US Politics: Mail and Managers for Mitch

[Mindwalker]

11 minutes ago, mormont said:

Trump's never told a joke in his life. Like most people with a frail ego, he doesn't have a sense of humour. He likes mean nicknames, taunting and belittling people, but these things are not 'jokes'.

Agreed, I expressed myself poorly. Add in ridiculing everything 'female', 'disabled' and so on.

Thanks everyone re: the debate, I'll just watch the Saners/ Warren thing and be done.

[Larry of the Lawn]

16 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I agree, yet I am confused. I said and have said all of this before. The point was the degree of the swinging of the pendulum. I don't think their reaction would have been as extreme if a generic white guy had won..

It does, just not in the same way. The mere fact we elected an avowed socialist would cause the right to lose their minds.

It's not the causation I'm talking about, it's the intensity. And the reaction Obama's election on the right was intense than anything I've seen. And it would have likely been horrific too if Clinton won, because as my mom is wont to say, America will elect a man of any ethnicity before they'd ever elect a woman.

 

Couple of things.  For one, if we go with what you have here, it's not that a leftist candidate or leftist policies push the electorate the other way, it's centuries of racism not being able to handle a black president.  But your original argument against Sanders is that he'd stop leftist progress for awhile by "swinging the pendulum back the other way".  Also, if it was Obama's 'leftist policies' that gave us Trump, why did we get Trump instead of Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham, both arguably to the right of Trump?  And why did he barely win?  I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that if the Dems had appealed more to minority and younger voters in Florida, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Trump doesn't even win.  

My point is this pendulum concept is false and not a substantive argument for incremental change vs more significant change, which was the argument that sparked this exchange.  

And they're going to call Buttigieg and Biden socialists too.  

[Gaston de Foix]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

Trump's never told a joke in his life. Like most people with a frail ego, he doesn't have a sense of humour. He likes mean nicknames, taunting and belittling people, but these things are not 'jokes'.

that's broadly but not universally true.  He does make self-deprecating jokes such as at CPAC a couple of years referring to his thinning hair and called himself an SOB recently.  But more and more, he's come to inhabit the bilious and vile persona he has created for himself. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Older piece but just some food for thought during the Dem primary.  From the article:

Quote

While the Democratic Party argues about whether and how to win back the vanishingly small number of white Obama-Trump voters, the uncomfortable fact remains that black voter turnout in 2016 was down in over half the country. In Wisconsin, the decline in black voter turnout between 2012 and 2016 was 86,830 votes. Hillary Clinton lost the state by a mere 22,748 votes. If Clinton won over more of the black Democrats who voted in 2012 in just three states—Wisconsin, Florida, and Michigan—she would have won the election.

Quote

A growing number of black people and black women in particular appear not only to have lost faith in the electoral process in 2016, but to be losing faith in the two major political parties. A September 2017 Essence study shows that 21 percent of black women felt that neither party represented them, up from 13 percent in 2016. The belief that the Democratic Party represents them fell from 85 percent to 74 percent in the same time frame.

Quote

Yet nearly two years after the presidential election, the common refrain is that the Democratic Party has to appeal to white swing voters if they want any chance of success in 2020.

A February Bloomberg story on voter turnout of non-college educated whites in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin offered that “n two of the three states — Michigan and Pennsylvania — Clinton would have been able to carry the states if this group’s turnout had remained at 2012 levels.” The same, of course, is true of Michigan and Wisconsin if Clinton had turned out black voters at 2012 levels. And, as noted earlier, higher black voter turnout in Florida would have won Clinton the presidency.

 

[Paladin of Ice]

On 1/17/2020 at 9:40 AM, Fez said:

Colorado is the safest (but still not a guaranteed) pick-up. Its really hard to know with Maine, if Collins' personal brand with the voters is still there or not. But since 4 seats are needed, something from outside the "traditional" (as defined by the past few election cycles) pick-up opportunities is needed.

New poll from Morning Consult lists Collins as the least popular Senator in America with a 52% disapproval rating, 42% approval.

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/01/17/collins-ranks-as-least-popular-senator-in-new-poll/

This could well be an outlier, as it marks a very sharp decline from previous numbers, but it will certainly add fuel to the fire around Collins. She has gotten by for a long time by saying reasonable things and then almost always backing the party line, regardless of how unreasonable it was.

