Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, November 4, 2024
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83 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
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James Fallows gives good (free) analysis on his Substack:
https://fallows.substack.com/p/election-countdown-one-more-day-and
He’s always been a good journalist. Worth reading.
I have been busy lately. Not a bad thing.
I still read through everything, but I do not get to comment as much. Invariably, if I do not have the time (or energy) to join the discussion, the topic at hand is something I would like to address.
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One thing I am pleased about: for about a year, I have been kicking around picking the guitar back up after 20+ years. I was never very good. Or maybe never even reached the point of being able to say I could play at all. But I took the plunge and bought a Les Paul (Epiphone, cannot afford a Gibson) and loud-ass amp.
The problem is that this topic is even being discussed. However, in the 60s, it was discussed in book and film “Seven Days in May”.
Would Trump try to use the armed forces against ‘enemy from within’? We asked the generals
Going down the chain of command happened in 1973 in the infamous Saturday Night Massacre when Nixon ordered firing of Archibald Cox and AG Elliot Richardson and Dep AG William Ruckelshaus resigned in order to finally land on Robert Bork. So there is precedent.
I’ve known a lot of generals in my day. There are some I trust totally and some I wouldn’t let take care of my dog.
Quincy Jones, 91, has died. RIP.
America would do well to sort of revive the Roman office of Aedile.
Not exactly in the same way, of course. there have been some changes in the past 2000+ years, after all.
So, the Aediles would be responsible for the maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure, plus all additional infrastructure built afterward. That means fixing bridges, filling pot holes, assisting utilities for repairs after storm damage, upkeep of public buildings, last mile internet access, etc., as well as preventive maintenance (inspections, regular resurfacing of roads, cleaning, adn so on). All paid out of their own pocket as necessary, with harsh penalties for slipshod cheapo repairs and maintenance.
This office would be mandatory for any person or corporation with more than $1 billion in wealth or assets, and would be a lifetime post unless their wealth dropped below the minimum amount.
Today’s oligarchs richly deserve such honors.
On other things, and hopefully not the best news for the week, Mike Duncan and Alexis Coe have launched their new podcast, The Duncan & Coe History Show.
This comes almost two years after Duncan first announced it as his next project near the end of the Revolutions podcast on Dec. 2022…. It seems he was otherwise engaged at the time…
Better late than never.
Meantime the Martian Revolution goes on.
@Kathy:
If I’m remembering correctly, this was sort of in effect in West Germany when I lived there (I don’t know if it’s still the case). Companies that were contracted to build or repair sections of the autobahn were responsible for it for a period of at least five years after its completion–on their dime. If repairs were needed at any point during that period, they repaired it and paid for the repair. It’s something I’d like to see enacted here as I think it would result in better construction.
Attempt number 2 to vote early. Arrived at 7:30 am for polls that open at 8.
3.5 hour line. But i made it inside before the line formed out the door. It’s been pouring all morning. Democracy!
@Jen:
That’s a reasonable guarantee for a major project and expense.
In Mexico, toll highways are built and operated on concession by private companies. I assume they’re responsible for maintenance and repair, but I can’t say for certain. In any case, they use money obtained from tolls for this purpose. the government retains ownership of the highways.
IN addition the law mandates there be an alternative free highways on every route. these are government owned, operated, and maintained.
Here in AZ you can sign onto a list to automatically be sent a mail ballot for every election – I can fill out my ballot at home, then stick in the mailbox.
I have no idea if the following linked analysis has any validity, but it is kind of interesting
https://app.vantagedatahouse.com/analysis/TheBlowoutNoOneSeesComing-1
@charontwo: Entertaining data, but I have no idea who these people are and whether they are credible.
@Scott:
Thing is, will El Felon fire or otherwise remove troublesome officers who insist on abiding by the rule of law? Nixon’s DOJ officials resigned rather than obey his self-serving orders. They could do no more than that. Military officers can be easily dismissed from a post, but they remain in the military and retain their rank.
So, suppose El Weirdo finds a colonel who will gladly comply where the general and admirals wouldn’t. I assume the officers passed over would want to stop such madness, and attempt to order the colonel to stand down.
