The November 5, 2016 Thread

Filed in National by on November 5, 2016

NATIONAL–McClatchy/Marist–CLINTON 46, Trump 44
NATIONAL–Fox News–CLINTON 45, Trump 43
NATIONAL–ABC Tracking–CLINTON 49, Trump 45
NATIONAL–Reuters/Ipsos–CLINTON 45, Trump 37
MICHIGAN–Detroit Free Press–CLINTON 42, Trump 38
MICHIGAN–PPP–CLINTON 46, Trump 41
PENNSYLVANIA–PPP–CLINTON 48, Trump 44
NORTH CAROLINA–PPP–CLINTON 49, Trump 47
NEVADA–PPP–CLINTON 48, Trump 43
NEW HAMPSHIRE–PPP–CLINTON 48, Trump 41
IOWA–Emerson–TRUMP 44, Clinton 41
NEW MEXICO–Zia–CLINTON 46, Trump 43
COLORADO–PPP–CLINTON 48, Trump 43
WISCONSIN–Loras–CLINTON 44, Trump 38
WISCONSIN–PPP–CLINTON 48, Trump 41
VIRGINIA–Roanoke College–CLINTON 45, Trump 38
VIRGINIA–PPP–CLINTON 48, Trump 43
GEORGIA–WSB/Landmark–TRUMP 48, Clinton 46
GEORGIA–Opinion Savvy–TRUMP 49, Clinton 45
NEW JERSEY–Richard Stockton College–CLINTON 51, Trump 40
UTAH–Gravis–TRUMP 35, Clinton 29, McMullin 24
UTAH–Y2 Analytics–TRUMP 33, McMullin 28, Clinton 24
MASSACHUSETTS–Western NE University–CLINTON 56, Trump 26

Sarah Palin will join Donald Trump on the campaign trail in the final days before election day in two key states, Michigan and North Carolina, the Daily Beast reports. She will also join Trump on Election Night in New York City.

So, the Associated Press has verified that Melania Trump entered the country in 1996 on a visa that did not permit her to work, but she immediately went to work on modeling jobs from actual U.S. citizens and foreigners who had actual work visas. This is precisely what her husband has been railing against.

I could give a shit about Melania’s immigration status. But it proves that she and her husband and every single person who supports them are not only hypocrites, but flaming evil racists. Illegal immigration of white people from white Eastern Europe is ok, because they are white. Illegal immigration of brown people from the Middle East or Latin America is not ok because they are brown.

“The company that owns the National Enquirer, a backer of Donald Trump, agreed to pay $150,000 to a former Playboy centerfold model for her story of an affair a decade ago with the Republican presidential nominee, but then didn’t publish it,” according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

“The tabloid-newspaper publisher reached an agreement in early August with Karen McDougal, the 1998 Playmate of the Year. American Media Inc., which owns the Enquirer, hasn’t published anything about what she has told friends was a consensual romantic relationship she had with Mr. Trump in 2006. At the time, Mr. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania.”

Noah Rothman on the year knowledge died, on the left and right: “Weaponized misinformation is hardly a new phenomenon. Its effect on the 2016 presidential race has, however, been exceptionally ominous. A campaign of deliberate deceptions involving but not limited to foreign entities seeking to disrupt the American political process to their own ends should be ringing alarm bells for patriotic American voters.”

“But there’s no one left to ring them; the stewards of objective discourse have been discredited in the minds of those this campaign has targeted. The age in which there was universally understood and incontrovertible truth is over. The information age has given way to something more closely resembling its antonym.”

Excellent. If a single thing happens, if one website slows down for any reason whatsoever, we send Russia back to the Stone Age for a day. It’s time to slap Putin around.

“Hillary Clinton campaigned Friday in the company of friends and celebrities, first flanked by the billionaire businessman Mark Cuban in Pittsburgh and Detroit, and then at a concert in Cleveland with Jay Z and Beyoncé. High-wattage political leaders fanned out for her around the country: Her husband, Bill, stumped in Colorado, as President Obama rallied voters in North Carolina,” the New York Times reports.

“By comparison, Donald J. Trump was a lonely figure.”

