"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

lolol at Boris genuinely thinking he led get good and special treatment from a second-term emboldened Trump

Meantime, focused on the issues that matter.

"Big Tech. Section 230, right?" - @realDonaldTrump to a silent crowd in Ohio.

— Max Steele (@maxasteele) October 24, 2020

he says a lot of stuff lately and I don't know what it means

And i say ACK

Getting odd out there:

At some point we'll have to ask for an all-mail ballot state like Colorado, when are Republicans going to vote? Sure, there are some vote centers for in-person early voting, but they're not going to handle a hundred thousand Republicans on Election Day pic.twitter.com/JzykXUd7Fs

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 25, 2020

In past elections, at this time in Colorado, registered Republicans would be leading returned ballots, and I'd be cautioning how Democrats will make up ground the last weekend, esp. as young voters surge with same-day registration at vote centers. I still expect that youth surge

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 25, 2020

Also this is getting amusing:

The Lincoln Project’s legal response to the frivolous threat of a lawsuit from Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s lawyer.

This will not be the last they hear from us. pic.twitter.com/GNnFsnsCer

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 24, 2020

let_them_fight.gif

As cringe as watching the Masters of the Universe movie

there's definitely a "Stalin's soldiers getting closer to Berlin" feel to these Lincoln Project activities. let history be our guide!

Colorado NPAs are doing even worse than the GOP, are they waiting till the last minute to "decide?"

*Another* COVID outbreak in VP Pence's staff. Good thing their boss is on the task force!

Ok credit where due that letter is fucking hliarious

(xpost) Including his chief of staff.

this is getting amusing:

Any lawyer would be tickled pink to be paid to write a letter like that, knowing that, not only can they let out all the stops, but they are earning billable hours while making utter fools of another high-powered law firm.

many xps:
As an aside on yesterday's wind turbine discussion, painting one blade black reduces bird fatalities by 70%. Rappelling 40-50 m down existing turbine blades with some paint will be a new career option for thrill seekers.

"a guy named trump"

5 pence aides have coronavirus, including his chief of staff.

seems important, but he's going ahead with his campaign events tomorrow. he is the head of the covid-19 task force, after all

i feel like i have time traveled back to the dark ages and the warlord keeps telling me let the leeches suck my pupils or the sun god won't come back

In America, dark ages time travel to you!

"The Trump/Pence Promise: We bring the plague to YOU!"

Question for all you stat/poll/politics nerds: how/why is it that we have all these polls, with all these results, and yet the campaigns always have their fabled "internal" polls with their own secret numbers that they hold close to their vests? How would a campaign poll differently, and why would it get them significantly different numbers than all of the public polls? For example, I've seen people suggest that Biden should make another appearance or two in Texas, because the numbers there look more promising than they should, and then I've seen people countering with the notion that maybe the Biden's campaign's own polling makes it seem more of a longshot (which I swear to god autocorrect tried to change to "longshoremen"). Why would the campaign's polling come to a decisively different conclusion?

Baseball teams always say the same thing, that they have their "own metrics" that are much better than what the analysts put out there. Which is supposedly true, and corroborated by one of the posters on ILB who knows someone who works for one of the teams. I wonder about politics, though. If you were this genius pollster, couldn't you make more money--maybe even a lot more--working for one of the networks? With baseball, the money would be working anonymously for one of the teams.

It happened: Hays Co., TX just became the first county in America - to my knowledge - to surpass its total 2016 turnout.

Four years ago, it cast 72,164 total votes. With more than a week left, 73,277 people there have already early voted.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 25, 2020

Hi @NateSilver538. Colorado Secretary of State here. We have in-person early voting and Election Day in-person voting. In fact, we have over 340 voting centers across the state!

— Jena Griswold (@JenaGriswold) October 25, 2020

(xpost) I'm guessing you saw that poll today (Dallas Morning News) that has Biden up by 3 in Texas?

Yeah. I just don't get why there can be all these polls from professional sources that say one thing, but not only may the internal campaign polls says something else, the campaigns give them more weight than all the other polls. PA is another one. The Biden campaign sent out a surrogate a week or so ago to say that things were much closer than people were saying. Now, it's possible that's just sort of psyops, to get people to vote. But if they *do* have significantly different numbers, how did they get there, and why are they different from what others see? Do their polls take into account data not publicly available?

Hays County is outside Austin, right? Been a really fast growing region for a while now.

Early vote count now 58.6 million. Plus:

Texas is just shy of 80% of their total 2016 turnout. If the past is a guide, there will be a minor update later today that pushes them over

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 25, 2020

PA is another one. The Biden campaign sent out a surrogate a week or so ago to say that things were much closer than people were saying.

I'd say that's just them making sure complacency doesn't set in. I don't know if I've seen a Pennsylvania poll in months that doesn't have Biden up by 6-9/

Agreed. And yet, why are those public numbers trusted/trustworthy, but not Texas (which shows Biden has at least a shot)?

We might see an election in which pollsters understate the extent of Biden's possible victory, as most pundits did in 2012.

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZWvByn8HaU

FWIW, this is Biden internal polling from 9 days ago (from a "grassroots strategy summit" with Jen O'Malley Dillon):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkjVYdEX0AEOMjf?format=jpg&name=large

CNN has a thing up this morning comparing it to 1980, where it was close through October, then it wasn't, at all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_United_States_presidential_elections#1980_United_States_presidential_election

Lots of differences, obviously--I imagine polling was less reliable--but it was like, fairly or not, voters said "Enough" right at the last minute. (Plus "There you go again" making Reagan less scary.)

