politics

Election Day: Vote

513 Comments

Tomorrow is US Election Day. The current agony will soon be over. We can’t know what agony is to follow.

As I mentioned: I’m voting for Garry “What’s a leppo?” Johnson. Reasons:

  • I think both Hillary and Donald are horrible.
  • There is no point in agonizing which is the lesser of two weevils. Hillary is the weevil who will get Illinois electoral votes no matter who I vote for.
  • Third party candidates will have an easier and less expensive route to the 2020 ballot if they get sufficient votes. I want this to happen.

So, all things considered I think the best use of my vote is to try to improve the chances a 3rd party will get automatic placement on the ballot in future races. I may not achieve that, but it seems worth a shot.

Meanwhile, the other thread is over 900 comments. So, I suggest switching conversation on Tomorrow’s election here.

513 thoughts on “Election Day: Vote”

  1. It’s starting to look clearer to me now that Hillary’s got this in the bag. Most of the polls I see today show her up between two (2) and four (4) points. RCP no longer shows Trump leading in New Hampshire, and 538 shows Trump sliding below 50/50 odds in Nevada, Florida, and North Carolina. Couple this with the DNC ‘get out the vote’ organization and HRC ought to prevail without much trouble.

  4. SteveF,
    .
    Yup. We won’t know until tomorrow at the earliest. Needless to say, this will not discourage me from casting my vote, irrelevant as it is in determining that Alabama goes to Trump. If I believed in any I’d be praying gods this election doesn’t turn into another dimpled / hanging / partially detached chad circus. It might be close enough that some such circus will ensue.
    .
    Won’t know until tomorrow. But. I gotta base my expectations on something. As Lucia says, it’ll be over soon anyway.

  5. mark bofill (Comment #154744): All this said, the world will not end. We survived eight (8) years of Barack Obama, and we will survive Madam President as well.
    .
    Right, China survived Madam Mao, Russia survived Uncle Joe, Germany survived Adolph, need I go on? But lots of people did not. That’s the alarmist view, and the alarmist view is usually wrong. The lukewarmer view would be that it’s a step in the wrong direction. The real question is whether it be fixed later. Judging by history, don’t count on it for many generations. You can’t rescue Venezuela any more than you can rescue Libya.

  6. Third party candidates will have an easier and less expensive route to the 2020 ballot if they get sufficient votes. I want this to happen.

    lucia,

    I share your inclination that outsiders should get more involved, especially since the parties running the show now seem to be unable to present us with good presidential candidates.

    I think it was inevitable that our system would succumb to corruption, if not diligently policed. Too much like work, I guess. We as a nation have truly have gone soft.

    I hope most people realize we still need to keep it together, and not turn on each other too harshly.

    Andrew

  7. Ledite,
    .

    The lukewarmer view would be that it’s a step in the wrong direction. The real question is whether it be fixed later. Judging by history, don’t count on it for many generations. You can’t rescue Venezuela any more than you can rescue Libya.

    .
    All that be true. I agree with you. ~shrug~
    I did what little I could do this cycle. I’ll keep doing what little I can do in the future. Past that, I try not to dwell on it too much.
    [Edit: BTW, I understood (and hope and imagine everyone understands) that Ledite is using the term ‘lukewarmer’ metaphorically here.]

  8. This has been pointed out on more than one occasion. While Trump seems to change positions on more than one occasion, one thing that he has always been consistent about is his admiration for authoritiarianism .
    Ezra Klein has an interesting article wherein he (mostly) dismisses the economic argument for the rise of Trump

    The belief that Trump is a predictable reaction to acute economic duress crumbled before the finding that his primary voters had a median household income of $72,000 — well above both the national average and that of Clinton supporters.

    and instead points towards social factors (‘browning’ of America), diminishing of gatekeepers and increase in polarization.

  9. I’m not all that impressed by the other candidates. The Libertarian Party has had much more interesting candidates in the past, Harry Browne, for example.

    The government’s War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.

    I’ll likely still vote for Johnson, though, for pretty much the same reasons as lucia. There’s a small chance I might vote for Trump just so I can tell a very liberal friend of mine that I did. Then again, I could just lie about it.

  10. DeWitt,
    “Then again, I could just lie about it.”
    .
    It would just following Hillary’s example, and apropos to tell one of her supporters.

  11. Andrew_KY,
    I don’t merely want “outsiders to get involved”. I want the Libertarian party to be able to have an automatic slot on the ballot. This is a very specific thing.

    I don’t see how having the Libertarians be on the ballot automatically (rather than by having to collect zillions of signatures each time) would make the country more susceptible to corruption. Is that what you are suggesting? What sort of policing of… what are you proposing would be required if they are put on the ballot? (Real Qs. I really don’t know what you are suggesting.)

  12. WRT Senator Franken’s call for hearings on rogue elements in the FBI post election, I would say: Be careful what you wish for. I suspect that being called to testify under oath is exactly what they would want.

  13. lucia,

    I was just making a general statement. I’m not sure I would focus on The Libertarian Party as some kind of solution to something. I think that having more non-establishment types of all stripes getting their arms in the pie can only be beneficial at this point.

    Of course, that would mean the Republican and Democrat party would have to agree to let them play, too. Don’t know how realistic that is.

    Andrew

  14. I’m not all that impressed by the other candidates.

    Indeed DeWitt,

    There is not much point in a third party that can’t present better candidates than the first or second party.

    Andrew

  15. Andrew_KY,

    Of course, that would mean the Republican and Democrat party would have to agree to let them play, too. Don’t know how realistic that is.

    No it doesn’t. If another party gets enough votes, they will be be involved. Agreement from the GOP and DEM would not be required to let them “play”.

    The only issue is whether another party will get enough votes to put themselves in a position where they are in play. If people convince themselves their only choices are to vote DEM or GOP, they won’t. I don’t think that’s my only choice: I’m voting Libertarian. I think more people should vote 3rd party this election especially in states where the electoral votes are a forgone conclusion.

    There is not much point in a third party that can’t present better candidates than the first or second party.

    I suspect the 3rd party candidates will improve if people do start voting for them. Currently, there isn’t much point in a person devoting their time and energy to running as they are pretty sure they can’t win.

    So: I will vote 3rd party. I hope others do to. They likely won’t– but there is a point to voting for them.

  16. Lucia,

    I think more people should vote 3rd party this election especially in states where the electoral votes are a forgone conclusion.

    My state’s electoral vote is certainly a forgone conclusion.
    .
    I’ll think about it.

  17. No it doesn’t.

    If the game were on a even playing field, Trump could have easily ran as an independent or something. The R’s and the D’s have the machinery. I don’t think anyone else does.

    Andrew

  18. Andrew_KY
    We agree the Libertarian’s don’t have machinery this year. The point of voting Libertarian is to help put them in a position to help then build the machinery. The reason that’s important is that the future matters. So there is a point– and an important one– in voting for LIbertarians, provided one supports the notions that (a) the future matters and (b) the existence of a third party would be beneficial.

  21. The nytimes announcement of no new action against Hillary has more than 3,200 comments, most expressing anger at Comey and the FBI, as sample statements demonstrate:

    “Always acting above the law, they now subvert it.”

    “When a law enforcement agency (FBI) influences an election, that’s a police state.”

    “Damage done! Mission accomplished!

    “So the FBI is no longer my FBI. Run by a cadre of hustlers willing to coopt the democratic process for their own selfish ends at the expense of the public.”

    “9 days worth of early voting took place with his original letter in the public discourse.”

    “Yes, from the party that gave you Watergate and Bridgegate comes emailgate.”

    “Mrs. Clinton is the most vetted and cleared politician in all of history. She has been being accused and cleared for 30 odd years now.”

    “Still, better set up a congressional committee to investigate Clinton for a few years just to be on the safe side.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/us/politics/hilary-clinton-male-voters-donald-trump.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

    I can’t find the comment now, but one compared the GOP to Wile E. Coyote. I thought that was pretty funny.

  22. From the rather interesting quotes at the NYT site that Max_OK excerpts, it would seem at least some of our pro-Hillary friends are even more clueless than most people realize.

  24. The FT is not happy reading.

    Before the first world war, people fought hard to expand the powers of parliaments and enshrine constitutions. Afterwards, with startling speed, these things lost their allure.

    Across Europe, many blamed the power of the legislature for society’s woes and wanted to see more power in the hands of a single leader. Parliaments were written off as façades that rubber-stamped what unaccountable lobbies and elites demanded.

    The most striking parallel of all: political parties moved to the extremes and spoke about one another as if they were fundamentally illegitimate. Judiciary and police became politicised. It is this crisis of institutions that provides the most striking parallel between Weimar and the US today.
    ….
    The real problems lie in the dictator’s shadow, in the conditions that enable the leader’s rise. The hollowing out of those basic institutions without which no modern state or society can govern itself, the extremism of political discourse — these things are already with us. And seem set to persist in the US.

  25. RB,

    I will be pleasantly surprised if the next economic crisis, which I expect to see no later than 2020, doesn’t result in what would morph into a populist dictatorship like Argentina or Venezuela.

  26. More analogy than metaphor, but close enough. I do fear that deniers (sometimes including lukewarmers) will be made criminals.
    .
    In a future progressive state, where Google and Facebook know all about you and the FBI is not your friend…
    .
    When certain progressives get in they close the door behind them. Fidel Castro. Robert Mugabe. No precautionary principle here.

  27. Ledite,

    Add Hugo Chavez and likely Daniel Ortega.

    The FBI never was your friend. The best you can hope for is that they never notice you.

  28. Leddite,

    More analogy than metaphor, but close enough. I do fear that deniers (sometimes including lukewarmers) will be made criminals.

    Oh! You mean like ‘Mark is thick as a plank!’.
    …Or is that a simile…
    .
    Deniers made criminals? Well, sure.

    “All criticism is opposition. All opposition is counter-revolutionary.”
    (1992, as quoted in Socialism of Death by John Newhouse in the New Yorker)

  29. So Lucia, (DeWitt, others)

    So: I will vote 3rd party. I hope others do to. They likely won’t– but there is a point to voting for them.

    Sold! You smooth talking devils. Trump doesn’t need my help in Alabama. Why the heck not vote Johnson. I’ll do my part to try to help the Libertarian Party reach minor party status. Not like I’ve got a better use for my vote, and maybe it will help next time around.

  30. Trump does need my help in Florida. A hold-your-nose, lesser-of-evils, kind of help. I suspect it will not matter much, and that the mute button on my remote may well wear out over the next few years. Welcome to the vexing, hectoring, arrogant world of Hillary Clinton.

  31. SteveF,
    .
    Yeah, I’d vote Trump if I lived in FL. As you said earlier, you never know. Until after the election anyway. Then you know. 🙂

  33. RB, I’m skeptical of the poll. The result may be true, but how do they determine people’s income? People answering a poll are likely to exaggerate.

  34. 24 hours until the political commercials end here in FL! The NYT was lamenting today that newspaper revenue will crater once this thing is over.
    Not sure I’m going to be able to withstand all the liberal gloating tomorrow. Perhaps I should go to a prepper’s bunker for a week or two.

  35. West Wing ended with a presidential race coming down to Nevada. Supposedly they were planning to have the Republicans win, but changed their mind after one of the actors died, but that doesn’t make sense given what happens later.

    I thought it was absurd they had Nevada being the deciding state, but now New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida could be called for Trump on the East Coast while Nevada is still voting. Then Trump if Wisconsin and Pennsylvania go to Hillary, it will all come down to Nevada(or New Mexico). Although Trump was trailing in the only Alaska poll.

    Is there any movement by Democrats in Utah to vote for McMullin?Seems like a good way to keep Trump under 270.

  36. MikeN,
    Not winning the electoral college is risky for either side. That throws the choice to congress. Someone said it was the newly elected congress. The house picks the president; the senate the vp.

    As of yesterday, Politico was favoring GOP to keep control of the house and DEMs to get the senate by a narrow margin.

    I read an fun speculation: If McMullin does get votes, and neither trump nor Hillary get 270, he might know he won’t get the GOP to vote him in. BUT he might instruct his electors to vote for Romney or Hatch or someone who they would vote for. Then the House’s choice would be someone well know but not horrible vs. to horribles. Maybe McMullin could be the king maker!

    Obviously this is fanciful on many levels.

    Note also: My dream is Trump wins and then keels over from a heart attack. In that case, I don’t want the Senate to have put a DEM in the VP spot. That would ruin my dream outcome.

  37. Lucia,
    The chance neither reaches 270 is very, very small. Could it happen in theory? Sure. In reality? Not so much. By 11:00 PM central, it will certainly be decided, so you can go to bed relatively early.

  38. hunter (Comment #154912)
    November 7th, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    From the rather interesting quotes at the NYT site that Max_OK excerpts, it would seem at least some of our pro-Hillary friends are even more clueless than most people realize.
    _______

    Hunter, I don’t believe the commenters wrong to suspect the FBI has some bad apples and lacks competence. Anyone who thinks this organization is above suspicion should recall Robert Hansen, the FBI agent who spied for Russian intelligence for 20 years before being arrested. Hansen probably would have been discovered sooner had the Bureau not put him in charge of the investigation, which silly as it sounds, means he was looking for himself.

  39. SteveF,
    Agreed. As I said, fanciful. I think we’ll know no later than close of polls on the west coast and likely before. I’m guessing Clinton with a safe margin.

    The races worth watching will be Senate and some Congressional.

  40. Lucia,
    Sure the Senate matters a lot. The House is unlikely to change hands (and if it did, it would be an economic catastrophe!). The last I saw, it was about 55:45 chance for Republican control of the Senate, but very volatile. If Hillary has control of the Senate for two years, count on a couple of extreme ‘progressive’ SC appointees, under 55 years old, and maybe under 45 years old.

  41. ucia (Comment #154933)
    November 7th, 2016 at 5:04 pm
    MikeN,

    I read an fun speculation: If McMullin does get votes, and neither trump nor Hillary get 270, he might know he won’t get the GOP to vote him in
    ______

    A late survey in Utah shows Mcmullen trailing Clinton by 5 points and Trump by 10. If the survey is right, the best possibility for a Trump defeat is McMullen supporters voting for Clinton. Anything is possible, but I don’t see enough of that happening to beat Trump, nor do I see enough Clinton supporters switching to McMullen.

    “The Trafalgar Group poll has Trump at 39.95 percent, Clinton at 29.52 percent, McMullin at 24.52 percent, and Libertarian Gary Johnson at 3.89 percent. The poll was conducted from November 3 to November 5 and was of 1,352 likely general election voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.67 percent.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/06/mcmullin-hype-trump-ahead-by-ten-percent-in-utah/

  42. MikeN,
    If you look at the 538 link in that article for South Carolina, for example, Clinton/Sanders voters don’t seem to have had any qualms about disclosing substantially lower income than Trump voters.

