Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We still have time to mess this up!

Battle won, war still ongoing.

No Justins, No Peace

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

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Concert-ed Effort

Open Thread: Concert-ed Effort

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(Insert your own Chris Christie joke here)
***********

Buzzfeed:

… The show coincided with a coordinated push in Cleveland to turn out voters, as well as the significant operation currently running in the state. Of a dozen and a half volunteers that spoke with BuzzFeed News, nearly all canvassed in this city’s East Side.

One of them was Shay Ford, a 22-year-old who said her favorite part was when Clinton came out and “showed love” to Cleveland. “I didn’t think she wasn’t coming.”

They canvassed where voters fell into one of three categories, according to a wide range of starry-eyed young black people looking forward to laying eyes on Beyoncé for the first time. A third of voters had already voted for Clinton; another third planned to vote on Election Day. The last third, echoing a sentiment people inside the Clinton campaign dedicated to turning out the black vote dread, didn’t believe voting would in any way help their communities or situation.

Modern organizing programs of political campaigns like to have organizers say they’re your neighbors when they knock on your door. To the extent that this is an effective strategy, Clinton camp’s decision to have volunteers clock a couple of hours for the chance to see the concert is pretty genius…

Politico:

…[T]he free concerts aren’t just there to draw Donald Trump-sized crowds. They’re part of an under-the-radar tactic that Clinton’s Brooklyn team believes is a powerful organizing tool that’s already yielding results for the campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts — especially in the critical counties and among the demographic groups Clinton needs most.

The candidate with famously high unfavorable ratings doesn’t even have to make the pitch herself for the strategy to work: she spoke for five minutes in front of the crowd of 10,000 here, letting the headliners take the night — and even then the performers barely said her name, instead simply imploring the audience to vote.

Instead, her campaign focuses on the distribution of the free tickets themselves in the days before of the event, which lets the local teams collect, analyze, and mobilize thousands of new names in communities where they see warning signs, like young African Americans in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County.

And already, the campaign is seeing signs that the concerts are having their desired effect — including when artists are paired with traditional political surrogates: Ahead of President Barack Obama’s appearance with James Taylor, for example, the local operatives handed out tickets across the street from an early voting site in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Voting turnout there jumped 80 percent compared to the previous day, making it the single largest voting day there so far — and bumping up county-wide turnout 16 percent by itself.

“It’s about energy, it’s about mobilization. We who work in politics or cover politics have been thinking about this election for a year and a half, but there are still people who have not in some of these communities,” said Addisu Demissie, Clinton’s director of national voter outreach and mobilization. “There are a lot of ways we talk to voters — through the press, through direct voter contact — but this is just another tool in the arsenal to get to communities that aren’t necessarily engaged.”…

The push, which is especially pronounced in Pennsylvania as a way to jolt voters who don’t have access to early voting, has caught Trump’s eye: “I didn’t have to bring JLo or Jay Z, I am here all by myself,” he grumbled in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Friday, and re-raised the argument Saturday morning Florida.

Indeed, the concerts have made up some of the biggest crowds of Clinton’s campaign — Lopez’ concert in Miami drew 7,500 — which has been concerned that this month’s letter from FBI Director Jim Comey would drain enthusiasm from some of its less committed backers, even if it energized Clinton’s base supporters…

Reader Interactions

231Comments

  1. 1.

    David ?▶️?Blue Wall?▶️? Koch

    NBC/WSJ Poll — Nov 3 thur Nov 5 — 1,282 Likely Voters

    Clinton…………48%
    Drumpf………..43%
    ———————————————————————–

    ABC/Post Poll — Nov 1 thur Nov 4 — 1,685 Likely Voters

    Clinton…………49%
    Drumpf………..44%

  7. 7.

    PatrickG

    Wait, he found a burner phone?

    ETA: joke made sense on my head. I meant he’s apparently got Twitter surrogates. Take that, staffers! No one constrains the Trump.

  10. 10.

    Betsy

    I asked a knowledgeable person (prob shdnt say who) what possible difference a midnight rally by Sec’y Clinton here in Raleigh could make on Election Eve.

    The answer is: Closeout! It sucks all the air out of the news cycle on Election Day morning, limits any room for Trump news.

    And also — hashtag #stamina

  12. 12.

    WarMunchkin

    Ah yes, the “filthy” Beyonce lyrics, you know, like the ones Ann Coulter quoted that actually are Nicki Minaj lyrics but they all look the same amirite?

