that people of color vote. Because if Trump wins they are the enemy. Sure he loves stop and frisk, look who is going to be subject to stop and frisk. Young black and Hispanic males.
Knight of Nothing
I have three kinds of bourbon for tomorrow. I hope that’s enough.
Might be time for another ActBlue post.
James E Powell
@Iowa Old Lady:
Viewers take
moderatorspress/media as a kind of authority, so when themoderatorpress/media lets a lie go, I think viewers feel it’s been validated.the Conster, la Citoyenne
Obama was being crushed in the swing state polls by Romney, and was losing by 2 points nationally in a couple of them the weekend before the election. Obama is devoting October to campaigning for Hillary. It shouldn’t be close, but that’s the country we live in now.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Aggressive follow up questions are the way to go for the moderators. Like you see on BBC. Ha ha, I just made a joke. I’m trying not to worry, smarter and better people than I am are running Hillary’s campaign. If white people want to throw a temper tantrum, ain’t nothing I can do about it.
Mai.naem.mobile
Turned on MSNBC to see that Ray Suarez if filling in. Seriously,this fucking country can have Sean the Moron Hannity host a show and Joey Scarborough,Maria Bartiromo,Mika Brzezinski,Erin Burnett,Don Lemon,Steve Inskeep,Larry Kudlow,Gary Kaltbaum etc etc but Ray Suarez isn’t good enough for a regular gig. What a waste. Give him the damn debate. He’d fact check Trumpy so quick,Trumpy would be whining about how a Mexican Wetback was unfair to him because of his comments about Mexicans.
Wapiti
@redshirt: I woder if Hillary, in her opening statement, can tell the viewers that (a) the moderators may not call out lies as they happen and (b) listeners should remember that her opponent, Donald J. Trump, is currently facing two court cases for fraud.
Aleta
Headline on NPR: Live! From New York! It’s Monday Night! And Possibly The Most-Watched Debate for their metacoverage of “such an extraordinary campaign (that) seems bound to produce an extraordinary debate.”
They are so very polite:
(their way of leading into the news that Trump threatened Hillary with humiliation via G. Flo.).
Because threatening to publicly humiliate a strong competent very intelligent woman (who chose public service instead of, say, corporate mergers) is merely “quite a different approach.”
redshirt
@Wapiti: That’s what I’m talking about. Hillary speaks the truth about how awful Trump is, and he’ll be forced to respond and then lash out, which she should ignore and continue on pointing out how awful he is.
I don’t think Clinton should spend too much time talking about policies. This election is not about policies. It’s a fundamental good v. evil decision.
Mai.naem.mobile
I wish the Clinton people had had some rich New Yorkers needle him this weekend. Somebody like Bloomberg or some fellow real estate developer. I can’t believe Schumer doesn’t know somebody untouchable personally who could pull it off. Mark Cubans good but he’s not a New Yawker.
kindness
Seems to me any group hosting a debate who say the moderators shouldn’t call out obvious whoppers should not be hosting debates, ever.
I wish Mark Cuban could bring Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren with him.
lollipopguild
@Knight of Nothing: What are your 3 bourbons?
Chris
@JPL:
There’s a quote from Buffy I’m thinking of having framed right now for perfectly capturing my state of mind:
“Does it ever get easy?”
“Life?”
“Yeah, does it get easy?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Lie to me.”
“Yes. It’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and… everybody lives happily ever after.”
“Liar.”
Major Major Major Major
@redshirt: I honestly think that a Romney-like figure or even just Romney again would be clobbering us right now. Third terms are hard.
Bobby Thomson
Meh. This historically is how things have gone. The moderator influences the debate by choosing issue areas and slanting questions. What Crowley did was unusual. This year the difference will be how they react to Trump interrupting.
Major Major Major Major
Did I see that Conway called Trump the Babe Ruth of debating? And now they’re pleased at the choice of moderator? Do they not know how expectations work?
Knight of Nothing
@lollipopguild: Booker’s, Basil Hayden’s, and Noah’s Mill.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah. As long as we can escape with a victory in November, we’re lucky to have Trump.
Miss Bianca
@JGabriel: Bernie Sanders’s bullshit about “corruption in the Democratic Party!” and “Wall Street speeches!” and “The primary process was rigged!” does not deserve a pass, JG. All that crap was a stop on the bullshit continuum that has led to “Hillary Clinton can’t be trusted!! – she’s part of the corrupt process! Vote Stein! Vote Johnson!” noise. Whatever he’s saying now, Sanders and his supporters deserve some criticism for fostering that dangerous nonsense. And you have to admit that there has been a fair amount of troublesome-fact-free magical thinking on the left as well as on the right – OK, both sides may not do it equally, but in this case I think it’s fair to say, “both sides do it.” I don’t think John’s comparison out of line at all, whatever you thought of Sanders.
lollipopguild
@Knight of Nothing: Very Nice!
smintheus
Comparing Trump to Sanders is wandering down a useless and misleading path. Sanders’ lack of detail and specificity was not far out of the mainstream for presidential candidates.
What makes Trump unusually dangerous in this regard is he uses a blizzard of lies and BS tactically. He gets traction from it because nobody is able to rebut his lies as quickly as Trump adds new lies, and there are plenty of idiots who are impressed just by his ability to fling garbage at his opponents and get away with it.
This may resemble Obama’s first debate with Romney in 2012. Despite what people say about Obama supposedly being lacklustre in that debate, he wasn’t bad at all. Romney gained traction from it because he flung lies all over the place and neither the moderator nor Obama called him out on his lies; they just acted like the audience ought to know that Romney was talking nonsense. It was only in the second debate when Obama confronted Romney over his stream of BS that he was able to gain the upper hand.
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: @JGabriel: I’m with Miss B on this one.
Hi Miss B!
SenyorDave
@Wapiti: I woder if Hillary, in her opening statement, can tell the viewers that (a) the moderators may not call out lies as they happen and (b) listeners should remember that her opponent, Donald J. Trump, is currently facing two court cases for fraud.
Maybe she should remind people that he is also accused of raping a 13 year old. This story is being totally ignored by the MSM, and it should be looked into. There were rumors about Bill Cosby years before everything was brought to light, and they were ignored.
Elizabelle
Have courage, folks.
Notice anything about Janet Brown’s (purported**) bio? From blogger Robert Earl Fontenot, in his blog 100$Serious:
** got this off a private internet site, so it may or may not be accurate. Well written blog; no posts since 2013; last one was about Anthony Weiner, after he conceded the NY mayoral primary.
MomSense
Anyone see this video vote.org put out? Share with your millennials.
#votingagainst
Righteous.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: I agree with all of your post, with this edit:
It’s great to have idealistic supporters – they’re the future and they help make positive change happen. But it’s not great to have idealistic supporters by leading them down the garden path with lies (by omission) about Hillary. “I never said she was corrupt! – Whatever gave you that idea?!?!?” Yada yada.
Sanders had the chance to be an adult, but he decided to be a “pure” vanity candidate instead.
Cheers,
Scott.
Schlemazel
@Blueskies:
Nah, Ms. Brown is pure banality. The evil happens around her and she is OK with that because she can claim it is not her doing but ours. Amoral, banality, a subtle difference important only to her and her ilk.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m not sure. What I remember from 2012 is that the Republicans were spectacularly unenthusiastic about their candidate. He certainly did not fire up the cesspool of bigots and sadists that make up the base of the GOP voters, the way Trump does. Trump on the other hand loses points with GOP “moderates,” but that doesn’t ultimately seem to affect his polls much.
Major Major Major Major
@Bobby Thomson: this is also well worth keeping in mind.
Old Broad in California
I’m somewhat encouraged by this front page article in today’s Los Angeles Times calling out Trump’s lies: .
SiubhanDuinne
One thing I’ve never understood is why the debate moderators are invariably* well-known TV/cable anchors, reporters, pundits and personalities. I don’t see any reason why some of the questioning couldn’t be done by print journalists or even bloggers. There’s nothing inherent in being “on TV” that makes one more fair or objective.
*Happy to be corrected on this. I had a look at Wikipedia, and all the named moderators of past years’ debates, as well as this year’s, came from broadcast or cable TV.
trollhattan
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Thanks for the advice but I pick my battles.
redshirt
@Chris: Trump doesn’t have the support of the institutional part of the Republican party. From what I’ve read he’s got no infrastructure in place.
Will that make a difference? I think so.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Miss Bianca: Yes, Bernie has contributed to the situation we find ourselves in now. I believe he did lasting damage to the nominee, what that damage ultimately means we will see…..
