2016 Presidential Election Thread

[Balta1701]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-ally-a...wife-1477266114

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016...hillary-clinton

Today in the category of…oh, forget it. I don't have the heart for snark. It's just so ******* tiresome. The Wall Street Journal headline on the right describes the latest pseudoscandal in Hillaryland, and it's obviously intended to make you think there's yet more fishiness in the Clinton family. In a nutshell, here's the story:

 

In early 2015, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recruited Dr. Jill McCabe to run for a state Senate seat.

Various organizations under McAuliffe's control donated lots of money to her campaign.

She lost.

Several months later, McCabe's husband was promoted to deputy director of the FBI. Because of that promotion, he "helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use." This was presumably in addition to the hundreds of other things that a deputy director has oversight responsibility for.

There's literally nothing here. Not "nothing substantial." Not "nothing that other politicians don't do." Literally nothing. There's not a single bit of this that's illegal, unethical, or even the tiniest bit wrong. It's totally above board and perfectly kosher. And even if there were anything wrong, McAuliffe would have needed a time machine to know it.

 

Honest to God, I'm so tired of this stuff I could scream. I've been joking about it lately by appending gate to every dumb little nonscandal that's tossed in Hillary's direction, and I guess I'll keep doing that. But our illustrious press corps needs to pull its collective head out of its ass. If you've got real evidence of Hillary being engaged in something fishy, go to town. I won't complain. But if all you've got is a thrice-removed, physics-challenged gewgaw that proves nothing except that you know how to play Six Degrees of Hillary Clinton,1 then give it a rest. It just makes you look like those monomaniacs with thousands of clippings glued to their wall and spider webs of string tying them all together.

 

Just stop it.

 

1Here's how it works:

 

1. Make a list of the entire chain of command that had some oversight over the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server. That's going to be at least half a dozen people.

2. Make a list of all their close family and friends. Now you're up to a hundred people.

3. Look for a connection between any of those people and the Clintons. Since FBI headquarters is located in Washington, DC, and the Clintons famously have thousands and thousands of friends, you will find a connection. I guarantee it.

4. Write a story about it.

See how easy this is? But please don't try it at home. This is a game for trained professionals only.

[lostfan]

Now I am even sadder that you never reached out to me when you were in my town.

I did, couldn't find your email so I ended up hitting you up here. You couldn't make it, as I recall.

[Chisoxfn]

I did, couldn't find your email so I ended up hitting you up here. You couldn't make it, as I recall.

Blasphemy, but probably true.

[caulfield12]

High-level DNC operative Creamer....

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/pro...lies/index.html

 

Operative, sure, but to think Clinton is going to use someone with his criminal history in anything like a central role after what happened with Manafort is nuts. Of course, Breitbart terms Democracy Partners "the beating heart of the Democratic Party."

 

Whatever, dude.

 

 

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Third video from O'Keefe implicated HRC.

 

"It exposes prohibited communications between Hillary Clinton's campaign, the DNC and the non-profit organization Americans United for Change. And, it's all disguised as a duck. In this video, several Project Veritas Action undercover journalists catch Democracy Partners founder directly implicating Hillary Clinton in FEC violations. "In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground," says Creamer in one of several exchanges. "So, by God, we would get ducks on the ground." It is made clear that high-level DNC operative Creamer realized that this direct coordination between Democracy Partners and the campaign would be damning when he said: "Don't repeat that to anybody."

 

Yeah, that would be the least surprising thing ever from a campaign that has always wanted to control everything.

[StrangeSox]

Lots of early voting numbers rolling in in states like Texas, Florida, Georgia and Utah.

 

Donald Trump is inspiring a lot of people to get our there and vote.

[RockRaines]

The video from 2008 with Trump talking for 3 minutes about how great Hillary is was fantastic.

[caulfield12]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/curt-schillin...-165638757.html

 

Curt Schilling, Breitbart team up for radio program with hopes of thwarting "career criminal" HRC...12 attend rally, but 5 are reporters.

