Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are weird.

Books are my comfort food!

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

When we show up, we win.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

In my day, never was longer.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Sunday Morning Open Thread: *Two* More Sleeps…

Sunday Morning Open Thread: *Two* More Sleeps…

by | 164 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Late last night, I posted a gift link to a longform Atlantic article on the cacophony & infighting among Trump’s top minions. Just in case you want some schadenfreude with your breakfast…


The Puerto Rican thing is not to be sneezed at. There are 137,000 Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia, exactly the sort of people Harris was having trouble reaching. (The national campaign complained Brady wasn’t getting them into the neighborhoods.)

The mayor of Reading is Puerto Rican. He says the rally is the talk of the street. “It woke us up.”

Trump has made immense gains with men, especially young men. If you think that is going to overwhelm the Harris gains with women, you have to point to the last time young men turned out in droves.

I think Democrats hold Arizona. I am less confident in Nevada but not ready to write it off.

There is more to come, and more detail, but it’s not impossible that we will know the new president sometime on November 6th.


 
In summary…


(I’m a Cynic, so I love this even more than the SNL skit!)

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  1. 1.

    lowtechcyclist

    First!​​
     

    ETA: Got the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months. Took advantage of that extra hour, and then some. Feeling pretty damn chipper this morning – might get dressed and run some errands. :-)

  9. 9.

    Baud

    But if Harris wins narrowly, then Trump is electoral poison and the GOP has dropped four out of five elections and won the popular vote just once since 1992.

    Forgets that Trump could win while still losing the popular vote.

  10. 10.

    MazeDancer

    The Harris ground game is staggering.

    In one district in WI, people showed up and they were out of doors. Every Dem in the district had already voted or been visited.

    2K doors per minute (!) being knocked in PA.

    Same everywhere.

    And that’s not counting the phonebanks, textbanks, and PostCards.

    Go get ’em, Dems!

  11. 11.

    TBone

    When the Blue Wave arrives, it will be covered in cat hair fur.

    No outfit is complete without it.

  15. 15.

    Ken

    @Baud: If Harris wins big, I hope we get some post-vote analysis showing which demographics switched most toward her. Some top contenders have to be

    • Women — because Dobbs, as if it needed saying (though apparently it does, for some pollsters)
    • The 20-ish percent of Republican never-Trumpers who were still voting Haley after she’d dropped out
    • Seniors worried about Social Security and Medicare (polls show Harris winning the over-65 vote)
    • Puerto Ricans, for well-known recent events
  16. 16.

    Peale

    Yeah. That map ain’t happening. But I would be amused if November 8th, we were complaining about how she wasted precious time running up the score in Texas when she should have spent time campaigning in Iowa.

  17. 17.

    Scout211

    The SNL happy, cute, sweet sketch contrasted with the Vapid Downfall angry, nasty, mean clip is exactly how both candidates and their campaigns are going. Perfect representation of both.

    I like our chances.

    Keep calm-ala and carry-on-ala jackals!

  18. 18.

    New Deal democrat

    Selzer’s poll in Iowa, showing a 1% lead by Harris. ought to be a big boost to optimism about the election result.

    Selzer is *the* respected pollster in that State. According to Dan Guild, they are “about as close to God as a pollster gets.”
    https://nitter.poast.org/dcg1114/status/1852864217965027697#m

    Even more confidence inspiring is that the Trump campaign was so rattled, they immediately leaked that their own internal poll had Trump up by 5%.

    Why is that in itself really good news? Because Trump won Iowa by 9.4% in 2016, and by 8.2% in 2020. If he has lost 3% *nationally* from his 2020 performance, Harris is going to wipe the floor with him in not just swing States, but a lot of “lean GOP” ones as well.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @New Deal democrat: You almost make me hope Trump wins the popular vote but loses the EC. We might finally get some movement on abolishing that relic.

    But I don’t think he’s going to win the popular vote, he never has.

  20. 20.

    Geminid

    @prostratedragon: Janelle Bynum, the Democratic House candidate in the Oregon 5th CD, is a Florida A&M graduate. Bynum earned a degree in Electrical Engineering there.

    U.Va. number-cruncher Karl Kondyk rates Bynum’s race against incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer a “tossup.” This is the district Blue Dog Curt Schrader used to represent.

  21. 21.

    mappy!

    38. It just stuck. Wishful? Trend lines. The old rubric was something like, if the incumbent is under fifty coming into election day…

  22. 22.

    TBone

    TCM is trolling Donold hard today with the titles lineup:

    Smart Woman

    The Kennel Murder Case

    Nobody Lives Forever

    North by Northwest

    Payment On Demand

    The Damned Don’t Cry

    Touch of Evil

    😆

  23. 23.

    New Deal democrat

    @Ken: Also, I should mention that you don’t leak internal polls that are bad for you, only ones that you think are good for you.

    if +5% in Iowa is a *good* poll for Trump, then how many bad polls must they be sitting on? In particular, what are his internal polls showing about NC that he needs to close out by doing *4* rallies in that State?

  24. 24.

    hueyplong

    @New Deal democrat: I thought the Selzer poll showed Harris up, not by 1, but by 3 (47-44) in Iowa.  This isn’t said as pendantry (though I’ll admit to reveling in it at times), but because she’s much more likely actually to win Iowa if she’s up by 3 in Selzer than if she’s up by 1.

    And I’ve got to admit that the blue 412 EV map is just about the fappiest map I’ve seen since I last glanced at 1936.

    Gotta go.