  43. RealClearPolitics has it 272-266 with Trump down .6 in NH.
    538 moved NH to Clinton up 3.5 when it was under 2 over the weekend, and now has Trump losing FL NV and NC for 215 electoral votes.

    My prediction is Trump wins Iowa, Ohio, NV, FL, Penn, NH, NC, Colo by 1.4, Maine by 1.3, NM by .4, Wisc by .2, lose Mich -.5, Virg by -1.5
    for 317 electoral votes.

  46. RB, if there are other candidates with reports of income, then you have a reasonable comparison. I still think all of the candidates would end up with higher incomes reported than the real number, and higher than the national average.

  47. Max, there is precedent for Democrats to abandon their own candidate for a third party. They did it in Alaska to some extent to get Murkowski reelected, and in Maine, though the Republican Governor still won. Republicans did get Lieberman reelected after he lost his primary.
    However, I’m not sure that McMullin voters prefer Hillary to Trump, at least to the point of flipping Utah. However, Hillary voters might be interested in the possibilities of a split electoral college that might produce president Kaine, with nothing to lose.

  48. One thing I just noticed. Recently got my Obamacare renewal notice for my children’s health insurance several days ago. It went from $287 per month to $425 a month. Bet the Democrats didn’t think about the negative effect of large Obamacare increases close to the election when they enacted Obamacare.

    JD

  49. Lucia: “fun speculation: If McMullin does get votes, and neither trump nor Hillary get 270, he might know he won’t get the GOP to vote him in. BUT he might instruct his electors to vote for Romney or Hatch or someone who they would vote for. Then the House’s choice would be someone well know but not horrible vs. to horribles.”
    .
    That is a terrifying prospect. A president selected in that manner would have no legitimacy. The result could well be massive violence.

  51. MikeM
    I don’t think people would become violent. Many might be grumpy.

    It’s unlikely to happen so we can’t test our respective theories about what would happen.

  52. MikeN (Comment #154944)
    November 7th, 2016 at 6:46 pm

    Max,

    …I’m not sure that McMullin voters prefer Hillary to Trump, at least to the point of flipping Utah. However, Hillary voters might be interested in the possibilities of a split electoral college that might produce president Kaine, with nothing to lose.
    _____

    I don’t know how each group feels about the other’s candidate. A substantial proportion would have to switch in one direction to defeat Trump in Utah.

    If this poll turns out to be correct, Trump will win even though more than one-half (55%) of the State’s voters are against him. GOP candidates usually win by large majority’s in Utah. Apparently, the LDS community is not as Trump tolerant as the evangelicals.

  53. Lucia,
    It won’t happen, fortunately. But if Congress were to select as President someone who did not even run, I would hope that every city in the country gets shut down by massive protests. I would hope it would not become violent, but that would not be likely.

  54. Tom, it was pointed out somewhere that Farage is the most influential British politician in many decades, and he never won a single race or served in the government.

  55. Mike M.,

    But if Congress were to select as President someone who did not even run, I would hope that every city in the country gets shut down by massive protests.

    One: He is running. He’s just not on the ballot in every state. His name is on the ballot in 32 states and he’s an allowed write-in candidate in eleven more.

    Two: I would hope that it would be massive celebrations that we’ve been spared the two major party losers and their nearly equally loser running mates.

  56. No DeWitt, Romney is not running. Neither is Hatch. And why should people celebrate Congress ignoring the voters to select some other loser?

  57. From some posts that I have seen here, it seems that some people think that being able to get on the ballot amounts to a disqualification for the office of President.

  58. I should add that the real problem is not the quality of the candidates. The real problem is twofold: we have placed far too much power in the hands of the federal government and have placed far too much of the federal government’s power in the hands of the President. As a result, the prospect of placing that power in the hands of a flawed individual (i.e., any actual person) has the capacity to inspire terror. So thoughtful people end up deeming most, if not all, candidates unsuitable.

  59. Mike M.

    It’s Evan McMullin that’s running, not Romney. He has a non-zero chance of collecting Utah’s electoral votes. That would make him eligible to be elected President by the House of Representatives in the event that no other candidate receives 270 electoral votes.

  60. The House compromising on a candidate other than Clinton or Trump would no more ignore the choice of the voters than electing either Trump or Clinton. That’s especially true if, as expected, neither Trump nor Clinton receives a majority of the popular vote. Congress would then pi$$ off the majority of voters whoever they elect.

  61. Carrick: Of course, Gallup did poorly in 2012. However, this quote from the article, pretty much aligns with what I have said and goes even further, questioning the qualifications of those doing the polling. ““The difficulty in doing this well has caused major players to not participate. That means there’s even less legitimacy because people who know how to do this right aren’t doing it.”

    JD

  62. The way McMullin could win,
    1) Win Utah
    2) Remaining states split, sending to House
    3) Deadlock in House
    4) Under Constitution, if no decision is reached on Jan 20, then VP become President
    5) Senate chooses VP during House deadlock
    6) The prospect of having the other party get the presidency breaks the deadlock, and the side that doesn’t get VP picks McMullin.

  63. JD Ohio, I don’t think polling science is that bad. (Gary Wong prefers the state-level polls to predict the outcomes.) But like I said…we’ll see tomorrow!

  64. Mike M. (Comment #154968)
    ” it seems that some people think that being able to get on the ballot amounts to a disqualification for the office of President.”
    All the qualities needed for getting on the ballot amount to a disqualification for being a good guy/lass.
    Becoming Pope, the best guy in the world does not go to some humble,self effacing good guy, even though it should.
    Becoming Pres, the best gal/guy in the free world does not come to nice people either.
    Qualities
    good looking? Well they sure beat their opposition.
    POD ? female, TV star check.
    Able to truthfully tell lies? A requisite.
    I feel Trump is the worst candidate and deserves all your votes, no independents. Somewhere down the line he will go overboard or be thrown overboard for a series of gaffes too many.
    We voted a maverick in locally for a “change” and a different approach”, did it go pear shaped.
    Result a massive increase in candidates and interest in local affairs next council election.
    Try it and see. You will hate it for 4 [or less] years and it will be worth every penny.

  66. MikeN (Comment #154976)
    November 7th, 2016 at 10:36 pm

    The way McMullin could win
    ________

    MikeN, that’s an interesting scenario.

    A lot of Utahans are undecided, so I wouldn’t rule out Mcmullin or Clinton. If wagering, however, I would bet on Trump.

  68. Max,

    The title the article you link appears to say this:

    Trump takes 32-25 lead in New Hampshire after midnight voting

    Now, I don’t for a second believe that this infinitesimal lead indicates that Trump’s going to win New Hampshire. But I hardly see how Trump being ahead 7 votes ‘bodes well’ for Clinton.
    We’re looking at noise with respect to NH.

  69. MikeM
    As long as Congress followed the constitution, I wouldn’t protest in the streets and I should hope others woudn’t either. I don’t think the “McMullin wins gives his votes to someone else who Congress elects” is going to happen. So it’s academic.

  70. Carrick,
    The polling companies say it’s getting harder because of non-response (and nonexistence of) home land lines. I think they also aren’t allowed to call cell phones.

    Whether it’s bad or not.. dunno. But polling improved for a time– mostly due to skill, and now it’s degrading due to non-response by the people they want to poll. It’s also getting more expensive due to non-response.

  71. Well, I voted. (For Johnson, by the way. Still hoping for Thor.)

    In an alternate universe, there’s an election between Johnson and Anthony Weiner. Lots of cheap joke potential.

  72. HaroldW,
    I was a little slow on that one. I suspect that Johnson is a term that has gone out of use, although I’d say that If Nixon were still around …

  74. Back from voting…. Gary Johnson. Voted “for” the lockbox amendment for transportation spending; it’s to prevent money raised for roads to be used for anything else. For consolidating mosquito abatement.

  75. I should add that the real problem is not the quality of the candidates.

    Mike M,

    I agree with most your comment, but I would submit that it’s people that corrupt potentially workable systems, at least initially. Or maybe I should say that a good person can limit the flaws of a bad system, if they have the power to do so. (or a bad person can do the opposite) But yes, gov’t is too big and too powerful. No doubt.

    I voted (Ohio) before coming to work this morning. God have mercy on us.

    Andrew

  76. DeWitt,
    Please read the comments that you reply to. I was replying to a comment of Lucia’s, and I quoted the pertinent part in my reply. So please don’t attribute to me things I did not say.

  78. Andrew KY: “that it’s people that corrupt potentially workable systems”.
    Absolutely correct. A system that would work beautifully in an ideal world can fail miserably in the real world. That is what was so brilliant about the constitution: it was designed to work in the real world. But we have drifted away from the original design, and now we are faced with putting either Trump or Clinton in control of Leviathan.

  79. I voted against Hillary. I elected to burn my vote helping the Libertarian party next cycle.

  81. Several people here have commented on the difficulties of polling in the 21st century. With luck, polling will go extinct. Then maybe political coverage will pay more attention to issues and less attention to the horse race. Note that I said “maybe”; I am not counting on it.

  83. I think it is more of Claudius vs. Lady MacBeth. Claudius was dismissed as a buffoon and dimwit by the inner circle, but brought some real reforms. And Hillary is more of a scary hybrid between Evita and Lady MacBeth. The Lady had no “foundation” to hide behind in her machinations. Evita used her “foundation” to loot Argentina.

  84. Voted in Baltimore. Seemed to me to be low turnout, nothing like 2008 where there were black people out the door and down the block. If blacks don’t show up, I imagine it would help Trump.

  85. Hunter: “Claudius was dismissed as a buffoon and dimwit by the inner circle, but brought some real reforms.”
    I like it.

  86. Nate Silvers final projection shows Hillary about a 3 to 1 favorite. (http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo)
    If Trump holds his leaning states he has to flip Florida and N Carolina to win. Hillary can afford to lose Florida and still win with N Carolina.
    The link of geography and political inclinations is painfully clear in that map. Should Hillary win, will she continue to act like all that red/pink ‘flyover country’ is filled with ‘deplorable’ individuals who should be ignored, or might she consider that there may be good reasons those people don’t much like her policies? Nobody knows, but I would bet on the former.

  89. My polling station was not packed (no line), but all the voting booths were full most of the time I was there. There were no Hillary signs posted anywhere outside, and only a couple of (very small) Trump signs…. nearly all signs were down-ballot contests.

  90. mark bofill (Comment #154990)
    November 8th, 2016 at 6:19 am
    Max,
    The title the article you link appears to say this:
    Trump takes 32-25 lead in New Hampshire after midnight voting.
    ____

    That’s a later report, when a third small place came in. Anyway, these probably were rural locations where Republicans usually do well.

    Before seeing this I didn’t know there was such a thing as midnight voting.

  91. HaroldW (Comment #154997)
    November 8th, 2016 at 7:33 am
    A friend of mine just summarized the election on fb as “Caligula vs. Lady MacBeth”.
    ______

    That’s a good one !

  92. I am from Minnesota.

    Just voted for Gary Johnson.

    Cannot stomach either Hillary or Donald!

    I sure hope Gary Johnson gets major party status and a free berth to the future debates.

  93. SteveF,
    We had lots of poll workers. Our lines did not go out the door. But I’m reporting relative to other years.

    Interestingly, when we got there, there were 10- voter long lines for names starting with all letters other than L-whatever. So… no wait for me. But long line for those whose names started with K!

    Usually, we have no lines at all and the either the minimum or close to the minimum number of pollworkers permissible by law. (I think it’s 3 or 4. If I remember, 3 is the actual minimum, but you need 4 to permit one to take a break for lunch.)

    You definitely are required to have one person from each party in the room at a time. For some reason, they don’t let you say you are independent when volunteering– you have to say Rep or Dem. (Or did when I worked the polls) So if you have three working, that means one person can’t go to the bathroom. Technically.

  94. Lucia,

    There were at least 5 official poll workers at my station (those actually involved in checking ID’s, handing out blank ballots, etc.). There were also a couple of others who may have been ‘party observers’ or may have been extra people to relieve the other 5. And a very old guy who handed you an “I voted” sticker as you walked out the door… plus one police officer.
    .
    One older fellow promptly placed the sticker on the end of his nose and started a profanity filled rant outside the station about what a crook Hillary is, as a much younger woman (his very embarrassed daughter?) tried to walk him back to the car.

  95. Agrippina vs Nero – of course, Nero won that one.

    Coleopterous aside: are those actually weevils? Can’t confirm with their new heads. (Sorry – one of the things I sometimes get paid for is identifying beetles.)

    Good luck America. I’ll find out the result at 7 tomorrow I guess. One advantage of living in the GMT zone.

  97. Jit,
    I don’t know if they are really weevils. I just hotlinked an image. They look enough like weevils to me to parallel the use of the butchered idiom.

  98. I checked poll closing times. Almost all critical swing states close by 8:00 PM Eastern; the outcome should be clear by 10-11 Eastern time.

  100. Went to my polling place this AM and voted for Johnson. Very long lines even well into the morning which is very unusual for our precinct. They had a greeter at the door who would ask if you were registered to vote and on the way out if we had our stickers saying we voted. I told the guy that yeah, yeah I had my sticker but was not proud of it. He turned off his smile and said excuse me, excuse me. I should have quoted from Anonymous that voting only encourages them. Or better from Mencken: “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.”

    My grouchiness stems from the fact that we give the government all this power over our lives and then we dutifully take part in legitimizing this process by parading to the polls were we vote for the lesser of evils and the pundits aggrandize those who carried out their duty to vote and never mind what motivates these voters or how the politicians attempt to motivate the voters.

    Lucia, we had the alphabet lines also and our line was 4 times longer than the other. I asked a polling judge if the binders at our table had all the names or just those in the alphabet divide and she said all tables had all the register voter names. We always have mostly older people as poll workers and one older one at our table was taking deep breaths and I was concerned and asked her if she were looking for a second wind. She told me she was ok but was frustrated by some secondary sorting of voters that they were doing. I think that these older people who volunteer were prepared for the past years where the voting process was very much laid back and slower paced.

    I recall a voting day a few years back when a neighbor lady who has the same last name as I do was in the line behind of me and the poll judge remarked to the neighbor (kiddingly, since he lived in the neighborhood also) that he did not realize that we were living apart. The lady went into great detail how we lived in the same precinct and had an uncommon last name but were not related in any manner or form. The judge thought it was funny and I did also, but the lady was rightfully concerned that others within earshot were not aware of the situation and might get the wrong take on things. This year when a poll worker asked if I had voted I told her I had and was waiting for my wife to finish. When I asked her if I could vote again she did not appear to think that request was funny. I guess I am learning at an advanced age that voting is a serious business.