Bailey
@JPL:
Yes, but there aren’t enough of them to throw an election. It is her relative weakness in other demographics that is the problem.
mike in dc
@SenyorDave:
She shouldn’t touch the rape thing. But if he calls her a liar, the fraud cases and his record with factcheck/politifact/WaPo are fair game.
Old Dan and Little Anne
Bono of U2 is doing his part. The American dream is alive!
TriassicSands
@trollhattan:
Duh! The Benghazi emails, silly. (Although her brutal murder of Vince Foster might be in the mix, too.)
@redshirt:
Not so obvious to tens of millions of ignorant, profoundly stupid, racist, …(the list is a long one) voters who don’t need no steenking MSM to “fluff” up Trump for them. Everywhere I turn I meet, see, or hear people who simply can’t believe that there is any chance that Trump could win. I have zero confidence in the polling this year. Running through recent polls the other day at Real Clear Politics, I couldn’t make any sense of much of what I read. Three polls from the same state all with different conclusions. At this late point in the race how could HRC be both 7 points ahead and 5 points behind in polls taken in the same state, same time period, and with the same candidate pool (HRC, DJT, Johnson, and Stein)? Should the way they frame questions really be able to cause a 10 or 12 point swing? I have no idea what Trump’s chances are, but the latest from sources like 538 are not overly encouraging.
It is hard to believe that someone as utterly unfit for elective office and as morally depraved as Trump could actually have a chance to win this election. But he could win. No result on election day will surprise me; but at least one could make me sick to my stomach for years to come.
Bobby Thomson
@Chris: the “moderates” aren’t and will fall in line.
gwangung
@Bailey: Look, the liar’s back again.
Chris
@redshirt:
I certainly hope so.
Chris
@Bobby Thomson:
Precisely.
Botsplainer
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
No matter what, Bernie has to go.
What is one more lost D seat during a Trump administration? I blame that useless old fuckstuck for opening Hill’s left flank to the 30 year propaganda campaign by the Wingnut Wurlitzer.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: You have a point. I guess what I was thinking was that even after Sanders decided to walk things back (and yeah, I wish he had done a lot more, a lot sooner, but whatever), a lot of people basically said, “well, he’s a sell-out too for supporting Corrupt Hillary!” and have gone merrily on their way both lapping up and spewing forth fact-free bullshit. So, he may have done his part in creating the monster, but the monster was already out there, lurking, waiting to be born in in the hearts of White Wingers. I don’t see any practical difference now between Trump supporters and Screw-Bernie-Now-That-He’s-Sold-Out Busters.
Bobby Thomson
@SiubhanDuinne: butts in the seats.
Bailey
@Another Scott:
Please. HRC’s biggest “truthworthy” / “crookedness” issues stems from her email / server issues. She owns that entirely. It was, it should be noted, the one thing Bernie never touched her on. Her own doubling down on secrecy and paranoia is a common trait of hers and her team has never found a successful way out of that scenario.
chopper
@mike in dc:
best thing she could do is, in her intro, tell everybody to go to factcheck sites later because everything trump is gonna say is a lie.
of course the fact check sites will come up with some horseshit about something or other hilz says out of some sense of ‘balance’ but it would still work.
SenyorDave
@mike in dc: She shouldn’t touch the rape thing. I agree she shouldn’t, but the fact is that Trump right now stands accused of raping a 13 year old. That should somehow hit the media.
Bailey
@gwangung:
Look, it’s the person who can’t look at polls that is back again.
srv
Liberals need the media to do their job for them because Clinton simply isn’t credible. What is Hillary going to say? “Trump lies about his support for the stupid war I voted for!”
That’ll work. In the end, at least the Republicans had a democratic nomination process.
sukabi
And there’s the problem, she likely knows those unicorns don’t exist in the pool of corporate media, so it’s best to leave “fact checking” out of moderators hands.
pseudonymous in nc
That quote misses out the truly jaw-dropping bit from the CPD person:
There’s one source for the unemployment rate.
The indifference of the horserace media (including the CPB) to stated policy and sources is just fucking decadent.
chopper
@Bailey:
white non-college is a huge cohort in the voting population. and hilz is doing well in pretty much every other group.
Elie
I think Hillary should first emphasize her positive vision on anything she is asked, then after that, defend herself. I don’t think her first thing should be to attack him. She needs to first be positive above all else. She should also come across as positive and where possible show a little sense of humor. It is better for her to underrespond to anything negative he says than to be too aggressive. He must not set the tone for her — which he will try to do either through direct attack or through lies and misrepresentation of what she says. Its interesting…
Also, I hope that Hillary focuses on the American people as her goal — not him. She might need to ignore some of his comments that are just bullshit or bullying and address the real audience around whatever he is doing. She should definitely NOT get into a back and forth he said, she said….
Just my two cents but what do I know?
Citizen Alan
@JGabriel:
“There is just no way that Sanders progressive campaign rhetoric in the primary rises to anything near the lies, bigotry and authoritarianism advocated by Trump.”
That “rhetoric” included continually suggesting that both Clinton and the entire Democratic Party were corrupt nearly to the point of being evil, as well as paranoid conspiracy theories about how she “stole” the nomination that I am still seeing all across the Internet.
Bailey
@Elie:
Agreed.
Miss Bianca
@Bailey: Fuck YOUR fucking bullshit as well. You are one of those fact-free-bullshit-spewers. You don’t take any notice of context, you don’t make any allowance for the MSM frenzy surrounding All Things Clinton, you just lap it all up and spew it all back. In this particular instance, Sanders has a lot more integrity than his followers. He said he was tired of hearing about it, but apparently, you’ll never be tired of talking about it. He’s trying, however belatedly and begrudgingly, to be part of the solution. You’re just interested in remaining part of the problem.
Bailey
@chopper:
Regardless, white non-college is not enough to throw an election unless the support everywhere else is not enough. Relative to Obama, she does not have the same support in the under 35 demo. That, too, is a huge cohort in the voting population.
And no one seems to be laying a glove on either Johnson / Stein or their respective offers. Never mind that 10-15% of the vote seems to be heading there.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: zing!
germy
Tazj
it wouldn’t be so terrible that the moderators didn’t fact check if the pundits who came on right after the debate did, instead of just evaluating a candidate’s demeanor or how much they smiled.
TriassicSands
@Citizen_X:
First, don’t pay any attention to national polling. It can’t reflect the leader, because that isn’t how the election is decided.
Second, I can’t offer comforting words based on this year’s polling. As I wrote in a previous comment, I looked through state-by-state polling the other day and it was incomprehensible. Polling done by different organizations in the same state on the same day(s) resulted in ridiculous swings — Clinton up by 6 or 7 and down by 4 or 5.
I’m afraid that the embarrassing nature of Trump is not lost on all voters, some of whom may not be willing to admit to a live pollster that they are going to vote for Trump, but will freely admit it in an online poll.
If you’re going to look at polling, look at individual swing states and try to make sense of them (good luck!). You don’t need to look at states like California or Mississippi — Clinton may be running closer than Romney in any number of RED states, but it’s doubtful she will win any of them outright, and that’s what she has to do to get the Electoral College votes. And even if she wins one or two, they’re unlikely to be the key to victory. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and some others are Clinton’s key states. Right now things are looking grim in Ohio, better in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and very close in Florida. If the polling is accurate.
Elie
@JPL:
My goodness… there are enough black homeowners to sink the economy?
Look, I might be blowing smoke up my own ass, but I don’t see how Trump gets to the overwhelming numbers he needs with whites, much less blacks and latinos to win. I am not sure what the polls are measuring right now when they focus on “likely voters” but this just does not make sense to me. All the blacks and latinos (and other Asians) would have to stay home, plus Trump would have to capture more of the white vote than Romney, which would mean he would have to break 90% of white people. Do you honestly see that?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Citizen_X:
Sure, look at the other polls this week where Clinton’s been regaining her lead. Or, better yet, fuck poll watching altogether.
Bailey
@Miss Bianca:
Ah, Little Miss Anger Management Issues is back.
Sorry, LMAAI, but I’m not the FBI running investigations into Clinton. I’m not on her team that sent her out in front of the press to dissemble and speak like a malfunctioning robot. I’m not a GOP representative on a never-ending witch hunt. But the fact remains in poll after poll, voters cite this as a concern of her trustworthiness. Ignoring this very obvious truth is pure fantasy and myopia on your part.
And tip to the wise, I seriously doubt my mentioning the cloud of doubt lingering over her in this little corner of the web will have much effect on her prospects, whatever power you seem to ascribe to me. But thanks anyway.
NotMax
Easiest prediction ever.
Within 5 to 10 minutes after the debate, someone on air will interview Trump and he’ll announce “Everything I’ve heard and all the polls show I won.”
