I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS • US presidential elections part VIII

I am mildly unsettled by people whose first name is Van. Van Jones, Van Morrison.

Keep thinking their name is like that of Dave Van Ronk or Vincent Van Gogh, but they're somehow being precious by withholding their true first name.

Totally irrational and probably exclusive to me. And yet: you never hear of people whose first name is De.

Vincent Van Heflin

DeWitt Clinton?

I hate that too. Knew a guy whose middle name was Van, so when you said his full name it sounded significantly fancier than it was.

My future son: first name Mr., middle name Van. Good luck explaining that one, kid.

My future son's first name will be "FullsizeCargo"

Meanwhile

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/hillary-clinton-prepare-trump-debate-lewinsky-227033

Who should play Trump in Clinton's debate prep sessions?

(The corresponding question - Will Trump's debate prep include a Clinton standin; if so, who? - is inadmissible. He will no doubt assert that if he just gets a good well-done steak and sufficient blow-drying he'll be good to go; he'll wing it.)

Who should play Trump in Clinton's debate prep sessions?

Will Trump's debate prep include a Clinton standi

Roger Ailes apparently

Van Diesel, De Kelley
http://i.imgur.com/I4SvjFX.png

I kinda think Clinton should do a round robin debate with various random Trump supporters. She'd be working with roughly the same level of rationality and knowledge and vehement distaste. Maybe throw a kid with ADHD and a few severely mentally ill people into the mix. She certainly shouldn't treat it like any kind of normal debate.

Donald Trump is expected to visit the FBI’s New York office on Wednesday for his first classified briefing as the GOP nominee, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in tow.

So what are the odds Trump emerges and just starts saying "People, it is so much worse than I thought, here's what we need to do ..." and then just doubles down on his BS claiming the classified info he was made privy to - which of course he can't reveal to Americans - justifies whatever his plans are that day?

i think it's more a matter of how long it takes him to dip into that well. will he leave the FBI for a campaign stop and start in immediately? i think the answer to this is almost surely yes

Kurt Eichenwald at newsweek kind of dances around the point: trump's doctor might not exist

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-health-doctor-490836

Color me shocked that the bewigged flesh plug might not actually be the healthiest president ever.

omg that somehow seems as insane as anything that has happened re trump xp

ctrl f'd std, sex, hiv and aids

disappointed

demand to know who that jacoby-esque picture was of then

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/15/23/2F5FF6DF00000578-3361739-Donald_Trump_s_doctor_Harold_Bornstein_seen_here_in_his_Twitter_-a-16_1450221682514.jpg

this "doctor's letter" was put out back in the primaries, and yeah i remember people finding something on a "jacob bornstein MD" at the time

him not existing (or at least the whole thing being fake somehow) is my gloss on the thing

er sorry, the other name on the masthead, harold

Trump's doctor either (A) Failed to detect the debilitating bone spurs that kept Trump out of the draft, or (B) Is a genius who has cured bone spurs but has kept this information from the general public for murky reasons.

Which is it?

I think Trump's claim is that (C) the bone spurs magically got better later in life because he is so extraordinarily healthy. But don't take his word for it - an extended correspondence with the invisible doctors should clear everything right up.

obv (C) Trump wrote his own medical record. "Extraordinary" is a Trump word, right?

aside: that longroom un-skewed polling site is down and has been (i think) since 538 posted about it last week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-k_eX7N0ds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-k_eX7N0ds

oh been away i guess imbeds are broke

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-k_eX7N0ds

I am mildly unsettled by people whose first name is Van. Van Jones, Van Morrison.

I went to high school with someone named Van Patterson. He was a year behind me. He turned out to have . . . unusual proclivities:

Nov. 23, 1991 1:13 PM ET
PAINESVILLE, OHIO PAINESVILLE, Ohio (AP) _ A 23-year-old man was convicted as the ''BVD Bandit'' for breaking into homes, fondling sleeping men and cutting off their underwear.

A jury on Friday found Van W. Patterson guilty of 21 counts of aggravated burglary, four counts of sexual imposition and two counts of robbery.

