The Commentariat -- October 23, 2016
Presidential Race
Maurice Tamman of Reuters: "... Hillary Clinton maintained her commanding lead in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the U.S. presidency, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project results released on Saturday.... Clinton leads Donald Trump in most of the states that Trump would need should he have a chance to win the minimum 270 votes needed to win. According to the project, she has a better than 95 percent chance of winning, if the election was held this week. The mostly likely outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump." CW: This analysis is based on the same poll, also linked yesterday, that shows Trump cutting Clinton's national vote lead in half. ...
... Maurice Tamman: "Only half of Republicans would accept Clinton ... as their president. And if she wins, nearly 70 percent said it would be because of illegal voting or vote rigging, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. Conversely, seven out of 10 Democrats said they would accept a Trump victory and less than 50 percent would attribute it to illegal voting or vote rigging, the poll showed." -- CW
Hope Yen of the AP: "Hillary Clinton appears to be displaying strength in the crucial battleground states of North Carolina and Florida among voters casting ballots before Election Day, and may also be building an early vote advantage in Arizona and Colorado. Donald Trump, meanwhile, appears to be holding ground in Ohio, Iowa and Georgia, according to data compiled by The Associated Press. Those are important states for Trump, but not sufficient for him to win the presidency if he loses states like Florida or North Carolina." -- CW
Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Hillary Clinton is so over Donald Trump. Using some of her most dismissive language of the campaign, Clinton said aboard her campaign plane on Saturday that, 'I don't even think about responding to him anymore' after their third and final debate earlier this week. Leading in the polls both nationally and in battleground states, Clinton signaled that she and running mate Tim Kaine instead would be focused on making gains for congressional Democrats in the closing stretch of the campaign." -- CW ...
Pat Toomey heard Donald attack a grieving Gold Star family who lost their son in Iraq, he heard Donald called Mexican immigrants rapists, he heard him say terrible things about women, he heard him spread the lie that our first black president wasn't really born in America. Now how much more does Pat Toomey need to hear? If he doesn't have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump after all this, then can you be sure he'll stand up for you when it counts against powerful interests? -- Hillary Clinton, in Pittsburgh, Pa., Saturday, ragging on the state's Republican U.S. Senator ...
... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Emboldened by polls predicting an electoral-college landslide in the presidential race, Clinton is shifting her strategy to lift up other Democrats coast to coast. She and her party are rushing to capitalize on a turbulent turn in Trump's candidacy, which has ruptured the Republican Party, to make down-ballot gains that seemed unlikely just a month ago." -- CW
Hillary's Latest Election-Rigging Scheme. Reid Wilson & Joe DiSipio of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has built a field team in swing-states across the country that is larger than a U.S. Army brigade, giving her a huge advantage over Republican Donald Trump on Election Day. Between Clinton's presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state party operations, campaign finance reports show Democrats employ 5,138 staffers across 15 battleground states. Clinton is funding the army through tens of millions of dollars raised for state Democratic Parties across the country.... By contrast, Trump's campaign, the Republican National Committee and state parties employ just 1,409 staffers in 16 states. Lindsay Walters, an RNC spokeswoman, said the RNC has paid staffers in 24 states across the country. Trump's campaign has shown little interest in investing in a ground operation." -- CW
New Yorker Editors: "On November 8th, barring some astonishment, the people of the United States will, after two hundred and forty years, send a woman to the White House. The election of Hillary Clinton is an event that we will welcome for its immense historical importance, and greet with indescribable relief. It will be especially gratifying to have a woman as commander-in-chief after such a sickeningly sexist and racist campaign, one that exposed so starkly how far our society has to go. The vileness of her opponent's rhetoric and his record has been so widely aired that we can only hope she will be able to use her office and her impressive resolve to battle prejudice wherever it may be found." -- CW
** Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "People ask why [Clinton is] winning, and the usual answer is that Trump is such a catastrophe. And he is, obviously. But I say she's winning mainly because she's one tough dame. She's made of steel. And not Trumpian Chinese steel. And even though she's going to face a wall of total resistance from Congress if she's president, I say history tells us not to sell this woman short.... Donald Trump, who lies when he says 'and' and 'the,' has said one true thing in these last 16 months. She is tough. Tougher than he is. And tougher than all the men who've tried to thwart her, and those about to attempt the job." ...
