OK, to recap. The electoral college only requires that the winner get the most votes in a state to receive ALL the electoral votes. So, if the results look like:
Clinton: 51
Trump: 49
Or
Clinton 34
Trump 33
Bozo 33
Get the idea? Clinton wins all the electoral votes. So, a candidate doesn't need to get a majority of votes, or even the most votes, to win in the Electoral College, which is what happened.
But that is a digression since we are going to be talking about a State Clinton won: New Jersey. It shouldn't be a surprise she won since Trump basically trashed Atlantic City, which had an effect on the entire state economy (no cite since it is pretty much common knowledge and a prime example of Trump's being a shit business person). I mean how the fuck can you go broke running a casino if the house has the advantage?
Here are the results of the 2016 Presidential election for NJ. You would think that the "landslide victory" Clintonistas predicted would show up here.
But they didn't. Clinton's margin is pretty much what they were like in most places she won. Toss in that there were a fair amount of people voting third party.
Yet she managed to win this state.
On the other hand, Trump received a fairly significant share of the vote: even in Atlantic County.
Atlantic County is home to Atlantic City.
OK, totally unscientific, but it does make me wonder about her popularity if she didn't totally leave Trump in the dust in a place where he has a bad reputation. Seriously, a lot of people got screwed by Trump in NJ, but he made a pretty strong show despite that.
Draw your own conclusion, but I think it demonstrates that Clinton wasn't that popular.
And the fact that the campaign neglected Wisconsin.
And a lot of people wouldn't have voted if there hadn't been alternatives. I'm not sure what I would have done, but the only way I would have even considered voting for Hillary Clinton would have been if ranked choice voting existed. And then I would have voted for her somewhere AFTER Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Roque de La Fuentes, and a write in for Bozo the Clown (not necessarily in that order).
And you still want to find blame in everything except Clinton being a lousy candidate (still more on that one to come, but look at the results of the NJ presidential election for a clue) and the electoral college.
There isn't too much I can do to help you understand that it wasn't the voters, it was the shitty, duopoly system that gave you Trump.
Hey, Bubba, the only way I would have even considered voting for your wife would have been if ranked choice voting existed. And then I would have voted for her somewhere AFTER Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Roque de La Fuentes, and a write in for Bozo the Clown (not necessarily in that order).
Sorry, but Jill Stein actually challenged the election results and I supported her doing that. Did you wife even think about that?
No, she lost Wisconsin to Bernie Sanders in the primary and neglected the state in the General.
Who needs the Russians with a coke addled fuckwit like you running around, Bubba? Your wife's campaign lost the election which you would know if your brain still worked.
My vote was my vote, it doesn't belong to any party and it sure as fuck didn't belong to Hillary Clinton.
A second opinion. She wasn't popular.
I know you have a problem understanding that "no means no", Bubba, but I said "no" twice to voting for your wife being president. The third time wasn't going to be different. I'm sick of voting for evil: lesser or otherwise.
Let's toss in that this election has shown that the process of voting for President is a sham. So, I am going to vote for the candidate of my choice from now on.
Now, why don't you, your wife, and the rest of your family piss off.
This explains what happened--and the Russians weren't responsible
I was curious since the
popular vote doesn't really matter in Presidential Elections (after all
Clinton won that with one of the largest percentages in a US election).
The Electoral College is the real decider with only 270 electoral votes
needed to win. So, I went to 270toWin to play with their interactive Electoral Vote map.
First off, there are 2,250,000,000,000,000
possible outcomes with the Electoral College system! (Long explanation on that),
but it didn't take too many states to flip for Trump to have won. That
means it was a real gamble to run a candidate as unpopular as Clinton
since there were no guarantees that New Hampshire, Nevada or Virginia wouldn't have
voted for Trump. Or that Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin would vote
for Clinton.
There were four states, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all decided by less than 1% in 2016, with Michigan the closest. That state was won by about .23% - that’s only 2,300 votes per one million votes cast. Donald Trump won three of these four states, none of which had been won by a Republican in a generation. Those 46 electoral votes put him across the 270 he needed to win. Interestingly, despite a fairly competitive election, only four states were decided by 5% or less in 2012; that number grew to 11 in 2016
The thing is that winning any of one of those four states would mean Trump would be President. Or that Trump's electoral college win could have been much higher! Remember the popular vote has no relation to the Electoral College numbers. All one needs is to get the largest number of votes to get ALL the Electoral College votes in most states.
It would have been highly likely in the case of a tie that the election would
remain undecided after the Electors voted. That means Congress would meet in joint
session on the first day in January to count the electoral votes (this count
happens whether the election is close or not). If no candidate has
reached 270 Electoral Votes, then the House and Senate take over and
elect the President and Vice-President, respectively.
Toss in it is possible to win the Electoral College
with only 11 States (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey).
However, nobody has been elected President since 1900 by winning fewer
than 23 states. (Take the quiz at 270towin to see where I got these figures)
Anyway, While the democratic party is responsible for
picking a loser like Clinton, it seems to be more that the
anti-democratic nature of the US elections needs to be addressed. After all, the only way the Russians could have influenced the US presidential election would be to have somehow created the Electoral College since that is what really put Trump in office.
I think the real issue isn't can the Electoral College be changed or abolished, but WHY hasn't it been abolished. It has already been changed by the 12th Amendment, which means that change is indeed possible.
In case you need to have proof for how this really happened.
The process of states appointing senators was replaced by direct election by the 17th Amendment.
On the other hand, there is more talk about spurious "Russian influence" leading to Trump being president than actual discussion of the electoral college and how it distorts the results of the vote.
