Delaware Liberal

Open Thread for Monday, September 26, 2016

Delaware Dem

PRESIDENT
NATIONAL–Bloomberg–Clinton 46, Trump 46
NATIONAL–ABC News/Washington Post–Clinton 49, Trump 47
NATIONAL–Economist/You Gov–Clinton 48, Trump 44
VIRGINIA–CBS News/YouGov–Clinton 45, Trump 37
VIRGINIA–Watson Center–Clinton 48, Trump 38
COLORADO–CBS News/YouGov–Clinton 40, Trump 39
COLORADO–CNN/ORC–Clinton 49, Trump 47
GEORGIA–WSB-TV/Landmark–Trump 47, Clinton 43
PENNSYLVANIA–Morning Call–Clinton 44, Trump 41
PENNSYLVANIA–CNN/ORC–Clinton 50, Trump 47
MISSOURI–CBS News/YouGov–Trump 46, Clinton 37

Matt Yglesias on what Hillary has to do tonight:

If Clinton could win the votes of the 59 percent of people who have an unfavorable view of Trump, she would end up slightly outperforming Ronald Reagan’s 1984 vote haul, generating a landslide win on a scale we haven’t seen in generations. Which is just to say that while making people think worse of your opponent is always useful in an election, Clinton is well into diminishing returns territory here. The reason she’s not currently projected to win a landslide isn’t that obdurate “Trump supporters” need to be shown the error of their ways, it’s that lots of people who aren’t Trump supporters aren’t yet committed to voting for her.

There’s probably nothing she can do to re-obtain the mid-sixties approval ratings she enjoyed as Secretary of State, but her ability to garner such high numbers once upon a time shows that she’s not inherently disliked. Barack Obama’s approximately fifty percent approval ratings show, similarly, that there’s no particular reason an “establishment,” “insider” politician identified with the status quo needs to be deeply unpopular.

Clinton’s team is, of course, broadly aware of this.

And, indeed, while they will concede that the campaign has been more focused on the case against Trump than on the case for Clinton they say — quite rightly — that when they do earnest, basic, policy-focused stuff the press ignores them. Trump is so light on policy that any policy announcements he does make front-page news. Then he’s graded on a curve like the most troublesome kid in the second grade class. His ability to put anything together at all wins him polite applause. Clinton can release a comprehensive program for vocational training or housing policy and it’s like a tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it.

That’s what makes the debate a unique opportunity. News channels that have been airing the Trump Show nonstop for a year are committed to airing an episode featuring Special Guest Star Hillary Clinton. The audience is sure to tune in. And even if Clinton stands up there and talks earnestly about her policy ideas, they aren’t going to cut her off.

In any situation other than a debate, Clinton can only get attention by launching vicious new attacks on Trump. In the debate, she’s guaranteed attention so it’s her chance to talk about her ideas and remind people of the positive aspects of her public persona — she’s diligent, attentive, well-informed, collaborative, and sincere in her interest in the work of governing.

It’s been difficult for this stuff to break through during the chaos of 2016, and the debates are the best chance to do it.

Josh Marshall on the state of the polling race:

First, let’s compare the 2012 and 2016 races. Obviously, we have the full race data set for 2012 while more than a month of 2016 is still to happen. Still the comparison is instructive. I’ve filtered each chart to begin in May. [Click through to TPM at the link above to see the charts].

A few things immediately jump out. First, the 2012 race is much more stable than the 2016 race. This is likely do to having four candidates, two fairly unliked candidates and a race that is at least to some degree upsetting recent voting patterns. Second, Clinton has maintained a lead at all times. The lead ranges from very small (less than a single percentage point) to fairly substantial (high single digits). (It is important to note that statistically speaking, when you are talking about an average of many polls, a lead of perhaps two percentage points is not a virtual tie.) This captures the key factors in the race. It is close by historical standards but not closer than 2012, judged by the leader’s margin. Indeed, over the course of the period we’re looking at the 2016 margin has usually been higher than 2012’s, sometimes substantially higher.

Does this mean Clinton more likely to win than Trump? Yes. Does this mean it’s close? Yes. Can you just assume Clinton will win and not worry about it? No. Should you channel your anxiety into self-doubt, recrimination and drama? Please don’t. Pretty much everything else seems like a matter of semantics.

My own hunch is that that line separating the two candidates is likely more durable than some suspect. But that’s just my own hunch.