  16. 16.

    PsiFighter37

    @David ?▶️?Blue Wall?▶️? Koch: Smells like victory!

    In the meantime, I am listening to my wife argue with my father-in-law’s decision to vote for Gary Johnson in PA…in Chinese. I’m mildly bemused / hoping she is laying down the law in the foreign tongue.

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    All i wanted was a burger…i went to his one place i saw reviews for, but it wasn’t what i expected. Called myself walking to the place for a burger…barely an incline and my leg was bothering me. I turned away from that place and decided fuq it i’ll get some drive thru. so i check the trusted Google Maps for a DRIVE THRU Burger King and head out in the rental. It takes me to a corner dining…NO drive thru??. So i like fuq it there was a 7Eleven up the street right? So I driving up and down these damn hills of San Francisco and now it’s nighttime!! i ended up driving for an additional 45min til I found a Walgreens but the streets here are like Tulane Ave…no left turns. So i end up going up and down the same street and up and down side streets for another 15min. i never made it to Burger King or even 7Eleven. Instead where did I end up…IHOP!! But hey I got my burger!!

  18. 18.

    gf120581

    Isn’t Ted Nugent supposed to be dead by now? He predicted he’d be dead if Obama got reelected.

  19. 19.

    Jeffro

    @Lizzy L:

    To quote a local celebrity — Al Davis, bless his heart — “Just win, baby.”

    HRC inauguration speech, Jan 2017:
    “…I have said repeatedly that I want to be president for all Americans, whether they voted for me, against me, or did not vote at all. But – as we saw in this election, and have unfortunately seen growing in intensity for decades – there is a growing desire on the part of some that if they cannot have their way entirely, or can no longer win elections, then they are willing to obstruct, go against historical precedent, and defy cherished norms to bring the entire country to a halt. That’s unacceptable. That, I will call out at every turn, and those obstructionists will learn just how alone they are.

    So I ask those in the Senate, in the House, and those who vote for them: let’s work together to solve the issues of the day and keep moving forward. Neither side or party or faction is going to get everything it wants. But that doesn’t matter, as long as we are working together to take positive action to help the citizens of this great country…it used to be called ‘governing’ ”

    (Or just, “ready or not, assholes, here I come…”)

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jim Acosta @ Acosta
    Now Trump crowd in PA booing Springstein’s “Born in the USA”

  27. 27.

    hovercraft

    @redshirt: Was Ted Nugent tonight? I thought he was with him tomorrow, I was looking forward to the battle of the Rock Stars. I wonder who’s the bigger draw, The Boss or Nugent? This is the real reason republicans hate Hollywood and celebrities, they always back democrats, and leave all the B-lister to the GOP.

  29. 29.

    RSR

    Philly (and PA) is almost entirely election day only GOTV–no early here and very limited absentee. Weather is going to be great both Monday and Tuesday according to accuweather. This rally, especially with the location and Springsteen addition announced today, will be a huge civic event tomorrow. I RSVP’d on the Springsteen news. We’re only a 20 minute walk away. Not sure I’ll head out; we’ll see.

  30. 30.

    gf120581

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The ghost of Reagan is spinning like a turbine.

    How many stops does Trump have? My bet is these aren’t from any strategy; they’re just him trying to cram in as much adulation as he can get before he loses on Tuesday.

  31. 31.

    Punchy

    The candidate with famously high unfavorable ratings

    This shit is so played. It’s like the NRA complaining that about a sudden lack of deer to hunt. Or Catholic priests bemoaning the inability of little boys to trust them. Or Cole bitching about never getting married.

  33. 33.

    Citizen Alan

    @redshirt:

    Given Victoria’s insistence that Obama was the Antichrist, I’d assumed she was hidden away in a cave somewhere awaiting the Rapture.

  34. 34.

    japa21

    Had dinner with the son and DIL tonight (the local one not the Army one) and found out we are going to be grandparents again. Talked about a lot of things and of course did get around to the election.
    My DIL is from the Philippines and got her green card two years ago. Although none of us think Trump really has a chance of winning, she said that if she did she would hold off on her application for citizenship because she would want it to have his name on it.

  35. 35.

    hovercraft

    (Insert your own Chris Christie joke here)

    CC is the joke.

    trump is so dumb, he thinks the concerts are about just getting a big crowd

    The tweet should have ended after the first four words.