On the other hand, the reason the 17th Amendment was adopted was that there was media outcry about the corruption surrounding the appointment of Senators, especially after William A. Clark's bribing of the Montana State legislature came to light.
On the other hand, any discussion of the failures of the electoral college seem to be arcane or on blogs like this one. It is not the stuff the media feeds upon.
It is better to portray the US populace as being fools who would have elected Trump than to point out his victory was not from the democratic process. Instead it came from an arcane institution which few people understand.
The real issue isn't can it be changed, since it has been changed in the past. No, the real issue is can popular opinion be swayed in such a way that the system IS changed.
For those of you who still keep harping on "republic, not a democracy" despite both systems having the characteristic of choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections.
The Constitution not only provided for what would become the electoral college; it also made it so that senators were elected by state legislatures, not popularly elected. Getting rid of that provision was unlike the electoral college in that it went away quickly with the 17th Amendment, which brought about the direct election of senators.
Maybe that was because the appointment system was much more obvious in its abuse.
William A. Clark was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads. Although one could argue that calling him a politician was a bit of a stretch. That's because Clark's long-standing dream of becoming a United States Senator resulted in scandal in 1899 when it was revealed that he bribed members of the Montana State Legislature in return for their votes.
Clark handed out envelopes with anywhere from $1,000-$3,000 dollars to the state legislators during the legislative session where he was appointed senator. According to the US Senate report on the investigation into this matter:
Clark's response in regard to his bribery of the Montana legislature is supposed to have been, "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."
Bottom line was that there was a sense that senatorial elections were "bought and sold",
changing hands for favours and sums of money rather than because of the
competence of the candidate. Between 1857 and 1900, the Senate
investigated three elections over corruption, a number that included the investigation of Clark.
The Electoral college is much more problematic in that most people don't understand it and how it distorts the electoral process. Distortion of the elections from being free and fair means that one can't really argue that the electoral college is somehow a "republican institution". If anything, republicanism would require its abolition.
And it can be done since senators are no longer appointed by the states. The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution changed that and established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held.
The Constitution can be amended and changed to go with the times. It's time the electoral college went the way of legislators choosing senators.
There are a bunch of good reasons to have mentioned that in my last post.
First off, it doesn't really contradict any of my argument. In fact, it pretty much makes my point: the electoral college is undemocratic. Toss in that Hillary Clinton ran a campaign that was better for first past the post than one where the result will be determined by an undemocratic institution unique to US politics.
The folks who want to tell me I somehow wasted my vote by voting for Jill Stein don't understand the plethora of reasons WHY I voted the way I did. One of the major factors was that the US system of elections needs to change.
I would have been far more pissed off had I voted for Clinton to have her lost in the manner she lost to Trump. Adding to her large margin of the popular vote only to see her lose would have been a wasted vote. Instead I voted for someone I believed in.
And, no, I probably wouldn't have held my nose and voted for another Clinton.
Too many things need to change in the US system of elections and blaming everybody and everything except for the real issues that led to Clinton losing only turns me off the discussion.
In the all-or-none Electoral College system,
the importance of each individual vote is magnified in closely-contended
states. That's why, as the election approaches, some states get far
more attention from the candidates, both in terms of visits and local
advertising dollars spent. If we had a popular vote election, the
candidates would likely spend most of their time and energy in the most
populous states, supplemented by national advertising. We'll leave it
to others - and there is no shortage of opinions - to debate which
system is best.
So, no, the electoral college does not result in a "national" election. If anything, it results in states being totally neglected for the states that are considered "battlegrounds". Clinton took Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin for granted to the point that she totally ignored Wisconsin. I heard anecdotally that Democratic Get out the Vote volunteers in Pennsylvania actually made calls to Trump supporters!
Oh, and the blog where the post about Clinton's margin being insignificant (and how great the electoral college is) was made is called "excess of democracy". I personally do not see a difference of nearly three million popular votes to be insignificant.
But the learned professor seems to ignore that the electoral college has been modified in the past to try and fix it. I would also add that it is unique to the United States, which makes one question its utility. It has demonstrated it does none of the things its proponents claim it does. In fact it pretty much places the election of the president in the votes a few states, increases the regionalism, and has led to deeply polarized electorate.
Bottom line, the US system of elections needs a serious overhaul: not finger pointing and trying to find blame.
Footnotes:
John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election, despite winning the popular vote
(and thus the electoral votes) of only 23 of the 50 states. Jimmy
Carter won 23 states in 1976, but he also won DC, which by then was
participating with 3 electoral votes. George W. Bush won 30 states in
2000, despite the closeness of the electoral vote.
Elite media outlets do not, for the most part, have an interest in vote
counts and what they mean. Coverage of the 2016 election campaign
confirmed the extent to which major media are more interested in
personalities than facts on the ground. The television networks like to
declare a “winner” and then get focused on the palace intrigues
surrounding a transition of power. Those intrigues are worth covering.
But perspective on the will of the people get lost. Election-night
numbers get locked in, and that’s that.
