2020 democrat hopefuls...

ace's n 8's · Aug 15, 2019

Democrats warn Supreme Court to 'heal itself' or face restructuring

Top Senate Democrats including 2020 hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand are warning the Supreme Court to stay out of a New York gun case.

stumbler · Aug 16, 2019

Fox News poll shows Trump losing to Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris

A Fox News poll released Thursday showed President Trump losing head-to-head matchups against four of the top Democratic presidential primary contenders.

The poll found Trump with 39 percent support among registered voters in head-to-head matchups against Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The poll found Sanders beating Trump with 48 percent, Warren winning over Trump with 45 percent and Harris winning with 46 percent support.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, beat Trump in the theoretical matchup with 50 percent support among those surveyed, compared to Trump's 38 percent.

Among Democratic primary contenders, Warren saw the largest gain in support in the poll — an 8 percent jump from last month's survey. Warren, according to the poll, took second place behind Biden with the support of 20 percent of Democratic primary voters.

Sanders dropped to third, now at 10 percent in the poll and the only other candidate aside from Warren and Biden scoring double digit support among voters.

Biden dropped slightly in the poll from a previous Fox News poll in July, from 33 percent to 31 percent, but remains the clear front-runner in the race according to the survey.

The Fox News poll was taken between Aug. 11-13 and contacted 1,013 registered voters on landlines and cellphones. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent for all registered voters, and 4.5 percent for Democratic primary voters.
Click to expand...

https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...ump-losing-to-biden-warren-sanders-and-harris

latecomer91364 · Aug 16, 2019

Aaaauuuugghhh! CURSES! Those damn polls! Those harbingers of doom!

Oh, woe is me... all is lost... (sob)

Blah blah blah... polls... yada yada yada...

This will be the scene outside the DNC headquarters the day after the election:

Distant Lover · Aug 16, 2019

ace's n 8's said: ↑

The downfall of 2020 Democrats’ student debt forgiveness

The Democratic presidential candidates’ costly plans for universal health care dominated the Detroit debates — but their plans for tackling the costs of higher education are every bit as ambitious, and controversial, even if they don’t prompt the same on-stage fireworks as the “Medicare-for-all” divide.

The college debt question is quickly becoming a defining issue for Democratic candidates. As with health care, they have a wide range of proposals – from completely wiping out the roughly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt to expanding grants to low-income students to making public college tuition-free. Moreover, many of the plans are wildly expensive and prompting serious debate over whether the solutions are practical for dealing with costs that lawmakers across the political spectrum agree are sky-high.

SANDERS CALLS FOR WIPING OUT $1.6 TRILLION IN STUDENT DEBT BY TAXING WALL STREET

“The big issue is the cost of a college education,” Michael Lux, a student loan expert and the founder of the Student Loan Sherpa, told Fox News. “Any plan addressing student loans needs to also address the rising cost of higher education.”

The two Democratic candidates with the most sweeping proposals for dealing with student loans are Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who have both outlined plans to wipe out the debt accrued by college students through tax hikes for certain individuals and transactions.
Click to expand...

@ace's n 8's,

You may not have wanted to follow this comment with a web address because at some time in the future that website might have included the photo of a fully dressed minor. Nevertheless, it should have been attributed. It comes from FOX News.

As far as the issue of free college is concerned, I believe that those who advocate it have been disingenuous when they say other countries offer it. Yes they do, but they only offer it to a fairly small minority of high IQ achievers, who have demonstrated previously that they can benefit from a college education.

In his book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality Charles Murray claims, "Too many people are going to college." I agree.

I like the idea of raising taxes on Wall Street, especially on people like Jeffrey Epstein who get fabulously rich doing something that does not seem to have any social utility, but I think the money can be better spent than giving anyone who wants a college education a free college education.

ace's n 8's · Aug 16, 2019

Distant Lover said: ↑

@ace's n 8's,

You may not have wanted to follow this comment with a web address because at some time in the future that website might have included the photo of a fully dressed minor. Nevertheless, it should have been attributed. It comes from FOX News.

As far as the issue of free college is concerned, I believe that those who advocate it have been disingenuous when they say other countries offer it. Yes they do, but they only offer it to a fairly small minority of high IQ achievers, who have demonstrated previously that they can benefit from a college education.

In his book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality Charles Murray claims, "Too many people are going to college." I agree.

I like the idea of raising taxes on Wall Street, especially on people like Jeffrey Epstein who get fabulously rich doing something that does not seem to have any social utility, but I think the money can be better spent than giving anyone who wants a college education a free college education.
Click to expand...

Typically I do a google search of the bold title....''The downfall of 2020 Democrats’ student debt forgiveness''

Never really needing a link anymore.

ace's n 8's · Aug 16, 2019

Grassley, invoking 'Uranium One,' probes Biden-linked sale of sensitive tech company to China

Saying the potential conflicts of interest were reminiscent of the controversial "Uranium One" transaction, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley announced Thursday he is probing the Obama administration's 2015 decision to approve the sale of a sensitive U.S. technology company to the Chinese government and an investment firm run by the sons of Joe Biden and John Kerry.

Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine have already become a liability for the elder Biden's frontrunning presidential campaign, and the new investigation could lead to further allegations of corruption. Joe Biden has bragged about pressuring Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor in 2016, and critics said the then-vice president wanted to head off the prosecutor's probe into a company that employed Hunter Biden as a board member.