Would they obey? Or would they argue they have their orders from a higher authority?
That’s another way civil war can begin.
@charontwo: Here in FL it’s very easy to vote by mail. We registered and signed up for mail voting when we got our drivers licenses. FL went big for mail voting when the snowbird vote ran heavily Republican. (And they weren’t very scrupulous about double voting.) Now that it’s no longer an advantage for GOPs they’ve tightened up a little, but it’s still easy. I couldn’t top of the head tell you where my polling place is, and we’ve voted in every election.
@Kurtz: Awesome, please keep us updated as you move forward. Inconsistent practice for 30 years has made me passable 🙂
@CSK: The legend. The obituaries hardly do him justice!
@Franklin:
I know. Jones truly was a transformative force in music.
@Kathy: Who the heck knows? The truth about Trump is how deeply corrupting he is. And he has corrupted many people who one would think would be resistant to him.
@Neil Hudelson: Good luck in your school board race.
@Scott: I saw a video of the Economist’s endorsement of Harris, in which the speaker said, “So many people seem to say that Trump won’t really do what he says. Since when is believing someone won’t do what they say a qualification?”
I watched two very good extended videos yesterday of Tim Walz talking to three undecided voters, and Pete Buttigieg talking to 25 (!) undecided voters. Both men really listened respectfully, connected with the voters, and changed some minds. The conversations were much more impactful than the typical “undecided voter” panels in the media and make me very proud to be a Democrat. Videos are from YouTube.
Tim Walz
Pete Buttigieg
@Neil Hudelson:
3.5 hours to vote is diabolical. Why is this happening?
Longest I ever waiting to vote out here was a half hour in 2016, and I was highly irritated. Most times it’s 0-5 minutes.
@Joe:
Here is J. Ann Selzer with some serious credibility, the Iowa poll lady:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ysKh_Gyd0
I would say that for 6 of the 7 “swing” states the information so far from the early vote I call inconclusive. But so much of the vote is in for AZ, a mostly vote by mail state, that I do not believe the polls showing AZ very close, I see Harris taking AZ decisively, based on the early vote info.
@Kathy:
There’s a common misconception in the general public that someone of a particular rank in the military can issue orders to any random soldier of a lower rank anywhere across the entire military.
This is not the case; they can only issue orders to soldiers that have explicitly been placed under their command.
I’m in Florida in a 55+ community, went to the gym this morning and for the hour and a half I was there it seemed like a non-stop barrage of ads about abortion. Specifically, I saw a couple of ads saying Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ad, a couple of anti-Rick Scott ads with his past abortion statements. It seems like the Democrats are all-in on abortion, and I like it. They waited to the last few days to send out the message that the Republicans will implement a nationwide draconian abortion ban. Trump says now it’s up to the states, but fortunately they have his own statements saying that he would criminalize it and put women in jail. The benefits of running against someone who has no filter and talks out of both sides of his mouth.
My office mates think Trump is getting reelected and they might be correct.
I just want the election to be over and done with, if Trump is our next President than such is life.
We will know soon enough just how excited America really is at the prospect of millions of folks being forcibly deported, and paying a lot more for an appliance at Home Depot.
Trump will be able deliver jobs to the MAGA faithful, after all, those strawberries aren’t going to pick themselves.
And if field work is not your poison than Elon Musk will be happy to offer you a mediocre paying job in one of his factories with 14 hour days and no guaranteed benefits like you might find at a Union shop.
And you best not complain, after all God created that sweet tasting berry so it is your duty to pick it and help make an agribarron rich.
“Digby”
The higher rate of college-matriculated women is manifesting in those women now outnumbering the college-matriculated men in the workforce.
The less the bachelors men and women still out number the college-matriculated.
@Scott:
I wasn’t trying to put you on the spot. it was a comment about the general subject.
@Stormy Dragon:
I’m aware of this. And that there is a reason for the chain of command.
