The October 24, 2016 Thread
PRESIDENT
NATIONAL–ABC News/Washington Post–CLINTON 50, Trump 38
TEXAS–CBS News/YouGov–TRUMP 46, Clinton 43
FLORIDA–CBS News/YouGov–CLINTON 46, Trump 43
FLORIDA–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 48, Trump 44
MAINE–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 48, Trump 39
VIRGINIA–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 49, Trump 37
MINNESOTA–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 44, Trump 32
PENNSYLVANIA–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 49, Trump 39
NORTH CAROLINA–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 47, Trump43
James Hohmann: “Clinton has spent the past few months trying to frame the election as a referendum on him. She’s succeeded, in part, because Trump’s favorite thing to talk about is, well, Trump. And he takes everything personally. Trump started his answer on the Supreme Court vacancy, for example, by noting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said nasty things about him and claiming that she was ‘forced to apologize.’”
Maureen Dowd: “In Trump’s warped fun-house mirror of a psyche, every rejection is a small death. That is why he harps on humiliation, that America is being humiliated on the world stage … He gets so easily distracted by belittling statements … that he could not focus to make points in areas where Hillary is vulnerable. In order to stop losing, he would have to stop losing it.”
The emotional moment a girl is saved from the clutches of ISIS fighters in Iraq https://t.co/GFZNm7RrCa pic.twitter.com/5brId6D1xX
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) October 23, 2016
The Republican Party is f*cked. Look, Donald Trump is going to lose, most likely in historic Barry Goldwater fashion. But he is not going to go away.
A new Bloomberg poll shows 51% of Republican voters say Trump’s view better matches their own of what GOP should stand for while just 33% think Paul Ryan’s does. If Trump loses, 38% of his supporters say they’ll stay loyal to and follow him. Another 33% say they’ll follow him for a while but think they’ll eventually lose interest.
Even more interesting is who Republicans see as the next face of the Republican party. Nearly a quarter think it will still be Trump, while slightly more think it will be his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence.
Mothers of the Movement greet @HillaryClinton backstage at Union Baptist #NCVotesEarly pic.twitter.com/3BO2gLcu6F
— Neisha B. (@NeishaBlandin) October 23, 2016
“The third and final debate Wednesday marked the beginning of the end of a presidential race that most Republican leaders cannot wait to forget. But the party’s Donald Trump-driven divisions will not cease on election night,” the Washington Post reports.
“The axis of furious conservative activists and hard-right media that spawned Trump’s nationalist and conspiratorial campaign is determined to complete its hostile takeover of the GOP, win or lose.”
Matt Yglesias writes that the new silent majority is the opposite of the one Nixon talked about. While Trump voters and Bernie Millenials get all the press, the silent majority that is Hillary’s voters are going to win.
In 1972, Nixon’s silent majority, grounded firmly in the white working class, delivered a smashing victory for the GOP, dashing the hopes of George McGovern supporters that a new coalition of young white professionals and racial minorities could upend American politics. Forty-four years later, America is facing another silent majority election — one in which the story has been all about Trump’s supporters but the victory will go to Clinton’s…
Clinton led in the Democratic primary from the first day to the last, and has consistently led in general election polling since the beginning of the campaign. Yet the Clinton voter has not made the same kind of impression on the media, in part because the new silent majority voter offers less visible evidence of being fired up and the new silent majority’s signature politicians — Clinton and Obama — do not do grand performance of anger, even at a time when rage is all the rage in American politics.
To that end, the Democratic political data firm TargetSmart reports that we’ve already reached one political milestone in this election that is being shaped by that new silent majority.
The 2016 campaign may have reached dispiriting new lows, but voter registration in America has soared to new heights as 200 million people are now registered to vote for the first time in U.S. history.
The milestone is a sign of the aggressive voter registration efforts ahead of Nov. 8 and a symptom of the fast-growing and demographically shifting electorate that is expected to redound to the benefit of the Democratic Party in the coming years…
The figure means more than 50 million new people have registered to vote in the past eight years. Only 146.3 million were registered as recently as 2008, when then-Sen. Barack Obama first won the White House — a remarkable 33 percent surge in the electorate during a single presidency…
Overall, TargetSmart found that 42.6 percent of the new voters registered this year lean Democratic, and only 29 percent lean Republican (28.4 percent lean independent).
