I've had people say it's a hardening, actually ~ US presidential election 2016 part 9/11 never forget

the handwringing on this thread is outta control

"If you're elected president, how would you solve X??"

"X wouldn't be an issue anymore if I win, believe me"

"Okay, moving on..."

that's not how the debates are structured

Trump has never been in a one-on-one debate where he has to speak for large chunks of time, he's going to get destroyed

so that will be what sinks him?

Just among voters who don't actively wish to see the extinction of the human race within their lifetime.

no one thing is going to "sink" Trump

his chances for winning are already super-shitty, the debates will make them shittier

the hands i wring are the best hands, amazing hands

yeah he has no ideas and if she riles him up he's gonna explode

like I get that everyone wants to somehow be reassured that there is absolutely positively no way he can win - but that is not a thing that can happen prior to election day. Until votes are cast there will always be some small chance, some bizarre confluence of circumstances, that could produce a Trump victory, which is apparently panic-inducing.

xxp

pretty much any reasonable projection i've seen gives him about a 1 in 3 shot at winning. that's kind of scary tbh

I have almost no faith that the debates are going to expose him in a way that significantly affects his support, not after that Commander in Chief forum, which unequivocally demonstrated his complete inability to form and express a coherent thought about ANYTHING, and yet it was pretty much spun (and received) as a draw.

the 1 in 3 chance is tot down to

1) terror attacks / other disasters btwn now and Nov 8

2) Clinton's fucking unforced errors / transparent phoniness

not after that Commander in Chief forum

nobody watched this. the debates will have a bigger audience. they won't be a nail-in-the-coffin thing (they never are) but they won't be good for him.

pretty much any reasonable projection i've seen gives him about a 1 in 3 shot at winning. that's kind of scary tbh

lol waht this isn't accurate at all given the electoral map and state polls

as noted upthread - what states is he gonna flip from Obama in '12 (hint: none)

1) terror attacks / other disasters btwn now and Nov 8

can't think of any of these that would break in trump's favour rather than hilary's

^^^

did Trump get a bump after Orlando?

yeah he has no ideas and if she riles him up he's gonna explode

― a (waterface), Wednesday, September 14, 2016 3:39 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tmi

something absolutely catastrophic has to happen to Hillary for Trump to win - he would have to be viewed as a bitter-but-necessary-pill by a big chunk of the population that currently absolutely hates him and I can't see anything outside of some completely unpredictable apocalyptic event that would make that happen. Dem turnout would have to crater, GOP turnout would have to be maximized. What scenario could conceivably produce that result? Clinton dying I guess? But even then...

i'd amend it to "attacks that are either mishandled, endorsed or planned by Clinton"

well, thanks for cheering me up at least

did Trump get a bump after Orlando?

no but I think a lot of that is because he handled it like a giant idiot

for Trump to win I think a lot of 3rd party support has to break his way and the "shy Trump voter" thing has to turn out to be a real phenomenon. my gut is telling me people voting 3rd party will side with Hillary because most people are terrified of Trump winning but then again I have no fucking idea what is making so many people want to vote for Trump in the first place so who knows

i don't think HRC has especially suffered from unforced errors unless you believe media-stoked "gaffes" like getting sick are included in the category of unforced errors

the media seems convinced that "basket of deplorables" is an unforced error which is strange because it's worked brilliantly for her

no but I think a lot of that is because he handled it like a giant idiot

right, and he did it instantly! There's no reason to think an even bigger crisis would be to his advantage, he would react in the same predictably crass/stupid/inappropriate self-aggrandizing and exploitative way.

I have no fucking idea what is making so many people want to vote for Trump in the first place

we have several thousand posts that might be helpful in this respect

pretty much any reasonable projection i've seen gives him about a 1 in 3 shot at winning. that's kind of scary tbh

lol waht this isn't accurate at all given the electoral map and state polls

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, September 14, 2016 3:45 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

well........sure, i mean if you think you can do a better job than 538 or RCP then maybe make your own projection system? kind of feel like they've accounted for the "electoral map" and the "state polls" but i haven't read the fine print

1 in 3 feels about right for me. it's a 2 horse race and there's 8 weeks to go.

trump's chances go down every day nothing changes though.

/I have no fucking idea what is making so many people want to vote for Trump in the first place/

we have several thousand posts that might be helpful in this respect

538 currently giving Trump 30% is something that's happened just in the last couple of days! For the last few weeks he was mostly in the 10%-20% range, which is more realistic imo.

Trump does not have a 1 in 3 shot. The electoral math is awful for any Republican, much less one whose appeal primarily rests with white nationalists and angry people who don't know they're white nationalists.

He's gotta win Florida AND Pennsylvania AND Ohio and and and to win

the odds of *all* of the necessary states breaking for him are v v low if he can't even bother to field GOTV operations

if the initial "basket" remark was not a tactical error, why did she semi-back off it the next day? Or is this the Vulcan Chess Meme she has inherited from Obama?

right, and he did it instantly! There's no reason to think an even bigger crisis would be to his advantage, he would react in the same predictably crass/stupid/inappropriate self-aggrandizing and exploitative way.

Bannon and Conway seem to have at least partially muzzled him - for example he didn't tweet out anything awful when Hillary fainted

though tbf I'm starting to think there's something behind the campaign's sudden shift from "all health records should be public!" to "the candidates should have some privacy!"

xxp that's true, but if swing states break, they break in the same direction on average.

those three states aren't like three independent coin tosses, where the chance of all three comping up heads is 1/8

they are more like three tosses of the same unfair coin.

but yeah, needing to win any of them (i.e. clinton) is a better situation to be in than needing to win all of them!!

I'm no fan of Chuck Todd-ian political chessboard action, but that deplorable line turned out to be a bonanza for Clinton. Pence was on the Hill uester4getting clobbweed by colleagues.

can you really not figure that out Morbz. she backed off of it because she doesn't want to double-down on offending voters whose votes she might be able to get. which is reasonable from her standpoint. it's not a tactical error in that it didn't actually hurt her significantly - GOP ops didn't successfully capitalize on it, nobody whose votes might have been swung actually appear to have cared, it's not really an indefensible statement etc.

xxp

She didn't back off.

she said "ok, not half"

She should've said they're all deplorable.

if the initial "basket" remark was not a tactical error, why did she semi-back off it the next day? Or is this the Vulcan Chess Meme she has inherited from Obama?

I think saying "half" was a mistake and that is the part she backed off of. the actual statement was brilliant but if I told you why I'd sound like the fucking Dilbro

Bannon and Conway seem to have at least partially muzzled him

anybody wanna put money on Trump tweeting something terrible about Colin Powell within the next 24 hours

xp
She didn't really back off, saying she shouldn't have said "half" is the flimsiest of non-apologies. She left open the possibility that it's more than half.

that's a silly interpretation

(of her intent, not reality)

and really it's insane how much this has brought out in people. half the right-wing people on my FB don't want to talk about the election at all while the other half are seriously advocating genocide against Muslims and posting daily links to shit like "Muslim preacher molests 3-year old girl". you didn't see too much of that before.

I think the "not half" was intended to mollify the offended, and amuse the non-offended.

I can see Trump putting Powell on blast for Iraq and bullshitting again about never supporting it xp