Grassley, writing to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, noted that Rosemont Seneca Partners, which was established by Kerry stepson Christopher Heinz and Hunter Biden, among others, joined with the government-run Bank of China to create Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) in 2013. The fund openly advertised its “unique Sino-US shareholding structure," as well as its lucrative “global resources and network."

stumbler · Aug 16, 2019

The biggest problem of all is if you've seen one Trump rally you have seen them all. He's a one trick phony that just keeps trotting out the same old dog and pony show over and over and over again. And even for his cult followers its already getting boring with 16 months to go. 90 minutes of incoherent rambling and repeating himself.

Trump bragged about the size of his crowd — but Fox News showed empty seats

President Donald Trump praised the crowd size at his New Hampshire rally after returning to his New Jersey vacation at his Bedminster golf club.

“Great news! Tonight, we broke the all-time attendance record previously held by Elton John at [Southern New Hampshire University Arena] in Manchester, New Hampshire!” Trump tweeted.

As internet users were quick to point out, Fox News showed empty seats at the rally.

Here is some of what people were saying:

Helen Kennedy ✔ @HelenKennedy

Lol you cropped out the upper tier, which was half empty.

1,196
8:57 PM - Aug 15, 2019
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/tr...of-his-crowd-but-fox-news-showed-empty-seats/

stumbler · Aug 16, 2019

Sorry Trump supporters. And you PR hacks will be looking for work. 2020 just got called.

Scaramucci Predicts ‘Jackass’ Trump Will Drop Out of Race By March 2020: ‘Impossible For Him to Win’

Anthony Scaramucci, the former (brief) communications director for President Donald Trump who has turned on the administration in recent days, gave an interview to Vanity Fair in which he presented a lofty psychoanalysis — including a prediction that Trump will drop out of the presidential race in March 2020.

“He’s gonna drop out of the race because it’s gonna become very clear. Okay, it’ll be March of 2020. He’ll likely drop out by March of 2020. It’s gonna become very clear that it’s impossible for him to win,” the Mooch predicted. “And is this the kind of guy that’s gonna want to be that humiliated and lose as a sitting president? ”

Even after being fired 11 days into the job in 2017, the New York financier has maintained mostly loyal to the president. Then after the Dayton and El Paso shootings, the Mooch said that Trump’s campaign-style visits to communities ravaged by disaster had been a “catastrophe for him.”

Trump then blasted Scaramucci on Twitter. “Anthony, who would do anything to come back in [to the Trump administration], should remember the only reason he is on TV, and it’s not for being the Mooch!” said Trump. “You are losing your fastball— very weak troll,” Scaramucci responded.

Friday, Scaramucci woke up to find his Twitter account suspended, likely for calling Trump the “fattest president since William Howard Taft” after the president told a supporter he thought was a protester to “go home” and “start exercising.”

“You’ve had quite the last few days,” said Vanity Fair’s William Cohan to Scaramucci. “Oh my god, this jackass. You know, it’s all good. I mean, it could be the best three or four days ever, actually,” responded Scaramucci, known for his love of media attention.

He said the “red line” for Trump losing his support was the “full-blown racism,” though he asserted that he does not believe Trump is racist. “And let me explain to you why he’s not a racist, ’cause this is very important. He’s actually worse than a racist. He is so narcissistic, he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as objects in his field of vision,” said Scaramucci.

“That’s why he’s got his thumb up in the air when he’s taking a picture with an orphan. That’s why when someone’s leaning over the desk and asks [Nobel Prize–winning human rights activist Nadia Murad], “Well, what happened to your family members?”—they were murdered—he just looks at her and says, ‘Okay, when are we getting coffee here?'”

Scaramucci further explained his theory on Trump’s sociopathic tendencies: “You know, he doesn’t look at people—and by the way, if you and I were in his field of vision and he had a cold and the two of us had to die for him to get a Kleenex, you’re fucking dead. I mean, there’s no chance.”

Scaramucci said Trump is “losing it mentally,” apparent in “the way he’s sweating” that his body is not doing well. Though he assured that he does not have “Trump derangement syndrome” but rather “Trump fatigue syndrome,” saying that the nation and all of his party members feel it too.

“Trump is crazy, everything about him is terrible, or we gotta do everything we can to defeat him. He wants that,” added Scaramucci.

Scaramucci said that he hasn’t seen a Republican candidate come forward that can pose a formidable threat to Trump and Democrats, but he’s looking. “Talking about Trump being primaried: you know, this is like Game of Thrones. We need an Arya Stark, okay?”
Click to expand...

https://www.mediaite.com/news/scara...race-by-march-2020-impossible-for-him-to-win/

ace's n 8's · Aug 17, 2019

Outside SNHU arena: Why some waited all night to see Trump

The SNHU Arena is an indoor events arena in Manchester, New Hampshire, and seats 9,852 for ice hockey, 11,140 for basketball and up to 11,770 for concerts.

Boudreault said he was looking forward to the rally, so he could see the President he thinks will be remembered as the greatest, and be around "12,000 people like me."