On the other hand, Clinton's margin of victory in the popular vote was larger than John Kennedy's and Richard Nixon's, I've seen a statistic that her popular vote margin was the third largest in US elections! (It was the third highest for someone who lost an election, it was also fairly significant among the people who won the election)
Multiple candidates in American history have
been elected president with far smaller margins than Clinton's in the
popular vote. According to figures from the Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections—and as alluded to by one Atlantic reader—they include:
James Garfield in 1880: 0.09 percentage points
John F. Kennedy in 1960: 0.17 percentage points
Grover Cleveland in 1884: 0.57 percentage points
Richard Nixon in 1968: 0.7 percentage points
James Polk in 1844: 1.45 percentage points
Since the final vote count did, indeed, put her well above 2 percentage points ahead of Trump, her margin went beyond those of winning presidential nominees Jimmy Carter in 1976
(2.07 percentage points) and George W. Bush in 2004 (2.47 percentage
points). And all this is not to mention the presidents who’ve been
elected without winning the popular vote at all. That’s a list that
includes Bush in 2000, and Trump.
Yet she lost. Trump lost the popular vote by more than any successfully elected president ever. And Clinton lost the election with a pretty hefty amount of popular votes.
So, no Hillary's margin of the popular vote is highly important since it demonstrates how fucked US "democracy" happens to be. There is a reason that the elections take forever: it's that it raises the cost of running for office. Again, the get the money out of politics crowd isn't talking about that aspect of the issue.
I agree with Donald Trump, who in 2012 described the Electoral College a “disaster for democracy.” Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes after the 2016 election was over
that he still agrees with himself—even if he is not prepared to defer
to the will of the people in this instance. “I would rather see it where
you went with simple votes,” Trump explained. “You know, you get 100
million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.”
Stop trying to pin the 2016 election on the Russians since the problems are 100% home grown.
If
Wolff and Bannon are to be believed — and so far, there is no reason
not to — Trump didn’t want the job. His team wanted him to lose. “Once
he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked
Hillary,” Wolff writes. “His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would
be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto
head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news
star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he
wouldn’t become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching.
Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning.”
I have been wondering if the game plan was that Clinton would lose the popular vote, yet win in the electoral college. That would have led to an uproar from the right.
Unfortunately, people are talking about everything except for what really went wrong in the last election.
The real issue here is that the US needs to take a time out to seriously examine its political climate.
Another thing from Ted:
The second takeaway here is that Hillary was an even worse candidate than her biggest detractors (cough cough) believed. Ruminate on this: she lost to a man who tried to lose...So think on that a while. Hillary Clinton was so sucky that she lost to the suckiest, stupidest, losingest candidate anyone ever dreamed of.
That's bad if someone who intended to lose actually won against someone who thought she had the game sewn up to win.
"Shortly after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend -
Trump might actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr told a friend that
his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost.
Melania was in tears - and not of joy. There was, in the space of little
more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a
befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a
horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation:
Suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be,
and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States."
On the other hand, Tony Blair commented about the claims made about him in the book that “This story is a complete fabrication, literally from beginning to end. I’ve never had such conversation in the White House, outside of the White House, with Jared Kushner, with anybody else.”
I have to admit that if Trump's election was a monumental fuck up in that Clinton was supposed to have won, that his election makes serious scrutiny of the Electoral College a must: far more than silly allegations of Russian Interference in the election.
Any screw ups in the US electoral system are purely home grown: they don't need anyone else to make the system worse.
After all, the Election was framed as a choice between two of the worst possible candidates imaginable.
The second is this map at 270towin.com which demonstrates that Green voters did not sway the election. Yes, I could have wasted my vote on Clinton adding to her popular vote victory, but it would have done fuck all in the long run other than piss me off.
The lesson of Bernie Sanders was the US system of elections is anything but free and fair, which means the US is neither a democracy or a republic.
And let's not forget that the Electoral College was to prevent incompetents from being president as well as foreign powers somehow influencing the election.
Seriously, the Electoral College needs to go along with a lot of other electoral reforms before you can say this is a republic or a democracy.
It is impossible to avoid noticing that the same people who embrace Rush
Limbaugh's offensive ideas, especially those insulting to women, are the
people who are the base for Donald Trump.Even Republican women are leaving Trump in droves, as are independents, in the wake of the original scandal and continuing scandals. As with hating people of color, and people of diverse national origins (aka immigrants) or diverse religious beliefs, the only demographic supporting the GOP this election cycle are old white men - the flabby and crabby old white men, like Trump, like the listeners to viagra-swilling sex-tourist and much-married pig, Rush Limp-dick.
Thanks to the effectiveness of the liberal boycott against Rush
Limbaugh over his comments regarding Sandra Fluke, in conjunction with the predatory vulture capitalism of Mitt
Romney's company Bain Capital, Rush Limbaugh no longer has such a large
number of radio stations to broadcast his vile programming, and as a
result, he is no longer the king maker he has been in past elections.
These are people who are misogynists, pure and simple; they justify it
by saying they are against political correctness, but the reality is
they want to be able to believe and say hateful things without criticism
or impediment. These are the "good" hard-righties, the women haters,
the racist bigots, the anti-LGBT, the Islamophobes, the Obama haters,
and many are also Anti-Semitic. Their classic outsider group to hate are
immigrants, of any stripe. And the Clinton haters.
They
believe it is their right to oppress and punish others for
failing to conform to their narrow and factually inaccurate beliefs,
which is a key part of the definition of authoritarianism. As a group,
they object when government - which becomes to them 'big government'
interferes with treating people badly who belong to what they see as the
nonconforming 'other' - women who are not appropriately subordinate,
people of color, LGBT, and anyone who differs from their religious
beliefs, no matter how odd or extreme or hateful.
Many
of them are employed, but not generally at high paying jobs; many of
them believe they must be 'good' people because they belong to a toxic
version of Christianity that is part superstition combined with a very
large dollop of authoritarianism that is conservative Evangelicals. Few
of them are well educated with a well rounded background.