I assume the higher up an officer is, the more people they have under their command. I’m unsure of the overall command structure, too. I assume the service chiefs or those of the unified military commands, would have broad authority over all sorts of officers, like the hypothetical MAGAt colonel who’d happily shoot protesters or arrest Biden on no evidence or legal authority.
But maybe not.
Ah, when nativism meets shareholder value: El Felón Media outsources jobs to México.
@Kurtz:
One of my regrets in my life is that I had no musical talent, and perhaps as a consequence, paid little attention to music.
@Kathy: No, I didn’t take it that way at all. But it is one of those conversations that most do not want to bring up or discuss at all.
@Scott:
Hopefully, after tomorrow (or maybe as late as Saturday, who knows), we no longer will have to.
BTW, it used to be that winning the election was it. Now in the Felón era, it’s only 19/20ths. the battle.
I found hope and inspiration in this story from CNN. And a little exasperated that we are still discussing this topic at all.
After their son came out, this conservative Christian couple went into a closet of their own
Long article but well done.
I’ve paid outside attention to the different prediction/betting markets on the election, figuring that folks who are actually willing to put their money where there mouth is might be slightly more reliable than pundits and polls. Alas, the numbers have more or less tracked one another, as absent some sort of inside information, folks are betting in the same ecosystem as pundits are punditting and pollsters are polling.
But I actually heard a radio ad for one of these platforms yesterday and it stood out that they specifically said the bets/markets will be settled just after inauguration day 2025. Which makes sense but also wasn’t something I really thought about and leaves open the possibility of Trump shenanigans leading to him assuming the Presidency in January 2025 and paying out folks who bet on such as winners. And if the folks making those bets knew that, then that may skew the numbers in certain ways since it theoretically gives Trump two paths to victory (legitimate Electoral College win and, for lack of a better word, a coup) where Harris only has one. Something I hadn’t considered but which makes me look at those numbers a tad differently now.
@DK:
Clearly, someone doesn’t want people like @Neil Hudelson to vote. Likely Republicans.
That’s so obvious that I now think I am answering a rhetorical question, so I’ll add a question of my own…
Why would anyone in that 3-5 hour line vote for the Republicans who are trying to take their vote, and worse still making them wait in a 3-5 hour line?
If I see long lines in a store when I enter, I turn and leave. Partly out of impatience, but also largely out of a desire to hurt the people who are in charge of understaffing the cashiers. So, I would expect that 3-5 hour lines to vote would make people mad and spiteful. I would expect it to backfire.
(I may be more motivated by spite than the average person)
@CSK: I first heard Quincy Jones in high school A friend worked at a record store with a great jazz catalog and on his urging I bought “Walking in Space” which of course had “Killer Joe”. The second album was “Golden Boy” with a great cut called “Django”, very cool. Jones also had an album of Henry Mancini covers with great variations of “Peter Gunn” and “The Pink Panther” with Plas Johnson doing more of his great sax work.
@inhumans99: Each side sees “the signs” and each side believes the signs show their side will prevail. That’s how belief works. The rest of us will need to wait a few days to be sure. That’s how reality works.
The Bangladeshi owner of a ice cream store my wife went to says they and all his friends are voting for Trump because Harris is a liar.
I’m still waiting for biopsy results and it is two weeks tomorrow that the doctor took the moles off me.
My nephew Kent arrives this afternoon. He is devoted to DW and I as we helped put him through nursing school. He will go with his Aunt tomorrow to Miami and will be joining me as I go on my book signing tour. With my medical issues, it would be risky to travel solo.
I’m going to be making a connection at Atlanta Airport on Thursday. That will be a first. During my heavy traveling days, the airports I knew best were- DTW, MSP, MEM, DFW, LAX, IAH, MNL, NRT, AMS, TAC, and EWR. Plus the three airports in my area, FLL, PBI, and MIA.
9 cities to visit in 15 days. All but one require me to fly to get there. I’m getting tired just thinking of it.
The book I will be signing I don’t consider particularly special. Then again, I’m one of my worst critics and it’s Amazon sales rankings are very nice.
Haven’t gotten a political phone call on my cell phone or our landline. Dear wife says she has gotten a couple on her cell phone.