  26. 26.

    rk

    What is wrong with men? What’s the appeal? He’s a 78 year old, disgusting vulgar lunatic. What do young men see in him?

  27. 27.

    sdhays

    Last night, people were making some comments about North Dakota that sounded like there may be a surprise brewing there too. I haven’t seen any polls out of there. Does anyone know what that might be about?

  28. 28.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    One of the all-time best cold opens SNL has ever done !

    Surprisingly strong editorial endorsement of Kamala from the Staten Island Advance newspaper.

    For people unfamiliar with New York politics, Staten Island has been a Republican stronghold forever.

    Vice President Kamala Harris is the only choice in 2024, and the Advance/SILive.com endorses her enthusiastically and without hesitation.

    We understand a significant portion of conservative-leaning Staten Island will disagree, some vehemently, in support of her opponent.

    Most will base that support on Trump’s “policies” — at least, that is what they will tell you — not his out-of-control, disgusting, hate-filled rhetoric. Or that he refuses, to this day, to accept the fact that he lost the election in 2020, disparaging America and its system of free and fair elections, resulting in a riot on January 6, 2021, an attempt to overthrow the democratic process.

    Trump supporters point to their candidate’s experience in running businesses as the reason he can run America, as well as his get-tough policy on tossing people out of the country.

    When it comes to business acumen, let‘s not forget Donald Trump’s father gave him $413 million to start, yet Donald Trump was forced into bankruptcy six times.

    Ask yourself this simple question: No matter where you stand on policy matters, how would you feel if your children, your grandchildren, your nieces, your nephews, your next-door neighbors’ kids, treated people the way Donald J. Trump treats people?

    h/t https://www.silive.com/opinion/2024/11/for-president-the-advancesilivecom-endorses-kamala-harris.html

  30. 30.

    New Deal democrat

    @hueyplong: You are correct. Thanks.

    While I am at it, here’s another tidbit. Polling USA has Trump up by 3% in OH.

    Trump won Ohio by 8% in both 2016 and 2020. If he is up only 3% now, that’s a 5% shift towards Harris.

  31. 31.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    That Downfall thing.

    “Not now Eric!  Or do you think I had you stay for your insight?” (snerk)

    Last line is a little chilling though. Since that in fact is what he’s going to do.

    I always find it eerie how much one guy there looks like Steven Miller.

  33. 33.

    narya

    @Wyatt Salamanca: My only quibble with that is the notion that he was “forced into” bankruptcy: IMHO, he CHOSE it, so he could avoid paying creditors. And he still got loans! I have/had two friends who had to declare bankruptcy, and I’m here to tell you they couldn’t do fuck-all for years after that (not that folks here aren’t already aware of all of this).

  34. 34.

    hueyplong

    @New Deal democrat: Further on something you said, my single favorite indicator to this point is the Trump campaign saying that their internal polling in Iowa shows him +5 there.

    Not only is that wonderful as a standalone statement, but if you think about it, if their own internal polling really does show them +5, it will mark the first time they ever told the truth about anything.

  35. 35.

    H.E.Wolf

    I’m just being my boring, humdrum, persistent self right through Nov. 5: doing data entry from home for the Democrats.

    My task is updating addresses for voters who’ve moved into or out of in-state swing districts, so that the field organizers and volunteers can work from the most accurate lists possible.

    The phonebankers will be active until the ballot-casting clock has run out… and I plan to keep providing good data for them, the whole way through. :)

  36. 36.

    FDRLincoln

    The +5 internal Iowa Trump poll is devastating by itself. Even if we ignore Selzer, Trump’s own data shows him bleeding out with women voters in general and probably Haley Republicans in particular.

    The “double down on incel young males” strategy doesn’t work, and with just 48 hours left and so much early vote already done, they don’t have time to pivot. Not that Trump would anyway.

    It’s not over yet, but we’ve put some runs on the board in the 8th inning, it’s the 9th now, and our bullpen is better than theirs.

  39. 39.

    TBone

    I don’t agree with the major assumption loudly trumpeted that there will be no consequences, but this illumination of Krasner versus Musk is welcome in my world:

    https://angrybearblog.com/2024/11/elon-escapes

    But he did get unceremoniously chucked back to state court by Judge Gerald Pappert, who flicked the thin-skinned billionaire aside like a bit of noxious pet dander clinging to his judicial robes — which is something anyway.

  40. 40.

    narya

    @H.E.Wolf: How did you get hooked up with that task? Can you do it for a different state than the one in which you’re living? I had already committed to postcards for this cycle, but I could do something like that task in the future. (that is, a task that doesn’t require interacting with actual humans.)

  41. 41.

    Steve LaBonne

    @MazeDancer: In case of a genuine poll tie, you can give Harris an extra point, conceivably even 2, because of her vastly superior GOTV. I like to think it won’t be close enough for that to matter, but it’s very comforting to have as a backstop.

  42. 42.

    Suzanne

    @rk:

    What is wrong with men? What’s the appeal? He’s a 78 year old, disgusting vulgar lunatic. What do young men see in him? 

    He is an aspirational figure to shitty men! Proof that you can be skeevy and gross and still be rich and powerful and have pretty wives, with low effort.

    That’s the appeal. With a tip of the hat to Abigail Adams, all of those men would be tyrants if they could.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    I’m esconsed in our bubble, but it does seem like the Trumpers are less enthusiastic about him this time around.

  47. 47.

    narya

    @Suzanne: With a tip of the hat to Abigail Adams, all of those men would be tyrants if they could.

