The General Election

[knapplc]

State's audience is liberal, but they're self-aware enough to examine and attempt to mitigate their perceived biases.

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/slate_fare/2014/09/is_slate_magazine_too_liberal_or_conservative_what_members_said_about_the.html

[Danny Bateman]

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/10/the-abhorrent-white-privilege-of-a-third-party-vot.html

 

This article makes an envincing case for invoking Niemoeller ("First they came for..."). I'm sharing this not because this sums up my issues with Trump; to the contrary, the article has a narrow focus. But it's an important one.

 

I know you don’t like Clinton. You may even hate her. You think she’s dishonest, a career politician, corrupt, a bad decision maker, and so on and so forth. You have every right to believe so. But as a member of a minority group against which bigotry has been normalized, I am begging you to reconsider. I know that many of you will say that voting for Johnson or Stein is the only way for you to maintain a clear conscience. Let me turn this around. Voting for a third party (...) while ignoring the very real peril of minorities is not my understanding of maintaining a clear conscience.

I've redacted a few words here whose language I disagree with. There's always that danger of being so angry as to turn off the very people you're trying to engage.

 

But the message, overall, I hope people can understand it.

 

 

I've used the bolded in countless conversations with people, particularly angry Bernie supporters and the third party crowd, as to part of my underlying reason for voting for Clinton.

 

One of the phrases she and Kaine have used campaigning is something that some folks trace back to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, though the etymology is somewhat cloudy: "“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

 

To me, it's a bit of a spin on Utilitarianism: Do the action that maximizes utility, usually in terms of the amount of good it does for others, minus the suffering it imposes on them.

 

I empathize entirely for people whose situations are not as fortunate as myself... whether they're citizens here or not. I'm getting my butt kicked in school right now, but with food to eat, a roof over my head, a warm place to sleep... I'm doing pretty well. I really think Trump would ravage minorities, the poor, the less fortunate writ large... the man's entire life appears to be a quest to improve his standing and his standing alone to me. He also appears to have no fundamental grasp on military tactics and their effect on civilians. If I have to hear about him going after terrorist families or "sneak attacking" ISIS again I think I might lose my mind.

 

Trump is a Utilitarian nightmare. Clinton is not perfect by any metric, but I firmly think she's the least bad option. Sometimes, that's not the worst thing in the world.

[zoogs]

Self-awareness. I think that's important.

 

I'm not only looking for articles that validate my worldview. But I am looking for sources that have that self-awareness. I see a LOT of this "is this the right thing?" and critique within some of these mainstream, liberal-leaning outlets.

 

For example, a number of outlets are covering funnyman Louis CK's recent nightly talkshow comments. Vox had a critical piece offering criticizing his "benevolent sexism". They also held VP candidate Tim Kaine accountable for being part of a ticket that claims to champion women, and steamrolling a female moderator in the VP debate. Liberal outlets (I forget which), in the midst of the guffawing about the naked Trump statue and the park management's #sickburn tweet about it, pointed out the ugly body-shaming element in all of that that they felt should not be indulged.

 

On the other side, I see lockstep talking points on full blast. Not every publication, of course. Just the ones people are paying attention to.

 

--

 

New Yorker: Why Donald Trump is different and must be repelled.

 

This article really resonates with me in about every point it makes. I think introspection about how we, as a nation, have come to this pass -- whatever the November result -- will be crucial in the coming times. I thought this was a very valuable contribution to that effort. Hope you guys will read it.

[Danny Bateman]

Good lord. In an election of oddball headlines, this is by far the most bizarre. But peel back the weird exterior, and she's got a valid point.

 

[Moiraine]

This isn't general election stuff, but oh well. This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in a debate and one of the best responses.

 

[Tammy] Duckworth was born in Thailand, but her father was a Marine veteran who traced his family's American roots to before the Revolutionary War. She is an Iraq War veteran who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm during a mission and was awarded a Purple Heart.

 

This is a debate for Illinois senator.

 

 

[JJ Husker]

Just completed my ballot. Actually pretty easy this time around except of course for the big one. 22 frikken options for President and not one worth a sh#t. I spent way more time contemplating that one vote than everything else combined. I thought the amendments and initiatives and all that BS was going to be tougher to figure out but they were pretty easy once I looked into them. Voted no/against everything except I did vote to allow non-affiliated voters to vote in Colorado primaries and for a local tax increase for the school district and I think I voted to switch Colorado from a caucus system to a primary system. Was a little unclear if that's exactly what it would do but it will allow more non party affiliated people to get involved in selecting candidates at the time of the primaries. That can't be a bad thing considering what the major have been doing to/for us lately. Huge list of judges up for retention...didn't vote on any of them. I also didn't vote for anybody that was running unopposed-usually don't unless I know something about them.

