2020 Presidential Election

[Bluedog]

My celebrity attuned wife has suggested that because Kim retweeted it, it clearly has some veracity and weight behind it because she typically serves as a sounding board/voice of reason when some of his off the wall tweets come out. So she sees it as a legit attempt at this point. "Kim Kardashian, voice of reason" is not something I thought I would write...

[dudog84]

My celebrity attuned wife has suggested that because Kim retweeted it, it clearly has some veracity and weight behind it because she typically serves as a sounding board/voice of reason when some of his off the wall tweets come out. So she sees it as a legit attempt at this point. "Kim Kardashian, voice of reason" is not something I thought I would write...

Backing up her husband, yes. Legit, no.

[Bluedog]

Backing up her husband, yes. Legit, no.

The point is that she apparently often doesn't back up her husband's tweets when he makes 'big announcements' (I guess). Maybe "legit" was the wrong word; more that the intent to execute is there and it's possibly not just a random tweet to never be addressed again like many of his past tweets that seem odd. That is, follow through in some capacity is more likely on his end. Whether that actually is a legitimate campaign/etc. I agree is unlikely..

[dudog84]

Kanye not getting much support from his peeps in the industry. Octavia Spencer tweets "#SitAllTheWayDown".

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebri...Bnb7Kz#image=1

[Acymetric]

Kanye not getting much support from his peeps in the industry. Octavia Spencer tweets "#SitAllTheWayDown".

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebri...Bnb7Kz#image=1

I want to know why that article identified Kanye as "the designer". I don't think that is what he is primarily known for?

[Steven43]

I bet the Trump campaign would be happy to pay that for him.

How do we know a vote for Kanye West takes away a vote that would have gone for Joe Biden? Maybe it takes a vote away from Trump. After all, West is, or at least used to be, a Trump fan.

[Bluedog]

How do we know a vote for Kanye West takes away a vote that would have gone for Joe Biden? Maybe it takes a vote away from Trump. After all, West is, or at least used to be, a Trump fan.

He's still says he's actively a Trump fan/supporter. While your statement is true, I think it also fair to suggest that somebody voting for Kanye is doing so because he/she is a big fan of his music, fashion, and/or celebrity. There's not much there as far as policy stances...And Kanye's fanbase skews heavily young/urban/black, which obviously are Democratic demos. I don't think the white rural population (heavily Republican) are Kanye followers.

Of course, always hard to predict these things but I think some assume it's the Kanye fanbase demographic that would conceivably vote for him in the absence of policy stances, and that contingent is very Democratic.

[Tripping William]

Hey budwom. Calling budwom. You hitting up the Trump rally in NH on Saturday? If so, can we get an anecdotal account of things you’re seeing on the ground (or the waters) there? FL shouldn’t have all the fun.

[PackMan97]

How do we know a vote for Kanye West takes away a vote that would have gone for Joe Biden? Maybe it takes a vote away from Trump. After all, West is, or at least used to be, a Trump fan.

I vote for Kanye is a vote that shouldn't have been cast in the first place...so it's all good.

To be honest, I welcome a fourth choice on the ballot. Choice it seems is good everywhere but at the ballot box.

[Steven43]

I welcome a fourth choice on the ballot. Choice it seems is good everywhere but at the ballot box.

Who is the third choice?

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Hey budwom. Calling budwom. You hitting up the Trump rally in NH on Saturday? If so, can we get an anecdotal account of things you’re seeing on the ground (or the waters) there? FL shouldn’t have all the fun.

The rally is at Portsmouth “International” Airport, which is in the small stretch of NH near the coast between Mass. and Maine - probably a long way from budwom. It is international because it has flights to Canada. My family had the misfortune of spending a few hours at the airport a few years ago when we were passing through the area and needed a replacement rental car - there was literally no one there (so we took a 2 hour cab to Boston to get our car - fun!)

