sounds like don's significant other wandered into the room and chose to comment.

Who is the real Don Harris of Voucher Vendetta fame?

perhaps he's hiding behind a guy fawkes mask?

A man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world.
~v for vendetta

As someone that is not Don Harris that somehow managed to log on in his name, I think Elizabeth's suggestion is a GREAT idea.

What are you saying? That there is an imposter here? Who is the real Don Harris of Voucher Vendetta fame?

And, what did you mean by 'GREAT' ... ?

What I think is that you are bending over backwards to give the fever swampees the benefit of the doubt which (in my opinion) they have not earned.

Why do you bend over backwards?

Partly because you are nice, or want to be nice. Compassionate, etc. Laudable. Partly because, if your goal is to open dialogue, it helps to not attack the person you want to engage. That's pragmatic and I understand it perfectly. It's not my purpose here, but I understand the utility of sheathing the claws at such times.

The condescension part comes in when, putting your niceness and pragmatism aside, you essentially give these folks a pass for being, or supporting, horrible people who do horrible things. Your reasoning (as I saw it) is that they have some genuine problems that are not being addressed. We should ignore their tone and focus on the underlying complaints.

I see "ignoring their tone" as a form of infantilization -- like we're the Moms listening to the toddlers have tantrums. In point of fact, that's a lot what they act like, only they aren't toddlers. They are adults. And there are enough of them, partly because they went unchallenged for so long, that they can wreak serious havoc on the country.

Throughout the last several years people like me have been saying "the tone" on the right is dangerous and will lead to bad things. Many, many people made every excuse they could muster to avoid saying what is true: there is a batch of Americans who have actively or passively supported extreme, violent, demeaning, nasty words, acts, politicians, media figures, religious figures, etc.

We had the back and forth over the Planned Parenthood fraudulent video which has not only lead to harmful legislation by Republicans in various states, it has also lead to various outbreaks of violence.

So my point is, you can be just as nice as you wish to be to fever swampees, individually or collectively, but do not let that obscure the fact that what they say and support is malignant. It's a form of "not taking them seriously", which is both condescending and a mistake.

Thanks for that definition; I'm not sure I was aware of that phrase.

@Paula [#30]

I don't see where I either referred or implied that Mr. Trump's supporters were "pawns" or rubes or otherwise condescended to them. I may be blind to my own smugness, but I just don't see it in those remarks.

"It was a little joke, sir."
-Ensign Chekov, STAR TREK, The Trouble With Tribbles

:D

Michale

aquino>marcos
thatcher>blair
merkel>schroder
gandhi>desai
meir>everyone since

JL

33% Of Democrats say they will vote for Trump in the General....

Michale

QED

"Because he's a man"

:D

Michale

aquino, thatcher, merkel, gandhi, meir.

QED

JL

Just let me tweak that a little..

. "Because he's a man and she's a woman".. are also invalid without rock hard evidence to back those claims up.

There... :D

Michale

that's what i thought paula meant. yes, there are many people with perfectly valid reasons for choosing the republican candidate. there are also quite a few people doing so for invalid reasons. "Because he's a man and she's a woman" is what i would term an invalid reason. because hillary is "evil" or trump "insane" are also invalid without rock hard evidence to back those claims up.

there are plenty of people on both sides who inhabit the fever swamps, so to speak. it just happens that people of that mindset (again, both parties) seem to focus their conspiracies on clinton more than any of the other candidates.

JL

If Hillary is so good and Trump is so bad, why is the race so close???

Michale

And they think the exact same thing about YOUR opinions..

What makes them wrong and you right??

THAT'S the point...

Their opinions are just as valid as your opinions..

Once you are on board with that, it is the beginning of wisdom..

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom. Not the end."
-Captain Spock

Michale

You got it wrong Chris :-) It is Scenario #3 minus AZ, IA and NC

And also:

Also, Chris, FL is the new OH.

Doug -

OK, I could see your #3 minus AZ, IA, NC. Would put Clinton at 326 EV. Sounds plausible.

As for FL, note that in the WP maps, every path to victory for the GOP led through Ohio.

Just sayin'....

-CW

I'm thinking that Don would be a great candidate for a guest column ...