Lake County Judge Paul H. Mitrovich ordered another psychiatric evaluation for Patterson before his sentencing. Patterson faces up to 45 years in prison.

A psychiatrist testified that Patterson got sexual gratification from the break-ins. Such behavior resulted from years of sexual abuse in boyhood by his father, said Dr. Howard Gottesman, who treats sexual disorders.
Victims testified they were chasing the intruder when they realized their cut-up underwear had fallen off.

somehow every sentence of that story is more amazing than the last

sorry for the HuffPo but....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-eric-schneiderman-trump-university_us_57b2340ae4b0a8e15024e470

please Mr. Halen is my father's name

Tejas in play?

http://m.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/trump-has-six-point-lead-over-clinton-in-texas-bui/nsGjz/

nah

2020 mmmmaybe

the best thing about this is, ultimately, the GOP takeaway will be "Trump was a disaster, if only we would have nominated one of the 15 damaged, repellent dipshits that he walked all over in the primaries we could have won!!"

Texas is weird in that it's the metropolitan areas that trend conservative and the more rural immigrant-rich areas which trend liberal. So even with the ever growing non-white population in Texas, the people in the cities call the shots. 2020 even is probably wishful thinking.

IIRC, Texas is in play by 2024 if the Latino turnout climbs a good deal but not until 2032 if it doesn't.

That's not quite right about urban/rural BTW - the four largest cities all vote Democratic now (Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Austin), the suburbs are Republican and most of the rural areas are Republican, except for right on the border.

http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2013/07/obama-romney-texas.jpg

Yeah, I knew I was kind of forcing it, but Texas is still kind of atypical when compared to a lot of other states (in that many of its least populous areas vote blue).

the best thing about this is, ultimately, the GOP takeaway will be "Trump was a disaster, if only we would have nominated one of the 15 damaged, repellent dipshits that he walked all over in the primaries we could have won!!"

That will be amusing if attempted.

It will also be funny if they conclude the opposite - that what they need is Moar Trumpiness. Look forward to a close-fought contest between Joe Arpaio, Tom Tancredo, and Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher. Trey Gowdy and Tom Cotton will present themselves as the safe, sane, electable establishment types.

This will all be accompanied by a relentless drumbeat from the grassroots to draft Sarah Palin. And at the last possible moment, she will miraculously ride in to the convention arena on the back of a rabid grizzly and save the day.

There was already a good chance that a Republican never wins a presidential election again, but if they opt to go more nativist and conspiratorial next election, that pretty much ensures it.

Who should play Trump in Clinton's debate prep sessions?

i think it was Alfred on one of the earlier threads who suggested james carville after a couple of cocktails.

I saw my parents over the weekend (they live in Alabama, and are by-the-book Republicans). They voted for Kasich in the primaries, but admitted they were probably voting for Trump in the general while admitting they haven't been following even a quarter of the news coverage about him. There were lots of things I brought up that he'd said that they had no idea about. It's definitely disappointing on a personal level that my parents would stoop to do this, but I was happy to remind them that because they live in Alabama anyway it didn't matter in the grand scheme. If they lived in a swing state, I'd be livid.

the best thing about this is, ultimately, the GOP takeaway will be "Trump was a disaster, if only we would have nominated one of the 15 damaged, repellent dipshits that he walked all over in the primaries we could have won!!"

― Pull your head on out your hippy haze (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 16, 2016 4:10 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's gonna be so good

re: trump is not actually doing historically badly with hispanic voters (better than romney?!). if that persists, hilllary winning tx would depend entirely on growing hispanic turnout/population rather than changing minds. she can't count on his being a uniquely repellent republican nominee because apparently he's not?

https://twitter.com/adrian_gray/status/764993758865846292

since they do live in a red state why not encourage them to vote hillary since there's no chance she's going to win alabama and trump is such an odious disgusting immoral figure that casting a ballot for him probably damages yr soul and hurts yr stake in the afterlife. xxp

ironic/gross enough: the GOP could just be an immigration restrictionist party and it wouldn't be as susceptible to trumpism.

They hate her because they've been trained to, despite me pointing out that she's basically a 60s/70s Republican centrist. xp