At The Daily Beast Democratic speechwriters/strategists Kenneth Baer and Jeffrey Nussbaum have a suggestion for the Democratic nominee in their post, “Here’s Hillary’s Debate Knockout Punch—Will She Use It?: When the topic is cultural politics, Trump bites back. But when it’s class politics, his answers are lame—or he’s just silent. Therein lies the key.” Among their insights: “A little over a week ago, that ex-pugilist, Senator Harry Reid, leveled a blistering attack on Donald Trump as a “scam artist” who “rips off working people” and is hiding his tax returns, playing footsy with Vladimir Putin, and running a fake charity all to enrich himself…Trump’s response? Silence. It’s amazing to think that there’s anything that will quiet Trump, but after examining the political campaign to date, it’s clear that Donald Trump is well aware of what attacks hurt him, and which ones don’t. Trump’s tell is simple: he ignores the attacks he can’t parry, the ones that could open a conversation that would hurt him with the voters who (currently) support him most strongly.”

USA Today’s Heidi M. Przybyla lists “5 things Hillary Clinton needs to do on debate night,” including: “play offense”; “Be more likeable”; “Outline a positive vision”; “go off script”; and “Have a compelling answer about Iraq and Syria.” At Roll Call, Jonathan Allen offers “Five Objectives for Hillary Clinton in the Debates,” including: 1. Tell us what you’ll do for the country; 2. Let baby Donald hide behind your skirt; 3. Destroy Trump’s economic message; 4. Talk tougher on national security; and 5. Stop talking in paragraphs and pauses. Greg Sargent explains at The Plum Line “Clinton can win the debate even if Trump doesn’t act unhinged. Here’s how,” and suggests, “Job One for Clinton is to project as much steadiness, sobriety of purpose, and mastery of complex issues as possible, on the theory that voters will reward the candidate who actually takes the debates seriously as a proving ground for the excruciating pressures and brutally tough choices required of a president.”

New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg sees the first presidential debate, conducted by Lester Holt, a registered Republican, as “A Moment of Truth for Presidential Debate Moderators.” Rutenberg writes, “Can the moderators this fall turn their debate stages into falsehood-free zones? What does that look like in this election? Debate organizers say they want to avoid a situation in which the debate becomes one big fact-checking or hectoring exercise and never gets to important policy differences…Nobody wants a repeat of Matt Lauer’s performance a couple of weeks ago when he let Mr. Trump’s claim that he always opposed the Iraq war go unchallenged …Actually, scratch that. One person does — Mr. Trump, who portrayed critics of Mr. Lauer as liberals seeking to push debate moderators to be tougher on him than on Mrs. Clinton.”

Emmett Rensin/Newsweek on the wrongheadedness of blaming the kids:

I would like to suggest that the threat these young [millennial] voters pose to technocratic liberalism is not the possibility of electing Donald Trump. Despite Clinton’s flagging numbers, her chances of success remain high. Rather, the fear is that if younger voters really are committed to a host of ideological positions at odds with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, then that Party, without a Trump-sized cudgel, is doomed. It should not escape anybody’s notice that politics by negative definition—the argument, at bottom, that “we’re better than those guys”—has become the dominant electoral strategy of the Democratic Party, and that despite the escalation of the “those guys” negatives, the mere promise to be preferable has yielded diminishing returns. At some point, the Democratic Party will either need to embrace a platform significantly to the left of their current orthodoxy, or they will lose.

There are only so many times one can insist that young voters capitulate to a political party’s sole demand—vote for us!—in exchange for nothing.

This might not seem such a bad thing. Positions shift. Parties evolve. A serious threat of millennial desertion might lead to a natural compromise: support, in exchange for real policy concessions going forward. So why have liberal pundits resisted such a move? Why are they intent on not just defeating but discrediting the ideological preferences of the young left, dismissing them not as a legitimate divergence but as mere ignorance and confusion?

Rick Klein: “The public’s expectations are clear: 47 percent of Americans expect Hillary Clinton to win Monday’s first presidential debate, compared to only 33 percent for Donald Trump. As for the campaigns’ expectations, they’re focused on the moderator. Critical to both sides is the role of Lester Holt. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said on ‘This Week’ that it’s ‘unfair’ to expect Clinton to fact-check Trump… Mook’s counterpart on the Trump campaign, Kellyanne Conway, is working the refs from the opposite direction. ‘I really don’t appreciate campaigns thinking it’s the job of the media to go and be the virtual fact-checkers, and that debate moderators should somehow do their bidding,’ Conway said.”

“The focus on the man in the middle on Monday speaks to how nervous both sides are about the single biggest event of the campaign. But come Tuesday, fact-checks or not, it’s going to be the takeaways from Clinton and Trump – the pieces Mook and Conway both know they can only control so much – that’s likely to last.”

Los Angeles Times: “Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false statements as routinely as Trump has. Over and over, independent researchers have examined what the Republican nominee says and concluded it was not the truth — but ‘pants on fire’ (PolitiFact) or ‘four Pinocchios’ (Washington Post Fact Checker).”

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