  101. hunter,
    Claudius was a good idea, but Trump is a little different. Claudius knew what he was doing. He was trying to disguise his intelligence.

    I say this because I feel, possibly in error, that Trump has no idea how a lot of the things he says off the cuff impress people who aren’t already sold. I doubt Trump has any reason to disguise his intelligence. If he does, what do you think the reason might be?

  102. An aside, something to ponder while you wait… Martin Luther was against corruption in the church. Pay-to-pray in modern-speak. He had a point, but the troubles that caused! centuries of brutal violence and wars. Oh, for a political system that resolves disputes justly without violence. We’ve come a long way but not nearly far enough to be safe from human nature.

  104. SteveF mentioned poll workers checking ID. No ID checking at my polling station — you give your address, the poll worker turns to the correct page and asks your name. If you can read upside down, it would be no trouble at all to vote under someone else’s name. [Of course, when that person comes to vote later there will be a lot of consternation, but I don’t think anything can be done at that point.]

  105. j ferguson: “I doubt Trump has any reason to disguise his intelligence. If he does, what do you think the reason might be?”
    .
    If Trump were not highly intelligent, he would not be where he is. I think that your confusion comes from two things. One is that Trump is not trying to impress people with how intelligent he is. He is much more concerned with communicating that he understands the concerns, and even outrage, of much of the population and that he is tough enough to do something about it. The other factor is that intelligence is a very different thing from erudition. Trump is certainly not erudite.

  106. Kenneth Fritsch: “My grouchiness stems from the fact that we give the government all this power over our lives and then …”
    Indeed. So lets start taking power from the government. Not a bad reason to vote for Johnson, as you did. But I figure that the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. Hillary can’t wait to get her hands on the shovel, so I voted for Trump. He might or might not win my state (NM).

  109. RB,
    “Unfortunate that Trump was booed”
    .
    Well, I expect that if Hillary was voting in Alabama, she might also get booed. My experience is that New Yorkers in the city are, shall we say, not shy about treating those they disagree with with no respect.

  110. Interesting convergence of thoughts from two sides of the political spectrum:

    Liberal leaning journalist:

    It shows how quickly fascism and racism can cut deep into society, exposing many sacrosanct beliefs as just hollow conveniences

    Bret Stephens in WSJ:

    That moral clarity and moral equivalence have become interchangeable concepts in today’s GOP….
    What isn’t normal is the ease with which so many conservative leaders, political and intellectual, have prostrated themselves before Mr. Trump simply because he won….
    Where are those thinkers now ….
    They are busy devising ever-more elaborate excuses for the Republican nominee. A flawed messenger for a worthy message.

  111. Our poll workers don’t check ids. In our system, we sign when we register. Our signatures are on the registration forms. We sign, two poll workers compare and if they agree our signature matches, we vote.

    It is certainly true that a person might hypothetically know what someone’s signature looks like, practice signing it, come in, give that name, forge than vote. It might work; possibly happens some places.

  112. Based on what we know as to how team Clinton pays people to disrupt Trump events, I would put 0 significance into Trump being booed in NY, except that team Trump should have thought to fill the space with his supporters.

  113. SteveF:

    My experience is that New Yorkers in the city are, shall we say, not shy about treating those they disagree with with no respect.

    Yup. Take the native New Yorker Donald Trump as an exemplar of that statement. 😉

    RB: Florida’s a good example of where they play a roll..

  114. With all respect to those who vote for the minor candidates, I would say that you are completely kidding yourselves if you think either party will get anything close enough to be considered “major”. All that is done in voting for Johnson, or the Utah candidate, or even the Green Party is to make it more likely that Hillary takes control. And that in helping the Clinton coalition take power, you have helped something very new and very negative for all of our futures to take power.

  115. lucia:

    The polling companies say it’s getting harder because of non-response (and nonexistence of) home land lines. I think they also aren’t allowed to call cell phones.

    Actually some of them do. Pew Research does it. Nate Silverman has a nice summary here of “rated pollsters”, showing which use cells or internet for their surveys.

  116. Lucia,

    We have to sign as well as produce a State issued ID (usually a driver’s license) showing address. The State issued ID also has your signature and your photo on it, and is covered with holographic imaging. So unless someone forges a State issued ID pretty well, and then registers to vote, voter fraud is not likely.

  117. Hunter,

    All that is done in voting for Johnson, or the Utah candidate, or even the Green Party is to make it more likely that Hillary takes control.

    I thought this too at first. It’s not so.
    .
    Alabama goes to Trump. If there is any certainty to be had at all with respect to the Electoral results, D.C., California, New York and Illinois will go to Clinton. With similar confidence, Alabama goes to Trump.
    .
    My vote for Trump in Alabama would have accomplished nothing. The state is already his. Rather than waste my vote in a meaningless token gesture of support, I figured it’d be better to help push to increase the odds of minor party status for Libertarian down the line.
    .
    Whether or not this libertarian goal will accomplish anything is beside the point. My failure to vote for Trump in Alabama did not help Hillary, that’s just false.

  118. SteveF, Lucia,
    .
    Yeah, I had to show my drivers license. Twice, actually. It wasn’t crowded at my polling station, although almost all of the booths were in use. Nice and orderly all in all. I think 3-4 poll workers present.

  120. Carrick,
    “Take the native New Yorker Donald Trump as an exemplar of that statement. ”
    .
    There are lots of exemplars… like current mayor DeBlasio.

  121. hunter

    All that is done in voting for Johnson, or the Utah candidate, or even the Green Party is to make it more likely that Hillary takes control. And that in helping the Clinton coalition take power, you have helped something very new and very negative for all of our futures to take power.

    This is untrue. My vote only counts in Illinois, which she will take. Period. My vote isn’t goign to make it one bit more or less likely she will win Illinois. Period.

    As for the national election: She will either be president or not. My vote for Johnson isn’t going to affect whether she wins Florida, NV, NH or any of the close states. My vote will not give her one iota more “power” than she would otherwise get.

    I didn’t suggest the Libertarian party would become “major”. Only that I would like it to get enough votes to be placed automatically on the ballot. It doesn’t need to be “major” to get there. It can remain minor– but with sufficient votes to get on the ballot automatically.

    Looking to the future, I think this is a very good thing. Those who think differently can use their votes differently.

  122. Hunter: “I would say that you are completely kidding yourselves if you think either party will get anything close enough to be considered “major”.”
    .
    The point is to get official party status, which would give them federal funding and, in many states, automatic ballot access. That takes something like 5% support. That would be an essential step in building a party that actually matters. But the Libertarians do not actually seem serious about that, so even if they get official status this cycle, they will lose it next cycle. So in the long run, a vote for Johnson is rather pointless. But then, as others have pointed out, in many states the outcome is already known so it really does not matter.

  124. I seldom see people (other than myself of course :/ ) indulge in such silliness on the BlackBoard:

    Trump essentially admitting defeat in Nevada

    He’s done no such thing. Challenging a polling station that may be bending the rules isn’t ‘essentially admitting defeat’, that’s really reaching.
    .
    Not enough that Hillary is 3-4 points ahead and is the clear favorite to win huh. One might suspect there is more uncertainty here in some people’s hearts than they admit to.
    .
    I wish I had more uncertainty about the outcome!

  127. RB,
    .
    No, my uncertainty is way better than yours! WAAYY BETTER!
    .
    Ehm. Sorry. That didn’t help brighten my day as much as I hoped it would.
    .
    [Edit: Actually, I really wish I thought Trump had a chance. I’m really pretty sure he doesn’t.]

  128. RB, the lawsuit over the polls staying open late wasn’t even close. This was an obvious case of the poll following Nevada law by staying open.

    And the optics are terrible on this one—it looks like an attempt from the Trump to suppress the Latino vote.

    Challenging a polling station that may be bending the rules isn’t ‘essentially admitting defeat’, that’s really reaching.

    They weren’t bending the rules, they were following the rules.

    Nevada voting laws require polling stations to stay open if there are people waiting in line to vote at the scheduled closing time.

    It’s my impression this is true in most statesz—if you arrive before the polls close, they have to accomodate you, even if it takes several hours for the queue to clear. What would be illegal would be to allow any additional person, who arrived after closing time, to vote.

  129. Held my nose today and voted for Trump (about 2:30). Several observations.

    1. It started lightly raining at about 1:30. Moderate turnout at my historically Republican city, that might be a little bit socially liberal.
    2. Happy they asked for driver’s license as ID. They said a utility bill would also work. (Have some issues with that, but it is OK)
    3. Typically, I get a Republican candidate list before the election, but I didn’t get one this year thanks to Trump’s failure to cooperate with local candidates. There was a Republican at the polls and got a skimpy, not well done barely serviceable list.
    4. Very surprised that the Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice had no opposition on the ballot. (Probably helped that the Chief is a woman)
    5. There was a City Charter Amendment on the ballot with no explanation. The Amendments were included on 18 pages of legislation with cross-outs and inserts added. Totally incomprehensible. Voted against.
    6. Voted for a Democratic County Recorder who has done a good job. Am always conflicted in these situations because the good Democrats, when push comes to shove, always side with the National Party’s agenda.

    …..
    7. Ran into my Councilman at the polls (He is an Indian by ethnicity.) We get along well, and I helped him a little when he unseated an incumbent this spring. He is the lone voice against new apartments in our city and seems a little unsure of himself. I told him I can give him my legal input and real estate background inputs. He was eager to meet me for lunch and get my thoughts. Hopefully, this remark will offend some snowflakes and maybe I can use my interactions with my councilman to offend snowflakes in the future.

    JD

  130. Carrick,
    .
    I didn’t mean to imply that I thought the rules were getting bent. And pretty clearly it is intended to suppress a vote thought to be unfavorable to Trump. I just objected to the idea that this is ‘admitting defeat’.
    Thanks though.

  131. NYT: Can the Media Recover From This Election?
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/arts/television/after-this-election-can-the-media-recover.html
    Chuck Todd: Comments on the media
    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/analysis-election-day-arrives-plenty-blame-go-around-n679356
    As one would expect the NYT learned all the wrong lessons. Anytime I hear them say “no false equivalence”, I hear “left, biased, and opinionated”. Todd points out that if the media got out of their bubble, they might have seen Trump coming. They just had 8 months to be out of the bubble if they wanted, and mostly chose not to. Why would they start doing it next week?
    No mention that >90% of journalists will vote against Trump, (probably closer to 98%) and how that could affect the coverage. This statement from the NYT is a bit perplexing: “…I would add that a more diverse press corps would have been less likely to deflect so much of the overt racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism on the campaign trail as “economic anxiety.””. I’m pretty sure they got that message out, in spades. Daily.
    Were Trump supporters covered fairly? I don’t think so. I think the above statement reflects their coverage completely. They used constant character assassination as a way to avoid legitimizing any grievance based on progressive principles of globalism and cosmopolitanism and the perfect world they are building for us all. The end result is an all time low for media trust. Naturally that requires no introspection on their part when the fault lays with racists and sexists.

  132. Voted for Johnson. The ballot was very short: President, Congressman, state senator (unopposed) and state representative.

    There were only two other people ahead of me, both in the L-R line. But that’s par for the course for me. If I have a choice and pick a short line, there’s always someone ahead of me that will have some sort of problem and take forever.

  133. RB,
    .
    Sorry. Nerves. Clearly I *do* have a lot of uncertainty regardless of my protestations to the contrary. (I think) I’ve got a strong rational belief that Trump will lose, and a powerful irrational hope that he pulls it out somehow.
    .
    Just a few more hours, it’ll all be over soon.
    🙂

  135. Carrick,
    Trump definitely looks terrible lodging that NV lawsuit. The judge is absolutely right to pretty much tell him to stuff it.

    I strongly suspect it’s federal law that the polls have to stay open. This is not a new thing. And requiring them to stay open helps prevent any local community from restricting voting by intentionally creating too few polling stations and/or under-manning them. There are plenty of people who can only vote after work and they should not be disenfranchised because polls closed while they were in line.

    (I always vote in the morning. But that’s not possible for many people.)

  136. In Baltimore, I had to tell them my birthdate, that was all. I signed but didn’t see anyone check the signature.

  137. RB (#155060), mark bofill –
    I’m not so sure about my uncertainty….
    .
    I second Lucia & mark opposing Hunter’s claim that a third-party vote helps Clinton. I vote in Massachusetts, whose electoral vote is a lock for Clinton. [Anyone remember the lone state which went for McGovern in 1972?] At this moment, both major parties are intent on concentrating more power in the government (which I consider a bad trend), and neither seems likely to change that in the future. I think any progress toward reversing this trend will have to come from a smaller party such as the Libertarians. Perhaps they will break through the glass ceiling which (surprise, surprise) has been established by the political Establishment.

  138. The Donald got his Twitter back:

    Just out according to @CNN: “Utah officials report voting machine problems across entire country”

    —-

    The Nevada episode reminds me of this quote from the Onion’s editor :

    “It’s hard to turn up the volume when the speaker is already blown out and everyone’s ears are already bleeding,” the managing editor, Ben Berkley, said.

  139. Weevils have a long and distinguished maritime history summed up so elegantly by Capt. Jack Aubrey in his observation of the “lesser of two weevils.”

    Our experience was with papadums. At one point in our ten years of living aboard, we found a store in NJ which had especially good ones so we bought 8 packs. Since they didn’t need refrigeration we stored them in the microwave on the boat. About six months into this scheme we found them crawling (hard to be sure this is right word) with little insect like creatures which must have been about 1/16 inch long. They left with the papadums and were never again seen, by us at least.

    We’d never seen these guys before and wondered if they’d arrived with the papadums. How about your weevils, SteveF?

  143. j ferguson,
    The weevils (grain weevils) apparently came on board with a box of spaghetti. Since pasta is a convenient boat food (doesn’t spoil, a simple back-up dinner, etc) we usually kept 4 pounds in the cupboard, along with several jars of spaghetti sauce. 4 pounds of pasta can generate an AWFUL lot of weevils, which ended up all over the boat. A real mess. And a lot of vacuuming. I read later that pasta is often contaminated with grain weevils, but you can kill them by freezing the pasta briefly or with a short exposure to microwaves.

  144. The problem with keeping the polls open- Based on exit polling and in some cases released results, the campaign can then go out and send forth for more voters, while the rest of the state is denied voting.

  153. Virginia is shocking the heck out of me. Surely it’s going to even out. I didn’t see any polls suggesting Trump might prevail there.