I will vote early tomorrow morning. The polling place for my 55+ community is the west clubhouse. Curiously, there is a polling place right across the street from my condo. It is at the Jewish temple.
@Kazzy: “figuring that folks who are actually willing to put their money where there mouth is might be slightly more reliable than pundits and polls.”
I don’t get this thinking at all. Why would someone gain the ability to predict the future simply because he put a couple of bucks on the race?
@inhumans99: In a way, I echo @just nutha.
We have very little good information. Less than any other presidential election in my lifetime. There’s plenty of reason to think that the public pollsters are herding stronger than they ever have.
The campaigns have better information, but it does not suit their purposes to share that information.
You can try reading tea leaves, and I’ve done that, even on this forum. But you have to remember you’re reading tea leaves, not data.
One last reminder is that demoralizing the enemy with premature triumphal displays (especially on the internet) has been a Republican tactic since as long as I have been paying attention.
Just keep the faith, vote, phone bank, give money, do whatever. That’s what we can do.
@Kazzy:
The only word better than that in this context is putsch.
Least surprising headline of the day:
Elon Musk’s PAC Tells Judge $1M Sweepstakes Winners Aren’t Chosen by Chance
On Monday, lawyers for America PAC, Musk’s political organization, told a judge in Philadelphia that participants labeled as “winners” in Musk’s $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes in key swing states are not randomly selected; rather, they are chosen to serve as paid “spokespeople” for the organization.
Seems like this is fraud, but Musk never has to worry about being held accountable.
@wr:
My thoughts exactly. Gamblers big enough to move the markets famously make terrible decisions and ruin their lives, or at least squander their fortunes.
@Mr. Prosser:
There have been some wonderful tributes to Jones from Ice-T, Michael Caine, Harry Connick, and numbers of others. Everyone he met seems to have loved him.
Trump said yesterday that he was going to put Herschel Walker in charge of missile defense. I assume he was joking.
@Lucysfootball: That…is not good. Basically, it sounds like they recognized they weren’t allowed to run a game of chance so they decided fraud was the better excuse. Musk’s lawyers are arguing that “random” and “chance” are different.
@wr: It’s risking SOMETHING versus risking NOTHING, the latter of which is what most people risk when they pundit and poll.
It is hardly foolproof but if I am evaluating someone’s analysis of what is going to happen, then evaluating their motivations is a factor in that. If someone will win real money if they are correct and lose real money if they are incorrect, odds are they are going to do their best to be correct.
If someone is trying to get eyeballs, well, correctness may not matter a whit to them.
@Jen:
One wonders whether Xlon employs pedants rather than lawyers in his legal department.
If he even has one.
@wr:
An oft-given explanation is that people respond to polls with the answer to the question, “Who are you voting for?” but in the betting markets they answer the question “Who do you think will win?” I’ve seen plenty of online people this cycle who state clearly, “I’m voting for Harris but I think Trump will win.”
@Kurtz: A good quality guitar is like night and day compared to a cheapo pawnshop special. Constant practice and diddling is all you need to eventually get somewhere. Keep your setup in a very accessible area and consider headphones for your neighbors sake 😛
———————–
On an unrelated note.
Man I really hope I end up eating a whole lot of crow in the coming days.
So far the Harris campaign and the democratic party has been 1000x better than I had hoped they would be. No chaos no herding of cats no typical democratic snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I fully admit to being completely wrong about the hand off from Biden to Harris. I couldn’t be happier to be wrong. It’s been an amazing show of competence on the part of the Harris team.
Last day before election day, and the one thing I would’ve done that they didn’t, if I was running the D campaign, would’ve been strongly emphasized the three hours Trump sat and watched the Capitol be over run. It’s indisputable, clear, and damning to the nth degree, yet they hardly ever mentioned it. The events of 1/6 have been judged far less important for most Americans than they are for me, I guess.