... CW: I do think that what Republicans/many men hate most about Hillary Clinton is that all her life she has been defying their image of the little woman who needs big, strong, manly men to protect her. Particularly in the chivalry-soaked South (ask Mark Twain!), many men depend upon this fiction to assert their patriarchal dominance. The very idea of women being in control, even of their own bodies, is anathema to these imaginary "protectors" of the weaker sex. The fact that Clinton herself s much tougher than the "broad-shouldered" (ask mike pence!), scatter-brained Trumpelthinskin makes them crazy.
Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign -- total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over. -- Donald Trump, attempting to emulate Abraham Lincoln ...
He actually called it 'hollowed ground.' -- digby ...
... Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump came to [Gettysburg's] historic battlefield town Saturday to offer his vision for America's future, saying he hoped to 'heal the divisions' of the country as President Lincoln tried to do here seven score and 13 years go. Yet in his own Gettysburg address Mr. Trump ... did not offer much in the way of race-changing oratory and did not seem to embrace Lincoln's unifying ambition. Instead, the Republican nominee used the first third of what had been promoted as a major new policy speech to nurse personal grievances, grumbling about 'the rigging of this election' and 'the dishonest mainstream media,' and threatening to sue the nearly dozen women who have come forward to accuse him of aggressive sexual advances." -- CW
Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "An adult film actress on Saturday accused ... Donald Trump or someone acting on his behalf of offering her $10,000 and the use of his private jet if she would agree to come alone to his hotel suite at night after a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006. Jessica Drake, who spoke at a news conference alongside attorney Gloria Allred, said she met Trump while working a booth at the tournament for her employer, Wicked Pictures. Trump then invited her and two other women to his suite in the evening, where, while wearing pajamas, Drake said he kissed the women each in turn without their permission. According to Drake, after the group left his suite, a man called and asked her to return alone. When she declined, Drake said she was then called by Trump, who asked to her to come to his suite for dinner and a party. 'What do you want?' she said he asked. 'How much?' Later, she said Trump, or a man calling on his behalf, called again, this time with the monetary offer, which she said she declined.... At the news conference, Drake, which is the actress's stage name, held up a picture of her and Trump from the event and said she had told several friends about the proposition immediately after it occurred." -- CW
Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "The Pennsylvania Republican Party filed a complaint late Friday night asking a federal court to allow out-of-county poll watchers to monitor voting stations on Election Day. Filed on behalf of eight Keystone State voters, the suit alleges that state law restricting poll watchers to the county in which they're registered violates the First Amendment and denies them their right to equal protection under the law. Donald Trump has raised unfounded fears that the Nov. 8 election will be 'rigged' by illegitimate ballots cast by undocumented immigrants, people voting multiple times, and 'dead people.' All of them, he claims, will vote for Hillary Clinton. He has called on his supporters to go 'watch' voters in 'certain areas'..., directing them to communities with large black populations like Philadelphia and Chicago." Election-law expert Rick Hasen calls the First Amendment claim "exceptionally weak." -- CW
Daniel Politi of Slate: "The country's best known LGBT group that is affiliated with the Republican Party will not be endorsing Donald Trump for president. But the group made clear it is not withholding its endorsement because of Trump himself but rather because he 'surrounded himself with senior advisors with a record of opposing LGBT equality, and committed himself to supporting legislation such as the so-called "First Amendment Defense Act" that Log Cabin Republicans opposes.' It marks the first time the group has not endorsed the Republican candidate for president since 2004, when then-President George W. Bush was running and campaigned in favor of a Constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. The group spends a lot of time in its non-endorsement to praise Trump's views." -- CW
Senate Races
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Surprisingly, Democrats have improved their [U.S. Senate] chances in places like Missouri and North Carolina, where they seemed to have no shot just six months ago, while they have all but given up in Ohio and pulled their money out of Florida, where prospects had seemed bright. Republicans continue to cling to hope in New Hampshire, Nevada and Pennsylvania, despite what looks like faltering support for Mr. Trump in those states.... [In Missouri, Democrat Jason] Kander has benefited from being a sui generis blend: At once, he is a gun-wielding Democrat, a veteran, a Georgetown-educated lawyer who wears the outsider label, and the opponent of an incumbent [Roy Blunt] who is the embodiment of Washington longevity." -- CW ...