I'm getting emails from Dem groups citing the Trafalgar poll article on The Hill

I get trying to GOTV but I don't get purposefully giving credence to a Republican polling firm and suggesting that Biden's chances are actually bad is a good way to do it.

All my emails from national democratic campaign groups have been nothing but shrill panic-stricken ALL CAPS freakouts for at least a week now

Expecting one where someone films themselves jumping bout a window

It must be effective to some extent, but I really don't get the point of formulating emails to look like obnoxious unwanted spam. I suppose if the thought is that it doesn't cost a lot to do, if anything, might as well spam it up and pick off any low hanging fruit rather than waste any time and money formulating something more specific or subtle.

maybe it works on older generations who routinely engage in apoplectic behavior online (I know we're used to this from MAGA types but I see old Biden supporters doing this too), but otoh I also see the same tactic targeted at younger voters ("we are CRYING right now...")

Remember in 2012 "Ham" Rove and co. were predicting all sorts of things even up on election night trying to keep the narrative going they were going to win and win big.

There is definitely some big delusions with some Trump supporters on their chances like there was with Clinton in the last election. Around here especially at work, I don't talk politics for jack, but you don't have to ask for an opinion from some of these people and plenty of Trumpkins are in denial of circumstances.

I don't see how anyone could win re-election after pretty much constantly flipping the bird to half the country for four years on anything and everything. GOP money cult and that core of crazy that has been media indoctrinated for three decades will ride or die with whatever lunatic is piloting the ship. Sad truth is I really don't think Trump would be losing all other idiocy included if the pandemic had not happened. They would have been able to ride the riots to victory.

I'm sure even if Biden wins the story will be all these people dying off because of this "red wave" of infections happening now will be pinned on him the same damn way the smoking crater of an economy that Obama received was his fault in 2008. And the money cult only has to find 15-20 of the voting electorate to go along with their harebrained BS to re-take power.

Remember in 2012 "Ham" Rove and co. were predicting all sorts of things even up on election night trying to keep the narrative going they were going to win and win big.

lol I rescreened Karl on FOX the other day

Such leadership

Mark Meadows on CNN: “We are not going to get control of the pandemic.”

Says we will instead try to get therapeutics and vaccines rather than trying to control the spread.

— Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) October 25, 2020

What in the

The Trump administration offered Santa Claus performers a deal: promote a Covid-19 vaccine, and they'd get early access to it. The plan has been called off. https://t.co/Cg7XRbUsZu

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 25, 2020

I'm sure even if Biden wins the story will be all these people dying off because of this "red wave" of infections happening now will be pinned on him the same damn way the smoking crater of an economy that Obama received was his fault in 2008.

Honestly this is the best-case scenario, because then people on the right would take virus seriously. I'm more concerned that here in the red states a Biden win — and the let's-hope-more-coherent federal focus on COVID that would accompany it — will just harden people's resistance to any and all public health mandates.

Like, people will be burning their "Biden face diapers" in the streets, that kind of thing.

I don't see the red states/people being curtailed/corralled at all, not even a little bit. Certainly there will be no enforceable mask mandate, because how in the world would a Biden administration enforce it? In some ways that's a relief, since progress toward a vaccine will be made no matter who is governing, but Biden will (most likely) get the actual win without while avoiding, say, sending troops into the streets to make people mask-up. Now, getting people to *take* the vaccine, that's another matter, but all the schools have to do is mandate them to get the ball rolling there.

Btw, speaking of Santa, the coup de grace is Trump losing and then being responsible for taking Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve down with him due to his incompetence.

I have been waiting for some of militia nuts to basically go create some violence to try to bring back the "riots". If those clowns that were planning what they did would have instead done some type of actions to try to raise up racial animus and succeeded in getting the riots going now like they were this summer, I think Trump/GOPs 'us or them' would have been more effective. Luckily as in the 90s, these guys are a bunch of damn idiots.

Fox News makes more money when the Democrats are in power and those camo LARPers getting further into legit politics is probably the next step.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/22/926279072/militia-leader-known-as-the-bundy-ranch-sniper-seeks-a-new-title-senator

. Erwin said on the call: “Since you would be doing Santa a serious favor, Santa would definitely reciprocate.”

Mr. Caputo said: “I’m in, Santa, if you’re in.”

So if he loses, what's Trump going to do for the last few weeks of his term? He could (and will) surely do more rallies, or foment racial conflict, or basically just ... keep it up, but he would be doing so with not only no gain or benefit, but the sword of Damocles that is imminent investigation/prosecution hanging over his head. He can't even resign and have Pence pardon him (per some creative conspiracies), because you can't be pardoned for something you haven't been convicted of yet.

So if he loses, what's Trump going to do for the last few weeks of his term? He could (and will) surely do more rallies, or foment racial conflict, or basically just ... keep it up, but he would be doing so with not only no gain or benefit, but the sword of Damocles that is imminent investigation/prosecution hanging over his head. He can't even resign and have Pence pardon him (per some creative conspiracies), because you can't be pardoned for something you haven't been convicted of yet.

Part of me thinks he's just going to disappear, that the country will be effectively without a president from November until January (and he might not even show up for Biden's inauguration). Another part thinks he'll go on a looting-and-burning spree out of a combination of greed and spite. Sell off every national park to energy companies, fire everyone who pissed him off and shut down their agencies, etc., etc. It's really hard to say, because he's clearly insane. I guess we have to pray for the right combination of laziness and depression, rather than nihilism and rage.

do you guys follow The Frankenstein Project? it's a group of doctors who produce videos making fun of the monster they created

— blaaaaaaaaaines (@blainecapatch) October 16, 2020