I've often wondered the same thing myself. If I write in "Mickey Mouse" or "Zippy The Pinhead" for president, is my vote counted? Is it thrown out? Is my whole freakin' BALLOT thrown out?

One of these days, I'll ask my local registrar that question...

-CW

Sadly, I have not yet seen Civil War yet ... so, you are going to have to contain yourself until I do see it, just as soon as I can ... I don't want to see any spoilers around here, inadvertently!

Can't wait to talk all about it!

I think all states need to end the madness that is "split primaries". CA tried this for a few cycles, moved its presidential primary up in the line, but kept June 7 for all other primary contests. It wastes an ENORMOUS amount of money to do it this way, all for the comfort of the state legislators. Each state should only hold ONE primary, period.

Hmmph.

-CW

1) Excellent point. Well said.

2) Also an excellent point.

3) Good point -- you don't hear ANYone saying in this election that "you can't tell the difference between them, it doesn't matter who I vote for." I have heard that in varying degree for a LOT of past elections (the worst was probably 2000, and look what happened). But, as the techies say, the GOP has certainly been "disrupted" this time around. Dems too, but not to the same degree.

As for your final point, I've got a welcome surprise for you in the next few days...

:-)

TheStig [24] -

"The Caped Prognosticator"... I like it!

Heh.

[25] -

Cats are very helpful creatures. They love helping out all around the house!

Heh.

OK, taking another break.

In case you all missed it, today's article (WV prediction) is now up! Liveblogging returns in the comments...

-CW

Paula [1] -

I think the GOP GOTV effort will be forced upon Trump's campaign whether he wants it or not. I think it may even operate as a semi-independent entity from the Trump campaign. If Trump isn't prepared to do the nuts and bolts campaign stuff, I think the party will do it for him in the hopes of avoiding a slaughter in Congress. I could be wrong, though...

That PJOR quote was pretty funny -- I've always thought he was a pretty funny guy...

nypoet22 [2] -

Good point. The people who will decide this election haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention to it, so far. Scary, but true.

Michael [9] and Don Harris [11] -

"Strong words. Strong... poorly pronounced words, from a large dog."

-"Nancy Grace" character in SNL Scooby Doo sketch with Rob Lowe as Shaggy.

Heh. Couldn't resist.

Search for "Scooby Doo Rob Lowe" to find the video if you haven't seen it (it's hilarious).

TheStig [15] -

I actually like the 270ToWin maps, because they're exactly what I've been looking for for a while now. A trinary map (red/blue/grey) where you can change the states at will. Also, you can link to the site, link to just the map (png file) or embed their version of the link. Or just (as I've done) download the map and resize it as needed.

I hear you about the 7-color maps, though. When I get to the Electoral Math series, a 7-color map is precisely what I'll be looking for.

As for individual states, I threw UT in there from anecdotal stories of how hated Trump is among Mormons. I tossed AR in because Clinton could count it as a "home state" although I think the odds are pretty long it'll help her much. I think VA's shifted for good towards the blue, just like I think CO and NM have. I could be wrong, though.

John M [19] -

"The Ferengi have taken over the ship!"

Now there's a quote whose time has come...

Heh.

OK, I'm going to post this now so I can go check results. More later...

-CW

But I stand by "fever swampees", which I will define for this thread as people who think Trump is credible presidential candidate.

People have a right to their points of view -- I do not have to respect them. I don't have to love them, like them or excuse them. I must not be violent towards them, or pass laws to hurt them, or suppress their votes. However I can hope that they don't bother to vote if I think their choice would be disastrous. It's just a passing hope. I can put it out in the ether and watch it float away.

I can also take these people at their word. You present these folks as victims who have been mistreated in various ways, who are frustrated with the system, etc. You then make the leap that I won't make, which is to excuse them for swimming in the fever swamp and trying to drown the rest of us in it. They have, presumably, at least normal intelligence and are capable of making decisions. Their decisions have been to embrace a host of horriblenesses.

I don't dispute the reality of the problems that they struggle with, about which I am very sympathetic. I dispute their conclusions about the causes of the problems and the solutions to the problems. I dispute their tendency to see themselves as the only legitimate sufferers while everyone else's beefs are poppycock. I reject their acceptance of wholesale and continuous dishonesty by their leaders. I do not consider them helpless pawns in the hands of those who would exploit them; they are willing pawns. I believe their leading figures have failed in about fifty different ways, but those who follow them made the decisions to do so.

