Open Thread for Saturday, September 17, 2016
Josh Marshall gives us all a chill pill:
News Events Can Dramatically Affect Enthusiasm. Clinton has come off an awful few weeks. She took a bunch of days off the campaign trail for fundraisers. Then she had a media storm with “deplorables”, then she collapses on camera, was diagnosed with pneumonia and then spent three or four days totally off camera and off the campaign trail. These events may hurt Clinton. They may damage her campaign fatally. But a more likely explanation of the rapid shift in the polls is that they sharply demoralized her supporters and shook free her least committed supporters. That shows up in likely voter models; it leads to differential poll response. This does not mean the polls are wrong. It means they are accurately measuring the effect of those events. But there is good reason to think that it may be ephemeral because it is more as much a shift in enthusiasm and engagement than opinion. (We’ve even noticed a significant drop in TPM traffic since Clinton’s fainting spell. We’ve seen this happen before when our readers think the news sucks and some just tune out. No, I’m not basing this theory on TPM’s traffic. I just think it’s part of a common phenomenon.)
This is a real phenomenon. I have suffered from it. But yesterday was a good day for Hillary, as was Thursday. The trend will be ticking back our way now.
Markos looks at the polling averages, which show that Hillary’s convention bounce is gone but she still has a solid lead.
Trump is running into the same problem Mitt Romney had in 2012, which is the same problem every Republican candidate will have until they stop making so many demographic enemies—his current levels of support are so low, getting to 50 becomes a monumentally difficult task.
Nationally, Trump is at 43. Add Libertarian Gary Johnson, and Trump falls to 39 percent.
Trump doesn’t even break 40 percent in Colorado (38 percent), Michigan (36 percent), New Hampshire (37 percent), Pennsylvania (38 percent), Virginia (38 percent), and Wisconsin (38 percent). Actually, Romney was at least in the low 40s in those states, so Trump is further behind than the last Republican loser.
Or put another way, Trump can barely muster a third of the electorate in many key battleground states.
In fact, the only battleground states he breaks 45 percent are Arizona (48 percent) and … that’s it. Arizona. Still, Republicans can be heartened that he’s above that mark in Kansas (48 percent), South Carolina (46 percent), and Texas (48 percent). Not Utah, though. He’s at 36 percent in Utah. (Clinton is at 27 percent.) But he won’t lose too many traditionally Republican Red states.
I’m still not worried about Nevada. Pollsters can’t capture the state’s Latino population, and it always comes back Bluer than the polling. Remember, Harry Reid was supposed to lose six years ago. Iowa, on the other hand, looks to be the one Obama state in real threat of switching sides.
Donald Trump has spent years peddling lies about President Obama.
And that didn't stop today. pic.twitter.com/KzgPQgPjxK
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016
The Washington Post‘s David Fahrenthold sent this to Donald Trump’s campaign:
I noted that today Mr. Trump said he believes President Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate is legitimate. That makes this a story for me now: Can you provide details of where and when he will donate the $5 million Mr. Trump promised to give to charity?
Trump hurt himself today by doing something he was forced into by the pros. Toxic combo for this nutjob. Watch out for the next eruption.
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) September 16, 2016
And as if on cue…
Trump: Clinton’s bodyguards should "disarm immediately" and "see what happens to her" https://t.co/54LQdhqmfU
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 17, 2016
Did he “joke” about someone shooting Clinton as part of a deliberate effort to rile people up and distract attention from the birther controversy or the fact that his economic plan makes no sense? Or did he do it because he’s just entirely out of control? When journalists draw attention to things like an irresponsible joke that will possible end up inspiring political violence with tragic consequences, are we playing into his hands?
He is a sociopath. People need to stop rationalizing his behavior.
Obama on birther controversy: "I was pretty confident about where I was born. I think most people were, as well." https://t.co/O6yli3b9WS
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 16, 2016
Matt Taibbi: “No doubt about it, the country is in a brutal spot right now. We are less than two months from the possibility of one of the dumbest people on the planet winning the White House. And it seems that all anyone’s talked about this week, whether around the water cooler or on TV news, Twitter or Facebook, is the lung capacity of Hillary Clinton.”
“That sucks. But it’s not all the media’s fault. This is classic horse-race stuff, and if you’re getting it, it’s at least in part because you spent decades asking for it.”
