2016 elections - because it's never too early

[CountDeMoney]

Nate Silver Gunned Down Attempting To Cross Mexican Border With All 2016 Polling Data



EL PASO, TX—Saying they were forced to use lethal force after the statistician and FiveThirtyEight founder attempted to breach a secure checkpoint, United States Border Patrol agents confirmed Friday that Nate Silver was gunned down while trying to cross into Mexico with all the polling data from the 2016 general election.

Silver was pronounced dead at the scene shortly thereafter.

http://www.theonion.com/article/nate-silver-gunned-down-attempting-cross-mexican-b-54595

[The Larch]

If somebody wants to relive their Oregon Trail 8 bit experiences:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/01/opinion/voting-suppression-videogame.html?_r=2

I must say I will never cease to be amazed about how the basic logistics of an election can be such a hurdle in the XXIst century.

[DGuller]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/opinion/who-broke-politics.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Who Broke Politics?

As far as anyone can tell, Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House — and the leader of what's left of the Republican establishment — isn't racist or authoritarian. He is, however, doing all he can to make a racist authoritarian the most powerful man in the world. Why? Because then he could privatize Medicare and slash taxes on the wealthy.

And that, in brief, tells you what has happened to the Republican Party, and to America.

This has been an election in which almost every week sees some longstanding norm in U.S. political life get broken. We now have a major-party candidate who refuses to release his tax returns, despite huge questions about his business dealings. He constantly repeats claims that are totally false, like his assertion that crime is at record highs (it's actually just a bit off historic lows). He stands condemned by his own words as a sexual predator. And there's much, much more.

Any one of these things would in the past have been considered disqualifying in a presidential candidate. But leading Republicans just shrug. And they celebrated when James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., broke with policy to lay a heavy thumb on the election scales; if Hillary Clinton wins nonetheless, they have made it clear that they will try to block any Supreme Court nomination, and there's already talk of impeachment hearings. About what? They'll find something.

So how did all our political norms get destroyed? Hint: It started long before Donald Trump.

On one side, Republicans decided long ago that anything went in the effort to delegitimize and destroy Democrats. Those of us old enough to remember the 1990s also remember the endless series of accusations hurled against the Clintons.

Nothing was too implausible to get on talk radio and get favorable mention in Congress and in conservative media: Hillary killed Vince Foster! Bill was a drug smuggler!

Nothing was too trivial to trigger congressional hearings: 140 hours of testimony on potential abuse of the White House Christmas card list. And, of course, seven years of investigations into a failed real estate deal.

When Mrs. Clinton famously spoke of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to undermine her husband's presidency, she wasn't being hyperbolic; she was simply describing the obvious reality.

And since accusations of Democratic scandal, not to mention congressional "investigations" that started from a presumption of guilt, had become the norm, the very idea of bad behavior independent of politics disappeared: The flip side of the obsessive pursuit of a Democratic president was utter refusal to investigate even the most obvious wrongdoing by Republicans in office.

There were multiple real scandals during the administration of George W. Bush, ranging from what looked like a political purge in the Justice Department to the deceptions that led us into invading Iraq; nobody was ever held accountable.

The erosion of norms continued after President Obama took office. He faced total obstruction at every turn; blackmail over the debt ceiling; and now, a refusal even to hold hearings on his nominee to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

What was the purpose of this assault on the implicit rules and understandings that we need to make democracy work? Well, when Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1995, he was trying to, guess what, privatize Medicare. The rage against Bill Clinton partly reflected the fact that he raised taxes modestly on the wealthy.

In other words, Republican leaders have spent the past couple of decades doing exactly what the likes of Mr. Ryan are doing now: trashing democratic norms in pursuit of economic benefits for their donor class.

So we shouldn't really be too surprised that Mr. Comey, who turns out to be a Republican first and a public servant, well, not so much, decided to politically weaponize his position on the eve of the election; that's what Republicans have been doing across the board. And we shouldn't be surprised at all that Mr. Trump's lurid personal failings haven't caused a break with the leaders of his party's establishment: They decided long ago that only Democrats have scandals.

Despite Mr. Comey's abuse of power, Mrs. Clinton will probably win. But Republicans won't accept it. When Mr. Trump rages about a "rigged election," expect muted disagreement at best from a party establishment that in a fundamental sense never accepts the legitimacy of a Democrat in the White House. And no matter what Mrs. Clinton does, the barrage of fake scandals will continue, now with demands for impeachment.

Can anything be done to limit the damage? It would help if the media finally learned its lesson, and stopped treating Republican scandal-mongering as genuine news. And it would also help if Democrats won the Senate, so that at least some governing could get done.

False equivalency broke politics.  That idiotic school attitude that if two boys are fighting, they're both equally at fault, because it takes two to tango.  People who rail against "partisanship" broke politics. 

