2016 Presidential Election Thread Archive

[Walter_Sobchak]

Back in July the local Dems brought Tim Caine to the venue where I work.  We can seat 400 people.  This booking happened three days before the event, this gives you an idea of how little advance time this stuff happens within.  Anyhow, I almost got tackled by a Secret Service guy for using my key to let myself into my own workplace before the event.  It was pretty crazy.  They had to turn people away since there was not enough seating. There were not pro-trump protestors, but there were some people across the street protesting for Jill Stein and/or some socialist party.  The fire Chief was here all day, he was on the one that determined when the building was full.  After he stopped the line and made the "full capacity" announcement, he said "Gee, this crowd is much nicer than the Trump rally, they were swearing at me when I closed the doors."  Anyhow, the level of work and organization that goes into an even like that is pretty impressive compared to what we are used to dealing with. 

[Sturgeon]

Some guy with a last name that sounds like it came from Mein Kampf tries to "own" a Trump supporter:

 

 

I finally found a Trump supporter -- this morning when I went to buy coffee. (I noticed a Trump bumper sticker on his car.)

“Hi,” I said. “Noticed your Trump bumper sticker.”

“Yup,” he said, a bit defensively.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I’m curious. Why are you supporting him?”

“I know he’s a little bit much,” said the Trump supporter. “But he’s a successful businessman. And we need a successful businessman as president.”

“How do you know he’s a successful businessman?” I asked.

“Because he’s made a fortune.”

“Has he really?” I asked.

“Of course. Forbes magazine says he’s worth four and a half billion.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s been a success,” I said.

“In my book it does,” said the Trump supporter.

“You know, in 1976, when Trump was just starting his career, he said he was worth about $200 million,” I said. “Most of that was from his father.”

“That just proves my point,” said the Trump supporter. “He turned that $200 million into four and a half billion. Brilliant man."

“But if he had just put that $200 million into an index fund and reinvested the dividends, he’d be worth twelve billion today,” I said.

The Trump supporter went silent.

"And he got about $850 million in tax subsidies, just in New York alone," I said.

More silence.

"He's not a businessman," I said. "He's a con man. "Hope you enjoy your coffee."

 

 

 

I fundamentally agree with him that Trump is a con man. What does "con" mean in "con man"? It means "confidence"; in other words, Trump makes his living by persuading people to do what he wants. That is a key skill in business!

I don't think Trump's success in business matches his image, but his image is the foundation for most of his business, so of course it doesn't. That's how the mo'sheen works!

And anyway, how do you think politicians do their jobs? You think there's no persuasion/confidence game involved in politics? Have you watched even one episode of House of Cards?

 

It's adorable when Shillaries decide they are going to pour gas on a strawman, light it up, and proclaim victory.

 

Finally, people bring up the "if he'd just invested" point a lot. I don't think they understand business. Yes, if you invest money, you will make it faster than if you engage in business. Business is risky, and lossy. This is one of those points that sounds awesome to a latte-sipping NY socialite, but sounds retarded to anyone who has ever done any business, or knows anyone who is a businessman.

[Priory_of_Sion]

Liberal talking heads seem to fetishize gotcha questions and one-liners. If you can have a smug response to something then you must be right. Stuff like this wins over nobody's vote especially when its a rather shallow point being made. 

[Sturgeon]

Also, trying to portray Trump as a poor businessman is not persuasive, for two reasons:

1. Trump's name is everywhere. Are you going to try to convince people that McDonald's is bad at business? Because that will not work, even if it's true.

 

2. People generally prefer poor businessmen to successful politicians. In some cases, they even prefer poor businessmen to successful businessmen.

BONUS REASON: If Trump is a "con man" because he A.) Didn't make as much money as you thought, and B.) Got the government to give him millions of dollars, then that doesn't make Trump seem like a world-ending Hitler 2.0 figure, and anything that doesn't make him seem like the Second Kampfing is good for him.

[Collimatrix]

Back in July the local Dems brought Tim Caine to the venue where I work.  We can seat 400 people.  This booking happened three days before the event, this gives you an idea of how little advance time this stuff happens within.  Anyhow, I almost got tackled by a Secret Service guy for using my key to let myself into my own workplace before the event.  It was pretty crazy.  They had to turn people away since there was not enough seating. There were not pro-trump protestors, but there were some people across the street protesting for Jill Stein and/or some socialist party.  The fire Chief was here all day, he was on the one that determined when the building was full.  After he stopped the line and made the "full capacity" announcement, he said "Gee, this crowd is much nicer than the Trump rally, they were swearing at me when I closed the doors."  Anyhow, the level of work and organization that goes into an even like that is pretty impressive compared to what we are used to dealing with. 

 

Interesting.

 

Is there some compelling reason that this weird, slipshod model for holding rallies persists today?

[Brick Fight]

I really don't know. A lot of it is booked on a whime and I guess the idea is "we can slip them in here, so let's do it." In 2008, we called in to get Bill and Obama and other dems to do speaking arrangements, and we got whiplash at how quickly they responded and booked us. We even started calling for equipment and seats and stuff and found out that they booked pretty much everything we needed not long after the phone call. I mean, I guess the quick response most likely had to do with us being the main campus at Penn State, but even then we were taken aback. 

 

Looking at campaign schedules gives me jet lag. Trying to imagine pretty much not having a single off-day as you're darted around the country talking to the press every day and huge crowds sounds like one of the most mentally exhausting things I can think of. You'll pretty much be in transit a majority of the time trying to make sure you don't say the exact wrong thing and turn on to find that someone on cable news is calling you the worst person ever for putting dijon mustard on your food.