  155. So, it won’t look like my comments are influenced by who wins tonight, I would like to make this comment about the Supreme Court. It has become way too powerful and ideological. The whole point of making the Supreme Court independent was based on the idea of the need for impartial decisions. We don’t have that now. Rather, decisions are made based on ideological predispositions. Ideological decisions should be made by voters.

    …
    I would suggest that the Senate be able to overturn Supreme Court decisions by either 60 or 66%. Or maybe, the House of Representatives and the Senate be able to overturn Supreme Court decisions by a 60% vote. Also, the lifetime appointments of Supreme Court justices should be abolished. 10 or 15 year terms should be enough.

    ….
    What brings this up is that if not for the upcoming Supreme Court appointment, I would have seriously considered voting for Clinton. However, giving her a Supreme Court appointment on top of the corruption baggage she carries is way too much for me.

    …
    I would add that there are no real qualifications to become a Supreme Court justice. If they don’t have specialized skills that are being exercised impartially, there is no reason for having a Court, as we have now, with enormous powers.

    JD

  157. FL is going to be tight. Lots of uncounted votes in heavy Democratic counties.
    Don’t want to panic anyone, but FL recounts if margin <0.5%. That is a very possible scenario. I hear lawyers warming up their jets right now.

  160. NYTs percentage calculator for Trump winning just dropped to 57%. Trump leading in Wisconsin. Liberals must be pee***g in their pants. See http://www.nytimes.com/?WT.z_jog=1&hF=t&vS=undefined

    Will add that several weeks ago I had a rooting interest for Trump because I couldn’t stand listening to Clinton for 4 years. Now I am almost indifferent as to who wins.

    JD

    PS For those having difficulty accessing NYTs, simply go from regular browser tab to incognito or private tab. Also, if you use Firefox and then Chrome or Explorer you get 10 views for each. If you max out, just refresh your browsers or restart your computers.

  161. 10 Minutes later Clinton’s chance of winning is now down to 50%. What hath God wrought?

    ….
    The election is rigged. 🙂

    JD

  162. The only thing that could make this election worse is if it is contested, and I mean legitimately contested, not faux contested. It makes me ill just thinking about it. Please, somebody really win this election, anybody.

  164. RB –

    As a Clinton “deplorable”, I’d say better the benevolent one than the malevolent one.

  165. Win Presidency 59% Trump. I want to vomit. Hope he has good advisors. The worst thing is, if Clinton was winning, I would want to vomit also.

    JD

  168. Another diversion for you. Go to the latest dilbert.com blog and watch the video of Hill getting off a plane. Some see a drunk. I see a person who is physically exhausted or very old or has a brain function problem.

  170. I have a feeling the NYT wants to pull the plug on that prediction gauge right about now. They had Trump at 7% last week.

  171. Scharf: “I have a feeling the NYT wants to pull the plug on that prediction gauge right about now. They had Trump at 7% last week.”

    The prominence given to predictions of winning this year really irked me. I feel the media did it to discourage Trump voters.

    JD

  172. JD: I think it backfired and made the left complacent.
    Dow futures now down 500 points, ha ha.

  173. At least this awful election has given rise to some humor. From Drudge:

    “Madonna breaks promise to give oral to Hillary voters.”

    JD

  174. Trump now 77% chance of winning. NYTs headline “Razor-Thin Margins for Candidates in Battleground States”

    JD

  177. hot business opportunity: quick, print up two sets of bumper stickers: “I didn’t vote for him” and “I didn’t vote for her”. About the only win-win in this election.

  179. I fear a Trump presidency as much as a Clinton one (for different reasons), so I am resigned to disappointment today. [Barring Thor ex machina, of course.]

    However, it is always refreshing to see political pundits’ predictions pummeled. Schadenfreude — I’m not proud of it, but there it is.
    (Of course, it won’t prevent the pundits from persisting in prognostication. It is their profession, after all.)

    [Added: Ledite (#155113) – love it! I recall the bumper sticker of the Nixon era, “Don’t blame me — I’m from Massachusetts”]

  180. Harold,

    pundits from persisting in prognostication

    Nice, and a close second to “nattering nabobs of negativism” 🙂

  181. So much for Hillary’s better ground game. I bet she’s feeling much like Romney in 2012. Good thing she already cancelled her fireworks display. Maybe they already had an inkling.

  182. HaroldW,
    .

    it is always refreshing to see political pundits’ predictions pummeled. Schadenfreude…

    .
    Indeed. A rare and (IMO) sorely needed demonstration that consensus on a topic does not reality make.
    [Edit: But I’m not jumping for joy either. I see now that I did not properly prepare myself to anticipate the possibility Trump might win. I’m pretty much dumbfounded right now. And mildly nauseous.]

  185. Given the habit of Germans to clump a lot of smaller words together to mean something for which other languages are much more succinct, schadenfreude is the exception. It takes a full sentence in English.

  186. We’ve been watching Netflix to avoid to much shouting at talking heads.

    Trump is winning? GOP might keep senate? Did not expect this.

  187. Polling tanked horribly in 2014. Missing lots of races >5%. Apparently they didn’t figure it out.
    The right could now realistically control the White House, Senate, and House. They may wake up tomorrow and find a really shiny new bicycle under the tree.
    I’d much prefer gridlock.

  188. TerryMN:
    My goodness, I had completely forgotten about “nattering nabobs of negativism”. Safire, wasn’t it? How could I have forgotten such a piquant turn of phrase?

  189. HaroldW:

    You were under no obligation to – was just a compliment that your alliterations were up there with the greats!

  190. Lucia, I’m on Netflix also. (But I stop every once in a while to check this blog.) Just started “Black Mirror”, recommended to me by my son & his girlfriend.

  191. Many calling Ohio for Trump although a significant amount of votes are still out. Not a big surprise.

    JD

  192. If I were in the IRS and had anything whatsoever to do with approving applications for tax exempt status for conservative organizations, I would be writing resumes and/or talking to a lawyer.

  193. Been watching the NYT live election analysis. They all of a sudden have found some time for some introspection.
    “There are millions of voters who saw their power and prestige in American culture and politics in decline, and they reacted strongly when they found a candidate who expressed what they were feeling.”
    “It feels like we are at a historic turning point not only for our country, but what was once called Western Civilization. In Europe and the United States, we are now seeing a high tide of populist nationalism, rallying disaffected white people who are angry and opposed to the multicultural societies these countries have been becoming.
    Adam, I think we have to discuss the obvious, but often obscured, truth that elections are about power. Who has it and who will have it.”

  194. Tom,

    Oh. we’ll still have gridlock. Given the differences between the different factions of the Republican Senators, it will be herding cats to get them to all take the same position for anything other than possibly judicial appointments.

    Given all the talk about the Democrats using the nuclear option for Supreme Court appointments if they took the Senate or were even tied, it will be interesting to see if the Republicans can also play in the big leagues.

  197. Tom

    Adam, I think we have to discuss the obvious, but often obscured, truth that elections are about power. Who has it and who will have it.”

    What? Is he suggesting elections have consequences? Yeah. Duh.

  198. …opposed to the multicultural societies…

    And why not? I’m for immigration reform but have been against multiculturalism since I first heard the term. We need to make English the official language of the United States.

  199. NYTs individual state forecasts giving Michigan (72% chance), Wisconsin (90% chance) and PENNSYLVANIA (66% Chance) to Trump. OMG Seems like game over even though votes haven’t been all counted in those states. Trump must be doing much better and Clinton much worse with respect to past voting patterns.

    I will be curious what happens in Arizona with a significant Latino vote.

    JD

  200. This is just nonsensical. NYT: last week Trump 7%, NYT now: Trump 95%. They are definitely passing out diapers at HRC headquarters.

  201. I suspect if Trump wins we’ll look back at “basket of deplorables” as being as big a gaffe as “47%” was for Romney.

  205. Lucia: “I’m amazed.” I am somewhat surprised but not amazed. The media wanted Clinton to win so badly that it skewered the polls and the issues. I thought there was a significant chance that Trump voters were being undercounted, and I was probably right.

    JD

  206. JD. Yes. But still…. I hated both of them. I did think it more likely “undecideds” were “Trumps” and undercount would be Trump. But still….

  207. I was snowed. I didn’t buy the hidden/shy Trump voter theory. I don’t know, maybe this result doesn’t validate that theory. Maybe it was something else.
    Anyways, I utterly did not expect this.

  209. Right. This election can never be surpassed. I don’t think the words “President Trump” has crossed my mind in the past 6 months. Even if Trump ends up losing, I have to give it to this guy. He took on the establishment and a hostile press with an asymmetric campaign that broke all the rules and has absolutely embarrassed them all. We have entered a new political reality and there isn’t a pundit out there that knows what it is.

  211. Clinton will probably win the popular vote,though. It’s not certain. There’s a bit of pink on the NYT popular vote meter.

  214. Yeah, but WI and GA, which Fox has also called for Trump are greater than 95% for Trump on the NYT page. AZ is also at 95+%

  215. The thing that convinces me Trump may really win this is the NYT reporters are deep into the blame game at the moment.
    “But this is a failure of modeling, polling, punditry and a number of other things”
    “Yes, Comey appears to have done Clinton real damage.”
    “This time, it was the Democrats’ supposed inherent advantage in the Electoral College.”
    “I see that Trump’s current margin in Florida is smaller than the Jill Stein vote.”
    “So, Nick, would you argue that the country is not ready to elect a woman for president (or at least is resistant to)?”
    “This probably rewrites the rules on how to run a campaign for president.” (duh).

  216. Tom Scharf

    “This probably rewrites the rules on how to run a campaign for president.” (duh).

    Actually, no. One rule should be “Don’t nominate someone everyone has hated a long time.” That would be Hillary.

    It’s true lots of people also hate Trump. But they’ve hated him a shorter amount of time.

  217. Narrow Republican Senate majority abolishes the filibuster, and we will have ACA payback, big time, in spades. This could get really ugly. I’m not even sure the EPA will survive, ha ha. This is a total utter disaster for the left.

  218. “So, Nick, would you argue that the country is not ready to elect a woman for president (or at least is resistant to)?”

    As was said a while ago, “There you go again.” Far too facile. There’s no reason to presume that Clinton’s loss — if indeed that is today’s result — is because she’s a woman. As lucia wrote, she’s accumulated a sizable amount of distrust. Not because she’s a woman, because of her actions.

  220. DeWitt:

    I suspect if Trump wins we’ll look back at “basket of deplorables” as being as big a gaffe as “47%” was for Romney.

    .
    Exactly the wrong thing for her to have said to a disaffected voter. It is America’s Brexit. Absolutely amazing.
    .
    Don’t worry, Lucia, Trump will appoint women and mind his manners and make sure he is aware of hot mics.

  221. Tom Scharf (#155153) –
    As much as I’d like to see the ACA rolled back, I’d hate to see the filibuster be removed. Yes, it’s inconvenient to those who want to push through legislation. That’s why it’s valuable.

  222. Ron,
    Trump is a pig. He will continue to be a pig. He will continue to say stooopid things.

    That said: I think he may very well appoint women. Not sure what else he’ll do.

    Right now it’s looking like:
    House:GOP big time.
    Senate: GOP more likely than not.
    Pres.: Probably Trump.

    I’m staying up to see Senate… unless it gets way too late.

  224. lucia (#155155) — nice #, by the way
    “suddenly on twitter, a lot of Liberals aren’t loving expansive executive power.”
    Something about oxen being gored comes to mind. Of course, there are those of us who don’t want to be gored by Republican or Democratic agencies.

  225. The ACA was passed using the nuclear option. It won’t be repealed or altered without the Republicans doing the same thing. But now it won’t be unprecedented.

  226. At this point it looks to me like Clinton’s chances depend on winning Michigan and N.H. Michigan is still a possibility. Her chance of winning N.H. is now very slim. If she takes Michigan, but loses N.H., her only remaining hope is Arizona, but polls indicate a win there is unlikely.

  227. They’ve been doing the path to victory thing for Clinton. She pretty much has to win AZ and the NYT has AZ at 95+% likely for Trump. At this point, if almost any state that hasn’t been called for Trump goes for him, he’s in. Michigan, for one, would put him over.

  228. The inflection point in the election to me was when it became clear the opposition was attacking Trump voters instead of Trump. A neighbor has a “Deplorables for Trump” sign in their yard. I thought attacking the voters was just so dumb, so obviously dumb. I suppose somebody thought this was a good idea.

  231. Wow. The last time a Republican President had a Republican House and Senate was 1928. That’s a bad precedent though. Four years later, the economy was in the toilet. Herbert Hoover was against free trade too.

  232. Just checked state ballot measures in MA.
    Legalize marijuana (#4) winning. Good.
    Expand charter schools (#2) losing. Bleh. Opponents ran scare ads: “it takes money away from public schools” which were misleading at best. Hmm…let’s talk to a voter…”if school enrollment increases, should schools get more money?” “Yes” “if school enrollment decreases, should schools get less money?” “Uhhhhh…..”

  234. DeWitt: “Herbert Hoover was against free trade too.”
    I hope that Republicans do not blindly back Trump’s position on free trade, which is counter to the traditional Republican view.

  235. WSJ

    Down to Double Digits in New Hampshire

    Coming down to the wire: Mr. Trump is ahead of Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire right now by a staggering 15 votes, with 82% of precincts reporting.

    Mrs. Clinton needs to win New Hampshire to keep her hopes of victory alive.

  237. Mrs. Clinton needs to win nearly every state that is still up for grabs. It’s highly unlikely, though.

  238. Only interesting races now are in Senate. New Hampshire — Republican 56% chance of winning. In Nevada, Democrat 59% chance of winning on NYTs chart.

    JD

  239. “Wow. The last time a Republican President had a Republican House and Senate was 1928.” George W Bush in 2004?

  242. MikeR,

    Bush 2004 isn’t a great precedent either. By 2008, the economy was also in the tank, just not quite as deeply as 1932.

  245. DeWitt, ACA was not passed with the nuclear option. They used 60 votes. They did allow for a change of Senate rules on less than 2/3 vote on a small portion of the bill if that’s what you meant. Republicans would repeal with reconciliation.

  246. Fox News has finally got the math kind of right. They’ve been talking about Michigan, but really all he needs is Arizona, Alaska, and two single districts, which they’ve been ignoring.

  247. My prediction was 317 votes, with the states not doing that well. I got it with a model of
    cut the outlier polls, then compare Clinton to Trump+Gary/2 +undecided/3

  248. Here’s a consolation for all those who are moving to Canada. I know a lot of Canadians. Not one* has ever said that they would rather have US style health care, not before Obamacare or after. Canadian health care may not be the best possible, but it’s good enough as a start. Single-payer isn’t the key. Single-class is good though, not like the rich getting on the plane first. (The rich can just go to the US to get things unavailable at home or to get faster service. or Mexico.)
    .
    * Doctors can make more money in the US. I’m not up on what they think.