Jon Ralston, veteran early-vote observer in Nevada, has been sounding alarms over the past week and a half over underwhelming numbers from Dems in the EV numbers. Now he says he thinks Harris will win the state, and that Jacky Rosen will win reelection comfortably.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/editor-jon-ralstons-2024-nevada-election-predictions
@Matt:
and @Jen yesterday
I got it wrong as well. And it’s nice to be proved wrong this way.
What I’ve begun to wonder is whether Harris and/or her staff might have been planning for the possibility for months.
I don’t mean anything sinister or conspiratorial, like they planned to kick Biden out and supplant him, an maybe they even sabotaged his debate night. nothing of that sort. I’m thinking a contingency plan
More like Biden is old, and abrupt cognitive decline, physical incapacity, and even death are possible and unpredictable. So the odds were higher than normal (as compared to other general elections) that he might drop out, be incapable of continuing the campaign, or even die in office. If any of that were to happen after mot of the primaries, Harris would have been the logical choice to take over.
Seen this way, it would have been prudent to plan ahead just in case.
Of course, such planning can only go so far. They couldn’t get in touch with other likely prospects (Whitmer, Shapiro, Newsom, etc) to assure their support, nor with the major doors, nor with other notable figures in the Democratic Party.
But they could plan what to say, how to go about it, go through the Party rules and the relevant laws to see what they could and couldn’t do later, etc.
@charontwo: I am cautiously optimistic because of Selzer’s track record, and the degree to which people who should know take her polling seriously, but I generally assume outliers are just that — outliers, and probably wrong.
And that’s just if they haven’t gone crazy. There was presumably a time when disgraced-former-Gen. Flynn was respected. Not that I have any reason to believe Selzer is going crazy, but it happens.
We will find out tomorrow, I guess. If Harris is doing that well in Iowa, she’s probably doing better than expected elsewhere too, and it will be a short evening.
I just dropped my ballot in the mailbox, and was disappointed that the mail truck then stopped by 10 minutes later to collect it.
I try to time my ballot so it gets the Election Day postmark, and doesn’t actually get counted until the end of the week, at the earliest (WA will count it if it has the postmark). This is a habit I picked up after watching Dino Rossi (R-Shitwad) lose the governor’s race by 129 votes after recount #2 as the last ballots were trickling in. It was beautiful.
(Did he cry at a press conference, or am I just imagining it? Not looking it up in case it isn’t true)
I want to be part of the drama.
Oh well. Curse you, USPS, for showing up a half hour late to empty the mailbox!
@CSK: “Everyone he met seems to have loved him”
And about 40% of them seem to have married him…
I’m optimistic at this point. The Harris campaign has been very good, and she is better than I thought she would be. I’m guessing she is a good prosecutor because she seems fast on her feet. She’s been very good at avoiding traps like the Bret Baier interview, I thought she did a great job with a very hostile and, in at least one case, dishonest interview. Trump has done everything to lose this race in the last two weeks. If he wins we are fucked, not just because of what he and Vance will do, but also because they showed us who they are and we still Trump him in office. I’ll say it one last time, he’s a rapist, a traitor and a thief.
@Michael Cain: “An oft-given explanation is that people respond to polls with the answer to the question, “Who are you voting for?” but in the betting markets they answer the question “Who do you think will win?””
Sure, but these people don’t have any better idea than you or I do, they just like to throw money around.
@wr:
That’s also true. 😀 I wasn’t aware till today that he’d had a child with Nastassia Kinski.
After the series of events that concluded with Biden dropping out of the race, Stephen Colbert made a joke to the effect that “that last week was a long month.”
I’ve a feeling this week will be a long month as well.
I remember election week 2020 rather well. Pennsylvania wasn’t called until Saturday, though I think he had enough confirmed EVs to win even before then. It was still a week that dragged on and on, with way too much uncertainty and too effing much going on. I felt very stressed throughout.
If it means a Harris win, I don’t care how long it goes on this time. But I’d rather be less stressed this time (good luck with that).