Why do they choose to follow the likes of a Trump? Ultimately I would argue your position is one of condescension: they don't know any better. They've been fooled. They're misguided. It follows that we, who are smarter, less gullible, etc. must set them right.

To me it's a greater mark of respect to call them out for their terrible choices than to act as though they weren't capable of making those choices.

I think there is a big distinction to be made between respecting people's right to exist, to hold their own opinions, to have a fundamental value as human beings, etc. -- and respecting their actual opinions. Fever swampees' opinions' are nasty, foolish and ignorant.

I agree a shake-up has some merit. But I prefer the Sanders' shake-up, which is about ideas, to the Trump shake-up, which is about tribalistic, glory-in-my-ignorance, bullying domination. There may be value in Trump letting the ugliness out of the closet but I'm not sure -- to some degree it legitimizes the ugliness and I don't see that as constructive. However it is always good to know what people actually think and feel.

The wife and I are watching CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR as I type this...

I am hoping you have seen it because you and I will have a **LOT** to talk about... :D

Michale

"All of these predictions I'm making are done before I've looked at a single state-level poll. I wanted to just give free rein to my gut feeling (if that isn't too mixed-up a metaphor) and see what the maps looked like. Later this year, we'll be starting up our usual "Electoral Math" series of columns which will examine in great detail the numbers coming out of all the states, but for now this was all done without any state data at all."

:-)

-CW

If the General election turns out to be like every other General election, then you will likely prevail in your assessment..

But it's unlikely that this will be a General like any other...

Michale

TheStig regrets the error and is looking into which hotkey posts messages...and all this time I've been blaming my cat!

RE -16

The Predictwise tabulation I cited was from mid March. Rothschild has since updated his state by state table, and the generic Democrat is now given a 72% chance of getting 279 or more electoral votes. This in line with Betfair, PredictIT, bookies, HyperMind and Rothchild's aggregate prediction factoring in all the above.

Another way of looking at the rank order model: Clinton has roughly a 25% chance of winning All the battleground states, or the electoral equivalent including some rather unlikely pick-offs in weaker Republican states

"...it is easy to see the monstrous advantage any Democratic candidate for president now enjoys, and it's a lot easier to see a very wide and gentle path to victory for Hillary Clinton." - CW, the Caped Prognosticator

I have agree with CW. Not inevitable to be sure, but Clinton remains a strong favorite, Trumps Hostile Take of Republicans INC. notwithstanding.

The Predictwise tabulation I cited was from mid March. Rothschild has since updated his state by state table, and the generic Democrat is now given a 72% chance of getting 279 or more electoral votes. This in line with Betfair, PredictIT, bookies, HyperMind and Rothchild's aggregate prediction factoring in all the above.

Another way of looking at it: Clinton can win without

"...it is easy to see the monstrous advantage any Democratic candidate for president now enjoys, and it's a lot easier to see a very wide and gentle path to victory for Hillary Clinton." - CW, the Caped Prognosticator

I have agree with CW. Not inevitable to be sure, but Clinton remains a strong favorite, Trumps Hostile Take of Republicans INC. notwithstanding.

Bravo!!

{STANDING OVATION}

You sound just like me.. Which is the highest praise I can bestow on anyone! :D heh

Seriously, though.. Everyone here, myself included, should strive for such an even-handed and objective perspective....

Well said, sir. I salute you....

Michale

Good point... Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Trump IS a Ferengi... :D

Michale

My hope is that fever-swampees won't get to the polls in large numbers...

1) We liberal-types need to stop referring to Mr. Trump's supporters as some kind of low-quality Americans. This smug liberal attitude is just as uncivil and arrogant as anything we might accuse conservative opponents of. (See also http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism.) These are real people with real perspectives who want a better life. If you met them individually you may discover useful perspectives to contend with. We may have to wade through some ugly sentiment to get to good things from it, but there is real pain. I may disagree with how some of those people pursue change but I respect that they have a point of view and I don't assume that every or even most of his supporters are necessarily low-information, racist, or whatever pejorative one might consider labeling them as. They are our countrymen and women and if we want to change the present culture of politics, let's start with ourselves.