  249. Lucia: “I thought it would be over by now….”

    It is. Trump is leading in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and the remaining uncounted votes are in areas supportive of Trump. NYTs saying he has 95% chance of winning those states.

    JD

  251. I’ve been switching between CNN and PBS (seems to be the only coverage still on) and they seem to be dragging their feet on calling the last few states.

  252. Fox News isn’t calling it either. Arizona is key. CNN is not calling Wisconsin, which clinched it for Trump hours ago.

    The New York Times adjusted their percentage to 90+ because they have access to exit polls that 538 does not.

  253. Ayotte only leading by 1,500 votes in New Hampshire with 86% of the votes counted. Now down to 53% chance of winning.

    JD

  255. The report from the decision desk at Fox News is that there are some things they just don’t know yet because of things like absentee ballots.

  256. Ledite, I think the US should remove the requirement for Canadian doctors to redo residency to practice here. That would probably be the last we hear about Canadian health care.

  259. I’m calling it. Look at the numbers. HRC has just as much chance of winning this election as Donald Trump did….oh wait. Infinite loop, core abort. System Crash.

  260. When Trump won the nomination, there was a series of “I’ll only consider supporting Trump if he apologizes for making me look like a fool.”
    Now we have Karl Rove sending warnings to Trump.

  261. There’s no visible blue left in the likely electoral votes histogram on the NYT live results page.

  265. Max_OK: “Mich. or Pa. is all Trump needs.”
    You are assuming that Trump will take WI and AZ? Seems reasonable to me, but they don’t seem to have been called.

  267. Mike M.
    I read he took WI, but the WSJ doesn’t map doesn’t show it. It seems to depend what news agencies you look at.

  270. Fox News has called WI for Trump. Why the NYT hasn’t called WI, is beyond me. You have 95+% of the vote counted and Trump has a current margin of 3%.

  272. Trump has a 3.1% lead with 11% of the votes out, but neither CNN or PBS seems to have called it.

  273. Strangely nobody is discussing how the GOP is going to pickup the pieces of it’s rotting corpse and survive…not that it is all of sudden butterflies and rainbows. Although with its dominance in state legislatures and an apparent hold of the 3 federal government sectors, it is as butterflies and rainbows as it will ever get, likely ever. No doubt they will find a way to squander it spectacularly. In politics any hand worth playing is always worth overplaying.

  277. Tom, National Review has been running those articles for weeks.

    Max, it is Mich or Penn or Ariz. Again Alaska + uncalled district in Neb + district in Maine
    is five votes.

  280. Earliest sign that Trump was definitely winning- Hillary campaign applied for a permit for fireworks, then cancelled the plans on Sunday or Monday.

  282. Still, I wonder if there has been a Republican government like this one since Coolidge. This Congress is far more conservative than, say, President Bush’s. Trump may turn out to be the liberal check on the Congress.
    Note that the Senate will very likely move much more Republican at the mid-term elections, when a lot of Democrats come up for re-election.

  285. John Podesta is speaking solo. Apparently the President Elect has gone to sleep.

    There is a newspaper in New York that has Trump’s picture with LOSER written on it.
    Tucker Carlson warned them.

    Anyways, I hear that in his speech Trump will declare that he is quitting and allowing Hillary to become President as planned.

  286. MikeR,
    The political pendulum always swings the other way once you have to actually govern. A few consequential party line votes and you have 2010 in reverse. I expect the left to be quite motivated the next election. Of course the trick is you only get a chance to do these ideological reversals very rarely so…

  288. True, Tom. Still, there are a lot of party-line things the Republicans could do that might actually be popular. Just hope they’re smart enough to stick to those things early on, rather than (as the Democrats did with Obamacare) pick something that they’d always wanted to do but that most Americans do not support at all. Tonight is the payback.

  290. Well that was a barrel of fun wasn’t it? They should have called this already. It’s been over for a while.

    I’ve never seen so many commentators on the verge of crying in such a short span.

    I’m not at all unhappy to be wrong about Clinton winning. I was really dreading four more years of more Clinton f-ups. And when it isn’t her, it’s her aides like Abedin and Podesta. Maybe that’s what decided for other people too.

    But Trump’s on the virge of winning in Wisconsin and Michican. I don’t know anybody, including his own team, who really saw that one coming.

    Looks like a sweep of House Senate and Presidency.

    It’s staggering how much Clinton spent on her candidacy to have it end in this fricking disaster. Amazing. I think we can safely close the history books on the Clintons. No dynasty, thanks.

    (And oh yeah—I was way off on the effect of the ground game. Total waste of money, apparently, at least with *this* candidate.)

    Like you guys, I’m waiting up to hear the Donald speak. Should have been called already on all of the networks.

  291. SteveF Nov 7th:

    Trump does need my help in Florida. A hold-your-nose, lesser-of-evils, kind of help. I suspect it will not matter much, and that the mute button on my remote may well wear out over the next few years. Welcome to the vexing, hectoring, arrogant world of Hillary Clinton.

    .
    I was almost going to say something like that yesterday too. 🙂

  292. This is so effed up. None of the networks want to call an election that isn’t close, and Team Clinton won’t concede.

  293. Barack Obama predicts Trump’s win in 2008:
    “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

    And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

  294. Carrick

    I’ve never seen so many commentators on the verge of crying in such a short span.

    Jim had gone to bed but came down. He turned on the tv, and commented that the reporters were all clearly upset and showing it.

  301. I think RCP was first to call. Saw it on AP/NYT/WaPo next.

    CNN just called it too.

    Now for DJ Trump’s victory lap.

  305. Regardless of who won the election, I thought when I arise tomorrow nothing will really be any different for me, at least not immediately or in the near future. Now, I’m not so sure. S&P futures just fell 4.5%. The market doesn’t like uncertainty, and is unsure about Trump. I hope his election doesn’t lead to a bear market.

  307. Max – as someone who moved 90% of their position out of the market 3 weeks ago, I’m kind of hoping it dumps another 700 or so before I jump back in. Sorry. 🙂

  308. Hi TerryMn,
    I’m not a market timer. If there’s a bear market, I will just ride it out like I did last time. Unfortunately, a bear market can postpone retirement plans for some unlucky people.

  309. Wow. I had given up on this. America rejected the Clinton reprise of Tammany Hall. He won despite a rough, poorly run campaign and unprecedented media deconstruction. Now can he demonstrate real leadership? He will certainly have no honeymoon. And Obama will almost certainly demonstrate much more of his petulance, caprice, and disdain.

  310. The Mexican Peso is another casualty of the election. Its value plunged 11%. A cheaper Peso will encourage makers of automobiles and other goods to move even more production to Mexico, not what many Trump voters had in mind.

  311. hunter (Comment #155245)
    November 9th, 2016 at 2:26 am
    Wow. I had given up on this. America rejected the Clinton reprise of Tammany Hall.
    _____

    Bought snake oil instead.

  312. The day after Reagan won in 1980, the market tanked. During his first term the market broke out of a long term trading range of less than 1000, and never really looked back, crash of 1987 not withstanding.Reagan was dismissed in much the same way as Trump is today. But Reagan did run a better campaign, winning a clear and large majority.

  314. Hunter, markets always have come back. The problem is recovery can take a few years. People near retirement can panic when they see the value of their holdings plunging, causing them to sell to protect what’s left, and consequently lock in their losses.

  315. hunter, the protectionist trade policy peddled by Trump is the snake oil. Both conservatives and liberals agree free trade benefits more Americans than it harms.

  316. MikeR, you forget that Trump is not a Republican partisan, so he is not likely to go along with a party line vote that is unpopular. Obama was the Maxist Alinskyite who is willing to go for a win to advance the agenda.

  317. Carrick, I think that did decide it. I posted here awhile back that Trump has to show he’s not crazy while Hillary has to show she’s not crooked. For all your Stokesian argument, she couldn’t do it with Comey saying she is. The more Democrats complained about it, the worse.

    I don’t know about Wisconsin, but they definitely saw Michigan. They made fundraising pitches even Monday night for emergency ad buys there. Obamas and Clinton camped out there. Heard Hillary today desperate on the radio trying to chat up a rap dj who is telling his listeners to go out and vote and how down to earth Hillary is. She couldn’t even say his name right. How difficult is ‘Bushman’?

    You are slightly wrong about the ground game. Hillary’s was not as strong as Obama’s, but it probably won her Nevada and Colorado. Michigan and Pennsylvania do not have early voting. Wisconsin does, but I think they got upended between being caught on tape confessing to vote fraud, Walker and Preibus machine and Black Lives Matter. I want to compare suburbs with other states.

    If Hillary hadn’t made the call, I suspect the networks would still have found a reason to avoid calling it, like they did for Kerry with a deficit of hundreds of thousands of votes.

  318. Max, perhaps that’s why Trump beat the conservatives and liberals.

    Actually, liberals tend to oppose free trade deals. Though unions have become less important for them, they might support more now, but they still hate how corporations get the benefit.

  319. Tom Scharf (Comment #155229)
    November 9th, 2016 at 1:13 am
    Barack Obama predicts Trump’s win in 2008:
    “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not …”
    __________

    And they won’t as long as employers can find better investment opportunities elsewhere.
    These communities are casualties of the free market, which has winners and losers, but is supposed to help more people than it hurts.If these communities can not compete, they should be left to wither away.

  320. MikeN (Comment #155254)
    November 9th, 2016 at 3:39 am

    Actually, liberals tend to oppose free trade deals’
    ______

    Nah, liberals love free trade, conservatives love free trade. It’s one of the few things they agree on. Look at your past presidents, both parties.

    Of course if you are a politician from an area hurt by free trade of a particular good, you would be against that free-trade, but not against free-trade in general.

  321. The presidents agree on it, but Clinton had to struggle to get the deals passed, because his own party couldn’t deliver votes. After awhile, the Republicans insisted they weren’t going to deliver and that Clinton had to get votes. Nafta was supported by 80% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats.

  322. Max, that same sentiment was posted by Kevin Williamson of National Review, and was rejected by the country.

  323. Well, I went to sleep around 12 local time, so I didn’t suffer due to the delay in calling the race. It’s fascinating to read that Clinton cancelled the planned fireworks display in advance; makes one suspect that their polls told the campaign more than the networks’ polls told us.
    .
    Max_OK, I recall that the Brexit vote resulted in a large drop in the FTSE. Which recovered quite quickly. Yes, the markets don’t like surprises, and people were expecting a Clinton win. No doubt that some companies will be worse off, and it may be easier to identify those than to guess the ones who will benefit from a Trump administration. Terry_MN, well done! I suppose I should have done as you did. But like Max_OK, I don’t do market timing.
    .
    The question for the markets, and for us as citizens, is whether there’s a real plan to effect change, or whether it will be a continuation of policies to concentrate power in Washington, differing mainly in the beneficiaries of that power. I am unconvinced. This quotation seems apt:

    These lawyers and men of learning, and moneyed men that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us, poor illiterate people, swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like the great Leviathan…yes, just as the whale swallowed up Jonah.

    .
    And let me be the first (well, I’m sure I’m not the first) to predict Sen. Elizabeth Warren as the 2020 Democratic nominee. She was very active in this cycle, and as a newcomer does not have anything like Clinton’s negatives.

  324. “The question for the markets, and for us as citizens, is whether there’s a real plan to effect change, or whether it will be a continuation of policies to concentrate power in Washington” Well, I wasn’t a Trump supporter, but now I’m not sure: maybe he’s the best man for the job of firing a lot of people in Washington.

  325. Harold, when comparing pre and post Brexit stock market, should we adjust for a change in the value of the pound?

  327. MikeN: “when comparing pre and post Brexit stock market, should we adjust for a change in the value of the pound?”
    Mmm…good question. I wouldn’t think so, because the index is denominated in pounds. That said, I’m sure there is an effect due to change in foreign exchange rates: for example, any British firms with substantial overseas earnings (in other currencies) would become more attractive with the drop in the pound, as would exporters likely to see an increase in volume.

  328. Well, a couple of observations:
    The price of the Clinton’s speaking engagements is about to take a significant fall. The sycophants surrounding Clinton Inc’s pay for play scheme will need to start looking for work. If nothing else good comes from this election, there is at least this.
    .
    I think Clinton lost for three basic reasons: 1) she is a serial liar who is remarkably bad at it; everyone knows when she is lying…. which is most of the time. When caught, she simply refuses to admit the lie, and acts as if it never happened. 2) She is obviously corrupt on a personal level… hundreds of millions of dollars of accumulated wealth from nothing more than obvious influence peddling. It is a betrayal of public trust that offends lots of voters. 3) She has zero respect for voters who disagree with her and she dismisses them with arrogance and hostility… calling a large portion of voters ‘deplorable’ is a sure fire way to lose an election. Romney’s 47% remark was terrible; Clinton’s ‘basket’ speech was far worse.

  329. Steve, it will be interesting to see what they do with the hundreds of millions of unspent money in the foundation.

  330. “I think Clinton lost for three basic reasons:…” True, that’s why she lost. But Trump’s negatives equaled hers. He _won_ because a huge chunk of the electorate is sick of the way things are. They were willing to destroy the Republican Party to change things, and they were successful by a hair’s breadth. We’ll see what happens next.

  331. I can’t find the comment now, but one compared the GOP to Wile E. Coyote. I thought that was pretty funny.

    Roadrunner would have been eaten if the Coyote had used Trump Construction Co.

  332. Trump should move quickly in January to reverse many of Obama’s executive orders, formally announce withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, stop funding the UN climate activities, and rescind Obama’s fuel standards.
    Mitch McConnell should make plain that filibusters on Trump’s SC nominee to replace Scalia, or on the repeal and replacement Obamacare will trigger to the ‘nuclear option’.

  333. SteveF,
    I agree. Reversing numerous executive orders should be his first move. He should remind the world what our Constitution says about treaties and announce he will not consider us to have agreed to nor be bound by the Paris accord and will not unless the Senate ratifies the treaty. (They won’t.)

  334. “Mitch McConnell should make plain that filibusters on Trump’s SC nominee to replace Scalia, or on the repeal and replacement Obamacare will trigger to the ‘nuclear option’.” No. That’s “business as usual”. The current way of running the Senate is a fairly recent innovation, and a stupid one. He should announce that the Senate is going to return to the system from the time of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, when you had to actually filibuster to stop a bill from passing, you did that only if you cared desperately, and most bills passed the Senate with a majority vote.
    He should do all this now, not as a threat.