    Ding ding ding! I’ve come to realize that, in part thanks to the example of my dad and learning to expect a partner instead of a patriarch, I’ve been fortunate to not have tyrants. I mean, yeah, patriarchy is everywhere, but the best of the men around me have figured out how patriarchy harms THEM, too, even if we can’t dislodge all of everything around us.

  48. 48.

    Soprano2

    It’s scary how confident I feel. In 2016 I thought Hillary would win but I felt uneasy when the Comey letter was released. I was afraid it would affect late deciding voters. In 2020 I felt ok but knew it was hard to know what would happen because the Dems changed so much of their campaign due to Covid. This time, I feel everything is pointing in the right direction and feel like TCFG is on the ropes. I think all the male pundits are going to have their mouths agape at the results. It’s not just Dobbs, either. Think about being the mother of young children having to constantly shield your children from exposure to the president. They haven’t had to think about that for four years! ETA – I also think a lot of people just want him to GO AWAY!

  49. 49.

    brendancalling

    Im hoping to god my sciatica chills the fuck out—HUGE spasm/attack yesterday that had me basically homebound—because I need to be knocking doors.

  53. 53.

    J. Arthur Crank

    I was at a craft fair in East San Diego County yesterday.  For context , this is a region that sent Duncan Fucking Hunter to Congress.  I overheard several conversations among women who were talking about how much of a repellent pig Trump is.  I didn’t see any MAGA hats or shirts either (I usually would see a few at these events in years past).   Trump has no chance in California, but it would be nice if his smelly coattails dragged down the rural MAGA candidates for Congress.

  54. 54.

    O. Felix Culpa

    ***OT KITTEN ALERT***

    Good morning, Juicers! I volunteer as a kitten foster parent  and currently have two bonded kittens that will be neutered and ready for adoption in a week or so. They’re an orange boy and seal point female. Not from the same litter, but they’ve bonded during their time with me. They’re the sweetest kittens I’ve had so far, and I’d love for someone to take them together, which the shelter will try to do but can’t guarantee.

    If you’re interested, please contact AL for my email. I could drive them to Santa Fe or as far south as ToC. If you’re in AZ, I could meet you somewhere off of I-40, although I’d prefer not to go all the way to Gallup.

    The kitties are currently in their zoomie phase, but like to sleep on or near my lap when they’ve tired themselves out. They like pets and having their cheeks stroked. They eat well and are current with their boosters, with the third coming up this week.

    I’m heading out for a walk, but will check back in later.

    P.S. Forgot to mention that I’m in Albuquerque. :-)

  55. 55.

    Jerry

    What sign got added to the person’s lawn? I click on the tweet and there’s nothing there except what is quoted in this post.

  56. 56.

    Trollhattan

    Note to self: do not move to a battleground state. The attention level in NC is nutso, and they can’t seem to keep Trump away.

  58. 58.

    jlowe

    I suspect Trump’s campaign team has just surrendered to crassness and Heil Hitler. They no longer care about trying to win fairly and have moved onto Plan B, the steal.

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @J. Arthur Crank: California could produce several new Democratic Representatives this year. Republican Rep. Ken Calvert looks vulnerable, as do imcumbents David Valadeo and John Duarte in the Central Valley. Closer to LA, Republicans Michelle Steel and Mike Garcia face strong challenges.

  61. 61.

    M31

    @Suzanne: ​
     

    He is an aspirational figure to shitty men! Proof that you can be skeevy and gross and still be rich and powerful and have pretty wives, with low effort.

    someone needs to tell these skeevy shitheads that yeah, that’s all true, but only if you inherited 400 million in 1970 dollars from their dad. did they? no? huh

  62. 62.

    Almost Retired

    @rikyrah:   Another Iowa poll shows Democrats up in two of the four Congressional Districts – one (Iowa City, Davenport) by a 16 point margin; and the other (Des Moines) by 7 points.  At the moment, all four seats are held by Republicans.

  64. 64.

    Scout211

    @Trollhattan: The attention level in NC is nutso, and they can’t seem to keep Trump away.

     

    NBC North Carolina is Making the Trump Campaign Nervous

    With just three days until the election, former President Donald Trump’s campaign remains unsettled about his prospects in North Carolina, a Sun Belt state that he’s claimed in two consecutive presidential elections.

    When asked why, a Trump campaign official put it bluntly.

    “If there’s one state that could bite you in the a–, it’s North Carolina,” the official said.

    I think the attention on NC will not be going away, even after (we hope) a Harris win.  Biting them in the ass sounds fine to me, though.

    Sometimes I do wish that we could get a little attention in California. But then again, no. Solidly blue and calm is just fine.

  65. 65.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Suzanne: Part of it is the Man O Sphere is sorta Trump adjacent (though Joe Rogan was not exactly slavishly devoted to the guy during that interview and actually mocked him several times and seemed reasonably open to being fair minded to Harris is she agreed to an interview). I don’t think most young men are strongly behind Trump and aren’t super informed about how awful he actually is. I know a high school senior that was leaning towards voting for Trump here in Maryland despite the fact that both his parents hate the guy and haven’t ever voted Republican.

    But if I were that kid the whole enemy from within would give me pause because Trump is basically talking about his parents. Is getting some transgressive lulz by voting for Trump worth having your parents dragged before a military tribunal for disloyalty?  Probably not. So I think he’s gone a bridge too far for a lot of those loosely committed young men. They may not vote at all or may decide Harris is really the better choice even if she is a woman.  This kid’s dad is Jewish and he’s been raised Jewish so I doubt that Nazi wife beater convention they had at MSG played well with him.

  67. 67.

    Lapassionara

    @Jerry: I had the same question. I thought maybe there was a photo missing.