In English, that translates to “Drudge site says Trump won.”
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Miss Bianca: I think Bailey works for this guy.
chopper
@Bailey:
yes it is. white non college voters, as I said, is a fucking huge cohort. it’s easily enough to turn an election. hilz is ahead of 2012 Obama among a bunch of cohorts. shit she’s like 10+ points ahead among women.
trump’s campaign aimed like a goddamn laser beam at uneducated white people, dudes mostly, and that’s a group that can easily sway an election.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Elie:
All the ‘Trump is doing worse than Romney’ and ‘horserace’ narrative makes sense if you realize that we’re running a higher number of none of the above voters than usual. Johnson’s been running a steady eight to nine percent and hasn’t faltered, if the polls are to be believed.
srv
Clinton cannot fail, she can only be failed.
Bailey
@chopper:
Dude, there aren’t enough white people in general to win a national election, let alone white without college degree. That scenario ONLY works if everyone else stays home. Hence, that is HRC’s most obvious problem — she doesn’t have the commitment that everyone else won’t stay home.
Cain
As I have said, our greatest adversary is not the Republican party, but 24 hour news. They are the ones that will fuck over this country. They are a power unto themselves and they believe themselves kingmaker. They are propaganda machines but not for one or the toher but to themselves so that they can generate money. The only way we are going to save this country is to destroy 24 hour news.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: zing!
Anoniminous
From the Langer Research/ABC poll internals:
To which I say “bullshit.” The last time whites were 74% of the vote was 2008. This is the same garbage Gallup pulled in 2012, puffing the white percentage in their likely voter screens to predict a HORSE! RACE!
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca: @JGabriel:
Right now in the polls, somewhere around 60 % of millennial voters believe Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy, they cite Wall St. and her speeches, they also talk about the e-mails, the first half of that can be layed directly at the feet of Bernie Sanders, he harped on that in every single speech, and once you lay the groundwork that she is dishonest any new information just feeds into that foundation. The first democratic candidate in more than a generation not to release his taxes, had the gall to run on someone else not being transparent. The fact that we are trying to unite/ consolidate the party does not mean that there cannot be criticism of tactics used in the primary. Until Bernie stands up in front of his base and says that his primary criticisms were exaggerations that people make in the heat of battle, he will never repair the damage he did. Merely saying she is the lesser of two evils which is what he is saying now, is better than nothing, but not enough.
James E Powell
@Bailey:
Johnson & Stein together will not get more than 5% of the vote.
Mandalay
Several media outlets have reviewed Trump’s statements over the past week, but they just can’t bring themselves to say that he lied.
The NYT has an article with the cutesy title “A Week of Whoppers From Donald Trump“. The Times reviewed and debunked 31 statements from Trump that were obviously lies, but not once did they accuse Trump of lying. Instead they blathered about “falsehoods” and “inaccurate claims” and “unfounded claims”. Reporting at its absolute worst.
And Politico did the same thing in an article coyly titled “Donald Trump’s Week of Misrepresentations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths“. Politico spoke of Trump’s “mishandling of facts” and his “propensity for exaggeration” and “misrepresentations”, but not once did they have the spine to call him a liar.
Our “liberal” media at work.
TriassicSands
@JGabriel:
I know Sanders is generally unpopular at BJ, but I thought the same thing when I read John’s comments. It felt like a variant on “both sides do it” or “false equivalence.”
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@chopper:
If they couldn’t save the country from a black President, what makes you think they’ll be enough to swing the vote for Il Douche?
Hal
Christ on a cracker people. I get the worry but some of you are talking like president Trump just ordered all the nukes deployed. The election isn’t over by a long shot and the debate is tomorrow. One poll sends people in a panic?
I have an enormous amount of suspicion and quite frankly, outright disgust at this country over plenty of issues, but there are millions of people actively voting and working against Trump and for Hillary Clinton. It’s not some small contingent of rebels making a last stand.
gene108
I was thinking about Trump looting the Treausry, should he win, and it struck me that it would not be nearly as disruptive or obvious as I thought.
The General Services Administration (GSA), for example, handles a lot of procurement for various government agencies. If a contractor wins a bid, the contracts pays a fraction of a percent of the revenue back to the GSA as an administration fee for managing the procurement process.
All Trump would have to do is get Congresional Republicans to agree to fully privatize government procurement, which should not be difficult and Trump hands the duties over to a company he has a stake in.
Up the fee a bit for what contractors need to pay after winning a contract and he’s raking in the money.
Knight of Nothing
@lollipopguild: thanks! A little something to suit every taste :-)
Bailey
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Sigh.
You’re right – Clinton is the most amazing, articulate, captivating, and wholly unencumbered with baggage candidate EVAH! Why, she should win based on the wholesomeness in her heart alone.
Elie
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I just think that there is a bunch of gobbledygook out there serving as “polls”. I don’t trust numbers this unstable and instead of promoting them as fact, most news services should be extremely skeptical and wary interpreting them…
Feathers
@Bailey: No. The email problem was caused by the NSA refusing to grant her request to set up the services she requested. Everything follows from that, but it has never been investigated. She then had her own server set up, which was well the realm of what had been done in the previous administration, and was due entirely to the fact that the email systems at State (as well as other government entities requiring security) are completely FUBAR. After endless investigations, all that was discovered was the sorts of problems which would have existed had she stayed completely within the realm of the State Dept IT services, and probably below average in terms of normal “manager” level IT behavior.
Part of the problem with these sorts of investigations is that they are carried out by people with no knowledge of how the systems involved are used in the actual world, by ordinary users. A writer friend from back in the Clinton days was ecstatic to learn about Whitewater. He had done a huge amount of work uncovering wrongdoing during the collapse of the S&L industry during the late 80s and early 90s. He went through ALL the Whitewater materials. There was nothing there but an ordinary failed real estate transaction by people who didn’t particularly know what they were doing. He tried and tried to pitch an article on how Whitewater was just people being stupid, not corrupt, but no one was buying.
It’s the same story with the emails and the Foundation. Without an understanding of the system, you can’t judge what is and isn’t corrupt. I think this person is corrupt, therefore everything they do is evidence of their corruption doesn’t work. It’s why I don’t give much credence to sex scandals. Unless you know what everyone is keeping secret about their sex life, it doesn’t do much good to put much weight on what becomes public about any individual.
Every story that comes in any way from right wing “research” outfits like Judicial Watch needs to be loudly denounced as tainted goods.
chopper
@Bailey:
white voters made up three quarters of the electorate in 2012. are you on crack?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@James E Powell: I’ll meet you both halfway and say they get 10%. This is a good year for the Monty Brewster Memorial Vote.
Citizen_X
@Bailey:
What, you mean having the only goddam server in Washington that didn’t get hacked? Yeah, horrible choice on her part!
Villago Delenda Est
Janet Brown is pretty obviously a tool of the Village.
She should go the way of all Villagers.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: zing!
Guys, stop unskewing the polls. Wang expects her to be back at 3% meta-margin this week assuming nothing happens at the debate (which seems likely) and 82% to win overall, up from 79% at her low point last week.
chopper
@Anoniminous:
Specifically it was 72% in 2012. doubt it’s gone down too much since then, tho it depends a lot on GOTV.
Bailey
@James E Powell:
Perhaps that will be the end result, but polling now regularly puts Johnson at 8-9% and Stein at 3-5%.
Elie
@Hal:
THIS.
For fucking sakes it almost reads like a bunch of “cutters” getting off on watching those little lines they just cut on their arms bleed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bailey: You are a idiot. Or a moran. Up to you to make the choice.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Elie: Professor Wang says the polls aren’t that volatile, and I give him the benefit of the doubt. But we’re going into October with two candidates still holding heavy unfavorables, and the relatively high numbers Johnson’s been pulling bear out that there’s a heavy ‘none of the above’ contingent out there. That has to affect the screening.
James E Powell
@redshirt:
That’s my latest hoped for conspiracy theory. Kasich does nothing for Trump. The price? Pull ads for Strickland and Kasich gets a minor cabinet post. Say, Commerce.
I’d take that deal.
Bailey
@Citizen_X:
She definitely should have made that argument to the FBI. I’m sure that would have made them change their mind.
And frankly, we have no idea whether her server was hacked or not, but that’s an issue that’s neither here nor there.
Anoniminous
@chopper:
White people are the key (59% RomBot) GOP voting bloc and the only major GOP voting bloc. Obama won in 2012 with a coalition of whites (39% of all voters,) blacks (13%), Latino (10%,) Asian (3%,) and Other (2%.) Winning only white people is no longer a winning strategy for the presidency.