 

BTW, I didn't vote for Clinton or Trump even though CO is a state that is in play. Just couldn't force myself to cast a vote that would actually affect the outcome. Only recognized 4 of the 22 choices. Didn't like any of them and hated a two of them. Pretty sad situation for a Presidential election.

[zoogs]

for a local tax increase for the school district

you big liberal, you!

[JJ Husker]

 

for a local tax increase for the school district

you big liberal, you!

Yeah,that's me

It probably won't pass with all the tightwads here in Weld county but our school district really lags behind the state average for funding. I think they've been trying every election for the last 25 years and it's probably been that long since one got approved.

[zoogs]

You seem like a really reasonable guy, JJ.

 

Although, I really, really hope CO -- and the USA -- doesn't go Trump.

 

We can survive a Clinton presidency. Heck, we can survive a Johnson or McMullin presidency (I know the policy arc of the nation won't always reflect my personal hopes; that's not the end of the world). I'm not so sure about this Donald guy, though. He doesn't merely flout the bedrock norms of the American experiment, he delights in doing so.

[Moiraine]

Speaking of ballots in general - does it piss anyone off how they (both parties are guilty I'm sure) try to trick you with the names of the laws/measures, and also try to trick you with the wording?

 

For instance, and I'll exaggerate a little, they'll name a proposed law something like "We love Veterans!" and what the law really does is take money away from Veterans and uses it to fund the Yacht Club. And the description for it will sometimes have double or even triple negatives to deliberately confuse the voter.

 

 

Here's an example I found immediately in a google search. If you read the amendment it sounds like a good thing for people who want to use solar energy, and I don't understand why from the article but apparently it's the opposite of good. That's what Al Gore and Jimmy Buffett (and environmentalists and solar panel manufacturers) say.

 

https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Solar_Energy_Subsidies_and_Personal_Solar_Use,_Amendment_1_(2016)

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/science/florida-solar-power-referendum.html

[NM11046]

This ... and I hate that it was like an SAT puzzle to figure out how to correctly mail back my ballot Not sure if it's that way everywhere, but I had to sign the ballot, put it in another envelope, do a few things to that, then put it in the real envelope to mail and if it was done incorrectly my vote doesn't count. They also didn't note anywhere that you needed to use multiple stamps to mail it ... betting that will catch a lot of people off guard.

[NM11046]

Just completed my ballot. Actually pretty easy this time around except of course for the big one. 22 frikken options for President and not one worth a sh#t. I spent way more time contemplating that one vote than everything else combined. I thought the amendments and initiatives and all that BS was going to be tougher to figure out but they were pretty easy once I looked into them. Voted no/against everything except I did vote to allow non-affiliated voters to vote in Colorado primaries and for a local tax increase for the school district and I think I voted to switch Colorado from a caucus system to a primary system. Was a little unclear if that's exactly what it would do but it will allow more non party affiliated people to get involved in selecting candidates at the time of the primaries. That can't be a bad thing considering what the major have been doing to/for us lately. Huge list of judges up for retention...didn't vote on any of them. I also didn't vote for anybody that was running unopposed-usually don't unless I know something about them.

 

BTW, I didn't vote for Clinton or Trump even though CO is a state that is in play. Just couldn't force myself to cast a vote that would actually affect the outcome. Only recognized 4 of the 22 choices. Didn't like any of them and hated a two of them. Pretty sad situation for a Presidential election.

I totally understand why you feel this way JJ, but it make me very sad that people who are actually in a state where every vote matters feel this way. We're in for a tough 4 years. Here's hoping 2020 is a turn around.

[Moiraine]

The % on 539 has flat-lined for about 12 hours. I don't think they have a list of the exact polls they used to calculate it though. If any of those polls contain days before Oct. 30 then the % will go down further. On the other hand, once we get polls that don't include Oct. 28-29, I expect Clinton's % to flatten out or maybe even go back up, because after those dates the news turned out to be less of a big deal. It's still potentially a big deal, but sounds a lot less ominous for Clinton now that there are more details.

 

One thing she really needs to do is strengthen her lead in New Hampshire and Virginia and try not to lose Michigan. Those seem to be the iffiest states (that she has a lead in) right now.

Nevada, North Carolina, and Florida are essentially tied, but Clinton doesn't have to have them if she holds the others. She's still in a better position than Trump, because he MUST have them, but not by much.

 

 

On RealClearPolitics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

 

If you look at the graph you can see that Clinton's % didn't go down from the 29th on (it's actually up 0.1% now), but Trump's has been up as much as 2.4% from where he was on the 28th. That seems to show that Clinton didn't lose any support, but she convinced more former likely Johnson/Stein voters to instead vote for Trump.