But according to Manchester Deputy Fire Marshal Mitchell Cady, who supervised the counting of the crowd, Trump was correct. Cady told The Daily Mail that the attendance was “just over 11,500.” He added that “the arena staff said Elton John was around 11,300” in April 2004. Cady pointed out that according to his office, at least 8,000 people stood outside the arena watching Trump's rally on jumbo TV screens. He said, “We weren't counting it but we estimated probably in the area of 8,000 to 9,000 out front.”

stumbler · Aug 19, 2019

This could be why people in Trump's administration are showing up drunk for TV interviews.

Anthony Scaramucci says Trump cabinet officials are preparing to turn on the president

Former Trump administration official Anthony Scaramucci predicts that some current cabinet officials are ready to jump ship and denounce President Donald Trump.

Scaramucci, who has recently abandoned his support for the president, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that some current administration officials will soon turn on Trump and work against his 2020 re-election.

“It’s a little bit like a cycle,” Scaramucci said. “I mean, if you can get the cycle started, some people that are fear-based due to the president’s bullying or the nonsense on his Twitter feed or how he handles himself personally, they’re intimidated by him.”

“One person said, well, if he goes down in the polls or is politically wounded a little bit, I’ll feel more comfortable coming out,” he added. “The truth of the matter is, if you come out and say the truth, that will start the process.”

Scaramucci said he understood the reasons why Trump officials might continue to stand by the president, but he said they must eventually warn the public that the president is unfit for office.

“It’s very tough for most people, I understand that,” Scaramucci said. “It’s a process for people because it’s sort of, like, a loyalty trap. You’re a Republican, you want to serve the president, you love the country. You know the president’s unstable, so you’re telling reporters, ‘I’m here because it would be worse if I wasn’t here.’ It’s sort of that sort of rhetoric going on inside the White House, inside the cabinet and up on Capitol Hill. They’re saying well, ‘I don’t want to necessarily get primaried further to the right.’

“What we saw over the week is the balloon is coming out of the president’s bombast,” he added. “The balloon is coming out of his rhetoric.”

Trump responded to Scaramucci with a *barrage of insults on Twitter minutes after the segment ended.

….got fired. Wrote a very nice book about me just recently. Now the book is a lie? Said his wife was driving him crazy, “something big” was happening with her. Getting divorced. He was a mental wreck. We didn’t want him around. Now Fake News puts him on like he was my buddy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2019
Click to expand...

*Hate watching CNN again.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/an...cials-are-preparing-to-turn-on-the-president/

stumbler · Aug 20, 2019

Scaramucci Pens WaPo Op-Ed on Why He Turned on Trump: Republicans Should ‘Summon the Nerve to Speak Out’

Anthony Scaramucci has been all over the place in the past week-plus having essentially turned on President Donald Trump. The Mooch, of course, used to effusively praise the president and there’s been a great deal of skepticism from both Trump supporters and Trump critics on why he would now go from effusive praise to sounding the alarms about the president’s fitness.

Scaramucci penned an op-ed for The Washington Post out tonight saying he now believes “the negatives of Trump’s demagoguery now clearly outweigh the positives of his leadership, and it is imperative that Americans unite to prevent him from serving another four years in office.”

He says he thought by working in the Trump administration he “could counteract the far-right voices in the room.”

Scaramucci calls again on Republicans to speak out like he is:

I challenge my fellow Republicans to summon the nerve to speak out on the record against Trump. Defy the culture of fear he has created, and go public with the concerns you readily express in private. Hold on to your patriotism, and help save the country from his depredations. And to members of the so-called resistance, please leave room on the off-ramp for those willing to admit their mistakes.

This morning Trump blasted Scaramucci again on Twitter and trashed his “gross incompetence” in the White House:

The RNC has been blasting Scaramucci today too, including with a video of his past praise of Trump. Scaramucci responded by asking if the GOP’s become a “cult of personality.”

Anthony Scaramucci ✔ @Scaramucci

Open question: is the @GOP supporting an open primary process as it has done traditionally or has the party become a cult of personality? We got a lot wrong. I own my mistakes. 2024 is coming and soon you will have to admit that too. https://twitter.com/gop/status/1163553070367825921 …

You can read the full op-ed here.
Click to expand...

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/scar...blicans-should-summon-the-nerve-to-speak-out/

ace's n 8's · Aug 20, 2019

Nothing like baiting the leftists...lol.

stumbler · Aug 23, 2019

Does anyone understand the 2020 race? This scholar nailed the blue wave — here’s her forecast

In July 2018, the most widely respected analysts were decidedly uncertain whether the Democrats could retake the House. On July 6, Cook Political Report, for example, listed 180 seats as “solid” for Democrats, with 12 likely/lean and 3 “toss-up or worse.” If the Democrats won all of those and the 22 GOP-held seats described as “toss-ups” — they’d still be one seat short of a majority, at 217.

But on July 1, newcomer Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, released her prediction of a 42-seat “blue wave,” while also citing the Arizona and Texas U.S. Senate races as “toss-ups.” Her startling prediction was numerically close to perfect; Democrats will end up with a gain of 40 or 41 seats, depending how the re-run in North Carolina’s 9th district turns out. (Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won the Arizona Senate race, in a major historical shift, and Beto O’Rourke came close in Texas.) Furthermore, she even strutted a little, writing on Nov. 2 that she hadn’t adjusted her seat count, but that “the last few months have been about filling in the blanks on which specific seats will flip.” Her resulting list of those was also close to perfect.