    Those of us here in Missouri (or Misery as the late great Ozark Hillbilly would say) have had little contact from either campaign. We are trying to re establish a right to  abortion in our constitution, and there is a lot of signage about that issue, including one sign that says “protect women, vote no on 3.” I’d love to know how banning abortion protects women, but no one seems to be able to explain that to my satisfaction.

    How did we get to a place where the Republican Party nominee has stated his intention to ignore our international treaties, and this hardly gets a mention during the campaign.

  68. 68.

    Spanky

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:  Because I well remember my misdirected youth:

    I know a high school senior that was leaning towards voting for Trump here in Maryland despite the fact that because both his parents hate the guy and haven’t ever voted Republican.

    Of course,  my parents were Goldwater Republicans, so we might agree that mine was the better choice.

  69. 69.

    Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Misinformation in spanish speaking Philly. (Inquirer gift link)

    Misinformation flows in Spanish in Philly and throughout the U.S., some of it with ominous overtones
    “There are fewer resources devoted to fact-checking misinformation in Spanish. That makes Spanish speakers a target for falsehoods as Latino voters could play a pivotal role in the election.”

    “There’s a 24-year-old Venezuelan man living in Iceland who spreads political misinformation in Spanish to American Latinos on YouTube. He’s a viral smash.”

    An interesting nugget of info. I wonder if he is paid in rubles or $$. Much more at the link

  70. 70.

    artem1s

    @rk:

    What do young men see in him?

    Oppositional defiance disorder. No more, no less. They are pissed at their mothers or teachers or whomever had the audacity to suggest they aren’t in control and aren’t the masters of the universe. I think we’re going to see most of them haven’t even registered to vote and if they did won’t show up. The mean age of the rally goers is closer to TCF than Harris. I don’t see them showing up to the rallies. They are binge surfing Xhitter or Truth Social and shit posting. Not voting will be the ultimate middle finger to the libs and everyone they hate – including TCF who let them down. They are about to find out as is fElon that ‘likes’ in fascists social media bubbles does not equal votes in an election.

  71. 71.

    Yarrow

    Something that might be of interest given discussions here:

    Latest ABC News poll has Harris up nationally +3, and even better are the internals. Harris is only losing white women by 4, a group Biden lost by 11 in 2020. And Harris is only losing white men by 11, a group Biden lost by 23 in 2020.
    — Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) November 3, 2024

    (Bolding mine.)

  72. 72.

    H.E.Wolf

    @narya: @H.E.Wolf: How did you get hooked up with that task [data entry]? Can you do it for a different state than the one in which you’re living?​

     OK! This will be a long reply; please bear with me. Other introverts, I would love to have counterparts doing this in other places!

    As a longtime political volunteer, I’m always on the lookout for introvert-appropriate tasks. In 2016, I sat happily in a corner of the campaign office at least once a week, and rubber-banded hundreds of stacks of 30 flyers for the canvassers to hand out.

    In 2017, I called and emailed our local Democratic Party headquarters – conveniently located a few miles away – to ask if I could do data entry.

    It took several tries over several months, which was a bummer. But eventually someone put me in touch with a staffer who had a data entry task to be done – and bonus! – remembered me from 2016.

    The first couple of times, I went into the office to work. I didn’t break the system or make horrible typos, so they asked me to do another data-entry task.

    Pretty soon, they trusted me and the accuracy of my work well enough to suggest that I could work from home if I wanted to. We kept in touch via email and periodic office visits… and in the pandemic, we switched to email and periodic Zoom check-ins.

    5 years and several data coordinators later (it’s generally a stepping-stone job for talented staffers on the rise in their careers), I’m happy as a clam at high tide. The data team are a little bemused, but happy. The field organizers don’t know who the heck the ubiquitous initials in the database belong to, but they’re happy.

    As for out-of-state remote data entry: It’s a heavier lift, because it’s harder to get acquainted. I got around that via Zoom, and successfully completed a single multi-week data-entry task; though it didn’t continue on to a regular volunteer job. They were good folks – a faraway volunteer just wasn’t a convenient option for them.

    Ultimately, what has made this particular volunteer task feasible for me was being local, and able to show up in person a few times to establish my bona fides and develop mutual trust. THEN it was possible to become a work-from-home-er.

    If you’d like to know more, WaterGirl could perhaps put us in touch via email.

  73. 73.

    Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Philadelphia Inquirer news story yesterday (gift link).

    How Trump and his allies on X are flooding Pennsylvania with lies in the final week of the presidential campaign by William Bender, Katie Bernard, Jeremy Roebuck, and Alfred Lubrano
    Published Nov. 2, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

    “A disinformation expert said the state was ground zero for social media content on voter fraud — much of it untrue.

    At 12:16 p.m. Tuesday, Donald Trump’s political director, James Blair, posted an alarming message on X — siren emoji and all — about how voting was going in Pennsylvania.

    “Intimidation tactics!” Blair wrote, referring to Democrats who he claimed were “running around in Bucks County” posing as election officials.

    At 3:16 p.m. Wednesday, the Trump campaign emailed a news release with the headline: “Trump-Vance Campaign Discovers Leftist Activists Impersonating Election Officials.”

    “Radical leftists are trying to intimidate voters and interfere with Pennsylvanians’ right to cast their ballots,” the campaign wrote, alleging that Democrats were wearing “fake badges” and “impersonating election officials to suppress the vote.”

    At 8:44 a.m. Thursday, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance retweeted a Blair post on the same issue and added: “If you commit voter fraud, or try to deprive people of their right to vote, we will prosecute you!”