“The campaign has devolved over time into an entertainment program, a degrading and vicious show where the contestants win the nuclear launch codes instead of a date with a millionaire. Under the rules of this reality series which media consumers turn into a gigantic hit every four years, collapsing in front of a cell-phone camera at a 9/11 memorial service is more important than a dozen position papers.”
“It just is. You proved it when you clicked on that video of the episode last weekend and didn’t read a compare-and-contrast piece on, for instance, the candidates’ banking policies.”
Either @KellyannePolls suddenly determined jokes about assassination would help boost Trump with independents… or the dog is off his leash
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) September 17, 2016
Robby Mook statement in response to Trump making reference to possible acts of violence against Hillary Clinton pic.twitter.com/lRQoC8EEiY
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) September 17, 2016
Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have missed the cut for the first presidential debate, The Hill reports.
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the only presidential candidates who will participate in the first debates.
Good.
Clinton goes on Tweetstorm ripping into Trump: pic.twitter.com/lJZXvqMW84
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 16, 2016
Josh Marshall says Trump was introduced today at this anti-birther speech by a Birther:
At the peak of birtherism, you may remember, an Army lieutenant colonel refused to deploy to Afghanistan absent proof that President Obama was born in the United States. The officer, a doctor named Terrence Lakin, was court-martialed, found guilty, jailed, and discharged from the Army.
One of Donald Trump’s introducers today at the new Trump Hotel, was a retired Air Force general who supported Lakin. He even submitted an affidavit on his behalf, questioning whether Obama was properly within the chain of command, since his U.S. birth was in question.
Donald Trump just did a speech in Miami. He said eight false things. pic.twitter.com/DSKMHOyHpK
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2016
Eric Levitz says maybe it is still the Economy, stupid:
Clinton went from winning the economic debate by two points, to losing it by 15. Considering the fact that “the economy” is the electorate’s number-one concern, this seems like a shift worth dwelling on.
While Clinton has put forward a robust economic agenda, much of her messaging has directed attention away from it: You can’t make a full-throated case for a progressive economic vision and insist that this election is about “more” than left versus right. The second argument inevitably crowds out the first. How much moral urgency can you put into your case for expanding social welfare, while still casting Paul Ryan — a man who has worked tirelessly to cut nutritional benefits to needy children — as a kind of honorable public servant? Forced to choose between conveying a clear ideological message and courting the broadest possible coalition against Trump, Clinton opted for the latter.
This made some sense when Clinton was leading by 10 points, and looking to engineer a landslide. It makes less sense today. Especially since the center-left’s agenda is, on paper, way more popular than Trumponomics.
More than 60 percent of Americans believe the rich should pay higher taxes. Same for raising the federal minimum wage. And while polling data is limited, evidence strongly suggests that expanding Social Security is a big winner for Democrats. At the very least, tying Trump to his party’s affinity for Social Security cuts couldn’t hurt: More than two-thirds of Republicans don’t want to see benefits reduced. Similarly, there is little appetite among voters of either party for deregulating the finance industry. And yet, the GOP nominee has committed himself to doing just that.
GOPers who want Trump to lose are doing what they did in the primaries: failing to back a credible alternative. https://t.co/NrLgryj3gO
— Seth Masket (@smotus) September 17, 2016
“shook free her least committed supporters”
Also known as “her margin of victory.”
True, hence the tightening polls.
Read the Gate’s piece….
“Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.”
Hillary’s campaign needs to move beyond “How is Trump unfit – let me count the ways.” So far I just hear Hillary attacking Trump’s character – it’s fatiguing. I guess it will fall to someone like Elizabeth Warren to debunk Trump policies line by line instead of just with zingers. Trump’s unfitness speaks for itself.
I’m having a hard time reconciling the past claims made on this blog that Bernie Sanders isn’t a team player during this presidential election with the fact that he’s been out campaigning for Hillary and has been taking down Donald Trump in ways Hillary would be wise to emulate. But I’m not a bit surprised that there has been no mention of his efforts on behalf of Hillary.
@DG “I’m having a hard time reconciling the past claims made on this blog that Bernie Sanders isn’t a team player…”
All in all, Bernie has done a lot more harm than good for Hillary. If you simply want to judge him on how much he has actually helped to keep a Republican out of the White House, then he still comes up rather short…
But that said, it’s not fair to judge him and his campaign only on that metric.
And the race isn’t over yet.
“All in all, Bernie has done a lot more harm than good for Hillary.”
How so? Where’s the evidence that millennials would support Hillary if Bernie had not run?