  335. MikeN,
    The foundation’s income is going to drop (a lot!) with pay for play gone, so they will not be able to continue the $50 million a year spent on a combination of staff salaries, ‘progressive’ international conferences, political activities, etc. My guess is that they will shrink the foundation pretty quickly, and use most of the existing funds in the process. Whether or not the foundation continues to exist probably doesn’t matter much, since any future donations will probably be restricted to actual charitable activities…. and that was not why the foundation was created. I think the foundation will become irrelevant.

  336. Clinton spent nearly twice what Trump spent on this campaign. Remember that the next time someone tells you about money in politics. If you didn’t learn that from the sad story of Jeb Bush.

    I assume that if Trump had a better GOTV operation, he would have won better.

  338. One other thing I hope Trump does: he should meet with Congressional leaders and ask them to stop all the ongoing investigations of Clinton Inc. The Clintons are finished politically, and they won’t be selling political influence in the future. Congress has lots of far more imporant things to do than document Hillary’s lies and corruption… the voters have relieved them of that burden, so all investigations should end.

  340. I’d also like to add what contributed to last nights results I’ve heard a few people say which has reflected my own thoughts, and they are:

    1. Clintons Fatigue.

    Clintons talking. Clintons fundraising. Clintons accused. Clintons smiling. Clintons on jets. Clintons something this and that. Time for a rest.

    2. Media Clearly Not Objective. People want to get back at the media for being obvious DNC Organs for oh so many years.

    Andrew

  341. “he should meet with Congressional leaders and ask them to stop all the ongoing investigations of Clinton Inc.” Huh? One of the things that makes us Americans angriest is how the politically powerful seem to be above the law. He should put a stop to it if he can. He should replace every single person he can at the DOJ (all non-civil-service employees) and give the new people a mandate: Find out what happened to the Clinton investigations. See if the FBI would do a different job if they could have. You may not be able to convict, President Obama may pardon them first, but if there is what to convict with, we all want to know it out in the open. Enough already.

  344. MikeR,
    Of course all political apointees at DOJ will be replaced. Once that happens DOJ should internally investigate what, if any, interference in the FBI investigations took place, why no heads rolled at the IRS, etc…. and take suitable steps, including prosecution, if that is justified. I was talking about ending Congressional investigations which were initiated specifically because the outgoing adminstration would not enforce the law, and indeed, had refused to cooperate at all, no matter the weight of evidence of wrongdoing.

  345. MikeR: “President Obama may pardon them first”
    I expect Obama to do that. It would actually be doing Trump a favor, since it would put the Clintons in the past. As much as I would like to see them get what they deserve, more investigations would be a distraction from more important things.

  346. I hope Trump ends, or at least greatly reduces, the electric vehicle subsidies. It’s probably too much to hope for that the corn ethanol boondoggle would be ended.

    It will be fun to see Democrats hoist by their own Executive Order petard. The only question will be how hypocritical they will be. They were warned.

  347. Lucia,
    I was unaware of the later time. I suspect she is having trouble keeping her composure. People have been telling her she would be president for a long time; facing the reality of that never happening, while losing to a buffoon…. and a ‘basket of deplorables’….. must be very difficult.

  348. SteveF,
    Jim’s theory is she couldn’t give the speech last night because she was sobbing uncontrollably. That’s possible. Presumably story of what was going on will get out.

  349. DeWitt,
    “It will be fun to see Democrats hoist by their own Executive Order petard. The only question will be how hypocritical they will be.”
    .
    I heard Juan Williams already defend the unlawful use of executive orders as being believed by ‘progressives’ to be the only way to achieve ‘critical’ policy changes. This just after Jonnathan Turley pointed out how foolish Obama’s bypassing of Congress was. I doubt true believers will ever accept that Obama’s bypassing Congress was foolish (and unlawful). They don’t accept it for the same reason they don’t accept the SC interpreting the Constitution to mean whatever the hell they want is foolish.

  350. In actual weather news, it looks like the slowdown in freezing and record low current Arctic Sea ice extent is due to the La Nina that started in September. It’s not your usual La Nina, but something that was discovered in 2007, La Nina Modoki. That puts warm air over the Arctic. It looks like it may put warm air over the Antarctic too, as Antarctic Sea ice extent is also at satellite era record lows.

  352. lucia,

    Based on what I’ve heard about HRC’s private behavior, it’s probably more a screaming hissy fit.

  353. Two losers running means one is going to be a winner. I went to bed early last night with the idea that Clinton would win and woke this morning much surprised. My regrets for early bed time is that I missed all the political pundits twisting and turning in the evenings events.

    Things to look for from the MSM:

    1. They will suddenly realize that the economy was not as good as we thought and that it requires immediate and drastic government intervention.

    2.In contrast to their prognostications for the Republican party if the Democrats had won the Presidency and the Senate, they will not see the elections as the end of the Democrat party as we know it.

    3.They will attribute Clinton’s lose to her not running far enough to the left and Comey.

    4. Elizabeth Warren will become their darling.

    5. The Trump win will not be blamed on the public’s negative view of the government in Washington, but to Trump’s appeal to the baser instincts of the voters (to which is what both candidates were appealing).

    6. They will fail to concentrate on the public debt, deficit and unfunded liabilities (which Trump and Clinton also failed to do).

    7. They will – as they should all the time – spend time and effort ferreting out problems in the Trump administration instead of defending the administration as was done for Obama. This development is probably a plus for a Trump win.

    8. They will publicize the leftist leaning demands of minority and woman’s groups and call for Trump to accede to them as a unifying gesture.

    9. In contrast to Obama any executive orders by Trump will be evidence for his authoritarian bent of which it should have been for Obama. This MSM bias is probably another plus for a Trump victory.

  354. DeWitt,
    I agree that all Federal subsidies for ethanol, electric cars, solar panels, and windmills should end…. but for ethanol, that may be tough to get through Congress. Maybe a change in the law to gradually ramp down the mandate over 5-10 years would be politically possible.

  355. MikeR: “I think he should keep working on them anyhow. There is no reason that blacks should oppose Trump’s brand of Republican policies.”
    I agree. But talk won’t be enough. Trump, or the Republicans, won’t make headway with minorities until they enact policies that actually help minorities. The Republicans as a group are too hidebound to actually do that. But Trump is basically a pragmatic centrist, so he might have a chance of creating real change for minorities.
    Now that would be ironic.

  356. Kenneth,
    .
    I agree generally with what you said, but this one tickled me:

    They will suddenly realize that the economy was not as good as we thought and that it requires immediate and drastic government intervention.

    I can just hear it now. January 21’rst.
    Entering day 2,920 of the economic crisis…
    .
    [Edit: I’m joking of course. But yes. Suddenly everyone will admit the economy is terrible and un/underemployment is too high.]

  357. “until they enact policies that actually help minorities”
    I think he could do it, should have done more of it during the campaign. Schools! A black kid in this country has a 50% chance of leaving school not able to read well. Washington DC has some of the worst schools in the country. This is an incredible unforced error that is killing our youth. He should keep on screaming about this till they take apart the Department of Education and replace it with a system to support charter schools in areas with the worst schools, like Louisiana did after the flood.
    He should promise the black community that if Washington DC schools don’t get better, “There’s going to be a one-term presidency”.
    Actually help minorities – yeah. What good does it do to offer free college to kids that can’t read or do math?

  358. Well, last night was a wild and unexpected ride. 3 am at MSNBC looked like someone let off an IED in their children’s kindergarten. The NYT actual coverage was really pretty good, but a few of their columnists are taking it a bit hard (Krugman calls it the end of Western civilization). Some of the reporters on TV couldn’t hide their contempt for the ongoing situation which was a bit shameful for them.
    Stock market armageddon seems to have corrected itself in 4 hours. It’s going to be volatile for a while no doubt.
    The morning after: Clinton was a bad candidate, but Trump was even worse, so something bigger happened. Major voting shifts from Obama in the midwest are the key statistical difference. We will all project our own biases onto these results so let me do it, the condescension of the establishment elites toward the white working class went from suspected to overt and they responded with a clear message composed of two words and seven letters.

  359. Some 88% of black voters supported Clinton, versus 8% for Trump, who said repeatedly that black communities are in the worst shape ever.

    That situation is what provides the definition of plantation politics. The inner city dwellers and other economically depressed people depend or at least probably think they depend on the government and thus they will vote for the politicians that they think will provide government help for them. On the other hand, you have those politicians that depend on the votes of these people and those votes depend on these people being economically depressed. It is a systemic problem and not really much related to race.

    http://blackrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-and-plantation-politics.html

    While professing to care about the plight of the poor, Obama continues to take actions that keep blacks impoverished, so he can use black grievances for partisan political gain. In his book “Dreams From My Father”, Obama wrote disdainfully about blacks who complain about being poor, yet continue to vote for Democrats — like Obama — who keep them poor. On page 147 of his book, Obama described what he and his fellow Democrats do to poor blacks as “plantation politics” when he wrote: “A plantation. Black people in the worst jobs. The worst housing. Police brutality rampant. But when the so-called black committeemen came around election time, we’d all line up and vote the straight Democratic ticket. Sell our soul for a Christmas turkey.”

  361. MikeR,

    DC went over 90% for Clinton. The NAACP is in bed with the teachers unions. I have serious doubts that minorities will ever recognize that the Democratic Party is only interested in them as voting blocs, not as individuals.

  363. MikeR,
    Yes, charter schools / vouchers are probably the single most important thing to help minorities. Also important are reducing the export of lower skill jobs and the import of unskilled labor. All three are on Trump’s agenda.
    .
    Lucia,
    I am pretty sure that Trump has come out in favor of charter schools and/or vouchers, but I do not recall the details.

  364. “DC went over 90% for Clinton. The NAACP is in bed with the teachers unions.” I continue to believe that the _average black citizen_ can understand this point, even if the NAACP tells them otherwise. The teachers unions are their deadly enemy, and the president should be telling them so.

    Story: Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld was the Rabbi of Jerusalem in the early twentieth century. Some people came to him with a problem. Apparently a teacher in one of their (Orthodox Jewish) elementary schools was doing a bad job. He ordered that the teacher be fired. They argued, “But he has a family, and it’s hard times: What will they eat?” He responded, “What am I supposed to do – feed them children?”

  365. I get a kick out of people saying that Trump was a bad candidate (as opposed to a flawed candidate) an ran a bad campaign. He steamrollered a strong Republican field, then beat a massively well funded machine in the general election, with little support from his own party and against the blatant opposition of the media. He clearly ran a brilliant, unconventional campaign. I suppose that admitting that causes too much cognitive dissonance among those who are convinced that Trump is a buffoon.
    .
    I used to think that Trump was a buffoon. The evidence has forced me to change my mind.

  366. Tom Scharf,
    “(Krugman calls it the end of Western civilization)”
    .
    I do wonder what the fool will be saying in a couple of years when Western Civilization does not actually come to an end. Krugman suffers the typical blindness of the left: an unwillingness to acknowledge the merit, or even the legitimacy, of any view different from his own. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see, and Krugman’s refusal is absolute.

  368. MikeR, getting people to not vote is also a step. However, I would like to see the exit polls by state. There were numerous polls that had Trump doing better in a few states. However, in states where he didn’t campaign, his message would have trouble getting through.

  369. SteveF : “The price of the Clinton’s speaking engagements is about to take a significant fall. ”
    .
    Forget the speaking fee, we can understand the Clintons becoming less interesting. I am curious to see the donation levels on the Clinton Foundation that “has done such great work.” The comparison of next year’s revenue will be a great experimental result for the legitimacy of the foundation donor’s intentions.

  370. I was looking at Krugman’s bio on Wikipedia. He says that he was inspired to become an economist by Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels that claimed that a discipline called psychohistory could predict the future. He picked economics as the closest thing he could find. I wonder what he thought when Asimov’s much later novels revealed that psychohistory was a fraud.

  371. “However, in states where he didn’t campaign, his message would have trouble getting through.” Bully pulpit, now. I hope he comes through.

  372. MikeM, I see Trump doing a number of things.

    1) In primaries campaign in every state that was holding a primary. What a stupid move. Doesn’t understand concept of picking your best states.

    2) Every rally would give interviews, while others knew time is valuable and would go to the next stop.

    3) Say outrageous stuff to get attention and make the media hungry for ratings.

    4) Campaign on the idea that he is not owned by the donors unlike his competitors. Apparently this was suggested to him by a fundraiser Trump wanted as finance director who was ambivalent.

    5) Pick out groups to praise in debates and rallies, like cops, vets, etc.

    6) Instead of polling, talk to local officials before each rally for what are important local issues.

    7) Establish his position as the strongest in the field for a certain quality, getting instant support. Wall, Muslim ban, even attacking John McCain had a benefit.

  373. Mike M.: He was a bad candidate who ran a brilliant campaign. He was bad in that he had a lot of defects he had to overcome and brilliant in that he did. That being said, he would have had a hard time winning against anyone other than HRC. This was a very bad year to run as a lifelong establishment Democrat.
    The real story for me is the media in its entirety missing this story from start to finish. Media endorsements favored Clinton 27 to 1. Twenty.Seven.To.One.
    One can cover a story without bias even when having personal opinions on the subject. Every single piece of evidence from this election shows that this didn’t happen and those guys need to recognize it or continue digging their graves of disrespect. Here’s a hint: Hire conservatives into the newsroom and ease up on the academia thought control.
    http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/has-election-2016-been-a-turning-point-for-the-influence-of-the-news-media/

  374. DeWitt

    I wonder what he thought when Asimov’s much later novels revealed that psychohistory was a fraud.

    Not a fraud…right? It worked until “The Mule” was a genetic mutation who had psychic powers… right?

  375. I think what Obama has to say (12:15 EST) is more important than HRC.
    The right’s strategy on the Supreme Court now looks brilliant. I’d like to give them credit for this, but it seems more like throwing darts with your eyes closed and hitting a bullseye.

  376. lucia,

    Nope. Or at least that’s how I understood it from the later books, which included prequels and sequels to the original Foundation series as well as Robots of Dawn, which brought the Robot series into the fold. It was the robots, in particular R. Daneel Olivaw, that were actually running things for the benefit of humans, as they were required to do by the Three Laws.

  377. On the climate perspective. It is actually very easy. The EPA must follow legislative direction, they are not a lawmaking body. The only reason it went to the Supreme Court is because a divided legislature couldn’t provide any official direction.
    The bill: “The EPA shall not oversee carbon emissions”.
    And it’s over until the left retakes all 3 sectors of government. They have to see this one coming from a 100 miles away. They will go to the mat on this one of course. If they don’t cut a deal (and there are deals to be made here) I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go nuclear.

