The New American Politics thread

[Biff]

I think the Trump campaign has a newly-activated enormous army of paid shills manning the comments section of online news sources. I have been spending hours reading news and the comment sections of articles every day since the conventions. Last week when the Trump campaign reset its leadership, it was like someone threw a switch in the world of online commenting. There has been a noticeable, almost unavoidable actually, dramatic increase in a different type of commentary. There's suddenly a lot of long multiple-bullet point very "campaign-like" comments, and a huge increase in philosophical hyperbole that wasn't there a couple weeks ago.

It's a bit like if you spend a long time counting money and then suddenly start to come across counterfeit bills where something is just "off" in the details, or in the quantity of "freshly minted" bills you start to receive. Looking at Trump campaign spending, where an enormous amount went to an "online agency", and also the campaigns former ties to regions where online shenanigans are pretty common, I'm pretty sure we're seeing a very broad and well-financed attempt to shift perceptions of how "average people" are responding to the candidates.

To be clear, it's not that there hasn't been typical partisan back-and-forth all along. Instead it's that there has been a sea change in quantity, quality and consistency of the messages favoring Trump "talking points" all over the place in the last week. There's a change in the language, the depth and, most noticeably, the pervasiveness of a new type of comment. It's bizarre and more than a bit disturbing.

I suspect a lot of people are being paid to create new accounts and comment on political stories. I think it would be very interesting if the media companies paid attention to IP addresses and countries-of-origin for comments.

[killer_carlson]

Trump strategy:

Dominate the news cycle so it's focused on him
Pick a fight with the establishment, both sides
Have the establishment abandon him and in doing so set expectations extremely low
Cause distractions from any substantive Democrat policy
Start steadying the ship 90 days out
Come out and moderate last 60 days, sluff off the drama
Point out the establishment is scared of how he'll upset the apple cart 30 days out
Pump his bravado and swagger last 15 days


And both sides in the election will have paid schills pumping the comments section. Happens in Alberta politics as well i'm told.

[BloodFetish]

Originally Posted by Itse

Not a fair comparison to Berlusconi, he is/was a really skilled politician. Longest serving PM in post-war Italy. As crooked as they come, but totally able to do the job.

Agreed. Trump has often been compared to Mussolini, which IMO is much more apt.

[Senator Clay Davis]

If you had Monday at 7am EDT as the end of the latest Trump "pivot", you win. Having a meltdown about Morning Joe, threatening to tell "stories" about Joe and Mika because they successfully baited him.

[the_only_turek_fan]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

LA Times has Trump up by 1.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

LA Times has Trump up by 1.

Methodology is flawed and broken with this particular pollster. They consistently deviated from all the polls significantly. In this case over sampling republican voters. Almost the same degree of wrongness as it is with unskewed polls

[Senator Clay Davis]

The LA Times poll, for whatever reason, also considers 2012 in it's methodology, which is a pretty good indicator of how flawed it is. As I said in the polling thread though, I do love Trump supporters clinging to a mainstream, liberal media source to show things aren't going poorly. What really matters as we know is state polls, and more bad news there for Trump over the weekend, falling further behind in Ohio, tied in North Carolina and Iowa, and within the margin of error in South Carolina, which is close to disaster territory for the GOP.

[Drak]

I know a close to die hard republican from SC who typically defends and supports republicans in every race. To his credit, he did vote for Obama in 2008 but claims to have regretted his choice months later and even hopped on the birther train.

He despises Trump and is voting for Clinton, although he's not fond of her, he realizes they are not on par. Sounds like the same message is coming from many of his friends and family.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Methodology is flawed and broken with this particular pollster. They consistently deviated from all the polls significantly. In this case over sampling republican voters. Almost the same degree of wrongness as it is with unskewed polls

There is a difference between flawed and biased. I think you need a 6-8 point shift to bring in back to where the race actually sits. However it is fairly consistent in its deviation from other polls. So it can be a useful datapoint once you acknowledge its bias.

It contributes to the suggestion that Clinton is beating trump by 5-8 points right now.

[Izzle]

In /nottheonion news:

http://www.kmov.com/story/32807204/1...ce-in-colorado

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

What really matters as we know is state polls, and more bad news there for Trump over the weekend, falling further behind in Ohio, tied in North Carolina and Iowa, and within the margin of error in South Carolina, which is close to disaster territory for the GOP.

