Delaware Liberal

Thursday Open Thread [6.23.16]

Delaware Dem

First Read: “A reminder: It’s been 16 days since Hillary Clinton became her party’s presumptive presidential nominee, but Bernie Sanders still hasn’t conceded the race (nor has he endorsed Clinton). By contrast, Clinton officially conceded four days after Barack Obama became the presumptive nominee in 2008. We’re pointing this out, because Sanders yesterday — for the first time — acknowledged he won’t be the Dem nominee.”



New York Times: “Normally when presidential contenders travel abroad, they do so to burnish their foreign policy credentials, cramming their schedules with high-level meetings with foreign dignitaries and opining on the pressing international issues of the day.”

“But, to a large extent, Mr. Trump’s business interests still drive his behavior, and his schedule. He has planned two days in Scotland, with no meetings with government or political leaders scheduled.”

“And despite the fact that Mr. Trump touches down in Britain the day after its ‘Brexit’ vote on whether to leave the European Union, his itinerary — a helicopter landing at his luxury resort, a ceremonial ribbon cutting and family photo, and a news conference — reads like a public relations junket crossed with a golf vacation.”

“Britons headed to polling booths Thursday for a historic vote on whether to leave the European Union, a choice pitting a vision of an untethered Britain against bleak predictions of economic turbulence and global insecurity,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“After months of campaigning, most polls show a virtual dead heat between the pro-EU ‘remain’ campaign and the ‘Brexit’ camp, shorthand for those advocating Britain’s exit from the 28-nation bloc. Turnout will be crucial to determining the outcome, with stormy weather across southern England causing flooding and snarling public transport.”

Ed Kilgore says Trump cannot afford to let Hillary dominate the ad war.

[I]t should serve as a warning to Team Trump that one of the political scientists most associated with disrespect for paid ads in presidential elections, Lynn Vavreck, also insists that letting one’s opponent run uncontested ads is a path to a slow, but sure, political death.

Mr. Trump has used unconventional campaign tactics and has relied on free media to get his messages out. All of this may render advertising less relevant. A study estimated that most of the impact of an ad in a presidential election is gone within a day or two of its airing (I am one of the authors of this paper).
Even though the effects from an ad imbalance are small and go away fast, candidates cannot allow them to pile up. Election Day may be far away, but candidates may still want to match their opponents’ daily advertising in the months before the vote because they care about publicly released news polls that convey information to voters — and donors — about their viability and the closeness of the race.

Vavreck is making two interrelated points here: Unopposed ads do indeed shape impressions of candidates, and those impressions affect polling numbers which in turn affect actual voting in the end. Considering the current Republican freak-out over a slump in Trump’s polling numbers, even as HRC’s paid-ad assault on Trump has barely begun, I’d say there’s a good chance weeks and weeks of unopposed ads could have a pretty dramatic effect on GOP morale.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to prohibit the Treasury from redesigning any currency to showcase Harriet Tubman, “but the Rules Committee denied floor consideration of the proposal Tuesday night,” Politico reports.

The conservative lawmaker said it is “racist” and “sexist” to say a woman or person of color should be added to currency.

Said King: “Here’s what’s really happening: This is liberal activism on the part of the president that’s trying to identify people by categories, and he’s divided us on the lines of groups… This is a divisive proposal on the part of the president, and mine’s unifying. It says just don’t change anything.”

Rick Klein: “Don’t look now, but Donald Trump is putting together an actual, real-life campaign. He’s hiring new staffers, pushing out opposition research and rapid-response documents, even Tweeting more about the news than about personal grudges. Wednesday’s speech, laying out his anti-Clinton case, will be a major moment for a campaign in desperate need of a new storyline. It has the feel of a major campaign moment – a point where Trump can pivot toward effective messaging, or continue a spiral that he may not be able to end before his convention.”

“Messaging and discipline is one thing, though, and fundraising is another. It’s hard to argue that internal machinations will matter for Trump unless he puts together the kinds of numbers he’ll need to be competitive in terms of advertising and organizing. Even if he were to self-fund, Trump’s promise to do this on his own is essentially hollow; he’ll need the Republican power base on board to compete with the Clinton machine.”

“There’s no successful businessman in America who actually thinks the most successful businessman in America is Donald Trump.”

— President Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg.

FiveThirtyEight: “The premise of this story is that although recent presidential elections have featured a predictable set of swing states and safe states, the extraordinary unpopularity of both major candidates (especially Trump) might mean that voter enthusiasm — and therefore turnout — might be different from that of past years. Additionally, Trump is so unlike recent Republican nominees that the past few presidential election results might not be very predictive of his performance.”

“Suppose, therefore, that we broaden our view and investigate where Democrats and Republicans have generated close contests beyond presidential races. Surprisingly, nearly the whole country has seen very close contests during the past few years.”

A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 73% of Republican voters believe that GOP leaders have lost touch with Republican voters. Just 20% say those leaders have done a good job representing GOP voters.

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