  379. Max, there is no reason to selectively believe what an idiot says. Duke can claim all the credit he wants. He was a huge liability as was Putin and Isis for allowing themselves to be used by the left.

  380. The Dow and Nasdaq have already recovered from the shock. Wow that was a quick turn on some cash!

  381. Wow – didn’t see that coming. Got up at 7GMT and it still wasn’t over (almost, but not quite). Then Trumpy made a statesmanlike speech, which was kinda what I was hoping for but was pleasantly surprised by.

    Obama’s was good also.

    I guess it’s like Brexit. If you tell people what to do, they explain politely who it is that actually holds power in a democracy. It has been hilarious to hear the wailing from the defeated. (Radio phone in this morning.) Somehow democracy is the best thing in the world until you lose.

  382. Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #155295)
    November 9th, 2016 at 9:00 am

    Some 88% of black voters supported Clinton, versus 8% for Trump, who said repeatedly that black communities are in the worst shape ever.
    That situation is what provides the definition of plantation politics. The inner city dwellers and other economically depressed people depend or at least probably think they depend on the government and thus they will vote for the politicians that they think will provide government help for them.
    ______

    The plantation rhetoric is offensive. And it’s wrong. Even the wealthiest Blacks support Democrats. The GOP’s Southern Strategy alienated blacks across the board.

  384. Ron Graf (Comment #155383)
    November 9th, 2016 at 12:12 pm
    The Dow and Nasdaq have already recovered from the shock. Wow that was a quick turn on some cash.
    _____

    I’m glad of that. But if Trump does as promised and hurts trade, profits will suffer, and stocks will be less attractive.

  385. Max, I guess those wealthy blacks are convinced “they didn’t build that” or they got wealthy off the government somehow. Or, they still have a lot of family and friends dependent on the government.
    .
    Likewise, Hispanic/Latino voters (hopefully legal citizens) are anchored to undocumented Hispanic/Latinos.

  386. Max_OK,
    If Trump had repeatedly said “black communities are in the best shape ever” would that had made it better for you somehow? Unless you didn’t notice the game changing shift in voting was from white people who voted for Obama who now voted for Trump in the midwest. Enjoy your logic pretzel working that one out.
    Once you are done with that exercise in cognitive dissonance I suggest you look in the mirror and scream “you’re a racist moron” at yourself a 100 times and determine if that was a useful strategy to make people vote for your side.

  388. hunter (Comment #155249)
    November 9th, 2016 at 2:49 am
    Max, most America decided someone else was selling the snake oil.
    ____

    hunter, you may not be right about “most Americans.”

    The last time I checked the popular vote totals, Clinton was ahead of Trump by more than 200,000 votes.

    The election is rigged when the majority of Americans can not elect the president of their choice.

    The election is rigged when the FBI can influence the outcome of an election through innuendo.

    A rigged election gave us Trump.

  390. Tom Scharf,
    ” “The EPA shall not oversee carbon emissions”.”
    .
    Yup, that is all that is needed to move the question of global warming policy back to the legislative branch’s control, where it should always have been. How values, priorities, and goals influence public policy ought never have been handed over to a bunch of career (ultra-green!) bureaucrats at the EPA. McConnell could attach it to a filibuster-proof reconciliation budget bill for the EPA, just as Harry Reid attached changes to the substance of the Affordable Care Act via a reconciliation bill when he didn’t have 60 votes to end debate. Good for the goose and gander both, you know.

  391. Jonathan Adler had interesting things to say about the popular vote. His main point is that it doesn’t reflect the “will of the people” in our system and he explains why:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/11/09/your-candidate-got-more-of-the-popular-vote-irrelevant/#comments

    In the election concluded Tuesday, Hillary Clinton received more popular votes than Trump. This does not mean, however, that Clinton would necessarily have prevailed in an election that was determined solely by the popular vote. This is because the popular vote total is itself a product of the electoral college system. As a consequence, we do not know what the result would have been under a popular vote system, let alone whether Clinton would have prevailed.

    The reason for this is because the electoral college system encourages the campaigns (and their surrogates and allies) to concentrate their efforts on swing states —……

    I think his argument is pretty convincing. After all: part of the reason I voted 3rd party is that I know our system relies on the electoral college. So my pick was based on wanting to get the third party an automatic entry on the ballot in 2020. As far as I was concerned voting for Hillary or Donald under the circumstances would be a wasted ballot. The fact is, voters know we have an electoral system and it affects whether they bother to vote. Once that happens, the popular vote itself is somewhat disconnected from the ‘true’ preference of the people.

  392. Andrew_KY (Comment #155395)
    November 9th, 2016 at 1:44 pm
    Whoops! Max_OK found himself on the “wrong side” of this election. Tough to deal with, I would imagine.
    Andrew
    ______

    No, I like being disgusted and angry. It’s energizing.

    Plus, I can blame all my future troubles on Trump and the idiots who voted for him rather than taking responsibility myself. I have few troubles now, but I’m sure some are coming. If not, I can dream up some.

  393. Max,
    .
    Please. Why not follow the examples of President Obama and Sec. Clinton, rather than bludgeoning us with the wiffle-ball bat of your discontent. It’ll be a win for everybody. A win for you too you know.

  394. Max_OK,
    Bitter much?
    Hillary can look in the mirror to look for her email problem.
    Team Clinton *knew* they were playing fast and loose with the law. Team Clinton decided to ignore the advice of the NSA regarding a private server. Team Clinton decided to lie, hide, destroy evidence, slow walk, etc. Team Clinton decided to not keep the CGI foundation at honest arm’s length from during her time at Dept. of State.
    Hillary is the one who. to many people, palpably radiates insider sleaze and malfeasance in office.
    As to the vote count- sorry Max. He has won. Fair and square.

  395. lucia (Comment #155399)
    November 9th, 2016 at 2:04 pm
    Jonathan Adler had interesting things to say about the popular vote. His main point is that it doesn’t reflect the “will of the people” in our system and he explains why:
    ______

    Sorry lucia, but I was not impressed with Adler’s explanation. I will quote his closing sentence.

    “So while it’s true that Clinton won the majority of popular votes cast, we don’t know that she was actually the candidate voters would have picked were we to rely on the popular vote.”

    That one made me laugh.

  397. mark bofill (Comment #155401)
    November 9th, 2016 at 2:08 pm
    Max,
    .
    Please. Why not follow the examples of President Obama and Sec. Clinton, rather than bludgeoning us with the wiffle-ball bat of your discontent. It’ll be a win for everybody. A win for you too you know.
    _____

    Why can’t I be like Obama haters and just whine for the next four years?

  400. Lucia, Max,
    Doesn’t much matter if Alder is right or not. Popular vote is not how it works, never has worked, and never was intended to under the Constitution. Folks who are unhappy with that should try to change the constitution, but stop whining…. and I sure hope they do try, because I need some political amusement from time to time.

  401. hunter (Comment #155403)
    November 9th, 2016 at 2:13 pm
    Max_OK,
    As to the vote count- sorry Max. He has won. Fair and square.
    _____

    Fair, my foot ! Trump said the election was rigged, and he was right. It was rigged in his favor.

    I am proud to say I am among the majority of Americans who voted against Trump. I’m sure I will be even prouder as time goes by.

  403. The plantation rhetoric is offensive. And it’s wrong. Even the wealthiest Blacks support Democrats. The GOP’s Southern Strategy alienated blacks across the board.

    Max, take your complaint up with Obama and the black Republican blog that gave the Obama book quote.

    Liberals call out racism on the part of some conservatives in motivating the white vote and in some cases that can be true. Here I am calling out racism on the liberal side in what is known as plantation politics. It would be rather silly in my view to deny that there are many politicians who depend on the votes of the economic under classes be they white or black and thus are motivated to maintain an underclass and keep it dependent on government.

  404. “So while it’s true that Clinton won the majority of popular votes cast, we don’t know that she was actually the candidate voters would have picked were we to rely on the popular vote.”

    She actually won a plurality of the popular vote and not over 50 % and in some levels of government that would require a run off with the top 2 vote winners. How would you all like to see another campaign battle between these two?

    It would have to start with a statement by each that all the nice things I said about you when I thought this was over I here and now take back and you remain the despicable jerk that you were before. Oh and by the way, those nicey nice statements made after the elections are phony, phony and phony.

  405. Fair, my foot ! Trump said the election was rigged, and he was right. It was rigged in his favor.
    I am proud to say I am among the majority of Americans who voted against Trump. I’m sure I will be even prouder as time goes by.

    Max I kind of thought you had some Trumpian instincts.

  406. Max_OK,
    You seem to find it easy to closely resemble a jerk. Shall we talk about paid collusion between faux journalists and team Clinton? Or how the DNC, under improper influence of team Clinton, manipulated the process to shut out Sanders? Or the King of Morocco’s “contribution” to the CGI and the commencement of EPA action against the American Phosphate producer Mosaic and the Dept. of State opening of Moroccan phosphate imports to the US? Or Qatar’s “birthday gift to Bill and lifting of the US arms embargo?
    Or speaking fee to Bill by the Russians and the sale American en riched Uranium to Russia, approved shortly there after by Hillary, and to the profit of Podesta’s direct family member?
    And since the criminal investigations of the Clinton global Initiative can now proceed as they should have years ago, I look forward to the continuation of emerging facts regarding team Hillary to become even more satisfyingly ironic in light of your whine-athon.
    And of course watching Hillary display her profound stupidity and ignorance on climate by attributing Hurricane Matthew to “climate change” was entertaining. But not nearly as entertaining as Trump dismantling the climatocracy $ by $, and Executive Order by Executive Order, accompanied by the whiny cries of you true believers will be.

  407. hunter (Comment #155418)
    November 9th, 2016 at 3:21 pm
    Max_OK,
    You seem to find it easy to closely resemble a jerk.
    _____

    If you suspect it’s a disguise, you are wrong.

  408. Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #155416)
    November 9th, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    “She actually won a plurality of the popular vote and not over 50 % and in some levels of government that would require a run off with the top 2 vote winners. How would you all like to see another campaign battle between these two?
    _____

    True, Hillary actually won only a plurality.

    I would like to see another campaign battle. Clinton and Trump were entertaining. I don’t know whether Trump can be as entertaining by himself. I look forward to his battles with Congress.

  409. hunter,
    None of that stuff matters much; the Clintons are finally gone for good. Let Max rant. Or if you want some real comedy, read the post election analyses from the NY Times, WaPo, and the other usual suspects…. not even a hint of introspection or doubt… they were absolutely right all along, and it was only those damned deplorables that cost Hillary her corrona…. er…. election. Don’t ya know it’s true? I suggest you just let them all rant until they vomit…. They have grieving to do after the ranting ends. I doubt most can reach introspection, but I would give them a couple of months to try.

  410. It will be interesting to see if any media outlets follow up on why their polls were wrong and why they were so biased. More like the press in the 19th century than like the virtuous shibboleth the 4th estate has erected of their exalted status.

  412. David Young,
    I think the problem is that no matter how you sift the numbers– and sift they did an a huge assortment of ways, the polling itself has be reasonable unbiased. I strongly suspect:

    1) People aren’t answering phones and the population who does answer is different from the population that doesn’t answer.
    2) People lie. Some overtly like me (I say I was born in the 1800s). Some just shade the truth.

    We’ve all been polled to death. We all know these polls are widely covered in the news. The people being “studied” aren’t like passive samples who you can just pull out.

    Silver was correct to recognize the errors from state to state would be correlated. The problem is that he didn’t realize how big the errors in polling where. Other people were even worse.

    Those who were right (and all of them are less carried or informal) didn’t trust the polls. But to some extent we can’t know if they just got lucky or whether they’ll be able to call over time.

  413. SteveF,
    Good advice.

    Max_OK,
    lol. I like your sense of humor.
    We can get through this.
    You should have heard the fights between my Colombian wife and one of her sisters over the recent national referendum on FARC. And that issue, unlike our fracas, has a huge body count from decades of and decades of fighting. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37537252
    50.2 vs 49.8 to not give FARC their way. Siblings fighting siblings, friendships in peril, etc. So if we can laugh some, and not risk the sort of violence Colombia has been inflicted with for decades, it puts this stuff into some perspective…….

  414. Lucia: “Silver was correct to recognize the errors from state to state would be correlated. The problem is that he didn’t realize how big the errors in polling where. ”
    .
    To Silver’s credit, he recognized that the potential errors were large enough to give Trump a decent chance of winning. So with only one data point to test, you can not actually say that Silver was wrong.

  415. Mike M,
    No. You can’t say he was wrong. And he took flak for giving Trump to large a chance. But really, I think the main problem for him– and everyone torturing numbers is the polls themselves were probably biased.

    The bias wasn’t intentional on the part of the polsters– they want to get a good estimate. But it’s entirely possible that Trump voter were less likely to answer the phone at all. Or more likely to say undecided when they were decided. Or flat out lie– which honestly, I think I and many don’t consider such a bad thing to do to polsters who call up and ask you questions that, in some sense, they have no inherent right to ask. (Yes. I know you can not answer. But that doesn’t mean that’s the strategy everyone will take.)

  416. Lucia,
    I expect a big factor was weighting functions. You can give two pollsters exactly the same telephone interview data and they come up with different results. The reason is that to process the data, they need to make a guesstimate of how likely people are to vote and how that likelihood varies with background. That is why there are systematic differences between polls. So if inner city blacks turn out less than expected and rural whites turn out more than expected, the results are off.
    .
    Another factor is that Johnson did a lot worse than he polled. If that was due to Johnson voters shifting to Trump at the last minute, it would explain a fair bit of the error.
    .
    The reason so many commentators were stunned by the result is that most of the polls agreed with what the pundits wanted to believe.So they believed it, and ignored the polls that gave a result they did not want to believe. Good old confirmation bias.
    .
    Edit: If by “biased” you mean deliberately skewed toward a particular result, I see no evidence of that. If by “biased” you mean containing undetected systematic errors, then all polls should always be assumed to be biased. The problem is, that you don’t know either the size or the direction of the bias until after the voting was over.

  417. Talking about popular vote totals is what losers do.

    Al Gore was asked before the 2000 election if he would have any qualms about winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote. He said he didn’t until the reverse happened. Does anyone seriously believe that the majority of Johnson votes would not have gone to Trump in a two person race? And blaming Jill Stein’s candidacy for Hillary losing some states while ignoring Johnson’s much larger total is disingenuous too.