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post on the fallout for Trump after the Al Smith Dinner Disaster:
And so, it’s no surprise that Trump (a) didn’t feel comfortable in the room last night and (b) didn’t get a very warm reception from the crowd. It was, quite literally, not his people. For all of the ostentatious wealth and the braggadocio, Trump knows that these people don’t like him and have never accepted him.
My guess is that Trump’s reaction on the campaign trail in the wake of the Al Smith dinner will be even more aggressive and anti-elite than it was going into last night. Trump is an able reader of crowds; he will know that they were laughing/booing at him. And, if it’s anything like what happened in the wake of the 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner, he will use his own resentment to drive him in the final 18 days of this race.
In short: Last night was ugly. On the trail, it’s likely to get even uglier.
And it did, with him devoting the first 100 days of his hypothetical Presidency to suing all the women he assaulted.
BREAKING: Democrats massacre Republicans on first day of early voting in Clark County. 11,000 raw vote lead. 55 percent to 27 percent.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 23, 2016
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign “has built a field team in swing-states across the country that is larger than a U.S. Army brigade, giving her a huge advantage over Republican Donald Trump on Election Day,” The Hill reports.
“Between Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state party operations, campaign finance reports show Democrats employ 5,138 staffers across 15 battleground states… By contrast, Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and state parties employ just 1,409 staffers in 16 states.”
.@brianefallon says that HRC has asked her staff to make time for her to watch the Cubs. Will she go to a game? "We'll see," Fallon says.
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) October 23, 2016
Taegan Goddard says a Democratic Wave may be forming:
[T]he biggest factor may be a demoralized Republican party. With no hope of defeating Hillary Clinton and growing disgust over their own nominee, many Republicans may not even bother to vote.
The early evidence is striking. Last week’s ABC/Washington Post poll found a sharp 12-point decline in enthusiasm for Trump among his supporters. The latest poll shows intended participation of these voters has followed: The share of registered Republicans who are likely to vote is down 7 points since mid-October.
Trump’s own defeatist rhetoric over a “rigged” election may also be backfiring. Why participate in an election if you believe the outcome is predetermined?
At the same time, Clinton is shifting her attention to downballot races.
President Obama “will make a late splash into races for state senate and assembly over the next week, endorsing roughly 150 candidates across 20 states,” Politico reports.
“The endorsements—which will come along with a variety of robocalls, social media, mailers, photos of Obama with the candidates taken as he’s been traveling to campaign in recent weeks, and even a few radio ads—are Obama’s biggest investment in state races ever by far, and come as he gears up to make redistricting reform at the state level the political priority of his post-presidency.”
51% of 30% = permanent minority if Dems play thier cards half way right.
The Trump campaign has a point here:
He may have a point in SAYING it, but he isn’t going to do it. What he will TRY to do, is go after media companies who report anything other than praise about his ‘presidency”. Trump has reached the “spaghetti at the wall” phase of his dying candidacy.
Yes, but if you filter out all the Trumpisms and campaign sniping, you are left with:
“break up the new media conglomerate oligopolies”
and the astute observation that:
““The very corporations that have gained from shipping America’s factories and jobs offshore are the very same media conglomerates”
Those are concepts that need to be part of our real non-Trump policy debates.
Like TPP, Trump is the worst possible messenger for a message that needs delivering.
I believe the Obama administration could have gone after many of these monopoly, abusive and job killing practices but chose not to. In some very critical areas for average people, the 2 parties have different rhetoric but the same functional policies
So far, my favorite part of this morning is seeing Jason having typed “… if Dems play thier cards half way right”!!!
“The very corporations that have gained from shipping America’s factories and jobs offshore are the very same media conglomerates…” You mean like the Trump Corporation’s textile manufacturing?
No, more like Disney.
Joe, he only did that because the evil corrupt government let him. If only there were some sort of regulation.
Must-read article about tensions already forming over the Dem agenda.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/302289-dems-brace-for-immigration-battle-if-clinton-wins
Too many good quotes to copy them all here:
AT&T now stands to become the new Comcast/NBC/Universal. The only piece they were missing was content production. They already have the wireless, wired, internet, and satellite distribution pieces in place.
With this buy out they will be the next mega-corp to control end to end telecommunications, production, and content delivery services. Puts them right up there with Comcast.
I guess the questions are: 1) Are these companies doing anything in violation of anti-trust laws? 2) If so, would the DOJ would be willing to prosecute them?
As long as I can continue to make phone calls, google stuff, and watch Game of Thrones, then I don’t care.