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Time is a human construct, there is no such thing in the modern world as ‘solar time’. Put a stick in the ground & note when it has no shadow because the sun is directly overhead. It will not be noon where you live except if you accidentally hit it exactly right.

    There were riots and people were burned alive when ‘railroad time”was enacted in the US and creating the system we have today.

    Years ago I was in Batshit Bachmanns territory (not Batshit Tom Emmer’s district). And brain damaged dipshits called CST “Gods time”) They did not like ti when I explained to them that noon CST in Central MN was not really noon to God. They were, and still are morans in every sense of that word

  42. 42.

    Schlemazel

    @Dork:
    He, like Carrot Top, became heavily involved in steroid abuse.CT has remained quiet but Joe has proven PEDs cause brain damage & destroy comedy.

  45. 45.

    David ?▶️?Blue Wall?▶️? Koch

    acqueline Alemany Verified account @JaxAlemany

    Last minute advisory from Trump OH camp: Sarah Palin to make 4 stops in Ohio tomorrow on behalf of Trump.

    8:51 PM – 6 Nov 2016

    0 replies 27 retweets 25 likes

    Game over, man! Game over! No way Hillz recovers from this.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Twitter Nixon and/or Jack Donaghy voice: Good god

    Mark HalperinVerified account
    ‏@ MarkHalperin
    It’s the oldest story in presidential politics: girl gets FBI director; girl loses FBI director; girl gets FBI director back.

  48. 48.

    redshirt

    Kelly Ayyotte actually just had a cute ad of her and her daughter fooling around playing basketball. Good ad for the no-nothings I think.

  58. 58.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: The union head already stated, last week, that they’ll go back to work for election day if they haven’t resolved things before then, then go back out on strike on Wednesday.

  79. 79.

    japa21

    @Adam L Silverman: Teaches me not to trust Google for translations. Obviously, I am not a linguist. Won’t even try for the Arabic response, though my guess is it would be very close.

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Face: I have no idea what, if anything, he’s taking. I can tell you it is very, very hard to stay that cut down in terms of body fat % all the time. Given the way his face appears to have changed, I’d think its more likely he’s on human growth hormone. This would explain the ability to maintain under 7% bod fat all the time and his face/head appearing to have gotten bigger and more pronounced. Honestly, I don’t really care one way or the other or think about it much.

  91. 91.

    hovercraft

    @Betsy:
    Obama’s Manassas VA and the Charlotte NC speeches on the eve of the 2008 election was where huge, it was a poignant moment because we knew he was going to win, but it was also the day his grandmother died. It serves as a mic drop and a thank you to your supporters. I’m sure the pundits will tell us tomorrow that it’s a sign of how nervous they are, and how they need to shore up their base. Photo.

  98. 98.

    Miss Bianca

    Oh, this is so cool. SO.COOL. Mere words cannot express the cool of this strategy. Thank you, Beyonce, Bruce et al. Thank you POTUS and FLOTUS, thank you Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Big Dog. LET’S TAKE THIS THING!

  100. 100.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The union head already stated, last week, that they’ll go back to work for election day if they haven’t resolved things before then,

    That was reported in some places but is not true. I’m looking for a statement by Union President Willie Brown but haven’t located it yet.

    Here is a story about an injunction SEPTA tried to get to force the union back to work on Tuesday. The court turned them down.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: We live in a society that is more or less based on Roman (from Rome, not your hobbyhorse about Constantinople) life. Variations and oddities and all, but fundamentally Rome is our starting point.

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Dear God, the eye-bleed. W.T.F?!

    ETA: Honest to Dog, I thought y’all were joking with the Carrot Top stuff. Or making an obscure reference to Trump. Now I don’t know what to think.

  111. 111.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Punchy: He is the unfortunate result of the government’s secret attempt to clone Wendy from the fast food franchise. Unlike X-23, the female clone of Wolverine, this attempt is completely irredeemable.

  112. 112.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    Aargh, I see we still have the bug that editing throws you into moderation. That was fixed briefly.

    I was trying to edit my comment #103 to post a link to this story which clearly says that SEPTA tried to get the courts to stop the Philadelphia strike for Tuesday, but failed.

    There was a statement by the transit union president sometime last week denying the rumors that they’d agreed to suspend the strike for Tuesday, I can’t find that statement but am still looking. You can read his comments in the above article about how the elections won’t work as leverage.

