2016 election forecast - 19 September

Between now and the November election we will make periodic checks as to SST members opinion as to the outcomes.  Please give your view as to results in the congress and for the presidency.  pl

Comments

[Fred]

DC,

I read that book but if memory serves it was more about the magic of Frank Luntz style word smithing than any attempt to understand that people don't live by money alone.

[Lars]

No doubt this election has some new elements but it is mainly "noise". The Electoral College has not changed and demographics actually favor HC. So far in the polls, Trump has a ceiling that he has been able to penetrate, whereas HC has a floor that she has not gone below.

But as I said, the last 3 weeks will tell more. Last time around, the Fox News crowd were convinced that Romney would win in a landslide and they had the polls to show it. They ended up 5 million votes short.

[Fred]

Pacifica,

“USAID” Ask your employers what America got for the aid that :

“over the 18-year period 1931-1968 …averaged 6.4 per cent of Taiwan's GNP, formed 34 per cent of its gross investment, and covered 91 per cent of its aggregate net import surplus of goods and services.”
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAK054.pdf

Yep, after 30 years in the Ivory tower you’ve worked your way to the outpost academia doing whatever it is you do. If you’re an American citizen that’s a pretty piss-poor return for covering a third of Taiwan’s bills for decades; not that we’ve stopped. I sure hope nobody from BLM starts looking into why we invest in foreigners first and Americans last, they might just start to wonder if their lives really matter and then decide not vote for the status quo.

[Tyler]

PA,

Tldr

Scanned and saw it was just more unrepeatable social science voodoo gris gris wishful thinking. So basic.

[rjj]

KHC, WRT "what do you have to lose?"

Never mind the opportunists crying "whiplaaaaaash!!" The absence of condescension (talk to me like a mensch) is more respectful and most likely a pleasant change.

[rjj]

KHC - "Not only they are not, they react as if voters have no right to expect that politicians should be asking for their votes. ..If neither wants my vote, and votes of the people like me, then they ain't getting it."

It is a crisis, not a cotillion. We can opt out of choosing, but not the outcome of the choice.

[Bill Wade]

Clinton fell again while boarding a plane, cancelled her NC appearance, if there's a debate on the 26th I'll be surprised. I see my last post was deleted, I must have pissed off the right person, thanks. Trump - landslide.

[turcopolier]

Bill Wade

do you have a link to the Clinton fall incident? I didn't delete anything of yours. pl

[Stephanie]

What Herb said. Although I think Clinton has strengths as a candidate that are generally overlooked along with her weaknesses.

She has bled some support, but not to Trump. The country is sufficiently polarized that he will probably not fall below a certain level – 40%?, but I expect that barring anything unexpected Clinton will start moving back up in the polls.

Looks like Portman and Rubio are going to hold on in the Senate. Lucky for Rubio the Democrats couldn’t find a halfway decent candidate. So Marco gets another six years in the job his friends say bores him to death and probably another run at the presidency. Truly failing upward.

I will say for the Donald that he did perform a public service in the primaries, possibly rescuing the country from Jeb! and Rubio the empty suit by wiping the floor with them. (Well, Chris Christie did the demolition job on little Marco. While I"m not sure the GOP would have chosen a second governor from the northeast so soon after Romney, it’s hard not to think that the George Washington Bridge scandal denied the GOP a formidable national contender. Remarkable to think how far Christie has fallen.)

[Fred]

Pacifica,

Unlike you I never claimed 30 years in academia so my history wouldn't be quite so bad as to not know that Chiang Kai Shek was a Chinese nationalist who didn't initiate lend-lease but did fail to listen to Stillwel and thus managed to lose a civil war to the author of the "little red book", winding up in Taiwan as a result. Nice try with the trolling though.

[Fred]

Tyler,

I think we are both wasting time conversing with a Taiwanese expert on Amerika.

[different clue]

Pacifica Advocate,

Your point is of course correct. They are black and I am sure their comments would be criticism. But since I don't much follow Sowell and Thomas, I would not have been very aware of their comments. I only know that they have been criticizing "liberals" and "Democrats" for lo these many decades, so I would not have expected them to say anything "new" or even "Obama-specific" about Obama.

In that vein, I feel confident that Alan Keyes would also be criticizing Obama, and no . . . I haven't been following his work either.

[different clue]

Fred,

If you are referring to the book What's The Matter With Kansas; all I read were sympathetic reviews and synopses and also articles Franks wrote during that same time-period. So I probably should read the book itself and see just how much of it is Luntz-focused.

I would suspect the most basic thrust of the book would indeed be that cultural-conservative Democratic-voting working people voted Democratic until the Democratic Party went Clintonite and betrayed their economic survival interest. But of course I should read the book its own self to see if my assumptions about the most basic thrust of the book are right or wrong. If my assumptions about the book are wrong, then I still think my theory is right and that a book deserves to be written about it.

(The "Reagan Democrats" might be cited as a counter example. My rebuttal to that counter-example would be that a lot of the culture-conservative Democrats in the MidWest who voted for Reagan still also voted for Democratic Representatives. McComb County is considered to be Ground Zero for the UAW-style Reagan Democrats who voted for Reagan, and they kept voting for Firm Leftist David Bonior as their Congressional Representative. Bonior was an economic patriot against Free Trade and everyone knew it).

[Tyler]

Stephanie,

I'm amazed you can type with your head buried so firmly in the sand. Brava!

[Tyler]

PA,

Lol there are no facts there. Pure gris gris. Tell me more about America from your box in Taiwan.

[Tyler]

Fred,

Was amazed at the essay he pumped out. The loneliest progressive, the saddest man in Taiwan - Pacifica Advocate.

[Tyler]

Bill,

Plz link!!!!!

[Nancy K]

I don't think she would have the votes if none of those who voted for Sanders voted for her, The Millennials are now the biggest block of voters and they were the group who were the most dedicated Sanders voters. However they are also more liberal than older voters and many if not most will vote for Clinton.

[Tyler]

Sam,

I'm not surprised that the hens above you are clucking together.

[Nancy K]

I have never lived in VA, although it is a lovely state. I am a native of CA, moving to NC 4 1/2 years ago.

[Tyler]

Charlotte was ablaze last night, Hillary siding with criminals in NC and OK.

Reality continues its Trump favorability.

[Fred]

herb,

Melania can afford her own shoes. As to laying eggs:

“It was poorly managed, treated too glibly, patronizingly, completely lacking empathy at the fact that so many young people were going to be laid off,”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/clinton-foundation-layoffs-228443

[Fred]

Tyler,

I noticed that it was a white female officer in Tulsa and a black male officer in Charlotte. Those don't fit the narrative but the response by those burning down the house sure fits the stereotype. The WAPO comments are rather enlightening. Meanwhile in Dearborn Heights Michigan an ex felon man killed his four children and shot his wife. No comment from BLM or Mr. Kaepernick and not even the front page on the Detroit Free Press. Sad.

[herb]

After 911, the second biggest casualty "kaboom" was one of (((your))) guys. But how are we going to outlaw white supremacists? It's a free country, ain't it?

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255us.html

What's really interesting (or not) is that neither you nor Fred bother to dispute those actual hard statistics. It's not hard, really, there have been so few refugees who have committed terror acts you could even use your fingers to count them, as usual.

Anyway, this is all pretty off-topic.

[herb]

Why wait? She should mention it during the debates. If I gave you a bowl with 3.6 billion Skittles and said somewhere in there, one of them could kill you, would you have the stones to eat a handful? I know I would.