... Harry Enten of 538: "Thanks to big shifts in several key races, Democrats now have a 73 percent chance of winning the Senate, according to the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast, and a 72 percent chance according to polls-only. Both those numbers are up by more than 15 percentage points from last week, when the polls-plus model gave them a 56 percent chance and the polls-only model 54 percent." -- CW
Other News & Views
Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Can You See Me Now? Michael de la Merced of the New York Times: "AT&T has agreed to buy Time Warner for more than $80 billion..., a move that would create a new colossus in the worlds of media and telecommunications. The proposed transaction could be announced as soon as Saturday, barring last-minute changes.... Putting together AT&T, a sprawling video and internet empire that encompasses cellphone and cable service along with DirecTV, and Time Warner's media holdings, which include HBO, CNN and the movie studio Warner Bros., would create a formidable new player and potentially spur even more deals. In recent weeks, the family that controls CBS and Viacom has urged the two companies to consider a merger." -- CW ...
... Update: "AT&T ... agreed on Saturday to buy Time Warner, the home of HBO and CNN, for about $85.4 billion, creating a new colossus capable of both producing content and distributing it to millions with wireless phones, broadband subscriptions and satellite TV connections." ...
... Where Trump & Franken (Sort of) Agree. Margaret McGill & Tony Romm of Politico: The AT&T/Time Warner deal "is set to become a political battleground for the next U.S. president given the size and scope of the deal.... Already..., Donald Trump has excoriated the deal.... 'As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,' Trump said in Gettysburg.... Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn), for one, said the acquisition 'raises some immediate flags about consolidation in the media market.' 'I'm skeptical of huge media mergers because they can lead to higher costs, fewer choices, and even worse service for consumers,' Franken said in a statement, promising to seek more details about the transaction." ...
... CW: Notice how Trump just declares that he will unilaterally cancel the merger (and while he's at it, other past media mergers). It's a lot more complicated than that, & in the end, the administrative agencies must get court approval. The rule of law is meaningless to Trump. His intention is to become a dictator.