D58826
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Also try and frame the question with references to previous statements. So it would be :Mr. Trump in 2003 you made a stmt supporting the war in Iraq. In 2009 you supported the withdrawal in this stmt. In 2011 you supported the intervention in Libya by say… Over the past few months you have said that you opposed the invasion and the withdraw and the Libya intervention. What made you change your mind about these policies, other than they haven’t turned out as well as was hoped?
That way you get into the record his changing positions on these things. Now there is nothing wrong with changing your mind if the facts warrant it but please have him explain what those fact are.
Or on crime cite the various FBI stats that crime is down and ask him why he is saying that crime is up.
In effect front load the fact checking in the question based on his own statements
germy
Hi Donald. You know I’m in your corner and will definitely be at the debate!…?
Bailey
@Villago Delenda Est:
Another member of the Clap Louder Brigade without a cogent argument to make. Your input is invaluable.
NotMax
@Mandalay
Still and all a marked improvement over the MSM reporting during the primaries, when evaluation and judgment of candidates’ statements was so close to zero as to indistinguishable.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Bailey: Whatever, you’re shtick is come to here and make people feel bad. Have some pancakes.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
You said it better than I would have.
sigaba
@Miss Bianca: I don’t think JC was comparing Sanders to Trump much as he was comparing the press coverage of Sanders’ campaign to Trumps. Sanders made ridiculous demagogic claims and the press eagerly rewarded him with coverage and they laid the mantle of Change on him. The Youths love him! Revolt is sexy! Sanders means clicks!
If this post is about media pathology the coverage of Sanders’ campaign is a completely legitimate. The political press has been assiduously promoting chaos and anger at the expense of fact, reason and the public interest, and Sanders absolutely benefited from that. If you watch the 11 o’clock news the world has been falling apart for about 40 years, and now they finally have a couple presidential candidates that are willing to play along with them on that.
Mandalay
@Miss Bianca:
Complete bullshit. Bernie’s beef was about corruption within the DNC, and he was bang on the money. It was only after the evidence of the corruption became public knowledge that action was taken:
– DNC chair: fired!
– DNC CFO: fired!
– DNC CE: fired!
– DNC spokesperson: fired!
Bernie wasn’t bullshitting. He was absolutely correct.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: zing!
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous: Deliberately alienating non-white, non-male people is definitely NOT a winning strategy, but it is the strategery of Teh Donald.
Bailey
@Anoniminous:
Yes. This.
TriassicSands
@trollhattan:
Understandable.
At this point in the campaign there is probably no point in confronting a Trump supporter with either reasons why Trump is unfit to be president or Clinton is a better choice. Trump supporters are likely to be ignorant, stupid, racist, or generally depraved (and more) and unreachable by rational argument.
Trump’s failings are so obvious that anyone supporting him either doesn’t want to see them or simply can’t.
You might have ruined the evening, but I don’t believe you’d have had any chance of changing any minds. As much as I believe in confronting people about political choices, I think you did the right thing.
chopper
@Anoniminous:
yes, it takes a hell of a lot of work to keep white people from swinging the election. you have to peel off a lot of white voters and also cobble together a great deal of other groups into a coalition. Obama did that and hilz is doing that as well.
James E Powell
@Bailey:
This shows how childish you are. No one said any of those things. EVAH!
That Clinton is the clearly better choice in this election is enough for most of us. It should be for you, but it’s not. That’s a you problem. No one here can help you with it.
Bailey
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
You have a sad because someone points out that HRC has some pretty freaking obvious electoral difficulties? Have some grown-up pants to put on.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bailey: It’s all your posts are worth. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis. Can’t engage in a debate with a shitmuffin like you. Hillary’s in the same situation. Forced to prioritize in a target rich environment.
Bailey
@James E Powell:
What are you talking about? I think Clinton is clearly the better choice in this election as well, but I’m not going to delude myself into thinking a.) she was ever the best candidate for the DNC to throw all their muscle behind or b.) that she doesn’t have some real problems with wide swaths of the electorate.
Chris
@Elie:
Five thirty eight is generally reliable, isn’t it? They were still predicting a Hillary win last I checked, though a thin one.
Bailey
@Villago Delenda Est:
That you’re every bit as inefficient in engagement surprises me not the least.
Mandalay
@NotMax:
Well yes, you have a point – the bar was set really low. But what is it that prevents our media from simply calling Trump a liar? Why do they insist on pussyfooting around with terms like “misrepresentation” and “falsehood” instead of “lie”?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mandalay: You can find the links yourself but:
Cermet
The fact that all the lie’s by the Rump are hardly noticed but thirty years of falsehoods against Hillary matter can be understood in terms of the fake news arm of the thug party; any lie, no matter how insane, was broadcasting 24/7 until a new lie was developed. The thugs clowns in congress put on 24/7 shows attacking her as well. Real new channels operate as the “balanced” point of view and just note what the lying ass wipe thugs say and give a neutral “other side” deny’s response. Result an honest, extremely qualified person has been falsely smeared and a lying, coward ass wipe who is nearly insane is considered acceptable by far to many people.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Bailey: I’m not sad motherfucker, I think she’s going to win. You’re just a dick.
sigaba
@Mandalay: None of the people you list were found to be corrupt in any way. They were fired because their scalps were required to bring Sanders on board.
DWS’s resignation is a textbook example of a political hit; Breitbart got Shirley Sherrod and Sanders gutted the staff of the DNC, by effectively the same means. Savor your victory.
Elie
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Key phrase:
Not sure they can be. Not sure at all. Not sure what the people are actually asked and how those results are compiled. The question here is what is the denominator number for whites and whether Trump can not only exceed Romney’s numbers but beat them and get enough of blacks, browns and others to stay home to edge Hillary. Okay, so some are saying that Johnson gets 8-9% of all votes — not just white, but I am guessing its majority white. As for the 60% of millennials reportedly not supporting Hillary (bullshit). Are they going to vote for Trump? Really or just stay home? Really? Hillary has to be calm and positive tomorrow night. It doesn’t matter what Trump does or doesn’t do — she has to appeal to and bring all her people home to her. That is all. Trump on the other hand, has to bring people to him in record numbers while not further energizing his already extremely poor support in the black, brown and other categories. Can he do that?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Chris:
They were, up until they went into full blown ‘HORSERACE!’ mode this year. I don’t believe Silver’s Rassmussen-ing the numbers, but I do believe he’s pushing a narrative instead of trusting and further examining said numbers. The ghosts of Bill Simmons and Skip Bayless are over his shoulder, whispering “You’re next.”
Cain
@Citizen_X:
That’s not what sells. Clinton being guilty of “something” is what sells. This is all part of the media’s war against Hillary from the 90’s. Whatever her true nature is, she has a background that can be exploited. This is primarily why I am not particularly enthusiastic about her candidacy because of this crap, and when she’s president even more crap. We’ll all be in this chamber in an emotive state on a constant basis.
In general, I think Bailey makes sense in the comments he’s making. Even if we nitpick his data.. be sure american voters are not looking at the data, they are making the same emotional judgments you are.
Bailey
@Feathers:
You can justify her actions all you want but the IG report concluded that she violated State Dept. policy, the guidance responded that if she’d asked for that set up, it would have been denied and the FBI concluded that while they wouldn’t prosecute, she was needlessly reckless in handling sensitive material. In addition, previous SoS like Colin Powell publicly said that her set up was not at all like his and to stop roping him into that. That is what the public heard and that is what her problem is.
redshirt
@Bailey: Still pining for Bernie then is it?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Elie:
Well, they did in 2010 and 2014. That said, I have a harder time trusting Millenial polling numbers when pollsters are having the hardest time finding Millenials to actually poll. I’m waiting for the day where you’ll have to answer who you’re voting for before you can fire up Instagram.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: zing!
raven
I see ya’ll have another shit eatin dog fucker that you think you can reason with? Crush the mohterfuckers.
Mandalay
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Nothing you posted supports the other poster’s claim that Sanders allegations “corruption in the Democratic Party”. Sanders made claims about corruption in the DNC, but if you have quotes from Sanders alleging that the “Democratic Party” was corrupt I’d be interested to see them.
redshirt
@Bailey: Ultimately, what is the scandal with the emails? I mean, is it all about some administrative setup? Is that it?
Major Major Major Major
@raven: bailey will be the first to point out that bailey has been here since John was a republican. Why bailey would think this was evidence of bailey’s critical thinking skills is beyond me. Bailey bailey bailey. Have i given bailey enough attention, will Bailey go away? Is it like a reverse Bloody Mary? Say a troll’s name at the screen three times and it bothers somebody else?
Villago Delenda Est
@Bailey: I had a long, thoughtful reply to this, but when I hit “post comment” I apparently was caught in this new hell of the site where it can’t be found on the intertubes for some reason.