2) I want everyone to vote, not just the people that agree with me. The hope that only your side turns up is the first step toward suppressing votes. If I had the time, resources, etc., I would happily drive each one to the polls. I might want to argue with them the whole way there, but I completely want everyone who wants to vote to vote and be counted.

3) I've said it before: the candidacy of Mr. Trump is good for America in key ways. Not the outlandish and ugly rhetoric, but the fact that it upsets the apple cart. American politics has been in a rut and zero-sum game for several elections and some creative destruction, some disruption to the normal order of where national politics has been stuck is sorely needed. Now I may strongly not want a President Trump to be inaugurated, but I acknowledge that candidate Trump is changing the conversation: no more dog-whistles, no more ideologically-slavish positions, no more dual-party hegemony. Frankly, I'm more worried that Trump may run to the left of Secretary Clinton and disrupt the Democrats, but I can't say that I minded that Sen. Sanders did so.

Paula, I love that you do the biopics on people who meet. I think those voices -- Democratic, Republican, and otherwise -- need more attention given the horse-race coverage we get right now in the media. I'm tired of politics as sport or gladiators' arena. Trump and Sanders speak to a frustration, as did the tea party, that is wrong to ignore and demands answers from our political leadership regardless of ideology. Let's not disparage that voice just because of its tone, but instead try to bring it into the conversation constructively. And let's not call them names or hope they don't vote. That is the opposite of civility.

"But good always triumphs over evil... :D

"It's been my experience that evil triumphs unless good is very very careful"
-Dr Leonard McCoy, STAR TREK, Omega Glory"

In the case of Trump, I think perhaps one of the many Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition is more appropriate:

Rule # 48 "The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife." "Rules of Acquisition" (DS9 episode)

OR

Rule # 87 "Learn the customer's weaknesses, so that you can better take advantage of him." Highest Score (DS9 novel)

If ya'all (standard exceptions apply) continue to ignore reality simply because it's not ideologically palatable, ya'all are going to be in for a rough ride between now and November... :D

Michale

Despite all the facts to the contrary.. :D

Michale

Now THAT'S what I am talking about!!! :D

Michale

I suggest that:

Strong D, likely D, lean D, Toss-up, lean R, likely R, Strong R is a reasonable standard. The data supports this (CW usually tabulates this way), as do the commentaries of the people who are commenting on their own over-simplified maps.

Although it doesn't produce maps, I like how the Predictwise blog tabulates probability of a generic Democratic candidate winning individual states. This would make a nice map, with number rather than color fill. (To avoid the cranky spam filter I'll leave it to interested readers, if any, to Google the PW site themselves).

The "Battle Ground States" shown in CW's second map are a pretty good match with States that PredictWise assigns probabilities that are not 1 or zero (Blue or Red locks). Exceptions are Arkansas and Utah, which PW rates as Red state 100% locks and PW does not consider VA anything close to True Blue. In the PW scheme, only 1 state (Ohio) is anything close to a genuine 50-50 toss up. Florida leans Republican and North Carolina leans very Republican. Nevada leans Democratic, and VA, PA, IOWA, WI, CO, WI,NH and MI lean progressively (no pun intended) more Democratic.

The reason I bring this up is that mathematically oriented political scientists know that a good prediction of the probability of winning the election is found by rank ordering the states by probability, and assigning the probability of winning the electoral college the same probability as the state putting the EV count at or over 270. The probability can be a decimal fraction, or qualitative. This is an excellent sanity check you can make between the map you are showing an the ultimate prediction the mapmaker puts in the text. It surprises me how the commentary isn't consistent with the map.

For the record, applying the rank ordered model to the PredictWise state by state models results in a 67% chance of a generic Democratic Win. This a bit less than the Prediction Markets, or the more complicated prediction models are currently showing. This is because the simple rank ordered model assumes all elections are all "wave elections," which is only approximately true.

If Trump has fundamentally altered the rules of the general election game, than none this matters, but I doubt he has. General elections are lot less complicated than primaries, especially when primaries start with 12 aspirants.

Hillary couldn't lead anyone out of a paper bag...

Michale

Michale

Michale

"It's been my experience that evil triumphs unless good is very very careful"
-Dr Leonard McCoy, STAR TREK, Omega Glory

:D

Michale

I disagree.. According to all available facts, Clinton WILL be indicted. The only question is whether or not it will be by the Dept Of Justice or the Court of Public Opinion..