In an age of Trumpy polarization and the the mask of reasonableness stripped from the GOP, that tactic may no longer win her any points.

Regarding other vulnerable Republican Senators, McSally in Arizona got into a blowup with a reporter the other day, after the reporter asked about new evidence coming to light against Trump, especially from Parnas, and called the reporter in question a liberal hack before storming off. A very common cynical take is that it was a deliberate move so she could point to it and say to the Trump faithful “See, I’m not some wishy washy moderate RINO, I’m one of you”

The trouble for her is that Democrats are already fundraising off the whole thing and using it to say “Look, she’s not some reasonable, inoffensive moderate, she’s one of Trump’s sycophants!”

[DanteGabriel]

20 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

New poll from Morning Consult lists Collins as the least popular Senator in America with a 52% disapproval rating, 42% approval.

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/01/17/collins-ranks-as-least-popular-senator-in-new-poll/

This could well be an outlier, as it marks a very sharp decline from previous numbers, but it will certainly add fuel to the fire around Collins. She has gotten by for a long time by saying reasonable things and then almost always backing the party line, regardless of how unreasonable it was.

In an age of Trumpy polarization and the the mask of reasonableness stripped from the GOP, that tactic may no longer win her any points.

I wonder how polls have tracked over time. The article mentions a ten point drop, but from when? I am curious if her approval dropped after the Kavanaugh vote, then rebounded, and dropped again recently?

[Zorral]

As far as the ingrained hatred of African Americans among so many white voters, and the insistence that slavery wasn't the cause of the War of the Rebellion, but those elusive 'states rights' -- the textbooks used in public schools in many sections of the nation, from very early grades through high school,have perpetuated the revisionist Lost Cause bs for over a century and a half now.

You all probably know this, but the NY Times just did a new report on contemporary textbooks used in our schools, doing a comparison and contrast in the text books from the same educational publisher of what is put in, put out, and the spin put on things in different parts of the country.  The same textbook published by the same company, but the books are very different.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html?

Friends who went to school as kids and high schoolers in the South, anywhere from Richmond to Beaumont told me their experiences of this.  It was a particular shock to one, whose father was a Voice of America journalist, and whose education was in American schools in Europe.  When he arrived at 15 in Richmond he thought he'd gone to another planet where race and American history were concerned.

[Paladin of Ice]

46 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I wonder how polls have tracked over time. The article mentions a ten point drop, but from when? I am curious if her approval dropped after the Kavanaugh vote, then rebounded, and dropped again recently?

I’m curious about that too, and may spend a little time researching it after I’m finished with work and some stuff I have to do.

 The other really interesting thing from the article (at least for me) is the contrast with Maine’s other senator, Angus King, an independent who has been a very reliable vote for Democrats. King is one of the highest rated senators in the country, with a 58% approval rating.

Again there’s the issue of reading too much into just one poll, but you put strong polarization together with a low approval rating for a Republican and high approval for a Democrat in all but name in the same state, and you’d normally conclude that it paints a pretty dire picture for the Republican. (Especially a Republican who has probably ticked off the hardcore Trump faithful due to things like voting to save the ACA and not cheerleading for Trump 24/7.)

[Martell Spy]

Nunes aide communicated with Parnas about Ukraine campaign, messages show

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/nunes-aide-communicated-with-parnas-about-ukraine-campaign-messages-show/2020/01/17/398ea1f6-3984-11ea-a01d-b7cc8ec1a85d_story.html

Quote

 

House Democrats released new documents Friday evening showing extensive contact between an associate of President Trump’s personal attorney and an aide to the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee regarding the effort to obtain material from Ukrainian prosecutors that would be damaging to former vice president Joe Biden.

The text messages between Lev Parnas, who functioned as Rudolph W. Giuliani’s emissary to Ukrainian officials, and Derek Harvey, an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, indicate Nunes’s office was aware of the operation at the heart of impeachment proceedings against the president — and sought to use the information Parnas was gathering.