The heavy work season should have started last month, or maybe even in September. But due to the change in government, it seems, major agencies are still sorting out their budgets for 2025…
@dazedandconfused: I too have been thinking about what I might have done differently, even though I think the Harris campaign has done extraordinary well. In my case, I would have hit the idea that Trump couldn’t possibly serve out a term and that a vote for him was a vote for Pres Vance. Then I would have spent at least some energy acting like Trump wasn’t worth running against and making it all about Vance. First, I do think Trump won’t last, second, even people that love Trump find Vance weird (plus married to a Brown Person), third, the framing that Vance was the real head of ticket would have made Trump unhinge in amusing and destructive ways. Think about the sound bites of Trump belittling his own running mate. /end fantasy campaign manager role
@wr:
In gambling circles there’s a term, whale, to denote the gamblers who make the biggest bets. Casinos assiduously court these people with many very expensive freebies. Things like ferrying them in private jets, giving them complimentary huge suites to stay in, free meals anywhere, show tickets, etc. Many get parting gifts like expensive jewelry and luxury cars.
If you assume whales lose far, far, far more at the tables than the casinos spend luring them in, you’d be absolutely right.
To a lesser extent, this is done for regular gamblers who accrue fewer losses at the casinos. Free airfare, free rooms, free meals on property, help getting show tickets, etc. Parting gifts may include a cruise or a weekend at some popular spot in the Caribbean. Again, they lose far more than that at the tables.
So, I have to wonder what online gambling sites, including prediction markets, give their big bettors in order to keep them coming back.
@Kazzy: I think you’re confusing desire or need to be correct with ability to gain information or knowledge that will lead to that outcome. There are certain types of gambling where knowledge will assist in gaining a slight edge, but even in those situations, the reality is that it’s hard to go wrong underestimating the strength of your hand.
It’s why the activity is called “gambling.” The guy who knows he’s going to win is the guy getting the vig/rake.
ETA: Which makes Trump’s failure in Atlantic City all the more astounding, come to think of it.
@CSK:
You force me to retell the best movie review I ever heard.
Circa 1981 Boston, I was listening to a college radio station when I heard the following review for the movie, The Cat People. The entire review: “I just saw the new movie, The Cat People last night. In this film, men have sex with Nastassia Kinski and then she turns into a panther and kills them. Having seen the movie, I’d say it’s worth it.”
@Gustopher: The really sad thing about Dino is that he looks really good compared to the candidates who’ve followed him.
@Kurtz:
I wish you well in your renewed music career.
I’m reminded of a long-ago-interview with Greg Allman, in which he was asked variously about his music – as a great great singer and songwriter, his piano and Hammond B3 playing, and finally his guitar playing (relative to another musician perhaps Dickie Betts? I can’t remember) – and he said something like, “he’s a guitar player, I’m a guitar owner.” He was, as usual, far too modest.
Only one of the two candidates has had the momentum in the last days of the campaign, and it’s the first time in history that that candidate is a woman.
@Lucy’s Football:
Also cognitively impaired senile demented malignant narcissist.
@CSK: “I wasn’t aware till today that he’d had a child with Nastassia Kinski.”
It was news to me, too.
Ftucker’s lost it.
Now he’s claiming “nuclear technology” is demonic or something. I mean literally demonic, created by demons.
Well, from his point of view, there were several Jewish scientists in the Manhattan Project, I suppose.
But this just shows extreme ignorance:
Seriously?
Some discoveries and inventions are one time events and well documented, but these are the exception. Who invented the plow? When did agricultural technology first become known to humanity? Can you name the date? it must have been DEMONS!!11!!11111
For the record, “nuclear technology” involves a decades long series of observations, discoveries, and theories, including Maxwell’s equations on electromagnetic radiation, Becquerel’s works on radioactivity, and there follows a litany of famous names like Curie, Hahn, Alvarez, Rutherford, Bohr, Planck, etc. etc. etc.
Also for the record, “nuclear technology” includes obviously things like nuclear power reactors, as well as X-rays, and radiation therapies for cancer, among other things like radioactive tracers, smoke detectors, and so on.
As to nuclear weapons, they are the most dangerous tool, so far, in humanity’s arsenal. Especially when you give the nuclear codes to some old fool deep into cognitive decline, who thinks a nuke should stop a hurricane. You know, the kind of person Ftucker favors and shills for.