Edited October 25, 2016 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

Lots of early voting numbers rolling in in states like Texas, Florida, Georgia and Utah.

 

Donald Trump is inspiring a lot of people to get our there and vote.

 

 

To expand on that a bit by stealing a post from someone else [pro-dem poster but fairly objective look]:

 

North Carolina -

 

As has probably been posted in here, Cohn's upshot poll has C +7, Ross +1, Cooper +6, with similar margins in the early vote to PPP's poll yesterday. Upshot is a hybrid poll that uses a unique methodology [for public polling at least] that's more time consuming and expensive, but ultimately should end up more accurate. I will be surprised if Upshot's work isn't highly regarded come November 9th.

 

Early voting is going well for Democrats, to expand:

 

4h

Michael McDonald @ElectProject

North Carolina early voting (mail & in-person) stats as of 10/25 pic.twitter.com/gpFG5DqadJ

Follow

Michael McDonald @ElectProject

NC Dem returns off 2012 levels by 7.6% (Due in part to Rep election officials shuttering polling places in Dem counties), Reps down 7.9%

4:20 AM - 25 Oct 2016

23 23 Retweets 38 38 likes

 

 

They are up .3% against the GOP versus 2012. Now that doesn't sound like much, but one needs to factor in the fact that NC GOP is currently engaging in pretty egregious vote suppression. Specifically, in Guilford county. It's a highly AA county that went for Obama by 18% in 2012. Demographics have just become significantly more friendly to democrats over the past 4 years They took the number of early polling stations from 16 and took it down to 1. This has lessened the early vote there by about 75%. The kicker? The number of polling stations increases dramatically on Wednesday and Friday. Assuming strong turnout [and there's reason to believe that people turnout against incumbents when they feel that their votes are trying to be silenced], Dems should make up most of that number quickly, and may even surpass 2012 numbers by the beginning of next week.

 

To wit:

 

4h

Michael McDonald @ElectProject

NC Dem returns off 2012 levels by 7.6% (Due in part to Rep election officials shuttering polling places in Dem counties), Reps down 7.9%

Follow

Michael McDonald @ElectProject

Polling places expand later this week. Will turning spigot on full produce flood or will dribble remain? Given numbers elsewhere, bet former

4:26 AM - 25 Oct 2016

4 4 Retweets 24 24 likes

 

 

The other thing about this is Cohn's estimation on who's voting:

 

Follow

Nate Cohn ✔ @Nate_Cohn

Early voting data is validating our sampling of low turnout voters. EV = 12% of active NC vtrs and 12% of respondents. Most polls too high

6:34 AM - 25 Oct 2016 · Manhattan, NY, United States

18 18 Retweets 45 45 likes

 

 

As long as I'm reading this right, Cohn is indicating that the subsection of who's voting early cleaves across the entire range of his voting likelyhood scale. There doesn't seem to be a meaningful difference between "Who's voting" and "Who's answering the poll." If this holds, all 3 Democratic candidates will win and likely comfortably.

 

Florida -

 

In short: RIP GOP.

 

Follow

Marc Caputo ✔ @MarcACaputo

After 1.6m Floridians voted in person and by mail, Dems close to catching GOP in early votes. Just 0.43% margin nowhttp://politi.co/2eCtpNd

6:16 AM - 25 Oct 2016

23 23 Retweets 39 39 likes

 

 

Registered Dems may have passed R's in early vote counts last night. It'll take another 2 hours for the final numbers to update. If they didn't last night, they will today. Assuming similar gains through the week, Dems will easily pass their 3 point advantage they held going into election day on 2012. Part of this might be the law change to absentee ballots, but we've already heard numbers that indicate that *double* the number of Latinos are voting in Florida right now. Florida is lost for Trump, but the real question is in the senate. Rubio holds a commanding 5-6 point lead thats narrowed slightly [discounting the Florida CoC poll that had him at +13] as the race has moved on. His median position in polls taken in the last week is +2. Rubio is helped by his enormous strength [in comparison to normal members of the GOP] among Latinos. If this changes, or Cuban-Am. turnout drops precipitously, Rubio is in trouble.