  119. 119.

    David ?▶️?Blue Wall?▶️? Koch

    PANIC MODE: TRUMP RAGES AT ‘RIGGED’ FBI

    Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Sunday blasted FBI director James Comey’s announcement that Hillary Clinton will face no charges in connection with newly discovered emails the bureau has been reviewing.

    Trump said Comey’s decision is proof that things in Washington are “rigged” in Clinton’s favor.

    “Right now, she is being protected by a rigged system. It’s a totally rigged system,” Trump told supporters in Michigan. “You can’t review 650,000 new emails in eight days. You can’t do it, folks.”

  132. 132.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: Interesting that the Jewish New Year marks, more or less, the beginning of the academic year.

    ETA: My undergrad’s academic year tended to match the Oxbridge system.

  133. 133.

    seaboogie

    @PatrickG:

    Wait, he found a burner phone?

    Heh. So when I was phonebanking in NorCal today, we were to bring our phones and laptops/tablets with us. Lady next to me had difficulties with her phone, so the staff brought her a “burner” phone. We just looked at each other and laughed. It was like spy movie meets Dem/Prog potluck dinner.

  134. 134.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodinger’s cat: Its a hybrid. Solar adjusted lunar calendar. So it has a three month (give or take a day) wobble compared to the Gregorian calendar. The Muslim (hijrah) calendar is a completely lunar calendar, which is why it wobbles one full month every year compared to the Gregorian calendar.

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Depends, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. It wobbles every three years. Some earlier, some later. This year it was in October.

  140. 140.

    Miss Bianca

    @David ?▶️?Blue Wall?▶️? Koch: That asshole Comey seems to be fucked both coming and going. And I say, good. Good.

    I am astonished by the quivering intensity of my desire to see that partisan douchenozzle fired. Straight up FIRED, and have PBO name chapter and verse as to the incrediblly disgraceful, distasteful reasons as to why. And to announce that the FBI is going to undergo a thorough house-cleaning.

    Where’s my pony?

  148. 148.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Can you report out a link for that? Because:

    On Sunday, the city of Philadelphia filed a motion seeking an injunction to temporarily halt the strike, and Gov. Tom Wolf said he would file a brief in support of an injunction to end the strike completely.

    “Though there are extensive efforts to minimize the effect of any transit strike on Election Day, unquestionably, such an Election-Day strike will make it practically impossible for many Philadelphians to participate in this election,” said City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante, according to the local NBC affiliate. Tulante added that hundreds of thousands of people are expected to cast ballots in the city on Tuesday.

    The Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Transportation Authority was already seeking a legal injunction to force its workers back on the job on election day. A hearing is scheduled for Monday morning.

    [. . .]

    The union is arguing that the transportation authority is using the presidential race as a ploy to avoid honest negotiations.

    “SEPTA Board Chairman Pat Deon . . . is the one using the election as leverage,” said Willie Brown, the president of Transit Workers Union Local 234, in a statement. “This is not the way to end a strike or get an agreement. It’s foolhardy to launch a legal Hail Mary pass designed to make SEPTA’s high-priced lawyers richer and circumvent the collective bargaining process.”

    Jamie Horwitz, a spokesman for the Transportation Workers Union Local 234, has told ABC News that the union does not expect the strike to affect voter turnout in the city.

    “Our members are really solid; nothing is moving in this city,” he said of the workers’ unity and the strike’s effect on bus, subway and trolley transportation.

  149. 149.

    BR

    @PsiFighter37:

    A local acquaintance — a 70-something Chinese-American man who voted GOP all his life — told me a couple months back he is voting for Clinton this year. That Trump was a bigot and that he couldn’t stay GOP and that he had to be stopped. He also unregistered as a GOPer.

  151. 151.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    “SEPTA Board Chairman Pat Deon . . . is the one using the election as leverage,” said Willie Brown, the president of Transit Workers Union Local 234, in a statement.

    That’s rich. So when the union picked their strike date it just emerged fully formed from the head of Zeus, but worrying it might affect the election, why, that’s trying to use the election for leverage!

  155. 155.

    Suzanne

    Mr. Suzanne and I spent yesterday canvassing. It was our last shift this year. We already voted. Now it’s just time to let go and let FSM.