I spent the last three days phone banking for Harris/Walz. Today was all NC, TX, and IA. I did a six hour shift today.
Here’s what my Team Leader told me, end of the day:
1. They believe they have MI, WI, PA, NV, and NC locked up.
2. They are optimistic about GA, AZ. Very optimistic.
3. They believe IA and KS are in play due to white women over 40, which are breaking hugely for Harris, due to Dobbs, Vance, and Trump.
4. And the shocker… They think FL will be much closer than anyone believes.
I don’t believe that IA or KS are in play, but given what Michael Moore (who is the most pessimistic Democrat on the planet) said today, I’m believing the rest of it.
Voted yesterday.
Here’s to a good Tuesday.
=========
P.S. My former assistant lives in AZ, and in the last six weeks, she knocked on over 1200 doors herself on behalf of Harris/Wa;z. Her takeaway, and I quote: “The Orange Guy is cooked.”
@EddieInCA: Will be watching Kansas then. I’m pretty sure who my niece and her wife voted for.
@EddieInCA: What about TX? There’s nothing I’d like to see more than to terrorize (electorally speaking) Abbot and Paxton. My friends in TX says that it will happen one day, but is tomorrow that day?
@Jay L Gischer:
Only info I got on TX the last few days, other than making alot of calls to Houston, Austin, Amarillo, Dallas, and San Antonio area codes, is that Allred has a very, very good chance of beating Cruz. Will all depend on white women turnout.
Also, the tech guy, Elon Musk, had to cancel his final tele-town hall due to……
…..technical issues.
Seriously.
Seriously.
When’s the last time a candidate unexpectedly won a state where they didn’t even campaign?
Even Indiana in 2008 was targeted by the Obama campaign before the election.
@Kathy: Much like grifters gotta grift, I do believe talking heads have to talk. He’s got nothing.
@Jay L Gischer: @EddieInCA: I don’t have a feel here in Texas about what will happen. I think if Trump wasn’t on the ticket, Cruz would be gone. It is very urban vs rural here. It will depend, I think, on what happens on the I-35 corridor from DFW down to San Antonio.
@Scott: I thought a Cruz defeat was plausible. Cruz is the guy whose first concern when things went south in TX was to get out of the state. Who, exactly, does that play well with? And he’d already had a very good scare from Beto.
But I didn’t think a Harris win in this cycle was plausible. And now Harris is phone banking it. Maybe to try to win the Senate?
@Jay L Gischer: A Cruz defeat is still plausible. What I meant to convey is that Cruz is so weak that in a head to head with Allred, he would be defeated. But Trump’s coattails may be just enough to drag him over the finish line.
As for who is voting, there are a number of horror stories here in Texas involving emergency abortions being denied that may be that extra oomf to vote them out.
I’m so nervous about the election. I am….surprised, that so many formerly Trumper women I know are texting me right now, talking about how Mike Johnson said the ACA was gonna be abolished, and “what is the fucking plan?!” It’s Kamala, bitches.
And no R’s have a plan. It’s just mass deportations, tariffs, and no fucking healthcare plan to replace the ACA. Death, sickness and misery.
I miss Ozark, Doug Mataconis and Teve. I even miss Jazz Shaw, despite his politics driving me crazy the last few years.
I have to go find more bulls tomorrow. Bulls like easy pussy on flat ground, these two are up on the forest. Lewis and Landon. YES, I name my bulls. 😉
I hope when I get off the mountain, returns are coming in.
@Jax: I am nauseously optimistic.
(I stole that from somewhere)
@Gustopher: I don’t think I’ve come across anything that better summarizes my mental state. Well done.
We need to get away from the Electoral College. Winner by state.
If you cast your vote for the candidate that lost in your state by one vote, your vote doesn’t count, your vote was meaningless in determination of who wins the Presidency. (Nebraska and Maine vary).
I don’t know who is going to win this, but the EC has to go. It disenfranchises every voter in every state that voted for the candidate that lost in that state. I know it would mean amendment to do so.
The Electoral College is fundamentally undemocratic.