Rush
Limbaugh has a lot in common with the person Donald Trump really is,
the persona he pushes to his base.
If you look at what Trump says about women - calling them dogs and pigs; predicating women's role in society, especially employment on their attractiveness rather than ability; defending and excusing sexual harassment; selectively fat shaming (but never applying the same standards to men, least of all themselves); and making a range of derogatory comments about women relating to sexuality or reproduction. Presumably ALL of these were excused by Limp-bow in the same way as Trump, or the bozos at Faux News -- as entertainment, which somehow is excepted from normal standards of fact or decency.
Here are a few quotes from Rush, which I will contrast with a similar
number of quotes from Drumpf. H/t to Addicting info for the unpleasant
job of collecting these (and more). See if you recognize the
similarities.
In no particular order, 12 out of the 35 offensive statements were about
women, more than any other category of comments.
“Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”
~Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, August 12, 2005
“Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is also a White House dog?”
~Rush Limbaugh, while holding up a photograph of 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton on his 1993 television show
“They’re out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes.”
~Rush Limbaugh, on women who protest against sexual harassment, The Rush Limbaugh Show, April 26, 2004
“Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud.”
~Rush Limbaugh, 1994 List of 35 Undeniable Truths
“It doesn’t look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary
dietary advice. And then we hear that she’s out eating ribs at 1500
calories a serving with 141 grams of fat … No, I’m trying to say that
our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on
the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or of a woman Alex
Rodriguez might date every six months or what have you.”
~Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 21, 2011
“These were highly civil comments for crying out loud. I mean,
people are going nuts. USA Today, the Politico. And some people were
suggesting that my comments were below the belt. Well, take a look at
some pictures. Given where she wears her belts. I mean, she wears them
high up there around the bust line. Isn’t just about everything about
her below the belt when you look at the fashion sense she has?”
~Rush Limbaugh, after being criticized for making derogatory comments
about First Lady Michelle Obama’s weight, Feb. 22, 2011
“I’m a huge supporter of women. What I’m not is a supporter of
liberalism. Feminism is what I oppose. Feminism has led women astray. I
love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”
~Rush Limbaugh, responding to criticism that he is sexist and defending
his selection as one of the judges at the 2010 Miss America Pageant,
“Fox News’ Fox & Friends,” February 3, 2010
“We’re not sexists, we’re chauvinists — we’re male chauvinist pigs,
and we’re happy to be because we think that’s what men were destined to
be. We think that’s what women want.”
~Rush Limbaugh, claiming that women want men to be assholes, April 15,
2004
“Given the National Organization for Women’s membership and
proclivities, it’s no wonder that people now view the NOW gang as being
obsessed with only two issues: abortion rights and lesbian rights.
“What is it with all of these young, single white women? Overeducated- doesn’t mean intelligent.”
~Rush Limbaugh, insulting educated women, March 6, 2012
[T]he nags … the national association of gals, that’s our pet name
for the NOW gang … the nags are a bunch of whores to liberalism.
~Rush Limbaugh, another attack on women, October 14, 2010
“I think this reason why girls don’t do well on multiple choice
tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis,
Adam and Eve. God said, ‘All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple
orgasms, what’s it going to be?’ We all know what was chosen.”
~Rush Limbaugh, making another degrading comment about women, February
23, 1994
In the 2016 election cycle, no surprise, given the pandering to white supremacists by Donald Drumpf and his family, Craig Cobb is a supporter. Last October Nightline did an interview with Cobb.
Cobb is delusional if he thinks the problems people have with him are in any way discriminatory or contrary to his first amendment rights. It is a sadly conservative phenomenon when those who attempt to victimize others then claim THEY are the victims when it doesn't go well. It is endemic among conservatives.
While recently doing a story about known White Supremacist Craig Cobb, ABC producer Jasmine Brown and anchor Byron Pitts were subject to hateful tirades and now the story has been brought to life through a produced video by timesXtwo.
“He is very much in love with Donald Trump,”
adds Brown. She continues to describe a line of Cobb’s saying, “I would
almost rather talk to a Jew, because then at least they would be
intelligent.”
The final closing of the book on the attempted white supremacist takeover by Craig Cobb in the tiny town of Leith, North Dakota took place last week, just as TPT was running the documentary of the takeover on public television.
North Dakota Officials Close Craig Cobb Investigation
BISMARCK, N.D. -
State officials have closed their investigation into ten human rights complaints filed by white supremacist Craig Cobb.
Cobb alleged discrimination because of his white supremacy religious views.
The
Department of Labor and Human Rights rejected all of the complaints,
including one Cobb filed against Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, who's
running for governor.
Cobb and one of his crazy side-kicks, an Ichabod Crane lookalike named Kynan Dutton, were arrested and spent some time in jail for terrorizing the town of Leith before making a plea deal.
Had Cobb and his confederates been smarter and had more money, they might have pulled off their town takeover. This kind of neo-Nazi intimidation is not a smart way to try to take over a town; you can count on push back. Meet your not-so-friendly neighborly Trump supporters, and those with whom they choose to associate under the 1A..
In spite of the high voter turnout there is a lack of enthusiasm for both of the leading GOP candidates that was on show in the primary in next-door Wisconsin. A lack of enthusiasm was responsible for the failure of Mitt Romney in 2012. A different way of saying essentially the same thing is that Trump - and Cruz - have high unfavorability ratings in polls.