With a record like that, you’d think that Bitecofer’s explanation of what happened would have drawn universal attention and become common sense — but you’d be sadly mistaken. She’s barely beginning to get the recognition she deserves, and more troubling for the country, the outdated assumptions her model dispensed with continue to cloud the thinking of pundits and Democratic Party leadership alike. (Follow her on Twitter here.)

This hampers efforts to counter Donald Trump’s destructive impact on a daily basis, and spreads confusion about both Democratic prospects and strategy in the 2020 election prospects. Above all, the mistaken belief that Democrats won in 2018 by gaining Republican support (aka winning back “Trump voters”) fuels an illusory search for an ill-defined middle ground that could actually demobilize the Democratic leaners and voters who actually drove last year’s blue wave.

Today’s polarized hyper-partisan environment is the product of long-term historical processes that can’t simply be wished away, Bitecofer argues. Her case is similar to the one described in detail by Alan Abramowitz in his 2018 book, “The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump” (Salon review here), as both scholars confirm.

“I am concerned with the longer-term trends that provide the context for these short-term effects,” Abramowitz said of Bitecofer’s model. “She’s very interested in the impact of demographic change and growing racial and ethnic diversity on the party system, especially in contributing to growing partisan polarization and negative partisanship,” which are key themes of his work.

The good news is that so long as Trump is in office, negative partisanship gives Democrats an edge, as electoral realignment continues. Rather than fearing Trump’s ability to repeat his 2016 upset, on July 1 of this year Bitecofer released her 2020 projection, which shows Democrats winning 278 electoral votes versus 197 for Trump, with several swing states too close to call. Bitecofer also isn’t worried about the Democrats losing their House majority. On Aug. 6, Bitecofer released a preliminary list of 18 House seats the Democrats could flip in 2020, nine of them in Texas. The most significant threats that concern Democrats are actually golden opportunities, according to her model.

That’s not to say Democrats don’t have anything to worry about — especially in 2022, when the tailwinds of negative partisanship may well be blowing in the other direction. But worrying about the right things, rather than phantoms, is the first step toward deal with them. So I sat down to talk with Bitecofer, in hopes of bringing some sanity and perspective to what is already a bewildering election cycle. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

When I first saw your 2018 midterm projection, I felt two things simultaneously: First, this really makes sense, and then a sense of dread. “Oh my God, is this just motivated reasoning on my part, that makes me think this is so smart?” I no longer have divided feelings, but I understand the doubts.

Well, I can tell you as a person creating the analysis, I have that same problem. Imagine being the person doing the analysis and having that problem: Is this actually what’s going on, or is this just wishful thinking?

I had an advantage since I had lived through the Virginia cycle. [That is, the state legislative races of 2017 that resulted in big wins for the Democrats.] In the Virginia cycle, I kept telling everybody else, “This can be a massive landslide. You guys should be investing in delegate races because you guys can probably pick up 15-20 of them.” And everyone was saying, “Oh no, that’s not how it works in Virginia politics, you’re just too new to Virginia.” So I already had the advantage of knowing that. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t absolutely sick to my stomach on Election Day.

When made your initial prediction of a 42-seat wave, other analysts weren’t even sure there would be any blue wave at all, and everybody had toss-ups where you are saying these will flip or are likely to flip. You were proven right, but the common-sense explanation that Democrats won over moderate Republicans by campaigning on health care was very much at odds with your explanation. You had this very prescient insight, and then everyone else catches up, but they sort of drop your insight. So how did you know, and how is that explanation mistaken?

I’m really glad to hear you frame it that way. I haven’t heard it framed that way, even in my own brain, but you’re exactly right. I am way ahead of everybody, they finally catch up as we move into the final two months before Election Day — certainly that last month — and then the election happens and it happens exactly that way, and then they abandoned my explanation. Now I’m out there trying to fight to get the explanation accepted.

The explanation, of course, is that it was this giant turnout of core constituencies, that either are Democrats or favor Democrats — they’re independents who favor Democrats — and they have a huge turnout explosion. So it’s not the same pool of voters changing their minds and voting Democrat after voting Republican because of the issue of health care. It’s a whole different pool of voters.

They might have many reasons that they cite, and probably this is not the reason they would cite. But what made them enraged and show up is Trump Inc., the negative partisanship. I don’t know why Nancy Pelosi, the DCCC or many of these moderate members are convinced that moderate Republicans crossed over and voted for them. I have the data for some of these districts and the data tells a very different, very clear story: If Republicans voted in huge numbers, they voted for Republicans.

In your look back, you actually said that there was a Republican surge, but it wasn’t a match for the Democratic surge.

The truth of the matter is Democratic turnout, particularly in midterms, is so bad that with the giant surge the Democrats managed to put together, what they were able to do is come close to matching Republican turnout. Which is good, that’s a major victory. But in many districts, especially where the candidates were focusing on being moderate, the Democratic turnout still underperformed its potential, and still underperformed turnout among Republicans, according to this analysis that I’ll be releasing after Labor Day.

But the turnout surge among independents — new independents, not ones who voted in 2014 — was so large combined with that turnout surge of Democrats to flip the district. If Republicans had also voted for Democrats, then these margins by which Democrats won would be much larger.

What factors predicted the turnout that allowed your model to be so accurate?

This model was built in the wake of the 2016 election. It was built as a response, answering why the models were off in 2016, and it was based on this belief that polarization has changed the behavior of voters. It has decreased the efficacy of things like the economy and increased the predictive power of things like partisanship. So the main predictor in my model is partisanship, the party competition of the state or the district, if were talking about my 2018 model, and that really sets the frame of the debate.