[Collimatrix]

I really don't know. A lot of it is booked on a whime and I guess the idea is "we can slip them in here, so let's do it." In 2008, we called in to get Bill and Obama and other dems to do speaking arrangements, and we got whiplash at how quickly they responded and booked us. We even started calling for equipment and seats and stuff and found out that they booked pretty much everything we needed not long after the phone call. I mean, I guess the quick response most likely had to do with us being the main campus at Penn State, but even then we were taken aback. 

 

Looking at campaign schedules gives me jet lag. Trying to imagine pretty much not having a single off-day as you're darted around the country talking to the press every day and huge crowds sounds like one of the most mentally exhausting things I can think of. You'll pretty much be in transit a majority of the time trying to make sure you don't say the exact wrong thing and turn on to find that someone on cable news is calling you the worst person ever for putting dijon mustard on your food.

 

Fuckin' surreal.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Fuckin' surreal.

I think that applies to this entire election.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Two Donald's that deserve each other.

 

 

Fucking gross.

[Collimatrix]

They both look like they're about to cry.

[Walter_Sobchak]

I'm one of those dinosaurs that still has a yahoo.com email address.  When I go to the yahoo page to check my mail I usually get distracted looking at the headlines.  Today I found a prime example of why our media suck so bad.  In the news feed was an article titled "Donald Trump up big over Hillary Clinton in national poll" from Business Insider.  Scroll down about 15 stories and I find the headline "Hillary Clinton has massive lead over Donald trump in major national poll' from....Business Insider.  So on the same day the same damn news source is running articles based on two different polls with two different results, just so they can pander to whichever base happens to be reading the news.  An honest reporter would have had a story that was more along the lines of "Polls show mixed results in Presidential Race."  But that would be boring and not get people excited and/or upset.  A pox on all these people.

 

 

I took screen shots.  These were about 15 stories apart in the same goddamn news feed.  

[Donward]

The majority of polls are either to influence public opinion or they're content for articles and therefore advertising bait which is why there are also internal polls.

 

At best, they're just a nice thumbnail sketch to see how things are shaking now and - no surprise - this election is a hotly contested race which will come down to a close elections in the standard 10 key states like Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, etc.

 

The thing that is throwing a monkey wrench into this year's polling numbers is the fact that Trump has dynamically changed the voting demographics by poaching from traditional Democratic constituencies like blue collar and Union workers, lower educated voters and even blacks and Hispanics. Polls typically focus on registered and "likely" voters and I think Trump has motivated a lot of new voters to register and is attracting unlikely voters. However, on the flipside, he has pissed off a lot of RINO "C uckservatives" like National Review and Weekly Standard along with Ted Cruz die hard cultists and Mormons. These are constituencies that are always "likely" to vote who now either will stay home, throw away their vote on a third party or write-in candidate or who might even vote Hillary Clinton.

 

As for Clinton, she fucking blows as a candidate. Seriously. She freaking lost to a do-nothing, junior Senator from Illinois last time and almost lost to a 74-year old Socialist with drool running down the side of his mouth this go round. People hate her guts and now we got the prospect of her dying or having a stroke while in office.

 

It's small wonder why the polls are so variable at this moment.  

[Brick Fight]

Yeah, media polls are always bad and mostly serve to work up the base. Poll companies are kind of tearing their hair out these days since they were traditionally land-line calls, so they miss out on large amounts of demographics right now. They have plans to try to beat it, but they hardly have their bases covered. FiveThirtyEight is pretty good, but they have a habit of chickening out of unsure races.

[Priory_of_Sion]

"Revolt of the back row kids"

[Sturgeon]

Allan Lichtman is predicting a Trump victory.

Of course, he would since Trump is also a fellow Lich.

[Sturgeon]

I hate the modern news media for making me want to defend the Trumps.

I hate them so much.

[Donward]

I was going to post about Ted Cruz finally "endorsing" Trump and then realized nobody fucking cares about Cruz anymore.

And that's another thing you can thank Trump for.

Because this election - post primaries - has been mercifully free of handwringing over bullshit social issues like Teh Gays, Abortion and Planned Parenthood, prayer in schools and crap like that.

In fact things have been downright substantive.

[Sturgeon]

I was going to post about Ted Cruz finally "endorsing" Trump and then realized nobody fucking cares about Cruz anymore.

And that's another thing you can thank Trump for.

Because this election - post primaries - has been mercifully free of handwringing over bullshit social issues like Teh Gays, Abortion and Planned Parenthood, prayer in schools and crap like that.

In fact things have been downright substantive.

 

This is something Scott Adams has been hammering: Trump has already done more for the progressive movement than any Republican candidate in history. Gays for example are not only not an issue for Republicans this season, but some expect them to actually be a possible Republican swing block.

[Donward]

That might be.

Which is funny because other than the Mormons, Evangelicals are still voting Trump.

[Sturgeon]

Don't worry, Mormons will vote Trump, too.

[Donward]

Don't worry, Mormons will vote Trump, too.

[SergeantMatt]

538 has Trump up to 48.5% chance of victory polls only, 48.1% polls plus, 54.9% if the election were today. Highest chances he's had so far. A good performance in tonight's debate will likely give him the lead.

Nate Silver: "The latest polling is consistent with a Clinton lead of only ~1% nationally. State firewall breaking up. Trend lines awful."

"Last 6 polls in Colorado, supposed "safe" state for Clinton:

Trump +1

Trump +4

Clinton +1

Clinton +2

Clinton +7

Trump +4"

[Collimatrix]

Alright people, we don't have much time, but it is imperative that we figure some sort of debate drinking game.

[Toxn]

Alright people, we don't have much time, but it is imperative that we figure some sort of debate drinking game.

Drink from the point at which it starts to the point at which it stops?

[Belesarius]

Well, if shitlords were on TS, we could get drunk and yell together.I have no idea what time the debate is tho