That's actually kind of good news for Trump in NC (he was losing there previously, still might be considering that only the Gravis poll has him narrowly ahead in the last month need more data to demonstrate a shift there). But your point holds true... Trump is losing where he needs to be winning. In one sense that's like 2012, in 2012 National polls showed the race tightening between Obama & Romney but the state polls didn't (Remember Rove talking about how Romney would win Ohio at the same time that the networks were calling it for Obama).

I actually think polls might be overstating Trump's chances if anything. Hispanics/Latinos had the worst turnout among the various ethnic groups in 2012 (48%) and one of the biggest factors in any likely voter screen is whether you voted before. I don't think it's a big leap to suggest that the prospect of a Trump presidency might push that percentage up. It's still a leap and shouldn't be assumed but just a theory of mine.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/...-the-election/

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Izzle

In /nottheonion news:

http://www.kmov.com/story/32807204/1...ce-in-colorado

I think that pretty much exemplifies why I think Trump is going to lose. People say the words "Career Politician" derisively but it is a career and like any career there is a craft to it and there is no craft in the Trump campaign. 12 year olds running field offices, campaign chief exec that's never run a campaign, out-sourcing ground operations, lackluster fund raising... There is no professionalism in his campaign.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by Parallex

I think that pretty much exemplifies why I think Trump is going to lose. People say the words "Career Politician" derisively but it is a career and like any career there is a craft to it and there is no craft in the Trump campaign. 12 year olds running field offices, campaign chief exec that's never run a campaign, out-sourcing ground operations, lackluster fund raising... There is no professionalism in his campaign.

Totally agree. Its getting to the point where the only real argument Republican voters have is them "losing" the swing vote at the SCOTUS level.

I wonder how many Republicans are having buyer's remorse ala Charlie Sykes:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...vatives-214175

[GGG]

So is Obamas Scotus appointment going to get a hearing before the election? He's about as conservative of a choice as you'll get with a Hillary win and he's older than most typical nominees. It's like adding someone slightly left of Kennedy as the swing vote on the court.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Wouldn't be shocking if they tried to push Garland through between Hillary winning and January 20th.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

But everyone's running for re-election now... I have to imagine that makes it pretty hard to put together hearings. Obviously that shouldn't be so, but I'd be surprised if it isn't.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Wouldn't be shocking if they tried to push Garland through between Hillary winning and January 20th.

That would be cynical as hell. In other words standard operating procedure

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by GGG

So is Obamas Scotus appointment going to get a hearing before the election? He's about as conservative of a choice as you'll get with a Hillary win and he's older than most typical nominees. It's like adding someone slightly left of Kennedy as the swing vote on the court.

No. They made way to much of their "the next president should decide" rhetoric to change course before the vote. I wouldn't be surprised if he were appointed during the lame duck session thou. On the other hand I'm not really all that convinced that a hypothetical President Clinton wouldn't keep Garland as the nominee... if she's going to spend political capital to get a more liberal Justice confirmed she'll spend it on the replacement for RBG.

[Gozer]

I'd like to see Hillary pull Garland and nominate Bernie.

He's not a lawyer, which would seem to be a pre-requisite, but it would be an honourable appreciation of the Democratic base, and be a legitimate endorsement of Bernie as a champion of justice through his career - civil rights in the 60s, gay rights since the 80s, and contemporary issues like Citizens United.

Plus, it would (again) force the GOP to rail against the 'destruction of America' in a way that really wouldn't resonate with the voting public.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Gozer

I'd like to see Hillary pull Garland and nominate Bernie.

He's not a lawyer, which would seem to be a pre-requisite, but it would be an honourable appreciation of the Democratic base, and be a legitimate endorsement of Bernie as a champion of justice through his career - civil rights in the 60s, gay rights since the 80s, and contemporary issues like Citizens United.

Plus, it would (again) force the GOP to rail against the 'destruction of America' in a way that really wouldn't resonate with the voting public.

Being a lawyer seems like it would be a pre-requisite? To sit on the SCOTUS bench?

Even the most nakedly political nominees have decades of experience as appellate level judges. How would Bernie Sanders write a 60 page decision on some narrow issue of debtor-creditor law? Why not just send him n to the operating room to separate conjoined twins too?