Well, the final weekend has arrived and Trump’s looking for an inside straight.
All he’s asking for is ten gold dollars and he can pay you back with one good hand.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
You can look all round about this wide world over, and you’ll never find a more dishonest man!” I think Jerry wouldn’t mind that change in the lyrics.
“Dontcha touch hard liquor, just a cup of cold coffee.”
“I’m only in it for the gold.”
“I’ve got no chance of losing.”
You can listen to the whole show here.
Hate to be pedantic (okay, no I don’t) but Robert Hunter wrote the lyrics.
I know Martin knew that, but he was too polite to say so.
With CO looking out of reach, he needs NC, FL, NH, and NV.
He ain’t that lucky.
Looking like he got NH though. Or at least, there’s been clear movement toward him.
They both seem to be running up the score in the other’s relatively safe states. It does HRC no good to do well in GA or AZ, like it does Trump little good to do the same in MI and PA.
There’s also the so-called “banked” votes (early votes/absentees) to consider (apparently 35+ million) and a good number in the battleground states, NV in particular, though NC also has a large number, though I suspect these could be tampered with by an openly corrupt, criminal state government.
Has anyone seen the Russian troll? I had a few questions for him.
Always been partial to this cover by Cracker:
Best show of 77 in my book, Oh man. Folks go crazy over May, but this show has it all. One of those ridiculous Sugaree’s, a Franklin’s Tower that melts faces, and a beauty of a Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain.
I don’t always go for 77, but when I do, I somehow always seem to end up in Springfield.
It’s going to have to be a dead heavy weekend in between door knocking to get through to Tuesday.
Nothing left to do but smile, smile smile.
I’m never happy if my side is reduced to hoping the polls are wrong. However, we’re almost at that point. Looking at the CNN data if you add up all the states where Clinton is in the lead she gets only 268 votes. She had 273 until NH shifted. Trump wins if he holds the states where he is in the lead that are considered battleground (OH, IA, one vote in ME), and wins all the too-close-to-call states (NV, FL, NC, NH, one vote in NE). Clinton has to win at least one too-close-to-call state and hold on to leaners like PA, MI, and WI (PA the biggest worry).
A last minute vote wave like 2004 and Trump gets this. We have to hope a) almost half of people have voted and Clinton has a big edge, b) the polls are biased for Trump because of enthusiasm factors, and c) GOTV gives Clinton an additional two points advantage.
Perhaps the US survives this. Clinton probably wins, the Dems probably get 50+ in the Senate, the SCOTUS ends up 5-4 with youngish liberal justices (and, FSM willing, Kennedy and Thomas depart in one way or another), and demographic changes take care of the rest.
But as a country we are this close to going under. Giving the GOP the Presidency and the SCOTUS would mean a round of Jim Crow voting laws unlike any seen before.
I keep hearing about Hillary’s great GOTV campaign but sure haven’t seen it in Colorado. Obama had a staffed office in our rural community both elections. He lost our fairly conservative county by 1 vote in 2008, and took it in 2012. There has been no Clinton presence here at all. It takes effort to campaign in the rural counties, and this is the only election when the candidates at all levels have not visited here.
Chaffee? Love that area. If we retire in Colorado that will be where we stay.
So your anecdote probably isn’t a good indicator of the overall program. Chafee has maybe 18k people and as of 2014 11.5k registered voters. Obama had shitloads of cash and one of the analyses of his campaigns was that this caused him to spend money ineffectively in many places. If you assume GOTV increases total votes for your side by 2% then in Chaffee that investment would have yielded maybe 200 additional votes. How much would that similar investment have yielded if applied to areas with higher population, or with a higher concentration of low propensity voters (such as Pueblo). Clinton doesn’t have the same monetary advantages that Obama did so this might be just a case of resource optimization.
A related issue is that they found the knock-on-the-door operations – which a local office supports – are not as effective in all areas, especially areas with low population density and areas where people are already high propensity voters. In those cases call banks often are a better investment.
Do note that there is a strong Clinton GOTV on-location operation in the front range. Perhaps more importantly, Clinton has increased investment in voter protection relative to Obama. In 2012 they had voter protect volunteers at a few precincts in Colo Springs – those with the concentration of Democratic voters and one other that was 40% Democrat but highly minority. In 2016 they are even arranging for Democratic poll watchers in the 75% GOP precincts.
Keep in mind Colorado’s recent voting law changes favor Democrats in that they favor making it easy for everyone to vote. This means that GOTV, while important is less so than in states like NC where voting while black means taking a full day off work.
Finally, Colorado isn’t in the worry camp for Clinton. I know there are a few polls that show tied, etc., but those are from one-time pollsters (like Denver Post) who are way behind the times on modern high quality polling. They way underestimated the Latino vote here in 2008 and 2012 and they are doing it again. There is no way that Trump can win here. Gardner pulled off a narrow win in a mid-term year by pretending to be moderate while Udall’s response was to go negative with focus on women’s health care – an important issue to be sure, but it didn’t get the low propensity voters to the polls. That’s the high water mark for state-wide races for the GOP and will be for a long time. In that same election Hickenlooper won reelection. With a presidential year voting demographic and a GOP candidate who enrages minority voters and puts off the moderate swing voters who fell for Gardner’s schtick the GOP has no chance.
Believe me, if you lived in Denver County or Arapahoe or Adams you’d see plenty of Democratic volunteers. They’ve been coming round my door and calling repeatedly. That’s where the Democratic votes are. Even if Chafee county was well organized, how many votes are there? You can get out more voters in Capitol Hill than in that county. How many people are living in Salida & Johnson Village? Organizing such rural counties should be done, but it’s expensive and there aren’t many Democratic voters there so it’s not particularly cost effective, like sieving sea water for gold. There’s gold dissolved in sea water, but not much of it per gallon.
I agree more should be done in rural areas, but that’s why it’s not being done.
Well, Obama thought it was worthwhile to staff an office in Chaffee County, and he turned the county red to blue in 2012. Even if he hadn’t, increasing the vote for Obama in the state, if even by a few thousand votes, counterbalances the Republican votes coming in from other rural areas. Furthermore, Bennet won by a very slim margin, so Obama’s efforts likely helped down ticket.
So update on the above. Early voting in NV suggests that history will repeat and for the 5th consecutive election (2008, 10, 12, 14, 16) Latino votes will far exceed polling estimates and result in large swing to the Democrats. Once that is factored in Clinton is up to 274 votes in safe states. Still have some rational worry that angry white states like WI, PA, or MI – with the help of some shenanigans from their GOP governments – could surprise for Trump. But for now the Blue Firewall is back to a majority.
Agree, and I think MI, WI, and PA are very safe, too.