The article I saw about the rally said that they are handing out masks and strongly encouraging people to use them - I’m not sure how this was described at other rallies. There are definitely enough Trump supporters around that he can draw a crowd but this is a pretty blue part of the country so an interesting choice of locations.

[JasonEvans]

There are definitely enough Trump supporters around that he can draw a crowd but this is a pretty blue part of the country so an interesting choice of locations.

A couple things--

1) New Hampshire is not a Covid hotspot right now, not even close. They had a whopping 43 new cases in the entire state yesterday and are at less than 6000 cases total since this all began. Now, I know NH isn't a huge state (1.3 million people) but if you gather a few thousand people in an airport hanger in NH, there's a fairly decent chance you won't hit anyone who has Covid.

2) You refer to this as "pretty blue country" but New Hampshire is a swing state. Hillary only won it by 0.4%, about 3000 votes.

3) NH is part of Trump's "I don't need the rust belt" strategy. The polls are bad for Trump, we all know that. After the lack of polling in the last election, we've seen a lot of polling in Penn, Wisc, and Mich this time around. It ain't good for the President. So, his campaign team has begun mapping out alternate strategies to get to 270 if he loses those upper Midwest states. One of those strategies involves winning New Hampshire and Nevada (which Hillary won by 2.4 points). Now, he also would need to hang on to all the other states he won in 2016 (including Arizona, NC, and Florida) but if he only loses those three upper Midwest states and adds NH and NV that gets him to 269 and another 4 years (the House state-by-state delegations would give Trump another term in an electoral college tie).

-Jason "anyway, a rally in NH makes a lot of sense to me. Safer than much of the rest of the country and perhaps a key pickup for a campaign that will likely need some pickups" Evans

[cato]

I want to know why that article identified Kanye as "the designer". I don't think that is what he is primarily known for?

I don’t follow apparel closely, but I think Yeezy is pretty established at this point. The deal with Gap was news recently: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2020/06/28/kanye-west-gives-gap-a-ten-year-lifeline-with-yeezy-partnership-and-gets-what-he-always-wanted/amp/

[JasonEvans]

I personally think we are spending waaay too much time on Kanye. Even if he makes the effort to get on the ballot, I doubt there will be many states where he gets more votes than Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins (the Libertarian and Green Party candidates). And, more importantly, I have a hard time imagining him getting enough votes to swing any state at this point... and that is even assuming we can safely predict how many of his voters would have otherwise gone to the polls and voted for Trump or Biden. Frankly, I'm far from convinced that he pulls meaningfully more from one camp than the other.

-Jason "now, if Vermin Supreme had won the Libertarian nomination, then we'd be talking about someone who might make a meaningful difference in the race" Evans

[OldPhiKap]

-Jason "now, if Vermin Supreme had won the Libertarian nomination, then we'd be talking about someone who might make a meaningful difference in the race" Evans

Well, we’re sort of in luck — Vermin’s running buddy Spike Cohen won the VP nomination for the Libertarians. I’ll quote the Wikipedia on him because many would otherwise accuse me of making this up:

Cohen, an ally of performance artist and perennial candidate Vermin Supreme, ran on a platform promoting Free Ponies, Mandatory Tooth Brushing, Zombie Power, Killing Baby Hitler, Killing Baby Woodrow Wilson, and promoting anarchy.[7] Cohen promised that should these not be achieved within the first 100 days of his vice presidency, he will resign and be replaced with Baby Yoda.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Cohen

I know Oly would have been interested in hearing more about one plank of that platform.

[weezie]

While I normally don't post over here, I am firmly behind any national effort to enforce mandatory tooth brushing. I hope this includes flossing.