Liberal Elite is way off base. The dynamics of this campaign would be so different without Bernie’s run. Hillary today is not the candidate who showed up in the March 1st Primaries. If she were, this voter as well as a majority of others, would now be looking seriously at Jill Stein … as it is, Hillary is more Bernie now, than Bernie was before the Mid Atlantic Primaries… (of which Delaware was one). What Bernie did, was to prove what we have been saying for years now… True success comes from running on Democratic principals, not trying to mimic the Chamber of Commerce’s ideals….. The Chamber of Commerce… sucks big ones.
What Liberal Elite is doing is laying the groundwork for blaming Bernie on the chance that Trump actually defeats her in November. Instead of blaming themselves for selecting such a flawed candidate as Hillary, one so flawed that a Trump is actually competitive with her now, they will shift the blame from themselves to Bernie and his supporters if she loses. That way status quo thinking doesn’t have to be critically examined but can remain intact. It’s about preserving the supremacy of the establishment and not about prevailing and certainly not about what’s best for the American people.
No surprise. The problem is the dirty hippies. Since McGovern that’s the Dem Party line and it always will be the first refuge of lazy scoundrels.
Where’s the sunny optimistic uplifting Dem Party? That’s the party that beats Republicans. Clinton still has some time to break out the sunny optimism, but the door is closing.
I think it’s normal. Whatever side lost the primary would be pointing out how things would be different if their candidate won and/or how everything their candidate did after the loss was a good thing.
This race was always going to be close. No matter who was at the top of the D ticket. Jason pointed this out repeatedly – Republicans will come home. They will find ways to justify Trump. And they have. This isn’t surprising. Jason predicted it months ago.
I also think it will be close. I want Clinton to win and thus will be satisfied. I would love for her to win in a landslide simply to repudiate any and all Trump candidates, now and in the future. The Presidency is simply too important to have a candidates who are a joke, a danger or both.
@Dana: Hillary’s biggest “flaw” is the fact that the GOP has run a 25-year-long propaganda operation against her and her husband. Propaganda works, and her favorability numbers are the proof.
@k “Hillary today is not the candidate who showed up in the March 1st Primaries.”
I agree with that assessment, but that says nothing at all about Bernie actually helping her get elected in the long end. I think Bernie has helped her be a better candidate in a good way, while actually hurting her actual chances of winning.
@DG “What Liberal Elite is doing is laying the groundwork for blaming Bernie…”
Nah. I’m actually arguing that Bernie needs to do far more than he has, to make up for bad behavior directed at Hillary regarding her competence and qualifications.
If Hillary actually loses, there will be plenty of blame for many…
@a “Where’s the evidence that millennials would support Hillary if Bernie had not run?”
Where is the evidence that they would have abandoned her in the first place? Just look at the cross tabs in early polling.
@J “Since McGovern that’s the Dem Party line and it always will be the first refuge of lazy scoundrels.”
Is that directed at me?? Hilarious. I actually did volunteer work for McGovern.
@LE: Can you throw me a link? I believe you, but I’m not sure where you’re getting your data and I’m too lazy to search without a clue.
Here’s a 2015 poll. (Scroll down for the crosstabs)
Her highest favorability ratings were in the 18-34 age group (59%) and her unfavorables were the lowest with this group (37%) as well.
Those crosstabs carry a +/- of 8.5%, which means they didn’t poll a whole lot of people in that age group, so it’s not certain that her support was highest in that age group; she was above 50 percent with all of them. She’s not now.
Truth be told, even if she wins, I’m spooked enough by the amount of Trump support to start looking at retirement abroad.
Especially with the recent attacks in MN and NY. Even though GOP are proven cowards and failures in the War on Muslims, they win when people are feeling genocidy. Things are about to get very, very bad.
I wonder who is Goldman Sax’s candidate or the candidate of the military industrial complex or the fossil fuel industry?
Trump will start wars over nothing…. that feeds both the MIC and the FFI.
Frankly, I dont care if Clinton privatizes social security and requires all loans be private at whatever rate the lenders want. Trump means the end of this country. Trump is a genocide threat.
Even if Clinton wins 50 states, Trump supporters aren’t the types to self reflect on how wrong they were. They will blame the liberal media, say it was fixed and the like. Fanatics full of prideful ignorance are dangerous people
Let them whine. As long as they dont win.
These people arent exactly the most gracious victors either. They already have their reprisal legislation all lined up.