The newly released texts show that Parnas was working last spring to set up calls for Harvey with the Ukrainian prosecutors who were feeding Giuliani information about Biden.

 

 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I wonder how polls have tracked over time. The article mentions a ten point drop, but from when? I am curious if her approval dropped after the Kavanaugh vote, then rebounded, and dropped again recently?

You can find Collins' Morning Consult approval over time here using the "Senator Lookup" feature.  Morning Consult isn't the only pollster to find her increasingly unpopular lately, here's PPP in October 2019:

Quote

Collins is unpopular, with only 35% of voters approving of the job she's doing to 50% who disapprove. She trails a generic Democrat for reelection 44-41. That represents a big drop for Collins compared to a poll we did last September when she led a generic Democrat by 6 points at 44-38. At that time she only trailed 64-21 among Clinton voters but in the wake of her vote on Brett Kavanaugh and the general hardening of partisan lines she's lost a lot of her crossover support and now trails 76-12 with Clinton voters.

53% of Mainers support impeaching Donald Trump with 44% opposed. When we ask voters who they would choose if Collins opposed impeachment, her 76-12 deficit among Clinton voters grows even further to 83-8 and she goes from a 3 point deficit against a generic Democratic opponent for reelection to a 7 point deficit at 47-40.

“It’s going to be hard for Susan Collins to get reelected if she opposes impeachment,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “She’s already lost a lot of her crossover support from Democrats, and that would cause her to lose even more.”

Collins faces defeat from a different angle if she supports impeachment though. Her numbers are already a little bit soft with Republican primary voters with 53% saying they generally support her for the nomination again to 38% who say they would prefer someone else. We also tested Collins against some specific possible opponents in a primary- she trails Paul LePage 63-29 and Shawn Moody 45-36 but does lead Derek Levasseur who already entered and exited the race this year 55-10.

 

[Gaston de Foix]

15 hours ago, DMC said:

You can find Collins' Morning Consult approval over time here using the "Senator Lookup" feature.  Morning Consult isn't the only pollster to find her increasingly unpopular lately, here's PPP in October 2019:

 

And this unpopularity has practical effects: Collins would not be publicly stating she wanted witnesses if she could get away without it.  By contrast Thom Tillis/Joni Ernst both of whom are unpopular in their states dare not defy their Trump base.  Same for Ben Sasse.  

[Paladin of Ice]

Thanks for the link, DMC. I remember Morning Consult have a big site, and figured that I could go through it and see, but that made it much easier. It looks like the original article talking about a 10% drop means 10 points in the approval rating from the 1st quarter of 2019, at which point Collins was pulling a 52% approval rating, as opposed to 42% now. To show how big the fall from grace has been, compare it to the start of the Trump presidency: 62% favorable, 27% unfavorable. Even up to the start of 2019 she was holding on okay, as 52% favorable, 39% unfavorable are very healthy numbers. But she tanked hard in 2019.

I do have to dispute how the company defines unpopularity though, as they seem to be going solely by the disapproval rate while ignoring approval and the difference between them entirely. For example, McConnell is considered not as unpopular even though his net comes out worse: Collins is 42% approve, 52% disapprove, (net of -10%) McConnell is 37% approve, 50% disapprove (net of -13%). That's not a well thought out system, and all you have to do is look at the other "most unpopular" Senators to see that: the list includes Murkowski, who approval and disapproval are dead even, and Warren, who has 50% approval, 40% disapproval. (+10) But she's "less popular" than Rand Paul, who has 41% approval to 39%. (+2, almost certainly within the margin of error.)

(By the way, the margin of error is 2% for Collins polling, so according to this poll her best case scenario is 44% approve, 50% disapprove, worst case is 40% approve, 54% disapprove.)

There's an enormous difference between, say, the 37% disapproval rating of Thom Tillis, who only has a 34% approval rating, versus the 37% disapproval rating of Jeanne Shaheen, who has a 52% approval rating. Saying that they're equally "unpopular" is obviously asinine, or at least it should be.

I just hope their polls are better thought out than this or certain interfaces on their site. For what's it's worth, they get a B/C provisional rating from 538, who notes that Morning Consult calls about 75% of races correctly, and they have almost no tendency to overestimate the chances of one party or the other. 