And it WILL end Clinton's campaign.. Or more accurately, it will end the chances of a SUCCESSFUL campaign..

Are you honestly saying that an indicted Clinton can still win??

for better or worse, hillary clinton *IS* strong. and that is the part y'all can't believe.

Oh, I agree.. Clinton IS strong..

She is Emperor Palpatine strong... She is Josef Stalin strong... She is Adolph Hitler strong...

But good always triumphs over evil... :D

Michale

even if someone is indicted, it won't be clinton, and it won't end clinton's campaign. should someone high up like abedin be indicted it could be damaging, but still not enough to sway the election either way. whether clinton loses or wins it will be due to the ability of her opponent to garner votes for himself, not tear hers down.

for better or worse, hillary clinton *IS* strong. and that is the part y'all can't believe.

JL

Trump STOMPS Hillary with the military vote...

msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/wall-street-says-clinton-is-next-president-661132355889

Hillary Clinton is the choice of Wall Street...

A vote for Trump is a vote for a strong America..

A vote for Clinton is a vote for Wall Street...

Can't make it any simpler than that....

Michale

The Democrat Party's only chance is to have Biden parachute in to save the day....

Even then, it will still be an ESTABLISHMENT Candidate against the ANTI-Establishment Candidate...

And the ESTABLISHMENT will lose...

Michale

Trump *IS* strong..

That's the part ya'all just can't believe....

And it's that strength that attracts voters and is caused hundreds of thousands of Democrats to flip over to the GOP...

Michale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5VYSPsoE0

Once you get past the intro... it is all worth it. I promise many sage words are to be had.

Now if only he would do a non comedy based show....

But it's nice to be optimistic occasionally because the possibility of a Trump win is so dire. My hope is that fever-swampees won't get to the polls in large numbers, but we'll see how things start to shape up going forward. On our side stark alarm can be even more motivating than idiotic chauvinism.

the trouble with fever swamps is that there are a lot more people living in them than we'd like to believe possible. this past week i overheard a middle-aged firefighter say he wouldn't vote for "some broad" - he actually used the word BROAD. i had to check my clock to make sure it hadn't wound back sixty years. two of my teenage male students - one african american and the other latino - both said they wanted trump to win because they thought he was strong.

there are a ton of people out there who live in that universe, so i'm loath to minimize its existence or its influence. one can hope that it's a modest amount, but i for one am not even going to begin to count chickens until a democrat is inaugurated.

JL

One of the big tells for me in the next month or two is going to be reports on what kind of machine the Donald is constructing for GOTV, etc.

Reince Priebus appears prepared to offer what structural support he can but Trump's operation will have to handle the other end of this. I can imagine him getting wrapped up in the trappings of the convention (his coronation), but the real story will be what's happening around the country. Especially if the usual suspects on the Repub side don't want to pony up the dough.

Trump's been all about media so far, but, was with incessantly running campaign commercials, I think saturation can become a real problem for him. People tune that stuff out after awhile -- the mailers have to arrive, the GOTV phone calls, the people knocking on doors, the yard signs -- to undergird the TV/Radio/Web presence.

He also has the problem of needing to drastically change his approach in order to appeal to anyone outside the fever swamps and, so far, he shows no interest or capacity for doing so. Without that I don't think it will matter what he does in terms of media or machine, he's going to lose.

Hillary needs to stay smart. Maybe she'll get advice from Obama? (This assumes she's the nominee and not Sanders, which, of course, isn't a done deal yet.) Overall I think she's been doing quite well given the various obstacles she's been confronted with. Trump's misogyny against Hillary (and Elizabeth Warren) is not playing well in the wider world. If you want to diffuse people's desire to vote for the first female president, you don't make her gender an issue. I'm seeing lots of "anecdotes" online about women who have hated Hillary but are now intending to vote for her because Trump has been such a pig, in addition to a dishonest, bombastic ignormamus. We'll see, but it wouldn't surprise me. As P.J. O'Rourke said the other day, Hillary may be wrong about everything (in his view, not mine) "but she's wrong within normal parameters".

If Trumpy helps Hillary win, the woman so hated for so long by Republicans, well, irony isn't strong enough of a word!