It has to be within a realm of possibility. To illustrate that, in 2018 when we look at the Senate map, Arizona was an R+5 state — that meant it had a partisan advantage for Republicans of about five points. Tennessee was an R+15 state, and of course, as I predicted, Arizona flipped to the Democrats but Tennessee didn’t even come close, despite multiple millions of dollars spent by Democrats in that effort.

The second thing that’s most significant and influential — and this is totally unique and new — is the percentage of college-educated residents residing in the state or in the district. This is what I said would be unique and new in the Trump era. This was why I was able to look at maps, at these races that in 2018 people saw as toss-ups, and say, “No, no, no, no. These are going to flip.”

In this new era that we’re moving into, we have college-educated voters moving towards the Democrats, and white working-class voters moving away from them. That allowed me to look months and months ahead at polling and say, these are the races where Democrats are going to do really well.

Circling back to something you already touched on, you argue that the “midterm effect” is misunderstood and that the old model — the movement of independents’ support from party to party — was a mistaken way of thinking about it. What sort of evidence was there for this prior to 2016, and then afterward?

We have thought of the midterm effect in this way: You have the president, you’ve got two years of performance. For a long time we’ve had a chunk of the electorate that’s partisan. Those conditions have just gotten worse, especially the last 20 years in what we call hyper-partisanship. But then we have these independents. The independents must be the referees, basically.

In this theory, they are free of partisanship, they’re able to look at a person and see them as they are without these blinders of partisanship and judge their actual abilities and make a referendum upon their performance in office. So there’s this idea that in the midterms they look at the incumbent party. And if they’re not doing great, like, say, Obama overreached with Obamacare, there’s this giant backlash of independents and they have this revolution because, God help us all, Obama modestly tweaked health care!

What I’m saying is no, the Democratic base collapsed, basically, from what it looked like in 2006, which was the last midterm when they had been out of power [and won]. It just literally collapsed among Democrats and because of that, it looks like the electorate has this giant recoil effect, driven primarily by these independent voters who are rejecting the party in power. But what we’re really looking at in much of these elections are the surge and decline of certain voters entering and leaving the electorate.

Could you going into a little more detail about how recent election results have advanced or refined your model?

The way it helped refine the model is — refer back to what happened in 2010, when Democratic participation just collapsed once the anti-Bush sentiment disappeared. Before that, the 2002 midterm was completely different because of 9/11, so we only had 2006 to look at, and we had this huge wave. Democrats flipped 35 seats in the House, Nancy Pelosi became the speaker, and then they doubled down that with Obama’s victory in 2008, and then they had this turnout collapse.

So I expected, even though Trump and Republicans are just better at voting, and especially Trump with his messaging — people sneer at it, but it touches people’s base emotions. So I expected it would be pretty good at getting people to vote, though I expected some kind of decline in turnout among Republican voters.

If that happened, then we would’ve seen participation rates in the 40s, and we probably would have seen a better night in the Senate for Democrats, probably very similar to what we saw in the House. But the reason that didn’t happen is that Republican turnout surged just as much as Democratic turnout surged, and that was something I did not expect to happen.

It certainly did not happen in Virginia in 2017, and that taught me that negative partisanship can be artificially created with very good strategy, and the Republicans have that. Some people sneered at it. You’ll even hear really smart GOP analysts, political pundits, say “Oh, Trump’s caravan strategy was so stupid.” Well, the 40-seat loss was locked in, and it didn’t matter, but what he probably did was save a couple Senate seats. So my 2020 model has been refined to account for my belief that Republican turnout is going to be extremely high too.

As a corollary to that, would you say concerns that “We shouldn’t do X because Trump will exploit it to rile up his supporters” are off-base, because that’s going to happen anyway?

Absolutely. In fact, in the district-level analysis of the voter file in California and Virginia that I’ll be releasing after Labor Day, I have competitive districts in those states. The data shows the turnout surge and how much different the composition of the electorate was between 2014 and 2018. I’m also able to show that even in these districts where Democrats ran Blue Dog candidates who were as unobtrusive as possible — with, exactly as you stated, the goal of not riling up Trump voters — the turnout for Republican voters in those districts was huge.

In fact, not only did Democrats not get the benefit of not stirring up the Trump base — the Trump base was stirred up and showed up in huge numbers — but by not tapping into anti-Trump sentiment in their own campaign strategy, by not intentionally activating that Trump angst, they paid a price in terms of their own base turnout. It was depressed, compared to other districts.

This year you released your presidential prediction on July 1, showing the Democrats winning a bare majority of 278 electoral votes, just above the 270 needed to win. Trump is at 197, with four toss-up states. But Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are not toss-ups in your model. You write that Trump is in trouble in the Midwest and that there’s a profound misunderstanding of how we won those states in 2016. What’s at the heart of this misunderstanding, and why does it matter for 2020?

When we hear the punditry talk about what happened in the Midwest, generally speaking they’ll say the Midwest swung toward Trump, right? Well, that’s only true in two states. In Iowa and Ohio, where Trump cracked 50%, you can genuinely say he won over voters in those states. The others — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — Trump won those states by carrying only a plurality of the vote, and I would categorize that as a win by default. He won somewhere around 46 or 47% of the vote.