In short, no one claims that Hillary is the best possible candidate on all possible worlds, but she’s at least got a clue as to how to implement her aims, unlike Bernie, who for all his years in Congress, apparently learned nothing about getting legislation on the President’s desk for signature.
Elie
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
More than just the millennials stayed home in 2010 and 14. Democratic turnout across the board was bad. I dunno — I just don’t see the numbers that will get this thing to Trump but I am scared shitless enough to work toGOTV big time.
Matt
You can take the Cole out of the GOP, but there’s always still a whiff of that bullshit-slinging-in-the-name-of-antileftism taint. FFS, dude.
Major Major Major Major
@Mandalay: the DNC is the Democratic Party. If not literally then in the minds of most voters. Also literally.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: Purity ponies like you are Drumpf’s best friends.
The Lodger
@Old Dan and Little Anne: Not bad for an Irishman.
Bailey
@redshirt:
I’m pining for anyone that could manage to better distinguish themselves from a 50/50 tie with an unqualified orange fascist. I happen to think that would be probably almost any other elected Democrat.
weaselone
@Bailey:
Yeah. Powell conducted all his business on AOL and then deleted everything. So he was less compliant and less secure than Hillary, but thanks for playing.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major:
Eisenhower did not campaign for Nixon in 1960. Clinton did not campaign for Gore in 2000.
Swap the results in those two and you would be saying that third terms are pretty likely.
Johnson in 68 was wounded by the vietnam war.
I think the difficulty of third terms is overstated.
The economy has been improving (very slowly) for the past 6+ years.
This is a good thing. Much better than the alternative.
Bailey
@Villago Delenda Est:
Since your first reply to me was “you’re a moran” I highly doubt you had anything better on deck.
If she can’t get elected, it’s all moot.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: yes, if you ignore data points, even for what you think are decent reasons, facts sure have a way of looking different.
Mandalay
@sigaba:
Oh please, get a grip.They were all fired as a direct result of the DNC mail leak which showed the shenanigans that were going on. And Donna Brazille made that crystal clear:
redshirt
@Bailey: Like Bernie?
This is where I absolutely lose you. Bernie was a TERRIBLE candidate. He would be getting smoked right now by Trump and we would all be in a world of despair. Your purity fantasies that a grumpy old man who honeymooned in Moscow would somehow usher in a Progressive Revolution is just so far beyond believability that anything you say about Hillary can be discounted wholesale.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Major Major Major Major:
Taft, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, and GHW Bush, and that’s just the last hundred sixteen years. Its not that hard, its just not that common.
Bailey
@weaselone:
Even if he did, Powell doesn’t own AOL servers and AOL could be served an FOIA and could retrieve every single email that passed through it’s exchanges. AOL almost certainly uses better encryption than HRC’s private server did.
But beyond that, since Powell’s rules for compliancy were quite different than Clinton’s it’s quite immaterial. Clinton violated policies that had been put in place 4-5 years prior to her serving office. Spin that out how you like, but it doesn’t change the facts.
Major Major Major Major
@Mandalay: quoting somebody who makes your opponent’s point for them is not a debate tactic I’m familiar with.
raven
@catclub: fuck lbj
Major Major Major Major
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: jeez, guys, I didn’t say they were impossible.
James E Powell
@weaselone:
Right. And then Powell (no relation)
liedmisleadmisrepresentedwasn’t clear about what he told Clinton and when it was that he told her.Van Buren
@JPL: Evidence indicates that about.40% of the electorate feel likewise.
D58826
@Bailey:Yep old Colin is right – putting his emails on AOL and then deleting them w/o regard to turning them over to the state department is perfectly all right.
What seems to get lost is if there is an issue it is that various S-o-S used a variety of different ways to send their e-mails on non-govt systems. And the reason, among others, is the government system sucks. So rather than spending millions of more dollars investigating this dead horse, use the money to give State a 21st century e-mail system. Oh wait that makes sense. sorry.
Bailey
@redshirt:
Like anyone. The biggest disappointment I had this year was that the overwhelming backing of HRC by the DNC effectively kept nearly everyone out of the race. I’m glad Bernie got in it. I never thought he would or should win. The fact that he peeled off so much of the vote and that he stuck with a recognizable 3-4 point plank should have been a huge freaking wake up call to the party.
As I said, I’d take pretty much any Democrat with a pulse this time around. A Democrat that doesn’t start the race with 50% of the country loathing her and zero ability to turn that around.
Anoniminous
Worth a read.
What’s the Matter With Polling?.
I’m not saying to ignore the polls or to apply a priori manipulations, aka “unskewing.” I am saying we need to look at the internals of a poll, which a reputable pollster will give.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve kind of wondered if bailey is an artist with two dogs.
Major Major Major Major
@Anoniminous: or just average them. It’s less work and did fine in the primaries except Michigan which was the edge case to end all edge cases.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I had not seen that. Just sent it to my 21-year-old nephew in Las Vegas and let him know he can register through October 8 in Nevada.
I don’t even know who the guy is in the video, but I thought he was good. Thanks for sharing.
Bailey
@D58826:
Do you have any evidence that Powell was not in compliance with the IT/security policies of the time? If so, please share that.
What seems to get lost is that while technology certainly has evolved at breakneck speed throughout the 2000s and the gov’t is slow to catch up, State Dept. policies in place by 2005 were violated by HRC’s infrastructure. So you can tilt at windmills all you want and whine that the gov’t sucks but it is what it is and HRC did not comply. That’s what the public heard.
WaterGirl
@redshirt: He’s got the evangelical get out the vote machine, which is a big deal.
satby
@MomSense: That was beautiful.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bobby Thomson:
I don’t think so. The audiences come because they are supporters of one or the other candidate (or maybe are just political junkies). They don’t queue for tickets because they’ll get to see the back of Lester Holt’s head for an hour and a half.
redshirt
@Bailey: So we should bow down to Republican lies?
There’s a poster here named NR who it seems you’d get along with smashingly.
Mandalay
@Major Major Major Major:
Well in general you don’t seem to be familiar with much. Bernie had been stating that the DNC was a corrupt organization for months and nothing changed. Bernie had been pressing for the removal of DWS for months and nothing changed.
And then when the DNC emails were leaked DWS was almost instantly gone, along with a bunch of those at the top of the DNC. It’s nonsense to argue that their removal was to placate Bernie; his demands for action had been completely ignored throughout the campaign.
Anoniminous
@Major Major Major Major:
Yup. That’s why I pay attention to Sam Wang and only to him if I can’t look at the numbers meself.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Bailey:
It’s a violation of not a departmental policy but a law, the records act. I should also note, that the reason Hillary’s emails(from her private server) were released is in response to a FOIA request by Judicial Watch.
XTPD
@srv:
Eat shit, motherfucker.
germy
Bailey
@redshirt:
You should be upset that the DNC threw all their weight behind a candidate it felt was “owed” rather than one who might realistically win.
If the GOP had run an even somewhat sane candidate, HRC would likely be getting crushed. She’s been historically ahead, mostly because Trump is a disaster of a human dumpster fire. Now that she’s virtually tied with him, she has virtually nothing in reserve and a hard ceiling as to how much she can improve her margins.
So if it means not running a candidate that the GOP has a 25 year vendetta against, sure, I’m for that because frankly, I think the stewardship of the country is more important than whether or not it is Hillary’s turn.
Tokyokie
The news media will have a sad when a President Trump starts selecting Supreme Court nominees, not for their willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade, but for overturning New York Times v. Sullivan. Doing so will allow Trump allies to play the Peter Thiel role in the Gawker case and bankrupting the major news news, thus putting Trump in effective control of them. The Village will “both sides do it” into oblivion, and take the country with them.
Bailey
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
You bring up a good point — Clinton was supposed to turn over all email upon leaving office. She didn’t until years later due to the FOIA filing.
Major Major Major Major
@Mandalay: that actually suggests they were fired exactly to placate Bernie. There wasn’t any other house cleaning. You really think that this was all the result of a few people at the top having opinions?
But, eh, you know what, go fuck yourself, sweetheart.
redshirt
@Bailey:
So tell me which candidate besides Clinton “might realistically win”.
If you answer Sanders, you’re so wrong I don’t even know where to start.
Like it or not, Clinton was BY FAR the best available candidate. Bams ain’t walking through that door.
WaterGirl
@raven: This Bailey person shits on the thread and all the people who engage are complicit, whether intentionally or not.
Did you see about the gunfire in Champaign last night? One person dead, 4 wounded, none of them involved in the argument. All innocent bystanders.
