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

do we really need to know the results of of every single new poll

"George W. Bush set a great example for Republican candidates, as do many Republicans in Texas who seem far more comfortable with Hispanic voters and Hispanic culture," Ayres said, adding, "George Bush spoke a version of Spanish, kind of like he spoke a version of English."

lol

I normally find John Judis excruciating but this seems pretty on the mark. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/--100769

indeed. I wish she'd stop talking about Trump for a while. I think we all kinda get it at this point.

http://i.imgur.com/Wb5pF1r.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtCysOVWYAAtl2m.jpg

bombings + police protest = everyone wins!

agreed. the more I think about it, the high point of her entire campaign was the convention, which was notable primarily for its optimism and even patriotism. I think she needs to focus on getting people excited or at least motivated to vote for her, because there are a lot of people who've been turned off by Trump who are just going to either vote for Johnson or abstain altogether.

yeah nothin like "USA" chants to make me realize the Dems are my party

I'm with my labor-organizer friend's options: to Mexico if Trump wins, to Canada if HRC.

question - why was obama's performance vs romney in the first 2012 debate criticized so much? i've been reading a little about debate prep and that debate performance keeps getting mentioned as a type of thing clinton needs to avoid

i could watch clips of course but thought id ask

You can't even leave this thread, what makes you think you can leave the country? xp

He looked down at the podium.

do we really need to know the results of of every single new poll

― esempiu (crüt), Friday, September 23, 2016 8:20 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no and we also don't need every 538 update

https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/778543535545053184

xpost Iirc he carried himself like he didn't really want to be there. Which to be fair ...

sorry frogbs did you say above that trump was a gifted public speaker

I think he is!

2012 Obama was just weirdly low-energy in that 1st debate, it seemed like he had been up for 36 hours or something. Was kinda like watching your favorite basketball team come out totally flat and jog up and down the court, like...I still love you but you're better than this

agreed. the more I think about it, the high point of her entire campaign was the convention, which was notable primarily for its optimism and even patriotism. I think she needs to focus on getting people excited or at least motivated to vote for her, because there are a lot of people who've been turned off by Trump who are just going to either vote for Johnson or abstain altogether.

absolutely, trying to scare people into voting for you is not a great strategy. that survey that showed the two candidates incredibly high unfavorable rating among independents is something they should pay attention to, since I'd be willing to bet that most of the people who hate both candidates would still feel a hell of a lot better with Clinton than Trump, you just gotta make SOME overtures to them other than "get a load of the other guy". In fact attacking Trump on policy at all is difficult since he doesn't really have any and his defense will always be some version of "I never said that". The convention had the right message and given that it gave her a huge bounce I'd think they would return to that in the coming weeks.

538 is a mess. their model's volatility suggests more to me that it's a flawed model than that the race has really been so volatile. i'm sure things are moving but that graph is ridiculous looking.

this is probably a good ad? i have a bad sense of these things

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/779288660067823616

interesting piece from mike konczal about trump's policy (no scare quotes)

https://medium.com/@rortybomb/trump-is-actually-full-of-policy-f8bfdb6389e8#.8bj3j5svz

I've been worried about this from the start, that Trump is so beyond the pale nuts that how do you even run against that? It's like having an opponent that insists the sky is green. Do you then have to campaign that, no, the sky is in fact blue, because you can see it, and it is blue? Do you campaign that your opponent is an idiot? What if millions of people agree with him that the sky is green?

As always, brings to mind an apt Mr. Show sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP4yX2rkpBc

same guy, in vox, about "new liberal economics"

http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/9/15/12923528/liberal-economics-great-recession-policy-clinton

xp

538 is a mess. their model's volatility suggests more to me that it's a flawed model than that the race has really been so volatile. i'm sure things are moving but that graph is ridiculous looking.

― Mordy, Friday, September 23, 2016 11:44 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the predictwise guy (who to clear strikes me as nuts) suspects that they've built in too much covariance, i.e. they're assuming too strong a correlation between states. that means that states without much polling move a lot in response to other state polls, which makes the overall swings in both directions enormous.

that would explain how they ended up saying things like trump had a 25% chance in NJ at the end of july despite there being literally no polling there in july. if that kind of thing happened in every unpolled state, you would get huge swings in their prediction of the national race, in both directions.

btw, for those expecting a debate beatdown, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but iirc Sarah Palin did not come off as totally inept against Biden, and that may be as close to this year's clash of idiocy and experience as we're going to get.

the danger for trump imo is not that he's made to look stupid, it's that he says something unscripted and appalling in response to a zinger

the atmosphere is gonna be a lot more toxic this time around. kinda getting an unstoppable-object-vs-immovable-wall feeling about this one

Which one is which?

the danger for trump imo is not that he's made to look stupid, it's that he says something unscripted and appalling in response to a zinger

eh I think both are dangerous for him

his "appalling" zingers won't hurt him that much will they? will it have to be worse than "blood coming out of her whatever?"

on the other hand if he comes off as someone who obviously has no clue what he's talking about that'll hurt a lot of his soft support

That's totally down to whether you're watching with red lenses or blue lenses. Everybody who was watching with red lenses thought Palin killed it, totally wiped the floor with the inept Biden. Everybody who was watching with blue lenses thought OMG, that woman is so unprepared and awful, so glad we have folksy Uncle Joe on our side.

