2020 Presidential Election

[dudog84]

I've got to stop looking at polls.

Can somebody explain this to me? HarrisX has two polls released today. Same time period, both of likely voters. One has Biden +22, the other has Biden +3. You click on the poll for details and it takes you to the same page.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

[OldPhiKap]

New polling data FWIW:

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-alabama...093000439.html

The president has sustained double-digit declines in net approval rate in nearly every state that could be considered a tossup, and more voters disapprove than approve of him in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Ohio that Trump won in 2016. Some of the biggest swings are in the southwestern U.S., where the president’s focus on hardening immigration policy may be hurting him. According to the poll, Trump saw a 30-point swing toward disapproval in New Mexico and a 26-point negative swing in Arizona.

[nmduke2001]

As a registered Independent (Big I) I voted for Kasich in the local primary. I would endorse this plan.

I'd vote for them too. I liked Kasich more than anyone running last election.

It would be very interesting to see moderates running. It seems like you really have to be very right or very left to get any attention these days. I wonder if Reagan or JFK would even get out of their primaries if they were running today.

[dudog84]

I've got to stop looking at polls.

Can somebody explain this to me? HarrisX has two polls released today. Same time period, both of likely voters. One has Biden +22, the other has Biden +3. You click on the poll for details and it takes you to the same page.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

538 fixed their website, got rid of the Biden +3.

What I now find more interesting, a poll has Biden +11 against the field. But this poll also puts him head-to-head against Harris (he's +24), Warren (+20), and Sanders (+20). What this indicates to me is that as the munchkins drop out, more of their followers move to Biden than the others.

[bundabergdevil]

I learned a new word on DBR boards today and I want to use it in a sentence. I believe that all politicians are ultracrepidarians, perhaps not on all subjects they encounter but many. In fact, I don't see how you could be a politician and NOT be an ultracrepiderian if you think of voting as the ultimate act of expressing ones opinion.

[JasonEvans]

ultracrepiderian

[cato]

[Garfield with a cup of coffee] I resemble that remark [/Garfield with a cup of coffee]

[JasonEvans]

Here is a very good article about how Elizabeth Warren is still quite vulnerable to questions about her honest due to the whole "Pocahontas" thing. I really think it is worth a read as it makes some interesting points about how the honesty thing might impact her in the general election, should she get there.

Because Warren’s comeback has relied on restoring her standing on the left, she has not done anything to address concerns potentially percolating among swing voters. A detailed white paper on Native American policy has no bearing on whether a moderate white suburbanite believes Warren is of good character. And since Warren has apologized for her past claims, she remains open to the charge she was dishonest when, during her academic career, she relied on nothing more than family lore to identify herself as Native American.

That means if she becomes the Democratic nominee for president, Warren would still face a “Pocahontas” problem, one that threatens the core of her candidacy.

“If she’s the nominee and says, ‘Trump’s dishonest,’ that’s just the immediate counter: You’re dishonest about the most fundamental thing, who you were and how you got to your positions,” said Republican strategist Chuck Warren of the political consulting firm September Group. He is of no relation to the candidate.

Dan Hazelwood, another Republican consultant and owner of Targeted Creative Communications, argued her apologies have missed the mark: “She’s never given the answer to the core of the Trump charge, which is: She cheated. She cheated for personal gain. She hasn’t answered that part of the attack.”

-Jason "If I had to place a bet right now, I would bet on Warren being the Dem nominee... even though I think she is far from the most 'electable' person on the Dem side" Evans

[OldPhiKap]

-Jason "If I had to place a bet right now, I would bet on Warren being the Dem nominee... even though I think she is far from the most 'electable' person on the Dem side" Evans

She is certainly the hardest-working out there, and looks poised to do very well in Iowa and then NH. And who knows about Nevada.

South Carolina may be Biden’s break-wall.

[bundabergdevil]

Here is a very good article about how Elizabeth Warren is still quite vulnerable to questions about her honest due to the whole "Pocahontas" thing. I really think it is worth a read as it makes some interesting points about how the honesty thing might impact her in the general election, should she get there.