XTPD
@srv: Hillary isn’t pretending to have voted against the war, you dipshit, nor does she completely make shit up nearly as much as the vulgar talking yam
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: oh jeez I did not! Yikes.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mandalay: Look, you can nitpick it all you want, but most people equate, Bernie’s corruption charges as being against Hillary, the Democratic Party in general, and the DNC. So you know, damage done.
Anoniminous
Obama won women (53% of voters) by 11 points in 2012. Hillary is consistently polling +15* or better. If so, that’s the ball game. There just isn’t enough voters left in the demographic pile for Trump to win.
* which I predicted, right here at Balloon Juice so
:-p
pfffffffttttttttthhhhhh — neener, neener
Shell
And historically, thats called the fox guarding the henhouse.
With the increasingly circus hysteria the media building around this, Im not sure if I can watch the debate without first taking one of my mothers pain pills.
Major Major Major Major
According to Conway, the whole Flowers thing was a made up thing by Trump to prove that Hillary can be “baited with a tweet”. Which, um, what is this, high school?
Shell
Johnson is nuts. And I can’t forgive anyone voting for him as some kind of Bernie-lite.
Cermet
@redshirt: O’Malley was a good candidate and unlike Sanders, was very viable. That said, I am NOT saying Hillary wasn’t a better, more experienced Pol but her baggage – all false and created by the fake news noise machine – is hurting her.
Bailey
@redshirt:
Cory Booker
Elizabeth Warren
Andrew Cuomo
Kristen Gillibrand
I have no idea how Martin O’Malley would have fared in race in which HRC wasn’t sucking up all the Democratic oxygen but he piqued my interest early. Tim Kaine on his own might have made for a good option, too—all the upsides of his moderately progressive background, none of the psychodrama of HRC’s baggage weighing down the ticket.
WaterGirl
I have been saying for months that this is not a year where we can reasonably base any expectations on what happened in the past. Too much is different. So it’s a matter of doing everything we can for our candidate and then letting the chips fall where they may.
To think “Trump can’t possibly win” because we think that it would be the end of the world or the end of our democracy is foolish – the other side felt that same way about Barack Obama and he won. That’s why there was all the shock – they just couldn’t believe that such an awful person could win. It’s impossible for me to understand why/how any reasonable thinking could believe that it would be/is a catastrophe for Barack Obama to be president, but we all know that they do.
So it’s a matter of doing everything we can for our candidate and then letting the chips fall where they may.
Chris
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Eh, I only read it for the numbers anyway.
Kathleen
@Aleta: You’re much kinder than I. I call what NPR does evil.
redshirt
@Cermet: O’Malley never even had a moment, did he? Was there anyone else with even a sliver of a chance?
Yes, Hillary is suffering from the 30 years of lies against her. But she’s also the best person to fight and defeat the lie machine which is the Republican Party and their media allies.
Mandalay
@Major Major Major Major:
Really? Well I guess that means you are calling Donna Brazile a liar:
The DNC staff were fired because of the content of the emails that were leaked. It was nothing to do with placating Bernie. FFS, if they wanted to placate Bernie they surely wouldn’t have picked DWS to open their Convention.
ChrisGrrr
@germy:
…after perceptions arose…
There was a time when journalists at least insisted that facts matter. All pretense is gone now.
Our only hope is that enough Americans come to realize that clouds-and-shadows reporting is utter bullshit.
raven
@WaterGirl: Actually I did. I used to hang in that area a lot, more than one fight but no guns.
NR
@Bailey: Yep.
The Democratic party establishment clearing the primary field for Hillary Clinton is going to go down as one of the biggest acts of political malpractice of the last fifty years at least.
Major Major Major Major
@Mandalay: Jesus, you’re an idiot.
ETA: oh god, Mandalay Bailey and now NR? You kids have fun, I’m gonna go play WoW like a responsible adult.
NR
@redshirt: Considering that Trump is polling higher than Hillary when it comes to who voters see as honest and trustworthy, I think you might be wrong about that.
redshirt
@NR: If only O’Malley wasn’t shoved out of the race!
redshirt
@NR: And who would be doing better right now than Clinton, NR? Go ahead and make a positive case for someone besides Hillary. I dare you.
Peale
@redshirt: we have a very weak bench of people who
Would run. Another set of senators. Few governors. I really don’t see who she “prevented” from running. Wanting Sherrod Brown or Eluzabeth Warren to run doesn’t mean they would. We’re not like the republicans with this seemingly endless supply of billionaires to support a run in the hopes that it takes off. Most likely, we’d have Andrew Cuomo. So let’s not get too excited about all these candidates who we’ll never see.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Major Major Major Major: All the unflushables are here.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: This is why we can’t win long term even though most Americans support our positions.
Botsplainer
@Mandalay:
Debbie was going out anyway, and those emails were bullshit nothingburgers, reflecting internal organizational disdain for somebody who only recently joined the organization, and showing that they preferred the person who had spent decades promoting the organization.
And I say again – FUCK BERNIE SANDERS. He may be of marginal use in a senate with a bare D majority, but in a Trump administration with an R senate, I’m putting my money on anybody who can run that filthy, incompetent, corrupt cocksucker out of Washington and into the closest sanitarium for old progressives that Trump’s Troops start up…
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: I’m off to Azeroth as well. Screw these useful idiots for Drumpf.
Mandalay
@Major Major Major Major:
You’re the idiot for believing that DNC heads rolled to placate Bernie. Going into the Convention, with Clinton having handily secured the nomination, nobody gave a flying fuck about Bernie’s concerns about the DNC and DWS.
And then the emails were leaked…
NR
@redshirt: Any other Democrat who doesn’t have Hillary’s massive baggage. Biden, Warren, Kaine, pretty much anyone.
WaterGirl
How do we reach someone who is contemplating voting for Trump? How do we reach someone like my friend who thinks Trump is awful but also hates Clinton and says “what to do, what do do?” After I get over wanting to smack them upside the head, reason sets in.
This year, I believe that LESS IS MORE.
If you want your kid to brush his teeth, a 3-mnute explanation of why it’s important isn’t useful – all they hear is blah blah blah. So they say it’s better to say something like “teeth” and point to the bathroom.
That’s how I’m approaching possible Trump voters or stay-at-home voters this year. Just picking one thing that might reach someone.
“He is a white supremacist.”
“He loves himself more than he loves this country.”
“I don’t want our children growing up with Trump as a role model.”
“Are you worried about what would happen around the world with Trump as president?”
Whatever it is, I am picking one for each person and going the less-is-more route. I sent my conservative sister and conservative niece the video of the girls looking in the mirror as they hear Trumps awful words about women, and said “it’s only 30-seconds, I hope you’ll watch”. If I try the traditional route with them it will never work – they will tune me out and vote as usual. I’m trying to give each person just one piece of information that I hope will make them think twice before they cast their vote or maybe even get them to not vote for president at all since they think Hillary is awful.
Without a crystal ball, I don’t know if that’s the right thing. But it’s the best thing I can think of.
Major Major Major Major
@redshirt: Because Mandalay is an idiot? I agree.
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: and I think I’ll go out and play on the interstate
pseudonymous in nc
@Bailey:
Such as? The problem the Dems face is that since 2010 state-level elections have weakened the Dem bench. Was Steve Beshear an option? Brian Schweitzer? Deval Patrick? Sparklepony Unicorn? You can’t keep nominating sitting senators and hope to keep a tight hold on a Senate majority.
redshirt
@NR: Sanders?
Cermet
@WaterGirl: You can’t reason with either racist or stupid and that sums up the vast majority of Rump voters. Besides wasting one’s time this just reinforces their ground game – as you seek Rump ass wipe supporters out to argue, your chance to help Hillary people are reduced.
chopper
@Anoniminous:
but I’ve heard right here that hilz isn’t doing well at all among most everyone.
NR
@redshirt: Yep, him too.
redshirt
@NR: Such a joke. We’ll never know of course, but Sanders would be getting destroyed right now.
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
I have been going with “an incompetent, emotionally unstable bully” – I find that stressing Trump’s lies gains little traction because people either do not care or they admire his audacity. Also too, quite a few people do not recognize his lies as lies; they believe the things he says about blacks, immigrants, women, etc. Just listen to that Mahoning County campaign chair.
Botsplainer
I’m thinking that for me, a Trump presidency is a time for spite voting and spite donations. So if Paul Ryan starts talking “traditional Medicare for those over 55, and ValPak coupon Medicare for those under, I go all in for putting all seniors to the pleasure of utilizing the glorious free market here and now, in honor of Trump’s senior cohort. I want wars to sop up the corpses of lower middle class, non-college graduate white men. I want low taxes for me, and lots of enforced sloppy Jesus-y knob gobbling in schools for the benefit of the children of Bern-hugging hipsters.