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

I do have to dispute how the company defines unpopularity though, as they seem to be going solely by the disapproval rate while ignoring approval and the difference between them entirely.

I agree that the net should be emphasized over the basic disapproval rating.  I don't think it's a big deal though - obviously you can look up both numbers yourself and I'm definitely not gonna complain about Morning Consult for the very reason they tend to provide more (and specifically more long-term) data in an easily accessible manner compared to almost any other major firm.  I do agree with SIlver's ratings though that they're a rather middling main firm in terms of both accuracy and methodology.

[all swedes are racist]

new york times endorses warren and klobuchar for president. shocked as i am to say it, i think this is a brilliant choice. by splitting duties, the madame co-presidents are at little risk of burning out in this grueling and high presssure job... and as a bonus for you deficit hawks, by only working half-time, neither would be eligible overtime or benefits, saving tax payers millions (presumably factoring in their respective staffs). a sophisticated and elegant idea

[all swedes are racist]

incredible

Quote

Reports of how Senator Klobuchar treats her staff give us pause. They raise serious questions about her ability to attract and hire talented people

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html

 

edit: this entire piece is breathtaking, holy cow

[Larry of the Lawn]

6 hours ago, george jar jar martin said:

incredible

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html

 

edit: this entire piece is breathtaking, holy cow

I like this scrumptious little nugget of persuasion:

Quote

And it’s far too early to count Ms. Klobuchar out — Senator John Kerry, the eventual Democrat nominee in 2004, was also polling in the single digits at this point in the race

And then there's this ..

Quote

any other time in the past decade, with a nuclear arms race looking more when than if. Basket-case governments in several nations south of the Rio Grande have sent a historic flood of migrants to our southern border. Global technology companies exert more political influence than some national governments. White nationalists from Norway to New Zealand to El Paso use the internet to share ideas about racial superiority and which caliber of rifle works best for the next mass killing.

 

[A True Kaniggit]

Fuck it.

I've started using the fact my 3 y/o niece is black as a weapon against family members to vote Democrat in 2020.

All I have to do is show the voting numbers from 2016. 88% of African Americans voted Democratic (94% of black women)

Actually, how do Republicans on this board explain this statistic to themselves?

I know people down here in the racist South like to say "cause blacks are lazy socialists, and that's why they vote democrat."

Make no mistake, we live in a two party system. And if you vote Republican you are voting to give my niece a shittier life.

[Gaston de Foix]

It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The editorial gives a boost to a candidate (although nothing like they used to). By splitting the endorsement they've undermined the endorsement. The editorial page should have had the courage of its convictions and argued for Warren over Klobuchar, or for Klobuchar over Warren while making clear the other was more qualified.  Their justification for not doing so is so flimsy.   

[A True Kaniggit]

8 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Statistically, I think this says more about the number of things you have heard, than about that article.

I mean, there are still people on the planet that say “I believe the Earth is flat”. You haven’t heard these people?

[Gaston de Foix]

35 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Statistically, I think this says more about the number of things you have heard, than about that article.

Fair enough, I'll rephrase.  It's the dumbest thing I've heard recently from the NYTimes. 

Look Warren and Klobuchar have very different political philosophies and the one major thing in common as against the other candidates is they are the women in the race. Not only is the NYTimes implicitly elevating gender and identity politics over political ideology or even electability, but it's giving little practical guidance to the Iowa caucus voter and the New Hampshire voter.  Endorsing Klobuchar would be a bold move and defensible. So would a whole-hearted endorsement of Warren (and for what it's worth, I currently intend to vote for Warren in the DC primary).  Saying "the debate is good" is both wrong and self-defeating.  To govern is to choose.  To fail to choose is to fail to govern.  

The debate this country really needs is not about the specifics of policies the Democrats would enact or their theory of the case in dealing with a Mitch McConnell senate.  The debate we need is between truth v lies, conviction v opportunism, and corruption v integrity.  One major party has abdicated any claim to these values and must be destroyed.  In the unusual situation where there are four frontrunners for the Dem nomination, the NYT had an opportunity to give one candidate a major shot in the arm.  By splitting their endorsement they wasted it and made the meta-commentary about their judgment.