Pretty much every debate I've ever seen and then read reactions to, I could find equal numbers of people who thought it went very well for their candidate. Trump will certainly get rave reviews from the people who already think he's awesome, ditto Clinton.

The only exceptions are the rare "oops" moment or "you're no Jack Kennedy," one of which worked and one of which didn't.

Which one is which?

the object is Trump's understanding of the universe. the wall is the actual universe. we are all paying for the wall.

I get that declaring a winner could be a matter of perception, but that's just it. I mean, Palin didn't say anything nearly as word scramble as her usual shit, though, right? And everyone expected a train wreck.

this thread about trump's television prowess is kinda true, but a) he's not in charge of the event, like the apprentice or his own rallies, and b) he's not going to get the crowd adoration that he craves, as at his own convention or on wwe. i'm not sure he can work a crowd that he can't see or get instant applause from

there's a big difference between Palin/Biden and Clinton/Trump let's see if we can identify it hmmm

well the difference here is that Palin at one point actually was a governor and apparently not a total disaster so there was at least some sense that she knew how government worked

I do think if Trump has a moment like the "nuclear traid" one in the GOP debates it'll hurt him.

I think Hillary's goal shouldn't be to attack his ideas so much, but rather to put across the impression that he lacks the know-how to accomplish anything

the difference I was getting at was the reversed gender/moron roles

iirc the Palin debate was the archetypal "all she has to do is come off as vaguely semi-competent and she beats expectations," thus both parties "accomplished what they needed to accomplish." She didn't exactly crash and burn but it was not like she radically stepped up her game. It wasn't campaign suicide like the Couric interview and it probably didn't change anything at all. The significance was sort of in what didn't happen - her spending the whole thing in gibberish mode, Biden yelling at her to get back in the kitchen or whatever it was people were anticipating.

See also: The Lysergic Acid Diethylamidiotic Joe Biden & Sarah Palin VP Presidential Debate thread in the 2 zero zero 8 (2008 party over oops)

a man attacking a woman for being stupid is a totally different scenario than a woman attacking a man for being stupid - audiences don't respond well to men attacking women

xxp

the difference I was getting at was the reversed gender/moron roles

oh I wasn't actually responding to you

and yeah I agree this factor is significant. I still think back to Sanders shouting over Clinton and how badly that came off.

The predictwise graph is really shitty - it frames the % from 50% upwards and picks the polls-only rather than the polls-plus for extra volatility - graphed against this it would look less concerning, and indeed suggest that the predictwise graph isn't seriously moving at all, which seems more nuts.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#plus

which is why the Biden/Palin comparison is irrelevant its a totally different scenario

xp

you guys are right what if Trump says something unscripted and appaling

it's like a daily mantra here. the security blanket that protects you from the boogie man

a man attacking a woman for being stupid is a totally different scenario than a woman attacking a man for being stupid - audiences don't respond well to men attacking women

Yes. Regardless of whether you consider it fair or unfair, Trump does run the optics risk of being mean to a woman, with whatever NAGL-ness that entails. Personally I don't care if it's unfair; this man needs to be defeated by any means available.

a man attacking a woman for being stupid is a totally different scenario than a woman attacking a man for being stupid - audiences don't respond well to men attacking women

out of curiosity, what's your evidence for this?

i mean other than "all my friends in SF would be totally appalled"

AF: the truncated y-axis on that predictwise graph is a reasonable complaint. but the polls-only model is the default model on the 538 website. seems like the fair one to use. but if it's not to be trusted as you say, then it shouldn't even be on the website, much less the default.

i don't agree that PW hasn't moved much, but it's true it's ended up pretty much back where it started:

http://i.imgur.com/FM7XtXB.png

clearly things went v badly for trump in august, both in "narrative" and actually polling. but that far out from a 2 horse race election where both candidates are going to get at least 40% of the vote because it's a 2 party system, getting as bullish as 538 did seemed wild. and 538 has gotten much much lower than any other predictor in the past week.

xp Trump going after Fiorina ("who would vote for that face?") and getting a bad response was one of the few times he actually looked humbled. I believe he started polling lower after that for a while too.

haha jic I was mentally comparing the election to that particular sketch myself just yesterday...also the one with the two rich WASPy guys campaigning for nothing in particular

xposts

out of curiosity, what's your evidence for this?

previous debate performances where this happened, including debates involving Hillary, with the effect being a negative impact on the male attackers polling numbers/electoral victories

maybe 90% wasn't that wild. some of the others got up there. but none of them swung up from 50%, or went back down to 50%.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/upshot/as-clinton-trump-race-tightens-heres-how-forecast-models-differ.html