[dudog84]

3) NH is part of Trump's "I don't need the rust belt" strategy. The polls are bad for Trump, we all know that. After the lack of polling in the last election, we've seen a lot of polling in Penn, Wisc, and Mich this time around. It ain't good for the President. So, his campaign team has begun mapping out alternate strategies to get to 270 if he loses those upper Midwest states. One of those strategies involves winning New Hampshire and Nevada (which Hillary won by 2.4 points). Now, he also would need to hang on to all the other states he won in 2016 (including Arizona, NC, and Florida) but if he only loses those three upper Midwest states and adds NH and NV that gets him to 269 and another 4 years (the House state-by-state delegations would give Trump another term in an electoral college tie).

Not sure how that works, and too lazy to look it up because it has a very small chance of happening, but I can't imagine anything worse (electorally) happening to this country. In this scenario, Biden would win the popular vote by at least 5 million votes. The spouse of my next-door neighbor (the one with all the automatic rifles) told me last week that he's predicting a civil war in the country. This would probably make it happen.

[Acymetric]

I don’t follow apparel closely, but I think Yeezy is pretty established at this point. The deal with Gap was news recently: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...ys-wanted/amp/

It would be like an article about Stan Lee referring to him as "the actor". I'm not saying it isn't true, just that it isn't what they are known for. Way more people know him as a music artist than a designer.

[Acymetric]

I personally think we are spending waaay too much time on Kanye. Even if he makes the effort to get on the ballot, I doubt there will be many states where he gets more votes than Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins (the Libertarian and Green Party candidates). And, more importantly, I have a hard time imagining him getting enough votes to swing any state at this point... and that is even assuming we can safely predict how many of his voters would have otherwise gone to the polls and voted for Trump or Biden. Frankly, I'm far from convinced that he pulls meaningfully more from one camp than the other.

-Jason "now, if Vermin Supreme had won the Libertarian nomination, then we'd be talking about someone who might make a meaningful difference in the race" Evans

Well, states can be won on razor thin margins, so each of the alternative candidates could well have an impact.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

A couple things--

1) New Hampshire is not a Covid hotspot right now, not even close. They had a whopping 43 new cases in the entire state yesterday and are at less than 6000 cases total since this all began. Now, I know NH isn't a huge state (1.3 million people) but if you gather a few thousand people in an airport hanger in NH, there's a fairly decent chance you won't hit anyone who has Covid.

2) You refer to this as "pretty blue country" but New Hampshire is a swing state. Hillary only won it by 0.4%, about 3000 votes.

3) NH is part of Trump's "I don't need the rust belt" strategy. The polls are bad for Trump, we all know that. After the lack of polling in the last election, we've seen a lot of polling in Penn, Wisc, and Mich this time around. It ain't good for the President. So, his campaign team has begun mapping out alternate strategies to get to 270 if he loses those upper Midwest states. One of those strategies involves winning New Hampshire and Nevada (which Hillary won by 2.4 points). Now, he also would need to hang on to all the other states he won in 2016 (including Arizona, NC, and Florida) but if he only loses those three upper Midwest states and adds NH and NV that gets him to 269 and another 4 years (the House state-by-state delegations would give Trump another term in an electoral college tie).

-Jason "anyway, a rally in NH makes a lot of sense to me. Safer than much of the rest of the country and perhaps a key pickup for a campaign that will likely need some pickups" Evans

Sorry - I didn't phrase that well. In addition to the ones you mentioned, there are a number of other reasons this makes some sense:

1. I believe he can literally fly into this airport in under two hours, have the rally there, and leave, so it is a really easy trip for him.
2. The airport is at the intersection of Mass, Maine and NH, and I believe at the intersection of the Boston and Portland TV markets - it is about 3 miles from the Maine border and 15 from Mass. I haven't been following the Maine race too closely so I don't know if Susan Collins is attaching herself to Trump or staying far away (I think it is more of the latter), but it is a close race that he wants to win.
3. There are some interesting narratives in play in the area - Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth (not on "the ride" but on another major ride) and there is a naval shipyard there (in addition to the other one near Portsmouth, VA). I'm sure he will work at least one of these into his speech.