We didn't have "partisanship" for the last 30 years, we had one party stage an assault on democratic norms, and another party reacting against that to defend itself (not vigorously and cynically enough, as it turns out).  When people take the cowardly way out and just blame all politicians, they're all the same shit after all just in two competing groups, the bad ones don't pay any price and the good one put themselves at a disadvantage.

[The Minsky Moment]

Joan was right and I was wrong.  Talking to folks at the Regal Beagle, Hillary is getting crushed by Comey's announcement.

Ugh would much prefer to be mistaken

[Phillip V]

Not only has Trump surged, but Democrat chances of taking the Senate have also plummeted.  I don't understand what amazing or terrible thing has happened or not happened the past 8 years to warrant a possible Republican total control of government again.  (George W. Bush administration being the previous, and that was great, wasn't it.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/senate/2016_elections_senate_map_no_toss_ups.html

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, the big shift for the Senate is Bayh is now in a close race and he was previously favored to win pretty big. Most of the rest of the Senate races that were expected to possibly flip it are still basically toss ups. If Bayh wins Indiana, I think unless the Dems really lose NV/PA/NH they'll still hang on and get the margin they need.

But yeah, nothing has shifted to warrant Republican control. Instead the reality is most people are not swing voters or ticket splitters. There's a high portion of the population who will always vote Republican, this is mirrored on the left with Democrats. What's happening I think is on some of the state level races more Republicans are coming out than Democrats. The Democrats have always had a slight registration edge, and probably even an edge among total voters (counting the people who aren't registered Democrats but usually vote like them), but have also always had less "consistent" voters. Republicans come out pretty reliably even in mid-term elections, Democrats need to be fired up. Hillary hasn't fired many people up, and some that she has fired up are butt hurt Bernie bros who are actually part of the 4-5% of imbeciles who will vote Johnson or the 2% of even dumber people who will vote Jill Stein.  Obama got pretty damn good turn out both elections (historically more or less in 2008, but he still did okay even in 2012 when turnout for him was lower than four years prior.)

I don't know any casual observers of politics who even recognize or understand the GOP has been behaving as the party of stupidity and government collapse for awhile now, a lot of those shenanigans just don't seem to penetrate the veil of disinterest that covers 85% of the electorate.

[citizen k]

Hillary hasn't fired many people up, and some that she has fired up are butt hurt Bernie bros who are actually part of the 4-5% of imbeciles who will vote Johnson or the 2% of even dumber people who will vote Jill Stein. 

[Admiral Yi]

If somebody wants to relive their Oregon Trail 8 bit experiences:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/01/opinion/voting-suppression-videogame.html?_r=2

I must say I will never cease to be amazed about how the basic logistics of an election can be such a hurdle in the XXIst century.

I hope you didn't draw your conclusion from that silly game.

[Eddie Teach]

"Silly" is generous.

[Admiral Yi]

I have a big heart.

[Syt]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d3a1c10593c44da58bb611ef09101214/washington-state-elector-says-he-wont-vote-clinton

Washington state elector says he won't vote for Clinton

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic elector in Washington state said Friday he won't vote for Hillary Clinton even if she wins the popular vote in his state on Election Day, adding a degree of suspense when the Electoral College affirms the election results next month.

Robert Satiacum, a member of Washington's Puyallup Tribe, supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. He said he believes Clinton is a "criminal" who doesn't care enough about American Indians and "she's done nothing but flip back and forth."

He said he has wrestled with what to do, but feels that neither Clinton nor Republican Donald Trump can lead the country.

"She will not get my vote, period," he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Americans vote for the president, but they're really casting votes for each state's electors, who will decide the next president on Dec. 19.

In all but two states, the winner of the state's popular vote gets all of the state's electors. There's nothing in the Constitution that says the electors are required to vote for a particular candidate, but some states have penalties for so-called "faithless electors." Satiacum faces a $1,000 fine in Washington if he doesn't vote for Clinton, but he said he doesn't care.

"This is a time we all need to stand up and speak out," he said.

Satiacum is one of 12 Democratic electors in Washington, which Clinton is expected to win. He said he has gotten a lot of criticism since he told media outlets earlier this month that he might not vote for Clinton. But he said he has also heard from electors in other states who thanked him for speaking out. He said he hopes some of those electors follow his lead.

According to the National Archives, 99 percent of electors through U.S. history have voted for their party's candidate, and none of the dissenters has ever changed the result of an election.

[mongers]

Some provisional results start coming in, in around 75 hours time?

[jimmy olsen]

Early voting is trending Clinton's way in Florida.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/florida-early-voting-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-230788

[jimmy olsen]

New York Times analysis of the early vote continues to put North Carolina further out of Trumps reach with an estimated 62% of the electorate having voted already.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/florida-early-voting-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-230788

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, good news--but in some places early voting isn't super accurate, it does positively correlate with final vote but often the margins are different enough that in a close race like this it's not going to tell us much. That's the conventional wisdom on most early voting states, but I think at least ones like NV/NC where it sounds like 60%+ of the electorate EVs, it may have a stronger predictive value just due to being such a large part of the whole.