Once again we are being treated to unsubstantiated accusations that Cruz 'stole' Trump's election. Trump never had a likely win in Wisconsin. I will be the first to acknowledge that Cruz has used dirty tricks, but it's not like Trump is any more honest in his campaigning than Cruz either. Both have a record of playing dirty.
To be fair, Hillary Clinton has a higher unfavorability level than is healthy for her success in either the primary or the general election too, but they are nowhere near as high as Trump's. And typically a higher turnout benefits Dems in ways that don't have appear to hold true for Republicans.
It is true, at this point, Trump has more delegates than Cruz and Kasich combined; Kasich isn't going to get out of the race ahead of the Ohio convention. Because he has so many more delegates, he believes, he FEELS, the nomination is his -- another example of faulty right wing entitlement he has persuaded his supporters to share with him.
However many of Trump's supporters who are aggrieved, it won't make a significant difference to those who disapprove of him. And the level of enthusiasm won't give him a guaranteed win - Trump appears to demand a so-called coronation that he is not likely to get.
Even before the Wisconsin primary, Trump has been making some false statements that his supporters were turning out record numbers of voters; NEW voters. No surprise, that doesn't appear to be the case if you look at the findings of Factcheck.org. Factcheck.org correctly analyzed the numbers, while Trump was misrepresenting those figures.
In making the case for his electability in the general election,
Donald Trump said that when it comes to primary voter turnout so far
“the Democrats are down 35 percent, whereas the Republicans are up over
70 percent.”
Actually, both Republicans and Democrats are seeing higher primary voter turnouts compared with 2012.
But in fairness to Trump, a comparison with 2008 makes more sense,
given it was the last time both parties had contested primaries at this
stage. And by that measure, Trump is nearly accurate, according to an
analysis by the Pew Research Center of primary voter turnout for each
party going back to 1980.
But 2008 was an outlier for Democrats, far outpacing primary voter
turnout over the last several decades. With the exception of 2008,
Democratic turnout this year is higher than any year since 1992.
Meanwhile, Republican primary turnout is the highest it has been going
back to at least 1980, when Pew began tracking primary voter turnout.
As for Trump’s larger point, experts warn there is no evidence that high primary turnout leads to general election success.
Trump made his claim about primary voter turnout on ABC’s “This Week,”
in response to a question about the possibility of a brokered
convention and whether the Republican Party ought to give Trump the nod
even if he falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the
nomination on a first ballot.
...The analysis also found that in four of five elections, the party
with the larger raw increase in primary voter turnout from the previous
election lost the popular vote in the general election. And in terms of
percentage change, the party whose primary turnout improved the most won
the popular vote in the general election only two out of five times.
There are examples that back up Trump’s point, such as in 2008, when
very high Democratic turnout preceded a Democratic victory in the
November general election. But there are as many instances when the
reverse happened. In 1988, for example, Democrats had a much higher
primary turnout than Republicans, but the Republican, George H.W. Bush
handily defeated the Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, in the general
election.
In other words, Burden said, “There’s no relationship at all.”
Sometimes, high primary turnout is driven by enthusiasm for opposing
candidates in a tight race. That was the case in 2008 when voters were
choosing between the potential for the first woman president or the
first African American, Burden said. Other times, though, it can be a
sign of party turmoil, which can spell trouble in a general election, he
said.
Republicans are setting records now for primary turnout, Burden said,
and some of that is enthusiasm for the candidates. But some of it, he
said, is being driven by a desire among some to stop Trump from getting
the nomination.
potential economic downward spiral
under proposed Republican candidatess policies
especially, Donald Trump/Drumpf's
Let me be clear; I have no doubt that those who write the legislation that continues to increase wealth and income inequality for the benefit of the wealthy 1% (or fraction thereof) know full well what they are doing.
They are deliberately embracing short term gain and greed over legislation that benefits the majority, the ordinary every-day citizens of the United States. Those conservatives voters in that majority don't appear to understand fundamental macroeconomics. To those who think simplistically and who believe what they want to hear without critical evaluation of it are gullible.
There have been plenty of color commentary pieces which argue that there are some, if not lots, of college educated voters, including current college students, among Trump/Drumpf supporters. But there is nothing in those fluff pieces which demonstrate any competency at the most basic level of economics 101 on the part of Trump supporters, nor have any of those fluff pieces demonstrated those with higher levels of education have any depth or breadth of knowledge about Trump/Drumpf's experience or record.
Rather they presume he is successful in business - that is mixed success at best, and failure in many respects. They presume he is knowledgeable in foreign matters because he has sold his name to entities overseas. That is not the same as having EITHER foreign affairs knowledge or knowledge in economics, not among voters, not among legislators or other elected officials, and not among candidates. It is foolish to equate the capacities the way these right wing nut voters are doing, and it reflects wishful thinking rather than rational thought.
It is abundantly clear that it is also true that conservatives don't know, or more precisely choose to ignore and deny, that immigrants, including illegal immigration, have actually been GOOD for the nation, far exceeding any costs equated with them.
There is always a problem with cognitive bias, which translates as a refusal to believe whatever factual information does not agree with one's existing beliefs, and that this is far more the case when those beliefs are also part of one's perception of identity.
Moody's Analytics is a subsidiary of Moody's Corporation which is the umbrella corporation that also owns Moody's Investment Services aka the credit rating agency that rates bonds, like the downgrades of New Jersey, Louisiana, and Kansas under poor Republican governance. So to be clear, they are different entities but part of the same whole. Moody's Analytics is known for it's research on risk and performance - and they are generally regarded pretty highly as being good at what they do.