D58826
@NR: The socialist Sander’s support for Castro and Jane’s creative bookkeeping at the college. End of story. He was popular in part because he was an unknown quantity and he promised lots of free stuff
Nom de Plume
@Anoniminous:
If the trends on that graph continue–and there’s no reason they shouldn’t, given that they’ve been consistent for about 40 years–then this year’s turnout will be about 4% lower for whites and 4% higher for non-whites than they were in 2008.
Russ
@Steeplejack (phone): I believe the lie cow is out of the barn and all Hillary has to do is body language every lie. Everyone now will be listening and along with her “eyerolls” and “hands in air” proclamations she can point out every lie without using airtime. Also promote the cameras on her when the LOTUS (Liar of the United States) is speaking.
D58826
@Botsplainer: Sad way to look at it but true. Like the folks in Kansas they voted for Brownbeck twice now live with it Or Bevins in Ky. when he destroys the Obamacare plans then I’ll send a sympathy card when a relative dies a needless and untimely death due to lack of medical care.
NR
@redshirt:
In your opinion.
redshirt
@D58826: As said many times before, he was also popular because no one bothered attacking him. Clinton did not in order to maintain Democratic unity, and the Republicans and allies did not because they wanted him to win, salivating over the thought of running against Sanders.
They’re afraid of Clinton. That’s why they’ve been attacking her for a couple of generations now. We should rally around the hero who the Republicans fear. Not join in on their lies.
chopper
@Nom de Plume:
yep. whites will make up 68-70% this year. hard to say accurately, as trump is exciting a good number of whites who usually stay home but also pissing off a bunch of non-whites who usually stay home.
if trump gets 60% of em this year he’s looking at a floor of about 41-42% on voting day just from white people.
D58826
@NR: Given the unpopularity of Iran and the nuclear deal I can just see the legions of Americans flocking to Bernie s banner once the fact that he belonged to a Trotskyite organization that supported the hostage takers in 1979.
NR
@redshirt: Can we kill the bullshit talking point that “Sanders never got attacked,” please?
NR
@D58826: If they have to go back 40 years to attack Sanders, that’s pretty sad. At least Hillary was nice and gave them much more recent scandals to use.
D58826
from Huffington post. Well he seems to want a war with all of Islam and that will do it.
redshirt
@NR: You’re hilarious. And deluded. At least you’re voting for Clinton.
chopper
@NR:
damn, he took some brutal hits there. I’m surprised there was anything left of the guy.
D58826
@NR: You haven’t figured out yet that the GOP would spit on the grave of their Mother if it helped them win an election. Yes they would go back 40 years to drag up something that has relevance today with the nuclear deal and the money transfer to Iran. ‘Soft On Iranian terrorists’ – just fits on a bumper sticker. Hits all of the emotional cords.
NR
@chopper: Cherry-picking at its finest. Go you.
chopper
@NR:
just helping you look like the worthless piece of shit you are.
toodles!
Applejinx
@Botsplainer: But you also think annoying hippies should be beaten to a pulp, so frankly I’m not interested in what you’re thinking.
I could almost, almost rejoice in watching this blog melt down this way. Clinton deserves better than many of you bozos.
Bernie would be getting shellacked: or, rather, he would be having exciting big rallies of people who’d rather rally than vote.
He was right about economic insecurity, right about the corruption, but in the first case Clinton co-opted that message and in the second, it doesn’t matter. They’re all like that. Naive. Of course they are all corrupt lying hacks, at least Clinton has the newly-acquired sense to avoid complacency, and the classic Clintonian ear to the ground telling her ’90s are over, be Bernie this time’. She can have all the credit if she makes it work.
May Hillary, corrupt ol’ shrew with pneumonia that she is, win in a freaking landslide revealing this has ALL been kabuki scripted by literally all the sides. This is no longer a democracy, it’s gone full circus and there are no innocents. Let them play and hopefully there’s also a plan to not flush the damn country further down the toilet.
I honestly believe Trump is fixing to be more of a ‘bust it out’ type (loot the place, light a match, burn it all down and run). Hillary wants to work the Clinton high-approval-ratings trick and I think she can do it, and I think she will do anything to get in a position to try. This is not the same thing as wanting to burn it all down and run away with Clinton Foundation money. That’s more Trump.
NR
@chopper: It’s hilarious that you think what you wrote made me look bad.
Citizen Alan
@Bailey:
I’m amazed you have grown-up pants to offer considering how you conduct yourself as a ridiculous child.
NR
@D58826: Considering that a large portion of the electorate wasn’t even alive at the time you’re talking about, I think you are vastly overestimating the damage those attacks would do.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of Americans think Hillary’s email scandal is a big problem. So like I said, it was awfully nice of her to give them much more recent scandals to work with.
Nom de Plume
@chopper:
Problem for Trump is, he’s not going to get much of anyone else. Hillary will get at least 65% of the Latino vote, and probably 90+% of the black vote. Put ’em together, and Hillary gets probably 80% of the non-white vote.
NR
@Nom de Plume:
You know that’s less than the 71% Obama got in 2012, right?
Cain
@redshirt:
I would agree with that… he’d try to do some bullshit rise above it all.. maybe it might get the millenials more involved I don’t know.. but most of the other demographics, it will be a disaster.
Chris
@D58826:
@D58826:
Ugh.
Spent the morning at the local synagogue with candidates for House and Senate races answering questions from the audience. Fully half the questions were about Israel or related Middle East issues. Both Democrats got pushback for supporting the Iran deal, one of them getting unprompted audience protests that Iran totally hadn’t had most of their enriched uranium removed by the deal as the Dems claimed. (Thank God, the rabbi eventually came back with a fact-check from his smartphone correcting the hecklers). Republican responses slamming the deal got cheeres and claps. So did their promises not to let Syrian refugees into the country unless the FBI director could certify that the risk of terrorism they posed was zero. And much controversy early on around the Democratic House candidate, over whether or not he had made a scandalous comparison between Jewish 1930s refugees and Syrian modern day refugees.
There is much to be ashamed of in my fellow citizens. And anything related to the Middle East tens to bring it out like nobody’s business.
Nom de Plume
@NR:
That’s why I said “at least” 65%, based on the latest polling information I could find on Latinos. I am using a worst-case scenario. If I’m going to be more optimistic, I would say she gets 75% of Latinos and 98% of blacks.
Cain
@WaterGirl:
Trump is not going to do Republicans any favors, the man is going to make both parties come to heel. By the end of the 4 years, both parties will be gunning to fuck him over. We just need to make sure that nobody in the supreme court dies until that time is over. Congress has the power of the purse strings, but this man is going to do everything he can to fuck over congress. It might even cause unity between both parties, I don’t know.. but what I do know is that this man is going to be a complete disaster on every front.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@D58826: That’s been the Republican position for the last 20 years, a promise to move our embassy to Jerusalem.
Cain
@NR:
What? No, the biggest will be all the crap that got Trump as a presidential candidate and if he wins.. it will be on the media and the republican party and of course the voting public.
chopper
@NR:
hah! trust me, scrote, I’m only helping in that regard. You’ve been doing the heavy lifting for a while now.
D58826
@NR: The GOP ran on ‘who lost China’ for years. Appeasement and Munich have been a popular item this year. They would make sure that the folks to young to rem ember knew all about the hostages.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Applejinx:
You left out collecting the insurance money.
D58826
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And they never did anything about it when they were in the WH because they knew it was diplomatic suicide. And having it in the platform is not the same thing as making a public commitment to Bibi. Trump is just crazy enough to do it.
chopper
@Nom de Plume:
I don’t think AA turnout is going to be what it was in 2008 or even 2012, but hilz is going to get all those votes.
id like to see an update on hilz’s gotv numbers among Latinos tho.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@D58826: I agree, I was just pointing out it’s been their party’s position since forever(I’m thinking back to St. Ronnie).
catclub
@redshirt:
well put.
Tim C.
1) We don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s hard.
2) If talking about it here makes anyone feel better, (it does for me at times) then go for it.
3) If it’s making you more and more anxious (it does for me at times) then go do something productive.
4) Vote.
5) Give cash to Clinton and down ballot races.
6) Get out there and help GOTV
That is all.
rikyrah
Then Hillary doesn’t need to be polite when she calls him a liar.
Jesse
@JGabriel: If you don’t like comparisons between Sanders and Trump, maybe consider acting less like a Trump voter.
“Someone questioned the infallibility of our guy! To the trenches!”
No one called Bernie a lying con man. Cole implied that Bernie wasn’t a detail guy and relied, implicitly and explicitly, on how the Power of the People would fix anything. It’s a fair cop.