The reason that neither candidate was above 50% was that a huge numbers of voters in those states cast what we call protest ballots, and in the polarized era, the average that goes to a protest ballot is about 1.5%. The famous Ralph Nader election, the spoiler in Florida in 2000, that was about 1.5%. In Wisconsin, 6.2% of voters cast protest ballots in 2016. That’s an extraordinary amount.

So when you understand the role that third parties made in Trump’s victory there in the Midwest, and his inability to crack 50%, you realize that it’s a path to victory which was very complex. It becomes heavily tied to the fact that he was up against not just a Democrat, but that particular Democrat the GOP had managed to cause a public opinion backlash toward. That’s certainly not going to be the case in the 2020 cycle.

So what about 2020. What does your model say?

My model for 2020 starts off with Democrats at 278 Electoral College votes, and that’s a problem for Trump, because of course you need 270 to win. It does that because of my model’s prediction, based on turnout and predicted vote share, that Pennsylvania and Michigan will slip back to the Democrats. I’m uncertain about Ohio, but even if Trump wins Ohio, he can’t win the other three Midwestern states. Then as you point out I have four tossup states: Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Iowa. Even if he wins all four of them, the Democrats have already won the election — and the idea that he would win all four is pretty unlikely.

I will have a much better sense about this once we see the participation rates in the Democratic primary. But I think what we’re going to be looking at is Arizona, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia as states where Trump is forced to play defense to hold on. I think by the time we get into September [of 2020] — I don’t think we’re going to get to the point where Democrats are comfortable in the Midwest. I think we’ll see a full-bore campaign and spending press in the Midwest all the way through to Election Day. But I think coming into September and October, they’re also going to be spending resources in the Sun Belt and other states like that.

You say that if Joe Biden is the nominee, he needs to consider a running mate who will motivate base voters, and that if a progressive is the nominee, there could be a self-reinforcing dynamic of misguided questioning in the media. While neither of those things should cause Democrats to lose, they are concerning, and they reflect a lack of understanding of what your model and analysis provides.

The Democratic leadership — the way they’ve chosen to navigate the Trump impeachment stuff, and certainly the way they talk about their House victories and how to maintain their House majority, it tells me that they’re still living in a understanding of the data that is outdated. If you don’t understand how you won, and what the concurrent political data environment is telling you, that is concerning. So I do see a lot of evidence that Democrats don’t get this. I’m not sure why.

I do know there is an increasing voice within Democratic politics that is leaning toward seeing the environment through my lens, and we saw that play out in 2018, in the campaign strategies of Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams. What they were able to do in terms of their contests in both those deep red states was absolutely remarkable, and it speaks to the efficacy of a turnout-based approach, a strategic approach.

In Texas and Georgia, O’Rourke and Abrams both carried the votes of independents, whereas in Missouri and Indiana, where [incumbent senators] Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly positioned themselves much more in the Blue Dog camp in terms of issues positions, both of them lost independents.

So you might think, “Why is that? If one group of candidates took more liberal issue positions, why did they win over independents?” It seems counterfactual, and the reason is what mattered was turnout. O’Rourke and Abrams carried independents because turnout surged, with different independents showing up to vote, motivated by the targeting strategy deployed by those campaigns, which were run under my suggested model rather than the old playbook that used to work back in the ’90s and ’80s.

Democrats remain very worried about their freshman class, based largely on the notion of a static electorate, rather than one that’s still realigning. But you recently released 2020 projections citing 18 Republican-held House seats as top targets, nine of them in Texas. What are you seeing here that others are overlooking, and what will it take to realize that potential?

I see a couple of things. No. 1, I want to point out that these are possible targets. It’s not my official 2020 House forecast, because I don’t include all house races. It’s just 18 targets for pickup opportunities. And you’re right, because the realignment is still in progress, conditions are improving for Democrats. My model identified many districts Democrats did not even weaponize as competitive because they are still operating under this assumption that what makes an election competitive is a candidate like Amy McGrath [who is running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky].

I’m arguing, no, it’s conditions like the suburban areas with a lot of college-educated voters. No matter how great a candidate, if you put them in the wrong electoral condition, no matter how much money you throw at them, they’re not to be able to overcome those conditions.

So here’s the other thing that both parties’ leaders should come to understand. In these swing areas, your power time is limited, so you should probably use the power when you have it, because the idea that you’re going to hold it indefinitely is totally wrong. Under my research assumptions, under my model, Democrats win the White House in 2020, and then in 2022 they’re going to have a very tough electoral cycle, because turnout for Democrats will go back to normal.

And because Democrats have poor electoral strategy, they’re going to compound that problem, probably by not appealing to Democrats to get them to the polls. So no matter how moderate you keep your Blue Dogs’ legislation, they’re all going to get wiped out anyway. So use your power where you have it. No. 2, there are ways to keep them in office, but the ways they’re choosing are not the ways to do it.

Turning to the Democratic primary campaign, on Twitter you been repeatedly warning that name recognition is the primary thing the polls are measuring this far out. How can folks be more realistic about thinking about the 20 candidates in the race right now?

People reading your article, people following me on Twitter — we forget how atypical we are, even in terms of those who are going to vote in the Democratic primary. Primary voters are already more active and aware and more typically engaged than average Americans, but still not like us. They’re not paying attention at all, not watching the debates, they’re not reading news stories, they’re not on political Twitter, reading political news sites, but they will vote.