Donald Trump’s trade war could kill millions of U.S. jobs
Trade has been one of Donald Trump's great selling points
on the campaign trail. China and Mexico are killing us, he has told
crowds on his way to the lead position for the Republican presidential
nomination, and if Trump wins the White House, he will fight back. The
implication is that getting tough with our trading partners -- by taxing
their exports as they cross America's borders -- will bring jobs and
prosperity to the United States.
An economic model of Trump's
proposals, prepared by Moody's Analytics at the request of The
Washington Post, suggests Trump is half-right about his plans. They
would, in fact, sock it to China and Mexico. Both would fall into
recession, the model suggests, if Trump levied his proposed tariffs and
those countries retaliated with tariffs of their own.
Unfortunately, the United States would fall into recession, too. Up to 4
million American workers would lose their jobs. Another 3 million jobs
would not be created that otherwise would have been, had the country not
fallen into a trade-induced downturn.
The amount of predicted economic damage surprised Mark Zandi, chief
economist for Moody's Analytics, who prepared the model. He said it is
magnified by the precarious -- and historically unusual -- state of the
U.S. and global economies right now: Under the Moody's model, the
Federal Reserve has little power to slow the recession, because interest
rates remain near zero. Congress refuses to enact any stimulus
measures, such as spending increases or tax cuts, that might increase
the federal budget deficit further.
What results, in the model,
is a downward spiral of reduced economic activity. Prices rise on
imported goods from China and Mexico, which has the effect of reducing
spending power for American consumers. If China and Mexico retaliate,
U.S. exports fall, forcing layoffs at American companies that sell to
those foreign customers. The ensuing growth slowdowns spread to other
trading partners, particularly in Europe, and cause stock markets to
plunge, which in turn slows growth even more.
...Zandi said that the forecasts undercut Trump's contention that trade is
an area where some countries "win" at the expense of others. From a
broad economic perspective, he said, shutting down trade is "a
lose-lose" for the United States and its trading partners -- and one
that could have consequences in other areas of concern for Trump and his
supporters: If tariffs cause Mexico to fall into recession, Zandi said,
"you'll have a lot more people knocking on the door" to immigrate to
America.
Conservative governance and policies are failures. Educate those who support candidates on the right as to the realities of their candidates policies - if you can get past their cognitive bias. You should have more success with the better educated, except that it appears the better educated revert to an even stronger cognitive bias against dissenting information. So....... good luck, and let us profoundly hope that Trump does not advance, or at best splits conservatives for a sound loss.
Our economic lives depend on it, and arguably as a result, so does the security and stability of the world, which is more vulnerable the less successful economies are.
May we aspire to deserve better than a any of these terrible people. For those not familiar with Rick Mercer, he is a CBD comedian and political satirist. Another tip of the hat to our neighbors north of the border.
That would be the border 1/3 the length of our southern border where Trump wants to put up his wall, the border about which Trump is geographically too ignorant to be president.
From Factcheck.org
FactChecking the 10th GOP Debate
In a Texas showdown, Republican presidential candidates stretched the truth in the last debate before Super Tuesday.
By FactCheck.org
Posted on February 26, 2016
There were several false and misleading claims in the Feb. 25 debate:
Businessman Donald Trump flip-flopped on making his tax returns public, one year after saying he would “certainly” release returns if he ran for president.
Trump also made the dubious claim that he “can’t” release them while being audited.
Trump said Sen. Marco Rubio was “totally wrong” to claim that Trump had to pay a million dollars as a fine for hiring workers who were in the country illegally. Rubio wasn’t totally wrong. Trump lost a $1 million lawsuit and then settled on appeal for an undisclosed sum.
Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that a Wall Street Journal article said the state of Arizona has saved “hundreds of millions of dollars” on “welfare, on prisons, and education,” due to tough illegal immigration legislation. But the article said nothing about “welfare.”
Cruz said that Trump favored the U.S. intervention in Libya that led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi from power. Trump denied having said that, but Cruz was right.
Cruz claimed that Sen. Harry Reid favors Trump because “he can cut a deal with him.” But Reid has denounced Trump as a “hateful demagogue.”
Trump wrongly claimed that Americans “pay more personal tax” than residents anywhere in the world. In 2014, the U.S. wasn’t even in the top 10 of industrialized nations in terms of tax revenues as a percentage of GDP or per capita.
Trump claimed he was beating Hillary Clinton “badly” in two polls. He’s barely ahead in one and narrowly trails in the other.
Cruz claimed Trump has donated more than $50,000 to members of the Senate who cosponsored the so-called Gang of Eight immigration bill in 2013. We tallied $26,000 total, most of it contributed years before the bill was being considered.
Trump said he wasn’t proposing to build a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border because it’s “about four times longer” than the border with Mexico. Actually, it’s less than three times longer.
and beautifully encapsulating the plight of the saner factions of the GOP......
The above reminds me of the lyric from an old Smother's Brother's routine, a parody of the cowboy / western song "the streets of Laredo" commenting, in a sense, on style over substance. In much the same way, Trump appears to believe that one only has to masquerade as a Christian to be accepted as one, regardless of the evidence to the contrary in his words and behavior.
Ben Carson says 'no path forward' in 2016 race after Super Tuesday results
Really Ben, what took you so long? The writing has been on the big wall for a long time now. You peaked too early.
Meanwhile, Kasich is in some conservative alternate reality / state of denial, still asserting he is doing even better than expected -- which his pretty bad. Presumably he is hoping to have enough delegates to barter into a VP position, since it is clear that no way in heck is he going to be anywhere near being the presidential nominee. Not even if he uses the most extreme version of 'Republican math' where numbers have no standard value like the numeric values in real mathematics.