-Jason "If I had to place a bet right now, I would bet on Warren being the Dem nominee... even though I think she is far from the most 'electable' person on the Dem side" Evans

If she becomes the nominee, the question isn’t is she honest relative to Trump it’s is she considered honest relative to HRC. It’s hard to imagine she could do enough to generate the level of animosity toward Trump or HRC, two historically disliked and perceived to be dishonest candidates. Any of the Dem nominees should have a likability leg up immediately over both Ttump and their party’s 2016 nominee.

[JasonEvans]

Remember all that excitement about the Monmouth poll that seemed to show Warren and Sanders in a tie with Biden? Well, it looks more and more like that poll was an outlier.

Two new polls today find Biden still with a significant lead on the rest of the field, similar to what we have seen pretty much all summer.

Biden won 32 percent in the Quinnipiac poll, compared to 19 percent for Warren and 15 percent for Sanders. No other candidate registered double-digit support.

In the Suffolk poll, the former vice president led with 32 percent support, a healthy 18 points ahead of Warren. Sanders was the only other candidate with double digit support at 12 percent.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), at 7 percent; South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), at 5 percent; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, at 3 percent, are they only other candidates to receive above 1 percent support in the Quinnipiac poll

In the Suffolk poll, Harris, Buttigieg and Yang also occupied the next tier, scoring between 3 and 6 percent support. No other candidates cleared 2 percent.

-Jason "the fact that Steyer did not reach 2% in any of these polls means he will not make the debate stage... meaning we will only have one debate with 10 candidates on stage" Evans

[Rich]

-Jason "If I had to place a bet right now, I would bet on Warren being the Dem nominee... even though I think she is far from the most 'electable' person on the Dem side" Evans

I'm an avid reader of the NY Times and a fan of the Op Ed columnist Bret Stephens who, if you don't know, is a Republican who dislikes Trump immensely. FWIW, here are his views about Elizabeth Warren from yesterday's paper in a "dialogue" with another columnist:

Let me try to unpack the things I don’t like about Warren.

Her core conviction is that “the system is rigged” — a view she happens to share with Trump, even as they differ on the details of the supposed rigging. Yet her own life story, as a child of the lower-middle class who wound up being a law professor at Harvard and then a United States Senator, gives the lie to that argument.

Because she thinks the problem is the system, her politics are all about tearing the system down. I think that is politically untenable and dangerous. For example, you can’t just get rid of employer-provided health insurance in favor of some form of “Medicare for All” without creating gigantic dislocations with immediate costs for millions of people lasting for years.

Also, her plans for everything — health care, the environment, free college, child care — cumulatively cost tens of trillions of dollars. The idea that Jeff Bezos and a few other billionaires and millionaires are going to pay for it all just doesn’t add up mathematically. But she lacks the honesty to admit that the only way to pay for it all is by levying immense taxes on the middle class. If you think our debt levels are worrisome now, and they are, they would become nightmarish under a Warren administration.

I actually think she’d be such a disaster as a candidate that it would only strengthen the Trumpian reaction to her. She’s more of a gift to the president than she is to her party.

...

If Warren is a capitalist, she sure seems to have an odd definition of the term. The Democratic Party needs, and the American people want, a candidate who is a reformer, not a revolutionary. We’ve tried “scary” long enough. How about “nice, competent, unifying and nonexhausting” for a change?

[cato]

I'm an avid reader of the NY Times and a fan of the Op Ed columnist Bret Stephens who, if you don't know, is a Republican who dislikes Trump immensely. FWIW, here are his views about Elizabeth Warren from yesterday's paper in a "dialogue" with another columnist:

Yeah, I don’t think Warren is going to appeal to any Republicans. Full stop.

What she is is charismatic. Bernie is too — or he was. But like an NBA coach who has been around the same team for a while, I think voters are tuning him out.

I still think the D nominations is Biden’s to lose, but Warren certainly seems to be gaining strength.

[howardlander]

Here is a very good article about how Elizabeth Warren is still quite vulnerable to questions about her honest due to the whole "Pocahontas" thing.