Trump’s comments regarding the media rigging things is spot on, if and only if the general population are sheep, ignorant, lazy, or suffering from confirmation bias. If that’s the case then, I would worry less about the media than our educational system and our parenting which should taught critical thinking skills to ensure that as adults people would have the ability to, you know, actually think, research, and form their own thoughts and opinions based on actual facts and data, including inconvenient data.
The Rolling Stone defamation trial is underway and details are emerging, offering a look inside the “rape culture.”
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva/erdely-stands-by-depiction-of-eramo-regrets-relying-on-jackie/article_fa4f5d08-9712-11e6-bdbf-f3abe72ff9bc.html
Note that “Jackie” is not on trial here. The case is between Rolling Stone and a UVA official.
You’re just trolling now.
“Trump’s comments regarding the media rigging things is spot on,”
How? by reporting on the things coming out of his face-hole? I would say the media “rigged-it” in his favor by giving him billions in free-air time. You must have forgotten that a Sanders victory speech was CUT SHORT so they could pan to Trump’s EMPTY FUCKING PODIUM.. (sorry DD, still a little bitter about that)
Trump is an unacceptable monster to many. His own words, actions, self are what are costing him votes, The constant attention he gets (he wasn’t complaining when it was helping him) is the press reporting on what the nominee of the GOP is up to.
What are Democrats going to run on when they don’t have Trump anymore?
how would we know how terrible trump is if the media didn’t show us? we don’t personally follow him around.
Trump is not in a vacuum. He’s dredged to the surface what many people have known to be lying just under the water line and just out of sight. We now fully see exactly how ugly our country is. Trump didn’t cause it, he exposed it, and it’s existed in the GOP long before Trump decided to run for president. Dems run on that.
They run on the ideas of inclusion, change (and with some more millenials in the mix, progressive change). They should run on that, but where I think you would have a valid concern is WILL they run on that. We’ll know for sure in 2018. Dems seem to forget mid-term elections are a thing.
Dems are going to win the Senate in 2016 and then lose it in 2018. The first thing they have to do is eliminate filibuster at least for Supreme Court confirmation, then the justices need to get busy retiring. After 2018 nominations will have to pass a Republican majority.
The only way out of a 2018 Senate Republican majority is a jobs boom, which isn’t in the cards in the Hillary agenda.
Not sure what could create a jobs booms other than redirecting some federal dollars to infrastructure.
The media conglomerates don’t offshore nearly as much as traditional manufacturers do, and that is mostly some content development, some customer service, but that is pretty puny considering the money involved. This business about breaking up media companies is all of a piece of bringing back steel production — something he won’t be able to do, but sounds good. And fundamentally won’t change much.
Infrastructure would create a jobs boom, a thing that HRC has been touting. The GOP won’t want to spend the money, of course.
“Infrastructure would create a jobs boom, a thing that HRC has been touting. The GOP won’t want to spend the money, of course.”
True. But an infrastructure bill is a “must pass” for Hillary. So it will be too small to create a jobs boom, but big enough for Republicans and DINOS to run back to austerity as a solution. And I cringe at the Republican sweeteners that will be added to pass the bill to “get things done.”
” I would say the media “rigged-it” in his favor by giving him billions in free-air time’
Sure. Therefore Trump was right. The media was rigging it. Trump thought it was not in his favor, but it actually was. But the point is not whose favor it is or was. The point is the media has long moved on from providing the facts to influencing outcomes.
Further, my main point is not that media is rigging anything anyway, it’s that we the people, have lost the ability for critical thinking, creating a vacuum which is willingly filled by media influencers. The media is only as bad as we allow them to be. They feed us crap and we eat. So why wouldn’t they feed us more crap?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tom-hayden-dead-anti-war-activist_us_580da8f7e4b0a03911ed72bc?section=
Hayden’s death made me think of my father. My pop was a member of SDS from ’68 – ’70. Very proud of that fact. Just like Hayden, my dad has mellowed politically (a bit). Very timely quote of Hayden’s in the NYT obit.
“The radicalism of the 1960s is fast becoming the common sense of the 1970s.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/us/tom-hayden-dead.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Must pass ≠ Will pass
Especially if there is a Congress that is still GOP and has plenty of Dems who are scared for re-election.
$33+M — that’s how much Oregon made from Jan to August of this year from taxing pot.
I grew up with the Catonsville 9