    None of it was true.

    There was no intimidation. No impersonation. No fake badges. No fraud. The entire ordeal was fabricated.

    “These are voter protection teams doing poll watching,” said John Brady, political director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and executive director of the Philadelphia Democratic Party. “They’re wearing badges that say ‘PA Dems.’ We give these out to volunteers who answer FAQs. This is something that’s been done longer than I’ve been alive.”

    More of TCFFG’s lies at the link.

    Is the only way we can even begin to fight this is so shine the cleansing sunshine of truth on this to friends and on social media. Other suggestions?

  78. 78.

    Jackie

    If Harris OR TCFG make a surprise drop in visit to Iowa…

    Don’t think it’s plausible, but… 🤷🏼‍♀️😊

  80. 80.

    Another Scott

    Re that EV map above.

    I want Indiana, also too.

    For satby and Mayor Secretary Pete and Chasten and all the other good folks who do and have called Indiana “home sweet home”.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  81. 81.

    Jeffro

    When trumpov loses bigly on Tuesday, I know he will blame many people…I just don’t know who he will blame first, or in what order:

    • LaCivita and his skimming er excuse me ‘earning’ $22M from the campaign
    • Hinchcliffe, for making his ‘garbage’ joke about Puerto Rico at MSG
    • whoever advised trumpov to pick JD Vance instead of Haley (or really anyone else but Vance)
    • Obama, because Obama
    • the Fed, for beginning to cut interest rates
    • Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, for publicly putting the Constitution over party

    Verily, ’tis a mystery…and it will be great fun to watch, too!

  82. 82.

    satby

    @O. Felix Culpa: And bonded pair kittens are funny and keep each other amused, but kitten proofing of electric cords is mandatory. Fortunately, they grow out of that stage rapidly. And are just a joy.

  85. 85.

    TBone

    @FlyingToaster: thank you for sharing that sexy older men inspiration!  I’m sending to a friend who I’m no longer able to speak with about politics, so I’ll let Harrison do the talking today.  💙😍. Take that and like it, lady!

  86. 86.

    Almost Retired

    @Jeffro:  My money is on JDavenport Vance as Trump’s primary post-election scapegoat, whipping boy and culprit.  Followed by anyone who encouraged him to pick Vance as VP.

    Donald Jr. better monitor his father’s post-election whereabouts to see if he’s made an appointment with a trust and estates attorney regarding amending his will.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    Via reddit, I don’t usually link to Salon, but

    The last temptation of Donald Trump: How he lured evangelicals to follow Satan

    Donald Trump has tempted evangelical Christians just as Satan tempted Jesus — except this time it worked

  93. 93.

    Jeffro

    btw all Americans (not just Virginians) need to keep this front and center four years from now, when Smilin’ Glenn tries his ‘moderate’ schtick again: Youngkin Drops The Mask, Openly Praises and Endorses Adjudicated Rapist and Convicted Felon trumpov

    Youngkin (R) offered a 20-minute ode to Trump’s “strength” and to his own record as governor before urging the crowd in Salem — a small city in the Blue Ridge Mountains outside Roanoke — to doff their MAGA caps and join him in prayer for the Republican ticket.

    “Dear heavenly father … allow their message to be heard. Wash the scales off of voters’ eyes so they can see truth,” the governor, who founded a church in his basement years ago, intoned in the style of a preacher.

    BARF

    Youngkin managed to keep the MAGA base energized by leaning into K-12 culture wars and winking at Trump’s stolen-elections claim with a focus on “election integrity”. But he did so in the style of an amiable basketball dad, allowing him to hold down losses among suburbanites who had fled the party in droves under Trump.

    Youngkin’s purple-state tightrope act won him the Executive Mansion — and effusive praise from national political analysts, who instantly promoted the former Carlyle Group co-CEO as a 2024 GOP presidential prospect.

    No more fake moderates, GOP, and no more “purple-state tightrope acts”, America!!

    And let’s get back to where we should have been on January 21, 2021: if you make fake election claims and can’t show any evidence, you’re undermining the very foundation of this country and should be shunned from the start.  It’s not “winking”…it’s lying, and it’s lying in the service of undermining our country.

  95. 95.

    sab

    @satby: Where is that bonded pair you promised me. ///

    Each of the new guys is a joy on his (or her) own, but they don’t seem bonded. They don’t seem to even much like each other.

  98. 98.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: I haven’t looked at the poll details. From what I’ve read in general, college educated people (men and women) are moving towards Dems and white people are more likely to have college degrees than other demos.

    I’ve seen some polling showing Latinos moving to R’s, and anecdotally there’s a lot of support in Latino areas. Maybe there’s something to dig into there. I’ve read something about blue collar workers (not necessarily union) being R-curious.

    Just saw the tweet and thought others might be interested. Feel free to ignore.

  100. 100.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: @rk:

    I came here to say the same thing.  They want the spoils of a good life but they can’t stand the idea of having to live up to a woman’s expectations that they actually put something into a relationship.  Trump very obviously dominates his wives, who nonetheless will never leave him (he left the first two).  They seemingly have no concept that Trump’s appeal has nothing to do with his loutishness and everything to do with his money — which they don’t have.

  101. 101.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @Wyatt Salamanca: it’s a shame more people don’t point out that, a *real* dealmaker is someone who everyone wants to work with, not someone who swears they love to get revenge.

    People who are really good dealmakers don’t get revenge if you screw them – they just shut you out next time, and mention why, and everyone knows you aren’t trustworthy.