So multiple blue-check reporters on my feed have said, “Oh it’s interesting that Bernie Sanders voters choose Biden for their second choice.” No, that’s not interesting at all. That’s the only other person that voters have ever heard of. So the problem is the proliferation of analysis that’s happened that’s completely analyzing shit that’s totally wrong. It’s in the data, okay? But it’s being driven by this name ID problem.

I’ve said a million times that we are living in the golden age of data. We just have to understand its limitations. And the sad truth of the matter is that the only way I’ve been able to figure out for people to do that is by following me and reading my research, because there’s no one else talking about it.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/another-blue-wave-this-expert-says-is-just-might-happen/

stumbler · Aug 23, 2019

Hey @shootersa, PR hacks, Trump supporters, and socks. Do you consider this a winning strategy?

Trump tells Republicans he may begin cutting social security and Medicare if he wins in 2020

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tells-republicans-may-begin-162457862.html

ace's n 8's · Aug 25, 2019

....Fuck the polls....

The DNC Has Spent More Money Than It’s Raised This Year

DNC cash used to buy mobile numbers and train organizers

The Democratic National Committee has a money problem. And that could hurt its nominee’s chances of beating President Donald Trump in 2020.

In the first four months of 2019, the party spent more than it raised and added $3 million in new debt. In the same period, its Republican counterpart was stockpiling cash.

Democratic donors overall have been generous, pouring three times as much into their party’s presidential and congressional campaigns in the first quarter of the year than Republicans gave to their national office-seekers. But the DNC isn’t benefiting from the same donor enthusiasm, putting at risk its ability to help the nominee take on Trump, donors said.

latecomer91364 · Aug 25, 2019

So Biden continues his campaign as the doddering old fool candidate. Let's see: He doesn't know where he is, telling people in New Hampshire how happy he is to be there in Vermont, that Margaret Thatcher IS the Prime Minister of the UK, that the assassinations of RFK and MLK happened in the late 70s and he remembers being VP and seeing survivors of the Parkland shooting at the White House (although maybe there's hope - he must be very stealthy to have snuck in past Trumps WH security to greet them...lol). He just reminds me of somebody...

ace's n 8's · Aug 25, 2019

New group launches to warn young people about socialism

The popularity of socialism in the United States is on the rise, especially with young people.

A recent Gallup poll found 58 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 think socialism is good for the country, and democratic socialist politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enjoy broad support from millennial and Generation Z voters.

Morgan Zegers is determined to change their minds.

The 22-year-old Zegers recently founded a nonprofit organization called Young Americans Against Socialism, with the aim of using social media to expose the “failures of socialism” and make capitalism cool again.

“Socialism is such a threat to this country,” Zegers told Fox News. “It really troubles me.”

"Young people are consuming hours of social media each day, which is dominated by leftist propaganda," she said, "and pulling at their emotions while ignoring basic economics and history."

Zegers balks at the notion that there is any difference between “socialism” and “democratic socialism” – arguing that all socialist leaders come into power saying they want to be democratic leaders, but quickly become authoritarian rulers.

“Look at Venezuela today, or Cuba,” she said. “Fidel Castro came to the U.S. after he came to power and met with [then-vice president Richard] Nixon and said he wanted democracy, but then he went back to Cuba and began killing political opponents.”

She added: “That’s why I find it so confusing when I see someone wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt at a Pride rally. Che Guevara killed gay people.”

stumbler · Aug 26, 2019

Trump is QAnon.

Trump Campaign Ad Features QAnon Signs
Whether accidental or not, the Trump campaign keeps nodding to QAnon conspiracy theorists, even after the FBI called them a potential source of domestic terror

Two signs promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory are visible in a video from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, marking the latest link between the president and followers of the fringe movement that the FBI recently described as a potential source of domestic terror.

The signs, which were first noticed by Vox reporter Aaron Rupar, appear in a close-up shot in a “Women for Trump” video posted by Trump’s campaign late in July. Around halfway into the video, the first sign appears, with Trump’s “Keep America Great” slogan and a “Q” taped onto it. Another shows “Q”’s replacing the O’s on a “Women for Trump” sign.

The inclusion of the signs in the campaign video could be entirely accidental, as Trump rallies have become prominent gathering spots for believers in the QAnon conspiracy, making it harder to grab footage from the rallies that do not include such images. At a Trump rally last week, for example, a warm-up speaker recited a QAnon slogan during his speech. But the campaign video will, nevertheless, be likely interpreted by the Q community as a cryptic acknowledgement by Trump that their beliefs are real.

The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment. It’s unclear if the ad is being broadcast on TV or is merely an online spot. Total viewership for it on YouTube was just above 7,000 at the time of publication, suggesting it has not been widely seen.

QAnon believers follow ludicrous clues posted online by an anonymous figure named “Q,” who they claim offers proof that Trump is engaged in a secret war against an evil cabal of high-ranking pedophiles and cannibals. QAnon supporters claim to be nonviolent, even though a core part of the conspiracy theory is based around the idea of Trump sending top Democrats to face military tribunals and executions in Guantanamo Bay. QAnon believers have been charged in two murders, and an FBI document published last week described QAnon and other conspiracy theories as a possible source of domestic terrorism.