The presidency is not happening, and I predict never will happen, for either Ben Carson or John Kasich. Rather like the Queen lyrics for the video above, they are always about to make their political mark in national politics, but no matter how much banner waving, it won't - likely - happen.
Buddy you're a boy make a big noise Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day You got mud on yo' face You big disgrace Kickin' your can all over the place Singin'
We will we will rock you We will we will rock you
Buddy you're a young man hard man Shouting in the street gonna take on the world some day You got blood on yo' face You big disgrace Wavin' your banner all over the place
We will we will rock you Sing it We will we will rock you
Buddy you're an old man poor man Pleadin' with your eyes gonna make You some peace some day You got mud on your face Big disgrace Somebody betta put you back into your place
We will we will rock you Sing it We will we will rock you Everybody We will we will rock you We will we will rock you Alright
Trump is not the cause of the GOP’s problems—he’s the symptom.ukprogressive.co.uk
A few more candidates have dropped out, Fiorina and Christie. The shelf of candidates on the right have been singularly shallow, none of them really have great depth, and all of them have serious "oppo" material that would be a detriment to their candidacies the same way the '47% are takers' and his record of exporting jobs hurt Romney (and some, worse than what properly came out about Romney).
I would argue that neither one has ever been a serious contender to be the presidential nominee for the GOP - and neither have the others who dropped out (left or right). Candidates like Jindal and Perry never had a prayer of winning the nomination, in spite of all their prayer rallies. (Does anyone even remember Perry was briefly a candidate, ....or Jindal?)
A few who still hang on, like Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, and Ben Carson have never really been serious contenders either, they just haven't left yet. Gilmore, for example, got 0% of the New Hampshire primary vote and received 0% of the Iowa caucus vote as well.
I doubt that even most of the political savvy, the most extensively and encyclopedic informed follower of the 2016 election cycle, could readily identify Jim Gilmore without a caption identifying him, and that few more could readily identify Kasich without a label (myself included) among the candidate line ups. Even Carson's advisers and coaches find him to be a joke. I expect that we will see Gilmore and Carson quit soon, with Kasich following their example after South Carolina. I expect Jeb to hang on until April, maybe May. The Bush brand is so badly tarnished, and Jeb is so lacking in any ideas that were not already espoused and implemented by his brother Dubya, that regardless of how much money, or what aging family member Jeb drags out to be his proxy supporters, it is unlikely anything he could do would change the deep disaffection that the country holds for the Bush legacy.
Even though they won the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, respectively, I would further argue that neither Trump nor Cruz have a serious chance at being the GOP candidate either; the establishment still holds the real power, if less so than in the past. And the establishment doesn't like either one, and are, I expect, going to be successful, ultimately, in preventing them from running under the Grand Old Party imprimatur, with all that goes with the official party approval.
I can only surmise that the candidacies of the unlikely proceeded from some angle, some strategy, that participating as a candidate would in some way pay off afterwards, that it would add some degree of prestige or profit. A few, like Kasich and Fiorina, appear to have been /appear to be running more for the second spot on the ticket of VP.
Steve walks warily down the street,
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
Machine guns ready to go
Are you ready,
Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
[Chorus]
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
see the rest of the lyrics here: https://www.bing.com/search?q=queen+youtube+channel%2C+another+one+bites+the+dust&pc=MOZI&form=MOZTSB
And then there's the progress of 'the Donald' Turnip-top Trump.... which can only remind me of another Queen classic:
Anyone can occasionally contradict themselves, or alternatively change their views and opinions. But there is something unique to the hypocrisy on the right, the emphatic and even coercive "do as I say, not as I do" foundation of their ideology. I would posit this hypocrisy is so intrinsic to the right wing ideology that it invalidates it.
At the end of July, presidential candidate and right wing extremist theocrat Ben Carson ranted and railed for the defunding of Planned Parenthood over the possible expansion of fetal tissue donations. Pretty much all of the right winger candidates did so; it's how they make their money.
My entire professional career as a pediatric neurosurgeon was dedicated to saving the lives of children and promoting their long-term welfare, as I took the Hippocratic Oath to "First, do no harm." Protecting innocent life is a duty consistent with that solemn oath. Destroying or butchering them is particularly offensive to someone like myself who has operated on babies while they were still in utero. All human life is precious and should be preserved and protected with the utmost respect and care.
When we reach a point where we are so callous that we kill innocent little babies, what else won't we do? Is there a limit to our barbarism? Human history is replete with examples of what happens when we devalue human life. Here in the United States of America, we have a history of compassion and kindness that characterizes a model citizen. It is time to reclaim our heritage and reject the purveyors of selfishness and callousness.
Congress should defund Planned Parenthood and consider having the IRS revoke its status as a 501(c)(3) organization. I believe deeply, as it is written in the Declaration of Independence, that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. First and foremost among these unalienable rights is life, and we created a government in order to protect it -- not fund its destruction.
Even as he spewed these words, Carson knew damn well that he himself had been one of the 'buyers' of fetal tissue donations, or consumer of it, if you prefer. He KNEW this, but did not happen to mention it, apparently hoping it would not come out and discourage donors to his campaign.
H/t to the Daily Kos for the link to the published paper that Carson produced from his research (that's ol' Dr. Ben there, third name in):
Colloid cysts of the third ventricle: immunohistochemical evidence for nonneuroepithelial differentiation.
Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who is seeking the GOP nomination for President, is opposed to foetal tissue research. He claims nothing can be learned from it that cannot be learned in another way. He has flogged this position on FOX News Channel and on Breitbart.
In point of FACT, there are forms of scientific research for which other tissue IS NOT suitable or as effective as the unique qualities of fetal tissue. Asserting so is dishonest.
Regardless of facts to the contrary, regardless of science contrary to their beliefs, it is what the right wing nuts do to get money and votes from their anti-fact, anti-science, anti-truth base.
Planned Parenthood has approximately 4 clinics that currently provide that service to their clients. No tissue is ever sold, nor has it ever been proposed for sale. Dishonest conservatives tried to deceive people as to the fees involved in tissue collection, storage and transport, which in some respects resembles similar procedures for organs used in transplants. It requires special equipment and procedures which entail additional costs over the disposal of medical waste.
No abortion is done for the purpose of providing medical specimens; rather this is a decision women have as an option to procedures they have already chosen. The women donors receive no compensation or benefit.
Let's look at the contradiction in Carson's statements, courtesy of the Wa Po:
He told Fox New's Megyn Kelly that fetal tissue research was basically useless and that the same things could be accomplished without it.
"And if you go back over the years, and look at the research that has been done and all the things it was supposed to deliver, very little of that has been done, and there's nothing that can't be done without fetal tissue", Carson said.
and the big contradictions:
On Thursday, though, Carson told Weigel that the use of fetal tissue shouldn't be banned. He declined to say whether Planned Parenthood should stop providing fetal tissue for medical research. So one one hand, Carson said the use of fetal tissue doesn't produce results and is interchangeable with less morally fraught materials, and on the other he used it himself and now says it shouldn't be banned.
Carson's views on abortion appear to have long been complicated. In 1992, he appeared in an ad encouraging Maryland voters to oppose a law that would effectively keep abortions legal in the state if the Supreme Court overturned or weakened Roe v. Wade. He later appeared at a pro-abortion-rights activist press conference disavowing the ad, saying he didn't realize he was making a political statement.
"...published a study with three other colleagues in 1992 that described using “human choroid plexus ependyma and nasal mucosa from two fetuses aborted in the ninth and 17th week of gestation.”
As a neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson knows full well that fetal tissue is essential for medical research. His discipline would have a hard time being [where] it is today without that kind of work. What is even more egregious than dismissing the multitude of researchers whose work allowed him to become a neurosurgeon is the hypocrisy of actually having done that research himself while spouting off about its supposed worthlessness.
Last month, Carson railed against Planned Parenthood and pro-choice advocates by describing a fetus in the 17th week of gestation.
“At 17 weeks, you’ve got a nice little nose and little fingers and hands and the heart’s beating," he said on Fox News. "It can respond to environmental stimulus. How can you believe that that’s just an irrelevant mass of cells? That’s what they want you to believe, when in fact it is a human being.”
So, apparently Carson is all morally and ethically comfy with the ethics of fetal research on 17 week fetuses when HE is the one doing it, but it's all "no!-wrong!-BAD!" and "don't fund it" when anyone else does the research.
Stick a fork in ol' Ben; I would bet his campaign as the token right wing negro candidate, the Uncle Tom du Jour, like Hermann Cain's in the preceding presidential campaign cycle, is concluded.
First off, there are 2,250,000,000,000,000 possible outcomes with the Electoral College system! (Long explanation on that), but it didn't take too many states to flip for Trump to have won. That means it was a real gamble to run a candidate as unpopular as Clinton since there were no guarantees that New Hampshire, Nevada or Virginia wouldn't have voted for Trump. Or that Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin would vote for Clinton.
There were four states, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all decided by less than 1% in 2016, with Michigan the closest. That state was won by about .23% - that’s only 2,300 votes per one million votes cast. Donald Trump won three of these four states, none of which had been won by a Republican in a generation. Those 46 electoral votes put him across the 270 he needed to win. Interestingly, despite a fairly competitive election, only four states were decided by 5% or less in 2012; that number grew to 11 in 2016
The thing is that winning any of one of those four states would mean Trump would be President. Or that Trump's electoral college win could have been much higher! Remember the popular vote has no relation to the Electoral College numbers. All one needs is to get the largest number of votes to get ALL the Electoral College votes in most states.
There would still be a possibility that Trump could have been president even if all four of those states have voted for Clinton (and Delaware and Nevada had voted for Trump). That is because the Electoral College result would have been a tie (269-269). That means the election would be sent to the House of Representatives with each state delegation getting one vote (a similar activity takes place on the Senate side to pick the Vice-President). In the case of a tie, the election for President is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. A majority of states (26) is needed to win. Senators would elect the Vice-President, with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators (51) is needed to win.
It would have been highly likely in the case of a tie that the election would remain undecided after the Electors voted. That means Congress would meet in joint session on the first day in January to count the electoral votes (this count happens whether the election is close or not). If no candidate has reached 270 Electoral Votes, then the House and Senate take over and elect the President and Vice-President, respectively.
It seems likely Trump would have been president given the current US legislature is solidly Republican had there been a tie.
Toss in it is possible to win the Electoral College with only 11 States (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey). However, nobody has been elected President since 1900 by winning fewer than 23 states. (Take the quiz at 270towin to see where I got these figures)
Anyway, While the democratic party is responsible for picking a loser like Clinton, it seems to be more that the anti-democratic nature of the US elections needs to be addressed. After all, the only way the Russians could have influenced the US presidential election would be to have somehow created the Electoral College since that is what really put Trump in office.
See also: