U. S. Politics: A noun, a verb and no collusion.

[maarsen]

4 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Lol, that's cute. Republican ideology is a self-reinforcing feedback loop of stupidity and venality. So what if Trump aborted a kid. The Clintons were responsible for millions! They'll even pretend to care about aborted black babies and black people locked up by Clinton-era crime policies before they pick back up their torches and Failed Slavelord Rebellion Participant Flags.

But if such a thing were revealed, I'd at least go troll Curt Schilling about it on social media.

 

When you gaze into the Abyss of reality television, the Abyss gazes also into you.

Unfortunately for Trump, the abyss is about to do more than just gaze into him. I think the abyss is getting lubed up.

[DMC]

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

Again, when you say that Clinton lost Latinx voters and present this as your data, it's unconvincing because it's an inaccurate representation of the data you yourself are presenting. 

No, it's not.  It's entirely accurate to say Clinton lost a margin of the latinx electorate from Obama 2012.  You can come up with your reasons why this happened, but it's certainly not an inaccurate representation.  Just the opposite.  Why this is is still an open question because...

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

You're right, it doesn't support my hypothesis, though the voter suppression argument is one that isn't clearly factual (IE, lower suppression in bluer states). I suspect that it's more nuanced in general - IE, California has some suppression depending on the county and area, Arizona has a lot, and Texas even more - but places like Nebraska didn't do much at all - though that hardly matters, as their share of latinx population didn't increase.

...Right, you, nor I, know exactly why it happened on a state-by-state basis.  As I said, I tend to agree with the hypothesis you're actually deriving, but that doesn't mean it's right.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

You also keep saying that latinas voted more for Trump, and I've not seen that; what I've seen is that they didn't vote for Clinton, but that's not saying they voted for Trump.

Fair enough, but the 8 point difference doesn't go away just because more latina women voted third party  in 2016.  It hurt Hillary just the same.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

And as you say, the exit polls are national, so it's hard to state that the overall percentage of latinx corresponds to (say) California also having reduced numbers but Arizona having greater - or anything else.

Of course.  Again, you got better data, please share.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

I thought I explained this, but I'll try again. Assume that for, say, AA, we have a current mix of 20% who will vote Republican, 80% Democrat. (the numbers don't matter here). Voter suppression targets counties and demographics that are both AA AND will likely vote Democrat. Let's say they manage to reduce the overall vote by 6% - but they managed a 1/5 split here in repub/democrats. The net result would look like fewer overall voters, but the actual share of vote will have increased to Republicans because fewer Republican voters were suppressed. In the above example, you would now have 20.2% AA voters for Republicans, 79.8% for Democrats. 

You are vastly overestimating the effect of microtargeting here.  First, because with African-Americans there's diminishing returns, and second with Latinos it's much more difficult to identify areas that would trend more towards GOP.  One demographic I know personally they used is using ex-convicts that had regained the right to vote, and purging them from the rolls "accidentally."  Again, that should have affected Latino men much more so than Latina women.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

I think you're being deliberately obtuse; we already know that you can not only target minorities, you can target counties, cities and neighborhoods and have a much better idea of who you're going after. We've seen this many times now - reducing county polling stations in certain places, requiring certain ID cards which have difficulty being filled, some actual violence and intimidation at polling places, etc. 

Again, this type of microtargeting is not gong to be particularly effective among the latino vote.  Particularly when one considers the older latino vote.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

Yeah, it isn't, and I'm not surprised you chicken out and don't point out anything - because it doesn't really exist. The economic models certainly did predict a switch in party - but that does not explain for a single second why people voted. And you know this too. 

Um, actually, I know economic models precisely do explain why people vote.  And not just for a single second, but for the past sixty years.  It's you who won't accept it.  The only chickenshit thing here is to not accept durable empirical results.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

Well, not all of us have being completely drunk to fall back on. 

This was meant to come off as much more tongue in cheek than it did.  Sorry bout that, seriously.  But feel free to fall back on drunkenness all you want.

On 4/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, Kalbear said:

Okay, let's go back a bit. You're arguing that the economic models predict the election, no? What do they say about the next election given the current economy?

In terms of midterms and presidential approval?  Still really, really bad for the incumbent party.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

What evidence is there that Broidy used the Trump organization as a pass through? Or are they arguing he just lied about being Cohen's client? I doubt there is anything to this.  

I'm not quite sure what Avenatti is getting at here, because the filing by Cohen's lawyers lists three individuals: Trump, Individual-to-be-Named-Later and Broidy. However, I haven't read a transcript of the actual proceedings, so it's possible he could be factually correct if the three he mentioned were the only ones actually "named in open court".

Now, that having been said, Avenatti may be on to something. The Broidy thing always seemed weird to me. Remember, the WSJ had already broken Broidy's name before the court hearing, but it was odd why the involvement of someone most people have never heard of would be considered particularly newsworthy (by Trump-era standards, where something has to be fucking bananas to make the cut). 

Also remember that Cohen used the same shell company he used to pay off Daniels to pay off the as-yet-unnamed Broidy canoodler. On top of that, why is the payee still unnamed, when Broidy's admission would have breached the NDA? And a $1.6 million payoff seems like a LOT of hush money to pay to cover for a relative nobody, even with an abortion involved.

But, if the NDA was actually with Trump, then it would still be in effect. And a $1.6 million seems like a bargain to ensure your most loyal supporters, Christian evangelicals, wouldn't discover any reservations about turning out to vote for you after finding out that you participated in an abortion, which is the only reason they turn out to vote at all.

Broidy makes a convenient fall guy, and at the end of the day, Trump's only real legal strategy is blowing enough smoke to keep up base support, which ensures Congressional Republicans will continue to cover for him.

[DMC]

On 4/24/2018 at 4:54 PM, Kalbear said:

Oh hey, here's another one - voters were anxious about losing privilege, not economic status.

Oh, hey, missed this.  Like I said from the get-go:

On 4/23/2018 at 6:35 PM, dmc515 said:

 66-29 is a pretty big number, one it's plausible to think is a ceiling and had as much to do with the economy as racial resentment.

I know that teaching nuance to some people here is akin to teaching restraint to Trump, but c'mon.  Yes, racial resentment is a large part of it - but so is the economy.  And are you seriously bringing Diana Mutz at me?  HA!!!  She understands economic voting models far more than I do - as demonstrated here, here, and here.  I've actually met her and discussed research.  That's really rich.

[ThinkerX]

Been wondering...

...what happens to the various investigations should Cohen meet with a fatal 'accident?'

[DMC]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

This morning’s interview is exactly why Jace and I were arguing that Mueller absolutely wants to and likely needs to interview Trump. He will self-incriminate, and it probably won’t be hard for Mueller to bait him. Again, we’re talking about the man who volunteered that he fired Comey because the Russia investigation was on his mind. That was literally one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen a politician do.

Still don't think he'll allow himself to be deposed.  I suspect Mueller will indict people close enough to him that he'll enact his own SNM (can that be an acronym now?) before that happens.  At least that's how I see it.

9 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Polls: Democrats on Track to Flip 3 GOP Senate Seats

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/polls-democrats-on-track-to-flip-3-gop-senate-seats.html

Yeah, saw that.  Unless something really goes wrong, Sinema should win in Arizona.  Heller is gonna be tougher in Nevada - dude's a fighter, but they should pick that up as well.  Who knows what's gonna go on in Tennessee - I think that may change a lot either way as the election closes in.  Good thing is, things look pretty good for McCaskill in MO and Hietkamp in ND right now.  Even Donnelly in IN.  I know Trump went after Tester in his Fox and Friends rage this morning, but the defensive Senate seats are looking better than they should right now.

6 hours ago, Maithanet said:

The DCCC picks candidates that it thinks can win and does what it can to support those candidates at the expense of other candidates.  That's how politics works.  What exactly is Hoyer doing that sounds like a mob boss?  Did he threaten to end Tillemann's career?  No.  Did he promise some political appointment that isn't his to give?  No.  He asked him to drop out, and admitted that he was going to support Crow, because he saw Crow as the better candidate. [...]

Saying that this is "rigging" elections is just ridiculous, drives down turnout and makes it more likely we have a Republican house. 

Yep, exactly.  This is a non-story - and a really stupid non-story yat that.  WTF did you expect Hoyer to say?  The whole thing is amateur hour

3 hours ago, Ormond said:

I've left out parts of this were just basically fundraising.  --It's quite interesting to me, though, that at least in Colorado they have recruited a Democratic candidate to run in every single district for their state House of Reps. It seems that several people on this thread have been complaining about Democrats not running candidates in all districts. At least in that one state, that's not a problem this year. 

I was about to do the research to say the same thing.  Appreciate the update!

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm not quite sure what Avenatti is getting at here, because the filing by Cohen's lawyers lists three individuals: Trump, Individual-to-be-Named-Later and Broidy. However, I haven't read a transcript of the actual proceedings, so it's possible he could be factually correct if the three he mentioned were the only ones actually "named in open court".

I listened to Avenatti on Morning Joe this morning.  I think it was notable he explicitly corrected the hosts in saying that Broidy had not yet been mentioned as one of Cohen's clients in court.  Not sure if that's accurate, but it indicates Avenetti's tactic.  He intimated throughout that Broidy would be the next to be indicted, and so far he's been pretty on point in his public predictions.

[karaddin]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It happens at every level by both sides. It's part of what parties do. They have their internal data and they back the candidate with the best chances to win unless they find some bad oppo research. This guy stabbed his party in the back, and his actions show that there were probably valid reasons why the DCCC wasn't helping him.

The problem is that its become abundantly clear that Republicans and Democrats aren't actually held to the same set of rules. Just because Republicans get to be openly cynical doesn't mean that Dems can get away with doing the same. Left wing voters will respond to fear, sure, but ultimately you need to be offering them something to vote for and stuff like this really undermines that. I think its actually much less damaging to make it formal - if there wasn't a primary process, the party simply chose the candidates - then it may lose the trapping of a democratic process, but this sort of leak does that anyway with bonus serving of "this is unfair" that wouldn't be present under such a system.

If you're claiming to run a democrat process on the left, it needs to at least appear to live up to that.

And as TGU said - there are a lot of left voters already really disenchanted about this from 2016. Whether you agree with them or not, you need to bring them along to vote.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Just because Republicans get to be openly cynical doesn't mean that Dems can get away with doing the same. Left wing voters will respond to fear, sure, but ultimately you need to be offering them something to vote for and stuff like this really undermines that. I think its actually much less damaging to make it formal - if there wasn't a primary process, the party simply chose the candidates - then it may lose the trapping of a democratic process, but this sort of leak does that anyway with bonus serving of "this is unfair" that wouldn't be present under such a system.

If you're claiming to run a democrat process on the left, it needs to at least appear to live up to that.

And as TGU said - there are a lot of left voters already really disenchanted about this from 2016. Whether you agree with them or not, you need to bring them along to vote.

Nope.  That's not how midterms work.  Trump sucks, that's all the Democrats need to emphasize.  I don't know why you think that's cynical, btw.  That's the truth.  And let's look at this pragmatically.  The only way to neutralize Trump is to take back the House and/or Senate.  Which means what?  Winning those two chambers, by any means necessary.  How does that happen?  By beating the other guys.  Will that mean moving to the left and actually telling like it is in many places?  Sure. 

But it also means doing almost the exact opposite in some places.  And biting the bullet as some Dem candidates compete in Trump world and thus - gasp - sound like Trump.  Get the fuck over it people.  If Howard Dean can encourage a 50 state strategy, so can you.

 

[Mudguard]

8 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Um, actually, I know economic models precisely do explain why people vote.  And not just for a single second, but for the past sixty years.  It's you who won't accept it.  The only chickenshit thing here is to not accept durable empirical results.

...

In terms of midterms and presidential approval?  Still really, really bad for the incumbent party.

Can you provide a citation to the economic model(s) that you are referring to?  What economic factors do these models look at and how are they weighted?  Are these voting models based purely on economic factors?  Are these models applicable to state level elections or just national level elections? 

I'm skeptical that a voting model based purely on economic factors can accurately predict state and national level elections on a consistent basis.  If it was that simple, accurate, and reliable, then 99% of the "experts" shouldn't have wrongly predicted that Clinton was going to beat Trump.

[mormont]

8 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Can you provide a citation to the economic model(s) that you are referring to?  What economic factors do these models look at and how are they weighted?  Are these voting models based purely on economic factors?  Are these models applicable to state level elections or just national level elections? 

I'm skeptical that a voting model based purely on economic factors can accurately predict state and national level elections on a consistent basis.  If it was that simple, accurate, and reliable, then 99% of the "experts" shouldn't have wrongly predicted that Clinton was going to beat Trump.

I'm not an expert on voting models - I know very little at all - but it appears to me you're making an 'ex post facto' argument. The models didn't predict the result, therefore the models can't be good. What you're missing is that no model is or can be 100% accurate. Even if the models are 99% accurate, they will be wrong 1% of the time, and the result in 2016 may have been that 1%. It was, in many senses, a freak result, an outlier.

[Mudguard]

Regarding the DNC, DCCC, and/or state Democratic parties supporting one candidate over another in a primary election, I don't necessarily have a problem with it if they are upfront about their support.  I only have a problem if they lie or try to hide their support and pretend to be neutral, and that happens way too often. 

That said, I don't think it's a good strategy for the party to help one candidate outspend another candidate by a large margin in the primary.  I would prefer that they just try and level the playing field a bit, and then let the voters decide.  The money is better spent in the general election.  I don't think it's a good way to identify in the primary the best candidate, and by best I mean the candidate that has the best shot of winning in the general, by giving one candidate a huge amount of extra resources.  If this candidate is really the better candidate, this person shouldn't need a massive amount of extra resources over their opponents in the primary to win.

I'm also skeptical that the DNC, DCCC, and state Democratic parties are always picking candidates solely based on their likelihood of winning the general election.  I'm sure that personal connections and a matching ideology to the people in charge play a big role in many cases.

[Mudguard]

30 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm not an expert on voting models - I know very little at all - but it appears to me you're making an 'ex post facto' argument. The models didn't predict the result, therefore the models can't be good. What you're missing is that no model is or can be 100% accurate. Even if the models are 99% accurate, they will be wrong 1% of the time, and the result in 2016 may have been that 1%. It was, in many senses, a freak result, an outlier.

I'm extremely doubtful that these models are 99% accurate.  To claim that you can predict complex human behavior like voting with 99% accuracy based on economic factors is, frankly, unbelievable.  Which is why I'd like to know specifically what models dmc515 is referring to and how accurate they are based on past data, and how good these models have been at predicting election results since they've been released. 

I read a few articles on voting models and was not impressed by the data that I saw.  I'm very skeptical that a voting model based purely on economic factors will be very good.  For example, here's an article from 538.

Quote

This seems like a healthy state of affairs. Simple economic variables can account for a little less than half of the variability in election results. The other half falls into the “everything else” category, including factors such as foreign policy successes and failures, major scandals, incumbency, candidate quality, controversial social legislation and structural factors like changes in partisanship. Technically speaking, some of the variability may also be explained by economic factors that weigh upon voters’ minds, but which are not easily quantified by measures like G.D.P. and inflation.

The best model examined in the 538 model was a "bread and peace" model, so not entirely an economic model, and it only performed well within the dataset that the model creator used to create the model.  Outside of the original data set, the model performed much worse than the 90% predictive power that was found within the original data set.

[mormont]

Just now, Mudguard said:

I'm extremely doubtful that these models are 99% accurate.

Er... so am I. If you read my post and came away thinking that was my claim, I'm afraid you misread it. My point was that even if they were, no model can be 100% accurate. Saying that the model didn't predict a certain result is not a strong argument for it being useless. You need aggregate data, which you acknowledge. So the fact that the model didn't predict Trump's win is largely irrelevant. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I guess it just makes the primaries a bit of kabuki theater; why even go through the process of asking what the primary voters want when there appears to be a eminently winnable candidate that could be picked by committee? I dont think any party has to have a primary process, and the way "business as usual" is done could be the Democrat's process going forward.

It would definitely save everyone a lot of time and effort.

For several obvious reasons. Just a few examples: (i) it helps prep your candidate for the general, (ii) it helps them craft their message, (iii) you need to make sure you were correct in who you selected, (iiii) stars can be born (Obama), (v) etc. They serve a good purpose, whether or not they are the fairest things in the world. It’s certainly better than the old way of doing things. Party bosses will always make sure their man (or woman) have the upper hand, but at least this way the base has a say.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm not quite sure what Avenatti is getting at here, because the filing by Cohen's lawyers lists three individuals: Trump, Individual-to-be-Named-Later and Broidy. However, I haven't read a transcript of the actual proceedings, so it's possible he could be factually correct if the three he mentioned were the only ones actually "named in open court".

I tried finding one but couldn’t. However, you think it would have been reported beforehand if his accusations are legit.

Quote

But, if the NDA was actually with Trump, then it would still be in effect. And a $1.6 million seems like a bargain to ensure your most loyal supporters, Christian evangelicals, wouldn't discover any reservations about turning out to vote for you after finding out that you participated in an abortion, which is the only reason they turn out to vote at all.

I never understood the deals for $130k and $150k. You think they could have tact on a couple of zeros, all things considered. Hustler would have given them $5m for their stories during the campaign.

[Fragile Bird]

I have been watching the reaction the absolutely fantastic quarterly numbers Amazon released last night have had on commentators and the markets, and all I can see in my mind is an image of a furious Trump, red faced with apoplexy.

Amazon approaching a trillion dollar value? Fake news! That money belongs to the Post Office! Break them up! Increase their taxes! Can we take away their citizenships?

Expect a nasty barrage of anti-Bezos tweets this weekend.

And in the meantime, a technical analyst showed how Apple stock had twice violated serious support levels, and a lot of talk has been very negative about the company. A major criticism is why does Apple think that new phones costing a thousand dollars are going to help sales.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Regarding the DNC, DCCC, and/or state Democratic parties supporting one candidate over another in a primary election, I don't necessarily have a problem with it if they are upfront about their support.  I only have a problem if they lie or try to hide their support and pretend to be neutral, and that happens way too often. 

That said, I don't think it's a good strategy for the party to help one candidate outspend another candidate by a large margin in the primary.  I would prefer that they just try and level the playing field a bit, and then let the voters decide.  The money is better spent in the general election.  I don't think it's a good way to identify in the primary the best candidate, and by best I mean the candidate that has the best shot of winning in the general, by giving one candidate a huge amount of extra resources.  If this candidate is really the better candidate, this person shouldn't need a massive amount of extra resources over their opponents in the primary to win.

I'm also skeptical that the DNC, DCCC, and state Democratic parties are always picking candidates solely based on their likelihood of winning the general election.  I'm sure that personal connections and a matching ideology to the people in charge play a big role in many cases.

You act like this is a thing only Democrats do. Republicans do it all the time. That’s why you hear stories of them trying to find candidates to put up against bat**** crazy candidates who are ahead in the early polls.

Or ya know, how the party was collectively trying to take down Trump in the primaries until it became clear he was going to win.

Parties trying to get their preferred candidate on the ticket is nothing new, and it’s not unique to any party, ideology or country. Hell, in many countries you vote for the party and then they pick the politician.

[Martell Spy]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I tried finding one but couldn’t. However, you think it would have been reported beforehand if his accusations are legit.

I never understood the deals for $130k and $150k. You think they could have tact on a couple of zeros, all things considered. Hustler would have given them $5m for their stories during the campaign.

Harder for Cohen to get the money together perhaps if it is in the millions. His whole mission is to leave no money trail to Trump.

[mormont]

57 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

I never understood the deals for $130k and $150k. You think they could have tact on a couple of zeros, all things considered. Hustler would have given them $5m for their stories during the campaign.

Trump isn't that rich.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Harder for Cohen to get the money together perhaps if it is in the millions. His whole mission is to leave no money trail to Trump.

The point is those deals were shocking low, given the circumstances. If Trump was just some business guy, sure, I get it. But do you have any idea what some people would offer for those stories in October of 2016?

17 minutes ago, mormont said:

Trump isn't that rich.

Trump’s total net worth is probably between $2b-$4b. However, I’ve read some reports that speculate he has less than $50m cash on hand. His finances are a shell game.