    I need some positive distraction to get me through Tuesday. Let’s help Cole pick out some new furniture. If he has to have a comfy chair in his living room, I suggest this classic Eames chair:

  158. 158.

    trollhattan

    Don’t know whether it’s been mentioned: Sam Wang has Dem senate takeover probability at 80%; Clinton win at 99%. Make it so.

  159. 159.

    cckids

    @lamh36: lol. Last year, my daughter was on a solo road trip up the CA coast; she spent a night in San Fran, had the same problem. She actually got unnerved driving there, found a parking garage & walked around the waterfront (and where-ever), sightseeing. Later, trying to find a dinner place, she also ended up at IHOP, because it was right by her hotel. She caught some crap from her foodie-type friends, but she was very happy with it.

  160. 160.

    hueyplong

    In my role as broken record, I again call for Obama to fire and then pardon Comey. Chaffetz could spend a year or two chasing that rabbit to see what “crime” that two-timing Comey had committed on behalf of Hitlery while he was assuring GOPers of the FBI’s assistance in the election.

  164. 164.

    GrandJury

    @Punchy: That just reminded me why huffpost is in fact not any different than the rest of the media. Always gotta play the both sides do it game.

    Trump assaults women and hates immigrants and cheats on his taxes and lies constantly and never met a business he couldn’t bankrupt and btw where are the tax returns and and and…..buh but emails.

    Fuck you Huffgluepost.

  165. 165.

    Mike J

    Oy. Raced yesterday. Still sore. I usually drive my club’s boat. Yesterday I was foredeck crew on somebody else’s Etchells. You can tell how old the people on a sailboat are by where their position is. Front to back, youngest to oldest.

    Dutch Treat and a Klondike bar is the proper way to recover.

  168. 168.

    magurakurin

    @cckids: Don’t know about access issues but BurgerMeister is pretty damn good. I went to the one in Cole Valley just off of the Muni train, but there is one in the Castro on Church near the Market trolley line. Worth a look if you are looking for a burger in SF.

  171. 171.

    NR

    Couple of statistics from Florida early vote:

    Hillary passed Obama in total black voters who participated in Early Voting in Florida.
    2012: 539,000
    2016: 564,000 (not counting today)

    And well over 50% of all FL Hispanic early voters have either no voting history, or just 1 of last 3 elections. Among NPA, it’s 2/3rds.

    So long as Dems aren’t cannibalizing too much of their election day vote, this is good news.

  174. 174.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (tablet): I screwed up my reading of the reporting. As I indicated in an earlier comment, where the reporting indicated SEPTA representative I, for some strange reason, processed it as Union representative.

  180. 180.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: No, no special prosecutor. The minute you do that you lose complete control of the investigation. Doesn’t matter that they’re not an independent prosecutor, but they still have too much power to basically look into whatever they want if they can tie it to their original charter. The DOJ IG and the investigative lead at DOJ’s/FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility should be tasked with doing a thorough investigation and whatever is found that may be criminal should be turned over to the professional prosecutors in the public corruption section to decide whether prosecution is or is not warranted. And this counts for everyone involved in this mess.

  182. 182.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Cool. I have read the rest of the thread. But I have no idea why a SEPTA rep would say the union was coming in for an election-day one-off.

    We’ll what happens tomorrow.

  190. 190.

    Amir Khalid

    Springsteen campaigned for Kerry in 2004, as I recall: there was a Vote for Change tour that year with the E Street Band and a number of other classic-rock acts like John Fogerty. He also campaigned for Obama in 2008 and 2012. But he was a reticent about making a big public endorsement of Hillary, despite preferring her as a candidate; he said in Rolling Stone that when it came to political statements, he figured a musician had only so many pullets to fire. Still, I’m glad to see him publicly on board with her.

  191. 191.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (tablet): When I went back and reread it, I think what the SEPTA rep was trying to say was that they were seeking an injunction or to enjoin them through the courts to make them do so. It really wasn’t reported very clearly.

  192. 192.

    NR

    @redshirt: I’d say the early vote looks good, but there’s an important qualifier: We still don’t know who’s going to show up on election day. Dems could still potentially get swamped. Hopefully more low-propensity Dem voters will show up on Tuesday.

  200. 200.

    danielx

    @efgoldman:

    I’ll buy that. But if/when the Obama-appointed AG starts an investigation, you know the RWNJ flying monkeys are going to have the vapors. Although that being the case, i suppose it doesn’t matter.

    Agreed, but I can’t see where it’s going to make them more crazy than they already are. It will be good for them.