And we’ve still got NR in here, talking about how “clearing the field”- I missed the part where the field got cleared, btw, considering I remember at least four candidates in the Dem primary- anyway, setting up Hillary Clinton as the nominee was “malpractice”. Jesus.
RK
So Cole is blaming his support for the Iraq War on the media? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Facts don’t matter much in tribal affairs. Just ask Cole.
PIGL
“Public evil enters the house of each man, the gates of his courtyard cannot keep it out, it leaps over the high wall; let him flee to a corner of his bed chamber, it will certainly find him out.”
The ancient Greek sage, Solon, quoted by John Ralston Saul.
Evil is upon you. The corrupted Numenoreans are all but bringing victims to Sauron’s new temple….bringing them to be burned. And after November 2nd, they very well might.
Jesse
@NR: So you’re saying well-known charisma machine and progressive firebrand Tim Kaine would be crushing it at the top of the ticket, but is doomed to defeat in second position.
Joe Biden would totally win if he ran for President, unlike all the other times he already ran!
Do you think about things at all before you write them down?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jesse:
No. SATSQ.
Kay
My daughter’s joining up in Pittsburgh. So funny. She used to tease me for “caucusing” when she was in high school- she thought the whole idea was amusing- now she’s like, I don’t know, haranguing her neighbors and looking for “meet ups”.
She’s horrified by Trump. I wish I could reassure her but I don’t know. I can’t really deal with Trumpism. It’s unlike what I’m familiar with. Beats the hell out of me.
the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is all I can say :)
henqiguai
@Cermet(#205):
If he was so viable, why did he drop out with virtually no showing in the polls during the Primary? His viability was shown to be virtually zero.
Another Scott
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
This.
But there are far too many people out there who would vote for Chuthlu over a woman or over Hillary. How many? I like to think that there’s only a set of dead-enders like that, and they’ll be swamped by new voters who will crawl over yooge walls and stand in line for 20 hours if necessary to vote against Donnie.
But we can’t be complacent…
Cheers,
Scott.
NR
@chopper: You really are a sad, pathetic little man. I pity you.
NR
@Jesse: Neither of them have Hillary’s massive baggage. So yes, they would be doing better.
And btw, Hillary doesn’t exactly burn it up in the charisma department either.
Kay
@Cermet:
I’m convinced if it hadn’t been email it would have been something else. I believe that because the way they treated the email was fucking ridiculous
Nothing about what she did justified 18 months of daily reporting. It was a smear job. They went in believing she is dishonest and set out to prove what they already believed. Anything would have been a “scandal”- anything.
redshirt
@NR: It’s rich of you to attack another when you literally never make a positive point.
randy khan
@Bailey:
I see that you’re back. So sorry I’ve missed so much of the thread.
But that list is, uh, interesting.
Cory Booker is a first-term Senator (barely halfway through that term), and you may have noticed he’s black. Two black candidates in a row probably was not the way to go.
Elizabeth Warren, so far as I can tell, hasn’t the slightest interest in running for President.
Most Democrats I know really don’t like Cuomo at all (although I’ll say he knows how to work with Republicans, it’s not a compliment in his case).
Kristen Gillibrand was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Clinton. I suppose she might have run if Clinton hadn’t been running, but she’s not particularly well known outside of New York.
I live in the D.C. area, and O’Malley was not a good candidate because he was not a good candidate. He’s also widely disliked after two terms as Maryland’s governor.
Kaine is my Senator, and he’s swell. While I think he was a reasonable progressive choice, he’d have had a hard time in the Democratic primaries because his record is mixed on some points.
Gotta go make dinner, so I probably won’t have much time to play tonight. I’m kind of sad about that.
Bill
@Citizen_X: “Anybody want to talk me down over this ABC/Post poll?”
Same answer I give to my friend worried if Trump wins: Scores of top CIA and DoD upper mucky-ups have publicly code-signaled a green light. An obvious patsy is Rafael Cruz (was going to be Ted, until he pooped his pants). Ha ha, I jest. We’re fucked.
Ohio Mom
Lost in all of this: Trump has never held an elective office. Not county commissioner, not dog catcher, not secretary of the PTO or the block association.
Just think of that, in the most powerful country in the world, one of our candidates is completely without any relevant experience, and this fact is hardly ever brought up, as if it is completely irrelevant. That alone gobsmacks me.
Johannes
@Chris: The Rupert Giles School of Political Theory. I approve.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ohio Mom: To a lot of Trump supporters, the lack of political experience is an asset.
Brachiator
@redshirt:
This is exactly what pundits and wise posters said back when the Republican primaries began.
How did that work out?
Trump has got ahead in part because he keeps letting people who are smarter than him defeat themselves. And this includes the jackass media who now believe that telling the truth is not the essential mission of journalism.
redshirt
@Brachiator: I mean only in the sense that a Romney type candidate could be sold as moderate and controlled, whereas even the MSM can’t pull that off when it comes to Trump.
D58826
eagle 34 steelers 3. somebody better check on Cole
Brachiator
@Ohio Mom:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I said before and say again that Trump’s main line of attack will be that Clinton’s knowledge and experience doesn’t count because of her dishonesty and extremely poor judgement.
People forget that he won hearts and minds early in the primaries because he attacked other Republicans for being wrong and out of touch, even if he lied about his own positions.
Also, he keeps selling the lie that he is the most successful businessman ever, and his terrific executive experience will make up for any lack of political experience.
Also, a purported lack of deep political experience is a negative only if you are black. So, Republicans could bash Obama for not having a long political resume while embracing Trump as a heroic outsider.
ETA. The Constitution is deliberately silent about prior political experience with respect to the presidency or other federal elective office.
Brachiator
@redshirt:
I’m not seeing that Trump supporters care what the media think about him. Newspapers have been endorsing Johnson or Clinton more than they have been endorsing Trump.
Brachiator
@NR:
As a wisely foolish man once said,
Since we don’t have a time machine we can use to rewind the Democratic primary, I don’t know why you want to argue a point that is so utterly pointless.
JGabriel
@TriassicSands:
Thank you. That very succinctly summarizes the point I was making.
Another Scott
@Mandalay: I don’t see Sanders mentioning the DNC in his announcement speech:
That was a universal theme in his speeches. It was with a wink and a nod when he used the same language to convince his supporters that he was calling Hillary “corrupt”. He was more than happy to have his supporters think that he was calling her that, though.
His war on the DNC came later.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
The Democratic party is US ! We’uns are the USofA Democratic party… all else is irrelevant details. We contribute, we volunteer, we call our representatives, WE VOTE!
That is all.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Another thing to remember about Trump is that he didn’t win a majority of Republican votes in the primaries. He only won a majority of the delegates because of the way the brainiacs at the RNC decided to make a bunch of their races winner-take-all.
I don’t think someone who can’t even win a majority of his own party is some political Superman that needs to be feared.
Lots of Republicans still don’t like Trump.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Bernie Sanders, is that you? Trump won his party’s nomination. Any of his opponents would have had to beat him under the same rules. It doesn’t make him a Superman, but it does make him an amateur who rolled the professionals, including Jeb the Inevitable.
chopper
@NR:
aw, your cutesy indignance is like sugar. I just put a spoonful of it in my coffee.
you probably cry during shampoo commercials.
Bob Westal
@JGabriel: My support for Bernie was quite highly qualified but you’re absolutely right. Actually, I’m not sure that encouraging despair is particularly productive either. We’re only really fucked when we give up, and fatalism won’t help.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Westal:
Exactly right. But a lot of people seem to get some comfort out of panicking. Never appealed to me, but it takes all kinds.
rikyrah
Have faith in Hillary ?
Elie
@rikyrah:
Hear Hear!
daveNYC
@rikyrah: There’s a saying in finance, “Hope is a crappy hedge.”
Faith that a candidate will be able to counter extreme levels of bullshit when any of the checks one might normally hope for are not in play seems poorly thought out. So far Hillary hasn’t been able to kill the trust issue, nor has she been able to crush Trump despite his rhetoric that usually manages to combine insulting the listener with insulting their intelligence. This isn’t due to any mistakes on her part, there’s a limit to what can be done when the media doesn’t attempt to enforce at least some basic connection to reality on the part of candidates, but to paraphrase, ‘you go into an election with the electorate and media you have, not the electorate and media you wish you had’.
So it’d be great to have faith that Hillary would come up with some verbal silver bullet that would stop Trump dead in his tracks, but that’s like hoping that Trump would say something so out there that it’d kill his campaign. It hasn’t happened yet, and from all appearances there’s nothing of the sort that could be said to have that result.