I read most of the article, and I have to say that I'm not so sure I understand all the fuss. She claimed that family lore was that one of her ancestors was Native American. DNA testing shows that to be true. I understand that DNA testing angers some Native Americans, but I doubt many of them will vote for any Republican anyway. I guess the argument is that she listed herself as Native American on some job applications, but I just don't see it as a big deal, considering that there was some truth in it. What percentage Native would she have to be for it to be OK? I used to sweat with a Native American friend of mine in Orange County NC. I asked him once if he knew what percentage of his ancestry was Native American. His reply was that it was irrelevant, he was native enough to follow the rituals. I'm not a Warren supporter but, given the state of our country, and all the other issues, I just can't get too excited about this one.

Howard

[howardlander]

It is now being reported/alleged that among the co-signers for Donald Trump's loans at Deutsche Bank are Russian oligarchs. See for example:

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/28/msn...ian-oligarchs/

Serious question: if these allegations were proven to be true, do we think it's an issue in the election? I honestly don't know how many undecideds there are left so I guess the question is would this move the needle for any significant number of Trumps supporters?

Howard

[CameronBornAndBred]

It is now being reported/alleged that among the co-signers for Donald Trump's loans at Deutsche Bank are Russian oligarchs. See for example:

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/28/msn...ian-oligarchs/

Serious question: if these allegations were proven to be true, do we think it's an issue in the election? I honestly don't know how many undecideds there are left so I guess the question is would this move the needle for any significant number of Trumps supporters?

Howard

I watched The Last Word last night, and was surprised at that statement. I've never taken O'Donnell to be much of an actual reporter, but much like Hannity on the other side, he's an opinionated pundit. So his reporting that a single source has broken this news to him is a bit of a surprise, and one that I'm not putting any stock in until someone a bit more credentialed backs up.
O'Donnell is an unapologetic Trump basher that has gotten into it with DT before, and it makes sense that someone with either a.) a bone to pick with Trump would go to Lawrence with a major scoop, or b.) someone on the MAGA side is setting him up for a major embarrassment, ala the "scoop" that Mueller had learned that Trump had directly told Cohen to lie to congress.
Until a more valid journalist comes out with the same news, it's not anything to pay attention to.
(If it actually is backed up, then you have the story of the year and impeachment proceedings are going to move forward at lightning speed.) I just don't see Lawrence O'Donnell as being the one to break the story of the year.

[OldPhiKap]

I watched The Last Word last night, and was surprised at that statement. I've never taken O'Donnell to be much of an actual reporter, but much like Hannity on the other side, he's an opinionated pundit. So his reporting that a single source has broken this news to him is a bit of a surprise, and one that I'm not putting any stock in until someone a bit more credentialed backs up.
O'Donnell is an unapologetic Trump basher that has gotten into it with DT before, and it makes sense that someone with either a.) a bone to pick with Trump would go to Lawrence with a major scoop, or b.) someone on the MAGA side is setting him up for a major embarrassment, ala the "scoop" that Mueller had learned that Trump had directly told Cohen to lie to congress.
Until a more valid journalist comes out with the same news, it's not anything to pay attention to.
(If it actually is backed up, then you have the story of the year and impeachment proceedings are going to move forward at lightning speed.) I just don't see Lawrence O'Donnell as being the one to break the story of the year.

Yeah, that was my reaction when I heard of his single-source proclamation.

Huge if true. Huge if. True.

[budwom]

As of now, NBC isn't touching this...not apt to see this on their evening news without some meat on the teutonic bone. Though perhaps it is encouraging, after WWII, that the Germans and Russians can work so amicably!

[OldPhiKap]

Lawrence O'Donnell has now tweeted that he "made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president's finances that didn't go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn't have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air." Says he'll address it tonight.

I wonder if the threatened lawsuit from the President had anything to do with that. I'm betting that MSNBC legal had a little chat with the show's producer today.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Lawrence O'Donnell has now tweeted that he "made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president's finances that didn't go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn't have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air." Says he'll address it tonight.

I wonder if the threatened lawsuit from the President had anything to do with that. I'm betting that MSNBC legal had a little chat with the show's producer today.

No rumor mongering, Larry! Infractions coming his way...