    @narya: The type of bankruptcy he chose is a business bankruptcy, where the courts can force creditors to accept less, so long as they’re doing better than they would in liquidation.

    I’m sure you can see how that would be the method of choice for cheats, who inflate/deflate values as needed, to get the right value. (Note: I didn’t *say* Trump was a cheat – why would you ASSUME I was referring to him?)

    Ordinary people, who declare personal bankruptcy, are usually in much worse straits. A CEO can pay himself a fat bonus for shepherding a company through those perilous waters – as well as paying a reasonable salary, one that would tempt a CEO of sufficient stature to run the company.

    Again: Why would someone ASSUME I’m referring to TCFG? Just because I’m stating bad things bad actors could do? And I mean, people who ACT, not people who PERFORM. (That said, he was a pretty bad actor, only getting cast for a vanity shot via force – he wasn’t even interesting enough for a vanity shot otherwise. SAD!)

  102. 102.

    Nelle

    @Almost Retired: When we moved here to Iowa in 2019, 3 out  of 4 Reps were Democrats.  The change here has been brutal.   And too much for some conservatives.  One R neighbor is upset over demonizing immigration, saying that the Bible tells her to welcome the stranger.  Another strong church woman said that when things go south in childbirth, it goes south fast.  She started bleeding out during delivery of her first child – no time for lawyers, then, she said.    The aftermath of Dobbs in Texas, where women who want their babies, are dying because doctors won’t treat them?  That is seriously affecting the vote.

    I was at an event with Lanon Baccam, who is running to be my rep, yesterday.  The energy in the room was sky-high.  And most people went out to door knock afterwards.  One person came over yesterday (she was bringing me more Harris-Walz signs after someone stole all of them in our neighborhood) had door knocked for four hours.  She’s about 68.  More energy than me.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Yarrow:

    No worries. I’ve spent the past year pretty much ignoring the bad polls, so consistency requires me to ignore the good polls too. There’s only one poll that matters, and that will be the one two days from now.

  107. 107.

    gene108

    @jlowe:

    I suspect Trump’s campaign team has just surrendered to crassness and Heil Hitler. They no longer care about trying to win fairly and have moved onto Plan B, the steal.

    Read the Atlantic article gift linked in the OP. Wiles and LaCavita lost control of Trump sometime in the summer.

  108. 108.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: The Trump voters in my family who I still have contact with don’t even try to defend Trump.  They admit he is a horrible person.  They aren’t enthusiastic about voting at all.  But they believe decades of Fox/talk radio propaganda that Republican policies are good and Democrats are trying to destroy the country.

    They’re basically voting for the mirror reason we are, though I think there is far more logical evidence we’re right about the fascism threat and their communism stuff is bullshit.

  109. 109.

    Bupalos

    I don’t want to go too far with all this hopium but even everything else being equal (penn etc remaining squeakers) it would be beyond huge if something out of left field like Iowa happened. It would really throw a monkey wrench in the us/them identity narratives MAGAworld wants to use to disable our democracy.

    That poll also has me looking at Osborne as a real possibility.

  110. 110.

    satby

    @sab: I agree! I think that was the daughter just repeating her late mother’s assumption because they were supposedly littermates.

  111. 111.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: I’m skeptical of those results too. But that’s what would have to happen.

    I think it’s more likely the poll isn’t that accurate.

  112. 112.

    TBone

    @cmorenc:  Disco?  Never thought of him in that genre:

    Richard Paul Astley (born 6 February 1966) is an English singer, radio DJ and podcaster. He gained fame through his association with the production trio Stock Aitken Waterman, releasing the 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody, which sold 15 million copies worldwide and was certified Platinum by both the BPI and the RIAA. His debut single “Never Gonna Give You Up” was a No. 1 hit in over 25 countries, winning the 1988 Brit Award for Best British Single. The song also stayed at the top of the UK chart for five weeks in 1987 and was the best-selling single of that year.

    I’m perplexed but it’ll pass!

  113. 113.

    Jackie

    A FCC commissioner (TCFG supporter, natch) is throwing a hissy fit re Harris’s SNL surprise appearance:

    A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner has claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris’s recent appearance on “Saturday Night Live” violates the “equal time” rule.
    “This is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,” Commissioner Brendan Carr posted on the social platform X Saturday in response to a post from The Associated Press about Harris being on the show that night.
    “The purpose of the rule is to avoid exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct – a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert its influence for one candidate on the eve of an election. Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns,” Carr, a Trump appointee continued.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/4968217-fcc-commissioner-claims-harris-on-snl-violates-equal-time-rule/

    He’s probably correct, but did NBC offer equal time to TCFG, and out of his hatred for NBC, turn it down? Stay tuned…!

  114. 114.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rk: What is wrong with men? What’s the appeal?

    I am not sure what is his appeal to them, but I can easily see a bunch of young men who are in the middle of rebelling against their mothers like twenty something young men do, not wanting a woman president.

  116. 116.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @brendancalling: Hope for the best, but acknowledge human limits with good grace – trust me, you might someday need the practice far more than now. (That said: glad you have something wonderful, to be disappointed to miss, if your body decides to cuss you out, sciatically speaking.)

  117. 117.

    Almost Retired

    @Nelle:   That certainly tracks what I’m seeing, anecdotally, on my social media feeds (I went to HS and college in Iowa).  Women are shouting down a couple of vocal, non-college-educated male Trump acolytes.  I see more complaints about Brenna Bird and Kim Reynolds on my Facebook feed than I do criticisms of Harris or praise for Trump.  These are rural folks.  There is hope for the place, perhaps.

