US Politics November 2017

this is good

http://pressthink.org/2017/11/pricing-access-trump-white-house-strange-case-times-social-media-policy/

thing is his popularity since jan hasnt changed much (3 pts?)

he has to act strategically (pander to the same people who voted him in), which might be difficult for trump to do, in order to ensure he gets the same voters and turnout in 2020

bc loads of lefties will come out to vote against him

shld be interesting

he is massively, historically unpopular for a first-year president

he has little room to fall, considering perennial levels of base support in a two-party system and the toxic media environment, so his percentage drops slowly, but it’s done so in a fairly consistent manner

the seal story does seem to be the one ackerman was hyping fwiw

oops sorry misread the link above, guess that’s not in question

"3 pts?"

again:

Jan 45.5 / 41.3
Feb 43.0 / 49.8
Mar 42.3 / 51.8
Apr 41.6 / 52.9
May 39.1 / 51.4
Jun 39.8 / 55.1
Jul 38.5 / 55.6
Aug 36.9 / 56.8
Sep 39.0 / 54.0
Oct 37.5 / 56.4

anyone know what's happening here?

https://i.imgur.com/04hi1qV.jpg

rage shit on the world stage

dr casino

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

yes... as I said upthread that's where I was getting those numbers....?

did i typo one of them or something?

o my bad got dyslexia for a mo

you're right

Hypocritical Dems won’t vote for Roy Moore who has a complete head but would vote for JFK, a man with only HALF A HEAD

— Pixelated “Pixelated Boat” Boat (@pixelatedboat) November 13, 2017

strange how the left is mad abt pedophile Roy Moore running for senate but says nothing about 19th century congressman Charles Upshaw’s several extramarital affairs

— KRANG T. NELSON (@KrangTNelson) November 13, 2017

Is he standing, like?

the seal story

kissed by a rose: the seal story

Good magazine story on how old-fashioned phone banks and door-to-door visits paid off in Virginia local races.

Can confirm; we answered the landline even less than we normally do for the weeks leading up to the election. We went from almost never to absolutely never, because it was always always always well-intentioned election phone bankers or recorded GOTV calls. Next time I will have the outgoing vm message be YES WE'RE VOTING STRAIGHT DEM, OKAY? LIKE WE ALWAYS DO, SINCE NINETEEN-EIGHTY-FUCKING-EIGHT. NOW LEAVE US ALONE.

I know it works, and I've done it myself, but I don't understand the effectiveness of door-to-door. is it supposed to remind people to vote? Convince people who are planning to stay home to go out and vote? Convince people to change their vote?

reminder mainly? i did a few hours of it in 2008 right before the election and people really didn't know their polling place, had the day of the week wrong in their heads etc. i think it helps.

This is probably my hyper-motivated bubble talking, but: It seems crazy to me that there are people who are motivated enough to vote, but not motivated enough to figure out where/when/how.

But as Dr. C. says, they are out there. And I would much rather have "us" (broadly speaking) finding and reminding those people than let it be "them" who does so.

(And of course there is an age-old misinformation tactic where a local party might wish to let it be known that Republicans are supposed to vote on Tuesday and Democrats on Wednesday, or whatever, "to alleviate overcrowding.")

I've told this story before, but I canvassed Milwaukee for Obama right at the height of the Scott Walker stuff, and these people were soooo annoyed at having people ring their doorbells all day. They were getting three, four visitors a day, and the mailings, calls and visits had been going on for weeks. You can't take your front door off the hook.

I really only go out the front to check the mail and always use the back entrance. I had a giant tree branch on the porch for a couple days before I noticed.