 

There are a couple of vulnerable house districts in play, and I think Dems have a good shot of picking them up. The real question will be if they can knock off one the R+4/5 districts.

 

Nevada/Colorado -

 

In short: RIP GOP.

 

Dems are outperforming in Colorado and Nevada. The primary point of interest in Nevada is Washoe county, where Dems are currently up 48-36, a significant boost over 2014 and 2012. NV-2 is an R+15 district, so I don't expect it to flip, but significant turnout in Washoe could make that race very very close.

 

Dems will win the senate seat in Nevada and pick up two house districts [Nv-3 and Nv-4]

 

 

Basically the only thing that could possibly save the GOP [not Trump. Trump is done.] right now is if the Dems are cannibalizing a significant part of their vote early and that the overall numbers of Dems voting won't change significantly. Based on enthusiasm metrics, I find that unlikely.

[Dick Allen]

I have always found it interesting that supposedly millions upon millions of dead people vote, and none of them vote for republicans.

[lostfan]

I have always found it interesting that supposedly millions upon millions of dead people vote, and none of them vote for republicans.

This always comes up every election and it's always easily debunked with common sense but they love their conspiracy theories.

 

1. Almost all the time those dead people who are actually dead cast their vote, then died a few weeks/months later.

2. Of course there are dead people on voting rolls, because they just died. People don't even update their drivers licenses 2 years after they move and they act confused on how deceased people don't get immediately purged from the rolls.

3. If Democrats could rig elections so easily why do they let themselves get their asses kicked all the time? Like if they did it for anything other than cheating to get Obama elected it would be too obvious?

[RockRaines]

I have always found it interesting that supposedly millions upon millions of dead people vote, and none of them vote for republicans.

Its been debunked so many times, yet it continually gets brought up.

[caulfield12]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hannity-intervie...-150646880.html

 

Crazy that Hannity is now giving National Enquirer anti-Clinton stories the time of day...but par for the course in this election.

[lostfan]

Cleveland: We want a championship. We've suffered too long.

Devil: Okay. I can get you one in 2016, you have to host the Republicans. That's my price.

Cleveland: Okay, we can live with that.

Devil: The Republicans will be nominating Donald Trump.

Cleveland: We want 2 championships.

[Brian]

The video from 2008 with Trump talking for 3 minutes about how great Hillary is was fantastic.

 

People are jealous of Bill Clinton

[caulfield12]

Michael Moore's new documentary does a better job than her own campaign of making the case for Clinton.

 

"Moore in Trumpland" is a very worthwhile documentary watch (it's really just him doing a one man performance in rural Ohio in a heavily white GOP rural district), and makes one feel a bit better about the future of the country for the first time in months. Quite clever.

[StrangeSox]

10 million people have cast their ballots already this year, which is outpacing early voting from 2008 and 2012. We'll have to see if this keeps up and how many of these are new voters versus people who would have voted on November 8th anyway, but there's some early signs that turnout could actually be pretty good this year. I can't find the link right now, but early voting among Latinos so far has been 44% "unlikely" voters i.e. people who didn't vote in 2008 or 2012.

[bmags]

There's about equal chance that I'll watch a michael moore documentary or james o'keefe documentary

[NorthSideSox72]

There's about equal chance that I'll watch a michael moore documentary or james o'keefe documentary

*like*

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Cleveland: We want a championship. We've suffered too long.

Devil: Okay. I can get you one in 2016, you have to host the Republicans. That's my price.

Cleveland: Okay, we can live with that.

Devil: The Republicans will be nominating Donald Trump.

Cleveland: We want 2 championships.

 

Lol, that's great.

[Jenksismyhero]

Michael Moore's new documentary does a better job than her own campaign of making the case for Clinton.