    Still not moving back….

  118. 118.

    hueyplong

    @Jackie: All that means is that notorious TV watcher Trump saw the clip, lost his shit, and ordered that commissioner to do the “hit dog hollers” thing.

  120. 120.

    Spanky

    Well, since the non-endorsement debacle, WaPo seems to have dropped the mask, if today’s headlines are any indication. Glad I canceled when I did.

  121. 121.

    Maxim

    @Baud: He’s got an anti-trans ad featuring two young Black men in heavy rotation (I saw it several times while watching the World Series). Anecdata says it’s been pretty effective.

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @FlyingToaster:

    Those are both excellent ads! Thank you!

    And, speaking as a woman who’s only three weeks younger than Mr. Ford Solo Jones, I have to say the guy still has it. By which I mean “IT”.

  123. 123.

    Barbara

    @Jackie: I just read a description of it — the focus is on “time” and not the specific show or audience.  In addition to there being a lot of exceptions — I am assuming that Harris appeared only briefly.  If NBC has asked Trump at any point for an interview or an opportunity to speak on air it probably has satisfied the rule.

  126. 126.

    JML

    @Lapassionara: I feel bad for dems in Missouri, but on an electoral level it’s just not a reasonable bet. Hasn’t been close in a while and has only gone blue 3 times since LBJ: the ’76 repudiation with a southerner on the ballot, and then again in ’92 & ’96 with another southerner on the ballot. While I don’t believe in abandoning any state, it’s a tough sell for investment right now on the state-wide level.

  128. 128.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @J. Arthur Crank: Where? When I was visiting home (Santee/Lakeside) in Aug., there were a couple of Trump signs that I saw but not as many as a few years ago. On the other hand, I did not see any Harris/Walz signs. Hunter was awful and now we’re stuck with Issa. I’m not sure what it’ll take to dislodge him.

  129. 129.

    AWOL

    Re the Cannard twit: The South LOST in 1865? Coulda fooled me.  And another reminded to dig up that Heather Cox Richardson tome on the subject.

  131. 131.

    sab

    @Trollhattan: If the alternative is living in a deep red state (Ohio was battleground when I moved back here 20 years ago)  then I would happily put up with the ads over the deep red alternative.

    We pass  normal sensible constitutional amendments by referendum to correct what the legislature has done, and the next Republican legislature ignores us and the Republican state supreme court ignores us and next election we send a new bunch of Republican bozos to Columbus to do what the lobbyists tell them.

    I think the underlying problem is term limits. Republican billionaires finance a whole infrastructure for college idiots to sign on and become Republican hacks for the rest of their professional lives.

  132. 132.

    Shalimar

    @Jackie: Even if he is correct, what can the FCC do about it?  Fine NBC and the Harris campaign a few thousand dollars 6 months from now?  I don’t think anyone will care at that point.

  133. 133.

    AWOL

    @brendancalling: Don’t be a prisoner of ignorant or spiteful doctors. I was in agony for decades from sciatica and spinal stenosis. If possible, and if you’re open to taking meds, ask if you can get a generic Rx for Meloxicam (Mobic). For about 12 cents a day, you can regain your life.

  135. 135.

    suzanne

    @Barbara: There’s a lot of people who behave as if there is a power dynamic in every personal and familial relationship. And men like this usually want to dominate and control their wives and children, and have vague resentment at their mothers.

    Of course men like this are drawn to Trump.

  136. 136.

    Citizen Alan

    @Geminid: i still wish that kitchen was better designed and laid out in that one cramped apartment I looked at in david valadeo’s district just so that I could vote against him.  I did cast a largely pointless symbolic vote against Tom. Mcclintock though.

  138. 138.

    Jackie

    @Barbara: Oh, no doubt. NBC is already on TCFG’s Enemy From Within list, so he’s undoubtedly refused multiple times. I know MSNBC shows have offered on air that he’s welcome to appear… crickets.

  139. 139.

    CaseyL

    I’ve been hors de combat this final week, mostly due to catching one hell of a head cold during a long weekend out of town. I’d signed up for two phone banking stints beforehand. Had to cancel one due to feeling like death warmed over. The other, I never got the confirming email that would have told me exactly when and where, and I’m still subject to the occasional wracking cough so it’s just as well.

    (I did finally take some Mucinex, which only confirmed why I avoid cold medications. Ever since drug companies stopped using pseudoephedrine – thanks a lot, meth labs! – the damn things barely work at all except to make me fuzzy-headed.)

  142. 142.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Yesterday I door-knocked for George Whitesides in CA-27.  Pep rally with candidates (including CA Sen Laphonza Butler) was LIT!!!  So much energy and enthusiasm, especially from Butler and the several trade union members that were present.  There were probably 1-200 volunteers there to knock doors for the morning shift, with a bunch more showing up at 1:00 pm.

    As for the door-knocking itself, we were trying to get verified Dems, who haven’t voted often or before to make sure they get out to vote.  Preferably to get them to let us collect their ballots (which is legal in CA).  But these were very low-propensity voters, so some of the toughest ones to reach.  I knocked on 25-30 doors.  The vast majority were no answers.  Even when there were cars in the driveway and I suspect people inside.  Damn ring-cameras…

    The first person I encountered I was able to speak to.  She was on the way to her car so I only got a brief convo with her.  She wasn’t sure if she was gonna vote because she felt she didn’t know enough about the candidates.  I told her Whitesides was for protecting abortion, sensible gun laws and trying to tackle the issue of insurance for the fires that are so common in CA.  She took the handout and said she’d think about it.  Another woman I spoke with said she’s already voted for Dems but didn’t remember Whitesides’ name.  Had a couple “we’re not interested” responses and one guy who said his wife/partner had already voted but NOT for Whitesides.  That was the extent of my interactions.