 

I find it fascinating how emotional people are. I understand coming to a decision to vote for Trump after thinking the whole thing through for months, if you hate Clinton and are strongly pro life. But I don't understand sudden bumps in the polls over small things. Even with the Trump audio leak, it didn't make sense, because a lot of people already thought he was a misogynist. I'm sure the "small things" comment will be argued against, but I contend that it is small because the people who don't like Clinton already think she's lying about all the e-mail stuff. What type of person is suddenly convinced by this that they'll vote against Clinton? Why weren't they already convinced?

[Danny Bateman]

The % on 539 has flat-lined for about 12 hours. I don't think they have a list of the exact polls they used to calculate it though. If any of those polls contain days before Oct. 30 then the % will go down further. On the other hand, once we get polls that don't include Oct. 28-29, I expect Clinton's % to flatten out or maybe even go back up, because after those dates the news turned out to be less of a big deal. It's still potentially a big deal, but sounds a lot less ominous for Clinton now that there are more details.

 

One thing she really needs to do is strengthen her lead in New Hampshire and Virginia and try not to lose Michigan. Those seem to be the iffiest states (that she has a lead in) right now.

 

Nevada, North Carolina, and Florida are essentially tied, but Clinton doesn't have to have them if she holds the others. She's still in a better position than Trump, because he MUST have them, but not by much.

 

 

On RealClearPolitics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

 

If you look at the graph you can see that Clinton's % didn't go down from the 29th on (it's actually up 0.1% now), but Trump's has been up as much as 2.4% from where he was on the 28th. That seems to show that Clinton didn't lose any support, but she convinced more former likely Johnson/Stein voters to instead vote for Trump.

 

I find it fascinating how emotional people are. I understand coming to a decision to vote for Trump after thinking the whole thing through for months, if you hate Clinton and are strongly pro life. But I don't understand sudden bumps in the polls over small things. Even with the Trump audio leak, it didn't make sense, because a lot of people already thought he was a misogynist. I'm sure the "small things" comment will be argued against, but I contend that it is small because the people who don't like Clinton already think she's lying about all the e-mail stuff. What type of person is suddenly convinced by this that they'll vote against Clinton? Why weren't they already convinced?

 

I follow the polling REALLY closely. There's a couple of good places online I've found to analyze polls in addition to FiveThirtyEight. But I've more or less divorced myself from news channels at this point, so I'm trying to be fairly agnostic about it at this point and not buy into storylines.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about Michigan or Virginia. From what I've seen, Clinton's strength there seems to be holding. It's tightened up a bit, but I still firmly believe both of those will go to Clinton. A Detroit poll had her +5 that I saw just this morning. I've never seriously thought Trump could win Virginia with Kaine having such a strong following there.

 

New Hampshire seems to truly be up in the air. I have no idea why. I did see a poll that said that 49% of those polled said the Comey announcement made them less likely to vote for her. Yet another reason I have to be ticked off about that. At this point, if Comey cannot bottle up his own agents who keep leaking BS to conservative media to try and sway the election, he should resign. The FBI is supposed to be apolitical for a reason, and they've chosen to become political at a horrible time.

 

But I digress. New Hampshire to me is a toss up. Three live polls out yesterday had it more or less exactly tied.

 

I'd say Florida is much the same. I'd call it a tie up with a very slight Clinton advantage. If Dems get there absentee ballots in, they will overtake Republicans in early voting there today. That and a Univision poll yesterday showing her losing Cubans by only 7 pts (49-42) give me confidence. That's a HORRIBLE number for Trump. Republicans normally enjoy a much higher share of Cuban support than that.

 

The silver lining about New Hampshire being a toss up is that Nevada, through early voting, appears to have move solidly into the blue column. Ralston is pretty much the father of Nevada polling:

 

 

Clark County is where Las Vegas is. It's the place Dems need to run up margins to win the state. Incidentally, they're also winning Washoe County, home of Reno, by about a thousand. Republicans normally win Washoe sizably.

 

Those kind of margins, with nearly 70% of voting in NV happening early, could put it out of reach before Tuesday. The thing about winning NV is that it means Clinton's blue wall is safe, since it could replace NH and still put her over 270 without OH, FL or NC, given she takes CO, VA, WI, and MI.

 

And NM, I wouldn't worry too much about Colorado. Early voting there is trending well for the Dems as well, from what I've heard.

 

NC early voting very positive for Dems as well. Obama is there doing two events today to GOTV.

 

Ohio seems to have trended more to the right, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Trump win there. It seems to be where his blue collar appeal has sold best. The Dems have a poor Senate candidate there that's getting his butt kicked that won't help gin up any support.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see Iowa go Trump. They've trended further to the right as well, and the GOP has seen a slight uptick on early voting there from 2012.

 

Sorry for the length. Thought you all might want an update!

[Moiraine]

I've obsessed over this stuff from 2004 on. 270towin was the big site back in 04 or 08.

 

Anyway, Trump has been leading in Ohio and Iowa for a long time so it's a good thing Clinton isn't counting on those.