Trump and Duterte having a laugh about how journalists are *spies" "Hah, hah, hah" pic.twitter.com/6DjpIZznRc

— Gabriel Snyder (@gabrielsnyder) November 13, 2017

prob closer to "heh heh heh"

I’m waiting for the hot mic recording where Duterte advises Trump to murder everyone suspected of doing drugs and Trump agrees that it’s a great idea

"you chinese are okay after all"

Just in: Gloria Allred is holding a press conference at 2:30pm today in New York with a NEW accuser of former Alabama Judge Roy Moore

— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) November 13, 2017

For the longest time I (like I assume most) only knew her as sort of a high profile celebrity ambulance chancer - and maybe she still is! - but that New Yorker profile really brought me around to viewing her as a tireless feminist advocate. Good for Gloria.

g-l-o-r-i-a

.@SenateMajLdr on Roy Moore allegations “I believe the women.”

— Nick Storm (@NStorm_Politics) November 13, 2017

Which women, the ones accusing Moore or the ones accusing Trump? Asking for a friend.

Because Mitch sort of backs himself into a corner with this one. Bannon on the right, anti-Trump people on the left. Not that he cares, but for whatever reason this is the battle that makes him take a side? He's so slimy it almost makes me want Moore elected just to see what damage he would do, but obv. I would be more than happy with Jones. Luck or no, having the Jeff Sessions Alabama fucker senate seat go to a Dem would be so delicious.

McConnell must be secretly loving this a bit, the idea of taking down Bannon's useful pediot.

Take him down how? Moore supporters are not McConnell supporters, and Bannon has explicitly targeted Mitch. Maybe Mitch knows that a Moore win might make him even more at risk? Maybe Mitch just realized that being an "establishment" asshole is not good enough? Who knows.

Mitch sometimes seems to be the only one thinking a couple of moves ahead, but maybe he has just been lucky. It's so hard to tell. Does the dude even have smarts?

No

No. He looks smart because his colleagues are imbeciles.

Plenty of pro-Moore sentiment is inextricably bound up with anti-McConnell sentiment.

While Moore/Trump voters vote straight Republican 105% of the time, they are not shy about saying they hate McConnell/Ryan almost as much as they hate dems/libs/POC/gays.

I think everybody involved knows that full well. Mitch may prefer to lose the AL seat and have a narrower margin, because that's useful as cover for yet more of:

1. not doing anything

2. being able to blame someone else

It's a gamble.

In the land of quasi-sentient brainstems, the man with a tiny nodule of tissue resting atop the brainstem is king.

despite the high stakes of a lost senate seat i think mitch would probably feel like he has nothing to lose here. moore in office would be out of control (it's basically his career-defining selling point!), and a huge millstone around the necks of any blue- or purple-state senator: the party of roy moore, why has senator x not voted to censure roy moore, etc. may as well score some fraction of PR points by appearing to condemn him. didn't apply to trump but hey.

obviously mitch's own seat is safe, if he even wants to keep doing this shit into his 80s. and as others have observed he may well find it personally easier to be the leader of a united opposition that keeps anything he opposes from getting accomplished, than the leader of a divided majority that's unable to get anything he supports accomplished.

mcconnell's no dummy when it comes to at least being dimly aware of the fact that a Moore win would further push the already-racist GOP further right in the eyes of voters nationwide and particularly in key states where 2018 R-candidates are on the hot seat. i'm not sure he'd be *happy* to lose the seat, but i don't think anything makes Mitch happy except for seeing his enemies suffer humiliation.

there are levels of survival he is prepared to accept

Possible effect of Gloria Allred working with a Roy Moore accuser: It could bait Trump into responding. She also represents Trump accuser Summer Zervos.

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) November 13, 2017

I have a tough time imagining Trump watching the Fox segment on this press conference, seeing Allred, and not at least thinking about a tweet.

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) November 13, 2017

"Gullible Gloria...Not A Ten! Get Back To Chasing Ambulances!"

do you think Trump pays close attention to who opposing counsel is on cases here he's being sued?

I mean, I would lean toward yes, but his attention is very sporadic

She was very public about taking the case of Trump's accuser, and she's a woman who had the audacity to oppose him, so I'm sure he remembers. Embittered grievance is his food and drink.

Gloria Allred is also famous, which is one of Two Scoops' main gages for individual value.

he still talks about Rosie O'Donnell iirc

Rosie attended his wedding in the early 90s!