QAnon believers have been eager in the past to jump on anything they perceive as a potential nod of support from Trump’s campaign. In July, Trump praised a baby wearing an improvised QAnon onesie during a speech. Conspiracy theorists soon identified the baby, dubbed “QBaby,” as QAnon’s new mascot, and saw Trump mentioning the baby as proof that their conspiracy theory is real.
Click to expand...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-campaign-ad-features-qanon-signs?ref=scroll

stumbler · Aug 27, 2019

Dems will benefit from Joe Walsh acting like a ‘Rottweiler biting Trump’s corpulent ass’: columnist

In the Daily Beast, longtime political commentator Michael Tomasky admitted that former GOP lawmaker Joe Walsh stands no chance of unseating Donald Trump as the Republican party’s 2020 presidential candidate — but that his upstart campaign may drive a wedge between the president and wavering GOP voters.

As Tomasky explains it, “On the one hand, Walsh is obviously not going to win the Republican nomination for president. He served a mere one term in Congress. He may not raise much money and thus may not be able to run anything like a conventional campaign.”

However there is an upside, he suggests.

“More recently, he [Walsh] has been a Rottweiler biting Trump’s corpulent ass,” he wrote. “I’m sure you’ve seen some of his tweets over the years. They’re vicious. So the guy ain’t afraid. And though he’s a pretty rabid right-winger, most of his tweets about Trump read as if they could have been written by anybody with politics more like mine—they’re almost entirely about what a lying, unprincipled hulk of condemned meat Trump is.”

Noting Walsh “has a large Twitter following (207,000) and a nationally syndicated radio show,” Tomasky said he could make a difference by inflicting additional damage on Trump from the right as Democrats slam the president from the left.

Quoting Walsh saying of Trump, “I’m running because he’s unfit; somebody needs to step up and there needs to be an alternative. The country is sick of this guy’s tantrum—he’s a child,” the liberal columnist speculated some conservative voters likely agree.

“Ah, but you say, Republicans don’t want to hear that. To which I say, well, most of them don’t, true,” he wrote. “But I’ve noticed something interesting happening lately. Trump’s numbers among even Republicans are starting to drop, a little. That is something to watch—and it, combined with feral attacks from a primary opponent who, every time Trump lies, will stand up and say ‘that’s a lie,’ and who will be speaking directly to Republican voters about why it’s a disgrace to have Donald Trump in the White House, could actually add up to something.”

Crunching the numbers, Tomasky suggested a possible outcome in the 202o election.

“So let’s say 28 percent of registered voters are Republican. Twenty-eight percent of 175 million is basically 50 million. Okay, now let’s say by election time, Trump is at 80 percent among Republicans. Well, 20 percent of 50 million is 10 million. That means that 10 million Republicans can maybe be persuaded to vote against the man. Or to withhold their support from him and stay home,” he wrote before adding, “Given how close the vote totals were in 2016 in a number of states, these 10 million could make an enormous difference.”

“So 80-percent support in a president’s own political party may sound high at first glance, but it’s not. It’s shaky territory. I’m not saying Trump is there quite yet. But there are encouraging signs that he’s headed in that direction. And Walsh obviously wants to take him there and doesn’t care if he costs Trump the White House and maybe even hopes he does,” he concluded.

You can read the whole piece here — subscription required.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/de...weiler-biting-trumps-corpulent-ass-columnist/

CS natureboy · Aug 27, 2019

Poor Joe doesn't even know what planet he's on....

Joe Biden Doesn’t Even Know What State He’s Campaigning In

Aug 25, 2019
By

Richard Moorhead

Joe Biden seemed to forget the state he was in during an exchange with local media while campaigning in New Hampshire on Saturday.

Biden claimed he liked being in Vermont, despite being in Keene, New Hampshire.

“I’ve been here a number of times… I love this place. Look, what’s not to like about Vermont in terms of the beauty of it?”

Can you recall a time or place where you actually forgot what literal state within the United States you were currently in?

The senior Democrats’ latest campaign gaffe is sure to add to speculation among his critics that he lacks enough of his youthful faculties to wage an effective presidential campaign and govern should he be elected to the office.

Biden had incorrectly claimed that Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in the “late 1970’s” just a few days ago. They were actually killed in the late 1960’s.

Despite a continual string of gaffes that lead many of his progressive critics to wonder if he’s up to the rigorous demands of the presidency, Biden continues to rake in hefty leads in national Democratic polls.

Unless the general trend of national polling is seriously erroneous, the former Vice President appears set to coast to the Democratic nomination. Biden’s political prospects could change as many become more familiar with his serial distraction, but as of now, he maintains a 12-point lead in RealClearPolitics’ aggregate of national polls.

If elected, Biden would be the oldest President to be sworn in on inauguration day by far, taking office at the ripe old age of 78.

President Donald Trump is described by many of his close associates and friends as unusually vigorous for a 73-year old man, and it’s entirely possible he’d seem like a spring chicken in comparison to the elder, confused Democrat

Log in or Sign up

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

latecomer91364 Easily Distracte

Distant Lover Master of Facts

ace's n 8's Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

latecomer91364 Easily Distracte

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

CS natureboy Porn Star

2020 democrat hopefuls...

Log in or Sign up

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

latecomer91364 Easily Distracte

Distant Lover Master of Facts

ace's n 8's Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

latecomer91364 Easily Distracte

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

CS natureboy Porn Star

Useful Searches