    All in all, it was a good (though exhausting) experience and I’m glad I tried it.  The energy of the volunteers was amazing and inspiring.  I think we are in very good shape for this election.  The disinterest/apathy of so many voters, is still frustrating/enraging.

    Not sure if I would do door-knocking it again.  I’m still pretty uncomfortable with trying to force conversations on people who aren’t interested in them.  If people WANT to talk, I’m good at that, but trying to pry a conversation is really not my personality style, at all.  Next election cycle I will probably just write way more postcards for Dem campaigns.

  144. 144.

    JAM

    I live in Oklahoma,  so Trump will win, but I’m more worried about our Supreme Court because conservatives are running a bunch of ads against the liberals’ retention. They are trying to establish Christian public schools here and the Supreme Court is the only thing stopping them.

  145. 145.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Jackie: Oh come on. One short segment tips the scales? You have to be kidding with that. How many extra hundreds of hours of Trump rallies did they broadcast on 2016 relative to the time they gave Hillary.

  146. 146.

    moonbat

    Not arguing that Trump won’t go to the old playbook on Stop the Steal once he loses (Insha’allah) on Tuesday, but I expect those efforts to be pretty anemic.

    Last time around Fox was in the tank for all the steal talk and it cost them nearly a billion dollars in court. I don’t think they are going to head down that route with such abandon again.

    All the Trump ‘attorneys’ who brought those suits last time have been disbarred and some (Rudy) are facing catastrophic judgments against them for falsely claiming fraud in court and falsely accusing individuals of perpetrating chicanery. Who is going to be leaping in to bring even more tenuous fraud claims this time around, especially if they are likely to get stiffed on fees?

    And as for the true believer loonies. They’ve had several years to witness the FO part for the last ‘brave souls’ who stormed the capitol and those attempted to mess with voting results in the aftermath believing Trump would keep them out of jail. That didn’t work out so good. Trump holds none of the levers of governmental power this time. He can’t guarantee anybody anything.

    He will certainly yell and scream and some of his cultists will likely act out, but not in a way that can threaten the results.

    I’d lay a strong bet that Johnson will not be installed as speaker of the next Congress and therefore will not be holding the gavel when the electors count is delivered to Washington. That honor will belong to Hakeem Jeffries.

    I’m not saying it’s going to be a cakewalk. The media will certainly provide a lot of breathless coverage for clickbait, but as far as outcomes, I feel a hell of a lot better this year than I did in 2020.

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    @Jackie: I have to laugh.

    I’m sure we all remember all the times that HRC and JRB called into Morning Joe and Hannity the like to talk about their campaigns for tens of minutes.

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​My son did data entry at the local D office for his HS senior civics class project. Then they hired him for his first summer job, which, you’ll be surprised to know, he no longer lists on his resume.

     Hee hee. I stopped listing my summer jobs, too, although I was very proud that I learned to use the Pitney Bowes mailing machine during the summer I was a dogsbody at the accounting office of the local newspaper. :)

    However, I did recently create a “database experience” resume, with highlights of ~30 years’ worth of volunteer and paid projects. Everything even remotely connected went on it, including the time I proofread a non-profit’s membership database address list for misspellings of the name of Our Fair City.

    It helped the political staff people – many of whom aren’t thinking of database cleanup when they think of volunteer labor – more clearly comprehend what I could bring to the table.

  152. 152.

    StringOnAStick

    @Geminid: I’m in Bynum’s district and she looks strong here based on yard signs, but I’m in a blue (and getting bluer) city with a lot of rural crazy around here.  The main population for this district is a part of Portland where Bynum has won’t the state level twice against the same opponent.  I have hope and have added $ to where my hope is.

  157. 157.

    Ruckus

    @Jackie:

    I thought I read somewhere that he did turn them down.

    But it’s so difficult to tell what is going on in that disaster of a head. It sure doesn’t seem to be anything close to any good side of humanity. Mostly he seems to run on pompous arrogance and pure stupidity. Might also be pure old fartitus 100% of the time. Not sure if it matters which is in command at any one moment.

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    As much as he is their guy, they likely really do see the downhill direction he’s going, and accelerating with every missed step. Has he actually made any progress other than down for the last couple of years? As someone not all that much younger than him, who lives in a 55+ apartment complex, were the oldest person I know of at 98 still rides around on her old fart scooter (she used to ride a motorcycle…..) I’ve seen downhill before, hell I’m about at a 1/2 degree (maybe less!) decline road myself, he’s at about a 75 degree downhill slant, and accelerating rather rapidly. He’ll never age well, his disgusting brain won’t let him.

  160. 160.

    JaySinWA

    @Jackie: Fairness doctrine: not just dead letter law, decidedly dead, dead,dead.

    In 1987 the FCC formally repealed the fairness doctrine but maintained both the editorial and personal-attack provisions, which remained in effect until 2000. In addition, until they were finally repealed by the commission in 2011, more than 80 media rules maintained language that implemented the doctrine

    https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fairness-Doctrine

  162. 162.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Kamala and Kamala have such energy together.  It’s amazing how the mirroring thing rivals Groucho.

  164. 164.

    Frank Wilhoit

    What Yglesias misses (and he misses many things) is that the Republican Party is not going to start looking for voters in different places, any more than they did after 2012, and for the same reasons.

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