“In the final days of the presidential race, Mr. Trump’s political isolation has made for an unusual spectacle on the campaign trail — and perhaps a limiting factor in his dogged comeback bid.”

A lot of people reading this would do well to follow Hillary’s lead.

“One reason there’s so much uncertainty in the race so close to Election Day is the sharp decline in high-quality polls this year,” Politico reports.

“FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver calculated the number of polls in competitive states released from Thursday evening through the day on Friday. In all, Silver counted 67 polls across 17 states.”

“That seems like a robust number, but of the 67 polls, only 5 were conducted by live telephone interviewers randomly calling voters on landlines and cell phones — still considered by many to be the most reliable form of polling.”

New Republic: “There’s been much dispute about whether Trumpism is a passing fad or will have staying power. Trump himself is a senior citizen and has, at best, one more presidential run in him. It’s not clear whether any of his children have the political charisma needed to take over the movement, or whether other politicians (Tom Cotton? Ted Cruz?) would be prepared to remake themselves in Trump’s image.”

“But there is ample reason to think that Trumpism will continue to be a powerful force in the Republican Party simply because Stephen Bannon will be around to promote it. Over the last two years, Bannon has proven himself to be a formidable figure on the right, with both the means and the ambition to alter the political landscape.”

Mother Jones: “In an episode reminiscent of Watergate, the Democratic Party recently informed the FBI that it had collected evidence suggesting its Washington headquarters had been bugged, according to two Democratic National Committee officials, who asked not to be named.”

“In September, according to these sources, the DNC hired a firm to conduct an electronic sweep of its offices. After Russian hackers had penetrated its email system and those of other Democratic targets, DNC officials believed it was prudent to scrutinize their offices. This examination found nothing unusual.”

“The second sweep, according to the Democratic officials, found a radio signal near the chairman’s office that indicated there might be a listening device outside the office.”

Playbook: “Here’s one theory bouncing around the reporter and political campaign consultant world: Despite the recent tightening of the race, election night could be super boring. If Nevada political guru Jon Ralston is right — and he usually is — Hillary Clinton has all but won that state. If she takes Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia — all states where she seems to have a lead, or is building one through early voting — Donald Trump can win Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and New Hampshire and still lose.”

President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina writes about “The Election Polls That Matter” and why that gives Clinton a clear advantage.

The best campaigns don’t bother with national polls — I’ve come to hate public polling, period. In the 2012 race we focused on a “golden report,” which included 62,000 simulations to determine Mr. Obama’s chances of winning battleground states. It included state tracking polls and nightly calls from volunteers, but no national tracking polls…

Today, campaigns can target voters so well that they can personalize conversations. That is the only way, when any candidate asks about the state of the race, to offer a true assessment.

Hillary Clinton can do that. To my knowledge, Donald J. Trump, who has bragged that he doesn’t care about data in campaigns, can’t.

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  1. kavips says:
    November 5, 2016 at 10:14 am

    Yes, this has been an amazing year, one in which we pushed the envelope of the information’s age I think to its outer limit.

    Like nuclear bombs, which kept getting bigger and bigger until we almost lost control of the process, I think that same analogy would correspond to what we’ve done with the outer limits of our microprocessor potential.

    Over the next four years we will figure out and agree where to set the limits…

  2. puck says:
    November 5, 2016 at 10:27 am

    “I could give a shit about Melania’s immigration status.”

    That’s because you are not a model. You would feel differently if you were looking for model work and found jobs were going to illegal workers instead.

  3. Jason330 says:
    November 5, 2016 at 11:02 am

    The “Information Age” was short. Hopefully the misinformation age will be even shorter.

  4. Turk 184 says:
    November 5, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    Jason330 FTW!

  5. Steve Newton says:
    November 5, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    @jason–unfortunately it won’t be. The consequence of almost unlimited open sources and the flattening of knowledge-based hierarchies (“experts” no longer dominate dialogue or gate-keep access) is cacophony and the ability to ALWAYS find some credible-sounding source that speaks to each person’s individual prejudices.

    We are only still in the early stages of weaponized information.

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