 

"Moore in Trumpland" is a very worthwhile documentary watch (it's really just him doing a one man performance in rural Ohio in a heavily white GOP rural district), and makes one feel a bit better about the future of the country for the first time in months. Quite clever.

 

I think it was John Oliver that made the point - who is that movie directed to? What fan of Michael Moore needs to be convinced that Trump is a terrible choice for President?

[StrangeSox]

I think it was John Oliver that made the point - who is that movie directed to? What fan of Michael Moore needs to be convinced that Trump is a terrible choice for President?

 

Mirror image of whoever Dinesh D'souza videos are targeted at.

[lostfan]

I think it was John Oliver that made the point - who is that movie directed to? What fan of Michael Moore needs to be convinced that Trump is a terrible choice for President?

There's a larger phenomenon here I think, and people like Moore are just one part of it. The way that everything is all broken up and self-segregated in media, groups of people end up just talking to themselves, and they can't get anyone else to pay attention to them.

 

I read a few things in the past few months where the conservative pundit class is starting to see the drawbacks of their strategy. They've been tremendously successful at creating their own media and pushing the bias angle that they've been able to influence the way the rest of the media covers stories for a while, but it's starting to have its limits. Everyone else sees Fox and other places on the internet like it are SO openly and unapologetically partisan that everyone who's not already a committed Republican basically ignores them. They start to notice that they have stories that instantly go viral and Fox News spends most of the day talking about the latest scandal, but only conservatives talk about it, and every other media outlet ignores it as partisan spin. It doesn't matter if it was a legitimate scandal or not, that's not how people perceive it. It works in reverse too. Other stories don't get into conservative media.

[StrangeSox]

There's a larger phenomenon here I think, and people like Moore are just one part of it. The way that everything is all broken up and self-segregated in media, groups of people end up just talking to themselves, and they can't get anyone else to pay attention to them.

 

I read a few things in the past few months where the conservative pundit class is starting to see the drawbacks of their strategy. They've been tremendously successful at creating their own media and pushing the bias angle that they've been able to influence the way the rest of the media covers stories for a while, but it's starting to have its limits. Everyone else sees Fox and other places on the internet like it are SO openly and unapologetically partisan that everyone who's not already a committed Republican basically ignores them. They start to notice that they have stories that instantly go viral and Fox News spends most of the day talking about the latest scandal, but only conservatives talk about it, and every other media outlet ignores it as partisan spin. It doesn't matter if it was a legitimate scandal or not, that's not how people perceive it. It works in reverse too. Other stories don't get into conservative media.

 

I'll see if I can dig it up again, but several months back one of the bigger conservative talk radio guys was talking about this issue in an interview. They've lost the "gatekeepers" of information. They've conditioned their listeners for decades to not believe anyone who isn't telling them what they want to hear. So even when it's a reliably conservative voice who starts to push back on something, the response is the same as if it had been the dreaded New York Times-they're liars and traitors to the cause. Just look at what's happened to Glenn Beck this year and really to a lot of the conservative media who didn't fall in line behind Trump.

 

This certainly happens to people of all political stripes and even in areas outside of politics, but it seems like much of the conservative movement has been built on the whole premise of fleecing the base and convincing them that they should only ever listen to you. I'll have to see if I can dig that report up, too, but something like 90% of all tea party group money raised in the last 6 years just went into the people who run the various groups/orgs' pockets rather than into funding campaigns or anything. And of course Trump's whole campaign seems to be a big personal grift that's paid out millions to fly him back and forth from NYC every day and millions more on his own properties.

 

edit: here it is, Charlie Sykes interview on NPR. You've always had the nuttier fringe websites like World Net Daily, but you're seeing them and even crazier stuff like InfoWars get credibility from the GOP candidate for President at this point.

Edited October 26, 2016 by StrangeSox

[LittleHurt05]

My kids preschool is where the local early voting place so voted early for the first time, it's pretty nice to get it done with.

 

One of these years we will get you Schawkowsky, one of these years.

 

Pulled a Gage and did a write in for President, didn't realize that it was an option in Illinois.