  204. 204.

    Mike J

    Less than 24 hours until voting starts on election day. Dixville Notch will vote at midnight, Tuesday morning.

    I’m predicting 13-8, Clinton

  206. 206.

    NoraLenderbee

    Reposting an exchange from earlier thread because I love it so much:

    @Corner Stone:

    HRC does not “need” to be humble.

    @Baud:

    I would be perfectly happy if her victory speech on Tuesday consisted of her holding up both middle fingers in the air for 10 minutes.

  207. 207.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    Feel free to come by anytime to work off your stress that way here. Will leave the door open. Help yourself to anything in the fridge.

    (Gave up accepting allowing stress to be an option some 15 years ago.)

  209. 209.

    Peale

    @danielx: I don’t know what to do about it. Do flying monkeys run on a renewable energy source? I figured after 7 years and 9 months they’d run out of energy. But they howl and howl and just fly faster. Maybe we just get them flying so fast that they reach escape velocity and we never hear from them again?

  210. 210.

    Amir Khalid

    I meant “bullets”, guys! “Bullets”! I don’t even know how I managed that typo, with B and P so far apart on my laptop keyboard.

  212. 212.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bess:

    I’m going to be up in SF for one day later this month and I’m fully planning to use public transit the whole time. Trying to rent a car for a one-day trip would just be dumb, especially in an area that has great public transit.

  214. 214.

    Fair Economist

    @Mike J:

    Anybody feel that? A DDOS attack? Is twitter down?

    I can’t get through either. It’s like some foreign entity controlling a lot of hackers wants to be absolutely sure a certain Presidential candidate can’t say something stupid on Twitter.

  218. 218.

    Peale

    @Fair Economist: reminds me that Trump’s camp claimed to have built this huge social media destroying army that it would unleash in these end times. Claimed to have spent $70 million a month on it. (So don’t ask again where all those donations went. It was spent on a secret weapon!). I’d laugh if they broke twitter trying to convince mmunicate with each other the last day. orca II.

  220. 220.

    Redshift

    @Major Major Major Major:

    he said yesterday on Twitter during the nerd slap-fight that if he could, he would adjust one of the numbers on his model, which would bring her down to about 93%.

    I think you may have misunderstood, based on a post Wang has up on the site now (or maybe he expressed it differently.) In the current post on this topic, he says not that he wants to adjust his model, just that estimating poll error is a judgment, and if he made the most conservative estimate he thinks could be justified, the win percentage would be 91-93%. To get 538’s estimate, he would have to assume an average error in state polls of 5%, which has never happened in the real world.

  227. 227.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid: True story: I was a freshman in the pre-veterinary program at a midwestern university when the first chicken gun was being perfected. All of us had to take either Dairy Science 101 or Poultry Science 101, and I chose DS because of stories about feeding live chickens into the test gun.

    Of course, it turned out that part of the Dairy Science practicum involved taking a 900lb bovine’s temperature… rectally. And even that wasn’t nearly as horrifying as watching the requisite film about the collection of champion bull semen, given the class was 30% young women hoping to someday be pet doctors and 70% young men planning on inheriting the family dairy business.

  229. 229.

    magurakurin

    @Mnemosyne: San Fransico has adequate public transport. If anyone thinks it is great they have never been to place with great transport. And the one day and three day tourist pass is a decent deal but poorly designed. It is too big. The way to go, though, if you are wanting to ride the cable cars.

  230. 230.

    qwerty42

    @different-church-lady: I want Daylight Savings Time to die in a fire.
    Nah. I won’t notice the days getting shorter through Christmas and New Year, but then comes the slog through January and February, and the short days and cold weather (if we get snow/ice it will almost certainly be then) and it seems grim. (Although precip of any kind would be welcome right now)

  231. 231.

    gratuitous

    Popular media reporters are wondering if this last-minute campaigning by Clinton will have any effect. Do the free concerts sway anyone? Do the large crowds and the big enthusiasm for Clinton mean anything?

    What are “Questions that were never asked about Trump rallies,” Alex? Enthusiastic Trump rallies were presented as prima facie evidence of his supporters’ commitment; there was rarely any interviewing of Trump supporters that went beyond people just excited to be there. Nobody was asked about specific policy proposals, nor was there any probing of supporters’ psyches deeper than making America great again.

    Try to think of the last time you saw an enthusiastic Clinton supporter speaking on the evening news.

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