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "Jason C. Finan, a 34-year-old chief petty officer, is the first American killed in the current battle for Mosul, a military push to reclaim the city in northern Iraq from the Islamic State, the Defense Department announced Friday. Finan is survived by his wife, Chariss, and their 7-year-old son, of Imperial Beach, Calif., the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The Pentagon said Finan died Thursday, after sustaining wounds in an improvised explosive device blast. He was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve in its fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria." -- CW
Paul Krugman: "There was a time, not long ago, when deficit scolds were actively dangerous -- when their huffing and puffing came quite close to stampeding Washington into really bad policies like raising the Medicare age (which wouldn't even have saved money) and short-term fiscal austerity. At this point their influence doesn't reach nearly that far. But they continue to play a malign role in our national discourse -- because they divert and distract attention from much more deserving problems.... You saw that in the [presidential] debates: four, count them, four questions about debt from the CRFB, not one about climate change. And you see it again in today's Times, with Pete Peterson (of course) and Paul Volcker (sigh) lecturing us about the usual stuff.... My message to the deficit scolds is this: yes, we may face some hard choices a couple of decades from now. But we might not, and in any case there aren't any choices that must be made now.... Your fear-mongering is distracting us from these real problems. Therefore, I would respectfully request that you people just go away." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Protesting GOP Vote-Rigging = "Race-Baiting." Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: After Republicans gerrymandered black North Carolinians into one long, squiggly district, they accused a good-government group of "race-baiting" for running an ad that highlights the state's effort -- approved by an elected state supreme court judge -- to segregate black voters into one district. "Reporting on the map, however, backs up the ad-makers. This summer, ruling in Covington v. North Carolina, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James A. Wynn, Jr. wrote that Democrats were correct to challenge 28 districts that had packed in black and liberal voters, thereby creating a larger number of safe districts for Republicans. 'Race was the predominant criterion in drawing all of the challenged districts,' Wynn wrote. The case became infamous, and a major part of the Democrats' effort to get black voters to the polls." -- CW
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Reader Comments (7)
Last night on the news I saw a large group of people going crazy in an effort to support a win. Not the election. The Chicago Cubs for the World Series. But it looked identical to the Trumps. To a large extent, for Trump supporters it is the same deal. It has become all about winning and nothing else. Trumpism is the newest form of tribalism so forget that crap called facts.
Appropos to Forrest's comment yesterday about low IQ voters who take pride in their ignorance, I, too, have dealt with some in the Deep Red south who feel the same way.
The other night Rachel Maddow had a bit that included an interview with former Supreme David Souter where he feared those possessing civic ignorance more than he feared a foreign invasion or coup d'etat as a threat to our democracy. How could he ever have predicted in 2012 that Drumpf would be running for POTUS four years later?
Just an aside on the story that half of republicans would not accept Clinton as a legitimate president I have to wonder what that percentage is among republican congressmen and senators.
@unwashed. Thanks for the link. I saw that interview on Maddow also and can't get it out of my mind. It is so on point, "civil ignorance" should become part of out vernacular. Its a much more elegant phrase than I use.
In re: Clinton ground game. I have been working on the campaign for an incumbent House member here in CA, a tough race. I enter data, voter apps, etc and make food, as I don't think I could be nice on the phone or in person to idiots. His campaign is funded, mostly by the DCC, so there has been a support question about Kamala Harris all along. Yesterday, the callers were also asking about Clinton. I thought the Clinton support question might designed to link the down ticket to her and reinforce the Dem vote in the down ticket in CA.
Interesting info. We donate to the DCC rather than a specific candidate. I asked the finance person on the campaign how DCC distributes the $ as I had gotten a t-note from my guy's campaign citing a $ amount. She told me the DCC use a specific formula based on a number of factors, especially ranking of the races. My guy is a 2X incumbent in a House race and is ranked in the top 10 tough races across the nation. He received 30% of our donations.
FYI. Sorry if I missed it and it was already linked. "AG Lynch Discusses Federal Election Monitors, Urges All Americans to Vote"
Its about 3 minutes and addresses the fears some may have about Trump poll monitors.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/video/ag-lynch-discusses-federal-election-monitors-urges-all-americans-vote
Jose Ramos has a documentary airing on Fusion TV (English) and Univision (Spanish) Sunday at 10 pm "Hate Rising." If you don't have Fusion it may be available thru ROKU. Here's an explanatory piece on it;
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/10/hate-rising-jorge-ramos-delves-deep-into-racial-hatred-in-america/
You might say Hillary Clinton has ovaries of steel. I first heard this expression to describe a woman involved in environmental work, part of which involved standing up to bullies in the construction/development industry. I once had the pleasure of seeing her in action when a certain bully try to push her around concerning some rare animals in the area. Whoa! She wasn't insulting or mean, just assertive, and in possession of the facts.
@ Julie - I always liked the term "eggsy" to describe such a woman.