  418. MikeM

    Edit: If by “biased” you mean deliberately skewed toward a particular result, I see no evidence of that. If by “biased” you mean containing undetected systematic errors, then all polls should always be assumed to be biased.

    I mean the latter. And yes, all polls are at least somewhat biased. But generally you want the reproducibility error (the one that scales with 1/sqrt(N) ) to be larger than the bias. When bias is much larger, we sort of say “the poll is biased”. When much much smaller, “unbiased”. Of course, “unbiased” is not literally true– but the main error is not the “bias”.

    The problem is, that you don’t know either the size or the direction of the bias until after the voting was over.

    You don’t know the direction. If you knew the direction, you could correct for it– which is what the pollsters try to do. But they don’t know it. You might be able to estimate the size. People like Silver try to estimate it. They failed. Which is fair enough– but I think what we are seeing in the past few years is that bias has increased. I think that’s the problem with recent polls.

  419. lucia (Comment #155407)
    for editing comments November 9th, 2016 at 2:23 pm end scriptfor editing comments
    Max_OK
    What Adler said is entirely true and remains so even if you laugh.
    _____

    lucia, I would agree that part of what Adler said is true. He is right in saying

    “What all this means is that when the popular vote is reasonably close — as it was this year, as it was in 2000 and 2004 — we cannot say with confidence that the candidate who won the popular vote under the electoral college system would also have won the popular vote under a popular-vote system. It’s possible, but anything but certain.”

    I do, however, dispute the following statement, which was his conclusion.

    “So while it’s true that Clinton won the majority of popular votes cast, we don’t know that she was actually the candidate voters would have picked were we to rely on the popular vote.”

    Well, we can’t know with certainty, but evidence suggests she would have won the popular vote anyway.

    If you will recall, Adler cited California, New York, and Texas as non-swing States, which could have had large numbers of voters who didn’t vote because the campaigns saw no need to waste resources in trying to maximize turnouts for their candidates in States that were already safe for their candidate or the opposition. The populations of California and New York combined total 59 million, more than double Texas’s 27 million, wState Abbreviationshich strongly suggests more potential for additional Hillary votes in those two States than in Texas. But what about the other safe States?

    First, we need to identify the swing states. Election analytics website FiveThirtyEight identifies the states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin as swing states.

    Other than California and New York, safe States for Clinton were MA, CT, VT, RI, NJ, MD, DE, IL, NM,WA, OR, and HI , with a total population of 56 million. Adding the 59 million in California and New York brings the total to 115 million.

    Other than Texas, safe States for Trump were AL, AK, AZ, AR, GA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MS, MO, MT, NE, ND, SC, SD, UT, WV, and WY, with a total population of 71 million. Adding Texas brings the total to 101 million.

    Population in Clinton safe States outnumbered population in Trump States by 14 million or almost 14% suggesting the number of potential votes for Clinton are greater than those from Trump. This suggests had the campaigns been aimed at the overall popular vote rather than concentrating on the electorate vote in swing states, Clinton still would have won the popular vote but even by a wider margin.

  420. Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #155394)

    Don’t want to be a party-pooper but would just like to add to your comment. Yours is one perspective on the voting shift in the region you highlight, but here is a different perspective on the voting shift.

    Racism isn’t a binary quality you either have or don’t. It ebbs and flows, and like any other social construct, a function of conditions.
    …
    Racism is akin to a scam – a cheap and easy (and ugly) way to sell meaning, importance, and identity to people hungry for it.

    Last November, I had commented here as follows:

    Previous immigration waves culminated in restrictions and current foreign-born share of the population is near prior peaks . Perhaps this current immigration wave has peaked.

    This is probably how cycles occur in practice.

  421. Max_OK,

    Sore loser. Pointless whinging.

    You can’t know if your speculations are valid.

  422. The ‘edit’ didn’t accept corrections to my previous comment. Population in Trump safe States was 98 million or 17 million less than the 115 million in Clinton safe States.

  423. DeWitt Payne (Comment #155435)
    November 9th, 2016 at 6:59 pm
    Max_OK,
    Sore loser. Pointless whinging.
    You can’t know if your speculations are valid.
    ___

    I bet you didn’t even read it, or if you did you didn’t understand my analysis because I didn’t explain it well enough.

  424. DeWitt Payne (Comment #155431)
    November 9th, 2016 at 5:43 pm
    Talking about popular vote totals is what losers do.
    _________

    OK, explain why my vote should should count more than yours.

  425. Some interesting findings from exit polls:

    1. 29% of Latinos voted for Trump. See http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html Latinos are a vote for the taking by Republicans if they handle illegal immigration respectfully and intelligently. They tend to be more religious than Americans as a whole and a fair number are evangelical Christians. http://www.pewforum.org/2014/05/07/the-shifting-religious-identity-of-latinos-in-the-united-states/ If Trump, with the way he poorly handled Hispanic issues got that many votes, a more sophisticated Republican candidate could get substantially more.

    2. The Asian vote for Clinton was only 65% and Trump got 29%, which was 11% more than Romney got.

    An interesting survey on immigration:
    The Pulse Opinion Research survey (done by Rasmussen) found that 51 percent of Hispanics believe that there has been “too little” done to enforce immigration laws. What’s more, by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent, Hispanics “support a policy causing illegal immigrants to return home by enforcing the law.” See http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/voto-secreto-trump-most-hispanics-back-deportation-want-immigration-cap-cut-in-half/article/2606769 The Pulse survey shows strong support for enforcing immigration laws.

    JD

  426. An apparently good explanation of how the polls were wrong:

    “In part, this is because polling analysts got the central metaphor wrong.

    U.S. presidents are chosen not by the national popular vote, but in the individual Electoral College contests in the 50 states and Washington D.C. In calculating probable outcomes, election predictors generally treated those 51 contests as completely separate events – as unrelated to one another as a series of 51 coin tosses.

    But that’s not how elections work in the United States. Voting trends that appear in one state – such as a larger-than-expected Republican shift among rural voters – tend to show up in other states with similar demographic make-ups.

    And that’s what happened Tuesday: The election models calculated the probabilities of a Clinton win that turned out to be high, because they viewed each state too much in isolation.” See http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-polls-idUSKBN1343O6

    JD

  428. Max,
    The union came into being based on a compromise between the individual states, which traded individual independence for a system that would automatically mean votes in individual states are not always going to have the same weight. That system is embodied in how senators and the president are elected, and was specifically designed to give an advantage to less populous states. This was by design, not by mistake.
    .
    Those who think this constitutional compromise, which actually made formation of the union politically possible, was mistaken or unfair should try to change the constitution… there are a couple of different ways to make changes to the constitution. They should not bitch about reality.

  429. SteveF, thank you. A constitutional amendment to replace the electoral vote method with a simple popular vote would require approval by two-thirds of the House and Senate and two-thirds of the State legislatures, which I don’t see happening as long as office holders who benefit from the method are in charge. IMO, having two senators per State gives those with small populations more than a fair voice in the federal government.

    It’s hard for me to respect a method that could make it possible for one voter in a State to elect a president over the objection of one million voters in another State.

  430. Max: “It’s hard for me to respect a method that could make it possible for one voter in a State to elect a president over the objection of one million voters in another State.”

    ….
    It has been built into the system for over 200 years. People’s votes for a Senator in New Hampshire are worth much more than people’s votes for a Senator in Texas because Texas has more voters but still only 2 Senators. Don’t really know how pure national elections work, but would be interesting to compare places like Israel, France or Italy to the US and which system seems to be more functional.

    JD

  431. Max_OK-

    I think you’re being a bit pessimistic on the chance of a change, providing there is actually a groundswell of real support for it. You should check out the wikipedia page for Article V of the constitution. It explains fairly well the process for amendments. Of course, the fact that no one has yet tried one for replacement of the Electoral College with popular vote leads me to suspect that there probably isn’t any real support, just intermittent carping by the losers…

    It seems to me that you miss that the system – House, Senate, Electoral College – were designed to work together as a whole. The House represents the populace in the legislative branch, the Senate represents the constituent states in the same and the Electoral College the combination of the two in choosing the executive (with the bulk of the numbers coming from population, though built around state delegations). Too much change in the system can easily start throwing the balance off. Not necessarily a good thing, especially if the system is still working as designed.

    Also, this line in Article V seems to preclude any real attempt to change the number of senators per state: “…and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” That you’ll just have to live with.

  432. Looks like maybe a million Republican voters in California who stayed home because of the Electoral College and primary system that put two Democrats up for Senate.

    That aside, I think the final tally will be Hillary +1, not a big difference from Hillary +3, and less than the difference in 2012.

    Regardless of final margin, I think the polls were accurate. There was movement between the time the polls were taken and when people voted. I got a number of states wrong, but overall my prediction from Monday is pretty close, and I made it purely from looking at the polls

    My prediction is Trump wins Iowa, Ohio, NV, FL, Penn, NH, NC, Colo by 1.4, Maine by 1.3, NM by .4, Wisc by .2, lose Mich -.5, Virg by -1.5
    for 317 electoral votes.

    I forgot to type it but I had Hillary winning Minn by 1.7.
    Somehow people forgot all about undecided voters this time, even though the number was so large. It used to be they declared President Kerry because the undecideds would go against Bush, and they did but his ground game gave him a close win.
    I just assumed a 2-1 split for Trump, and that half of Gary’s vote would go to Trump as well.

    Note that the 3 largest 2 week polling collapses of the last 50 years have come from the Clintons.

  433. I heard about 5 variation on this one today: “How can I explain this to my children?” My favorite was a woman who said “I had to comfort my 12 year old daughter who couldn’t stop sobbing”. I was thinking “What on earth did you tell your 12 year old daughter about this election in the first place?”. A 6th grader was told that a monster got elected POTUS and the world was ending? I don’t even think my daughters registered an election took place at all in grade school unless it was some sort of civics lesson.

  434. JD Ohio (Comment #155445)
    November 9th, 2016 at 9:36 pm
    “Don’t really know how pure national elections work, but would be interesting to compare places like Israel, France or Italy to the US and which system seems to be more functional.”
    _____

    JD, I’m glad you brought that up, because I’ve never given it much thought. I know France elects a president by popular vote, and has runoffs to assure the winner is elected by a majority. Israel has both a prime minister and a president, but I don’t know how they are chosen. These are subjects for me to explore.
    ______

    kch (Comment #155447)
    November 9th, 2016 at 10:34 pm
    “Of course, the fact that no one has yet tried one for replacement of the Electoral College with popular vote leads me to suspect that there probably isn’t any real support, just intermittent carping by the losers …”
    _______

    kph, that may be because it doesn’t happen every election. Hasn’t it been 16 years since the last time? People forget.

  436. Tom Scharf (Comment #155450)
    November 9th, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    Re “How can I explain this to my children?”
    _____

    I think it’s an opportunity to explain that good guys don’t aways win, and we can’t always get what we want, but there will be a tomorrow.

  437. Max, there has been a conservative call for a constitutional convention, I think led by Mark Levin to revisit many items in the constitution. His aim is to install term limits, one of Trump’s promises, as well as strengthen state’s rights. I understand you have the opposite desire but perhaps common interest in opening the door to put all the issues on the table.
    .
    Hillary turned out to be not electable despite her life-long ambition and experience, or perhaps because of it.

  438. Ron, I’m the opposite of Levin. I oppose term limits. I don’t won’t restrictions on who I can vote for. I believe the States have enough rights. Maybe too many.

    I see where three additional States(Calif., Mass., and Maine) have legalized pot for recreational use. State’s rights mean what’s legal in one State can get you arrested in another State. IMO, that’s not right.

  439. I advocate free trade because I believe it benefits more than it hurts. I fear Trump’s policy to create jobs in manufacturing is going to mean tariffs on imports and trade wars with our trading partners, with the poor in America bearing the brunt of the resulting higher prices for consumer goods.

    It’s unrealistic to think we can impose duties on foreign imports while continuing to export American goods without penalty. China and others will respond in kind by raising the tax on what we sell to them, putting Americans out of work.

    Some critics point to our trade deficit (imports greater than exports) as evidence our trading partners are unfair and we need to restrict imports. Overlooked is what happens to our dollars after they go overseas. Many of these dollars come back to the U.S., not only to buy goods produced here, but also for business investments, property purchases, and loans. For further explanation of why a trade deficit can be a good thing rather than a bad thing, go to

    https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/are-trade-deficits-really-bad-news

  440. Max_OK (#155453)
    “…we can’t always get what we want…”
    But if we try sometimes we just might find we get what we need?

    Just kidding…I don’t know if we need Trump. IMO, we need to reduce Federal power; we need to reduce the amount of subjectivity in regulations (which creates too much incentive for lobbying for advantage); and we need to reduce use of Executive agencies for political advantage (e.g. IRS, EPA, FBI, DOJ, …)

  441. Max,
    “State’s rights mean what’s legal in one State can get you arrested in another State. IMO, that’s not right.”
    .
    What is legal in Oklahoma may get you arrested in Argentina, or Saudi Arabia, or China. Is that also ‘not right’? (Not rhetorical.) The extent of ‘States rights’, or perhaps more accurately, the extent of self-governing power in the individual States, has been a political issue for 200+ years, and I expect it will continue to be so. Any substantive change in the relationship between the States and the Federal Government certainly would require a change in the Constitution, and I doubt that is going to happen. The alternative to an actual change in the Constitution is what we have seen over the last 50+ years: an Orwellian revision (‘a living Constitution’) in what the Constitution ‘really means’ by Supreme Court justices who don’t like what it actually says. IMO, that is subversion of the Constitution for political expediency, and damages the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, and of the Union itself. Changes in the Constitution are fine. Subverting the Constitution is not.

  442. Max: “I know France elects a president by popular vote, and has runoffs to assure the winner is elected by a majority. Israel has both a prime minister and a president, but I don’t know how they are chosen. These are subjects for me to explore.”

    ….
    In my superficial look at “pure voting national elections” the one thing I have observed is that in some of them, the larger parties have to negotiate with smaller parties to get a majority. (Know this happens in Israel) Without thinking this through thoroughly, my instinct is that this is not a good thing because a government can always fall if the smaller party’s interests diverge. Also, from what I can tell the leaders of pure voting elections are part of a parliamentary system and have no set terms. I think having a 4-year term for a President is a good thing. In any event, in judging the utility and fairness of the American system, I think it should be compared to others.

    JD

  443. JD
    For some reason the video didn’t play for me.

    Said he was going to put up a big Calendar for Republicans — You have 180 days to pass legislation. You don’t like executive action, then pass legislation. Wonder if his views have changed.

    Obviously, that’s not how the constitution says it works. The rule is not “The president does what he wants unless Congress overrides him”. Nor is it “One member of Congress gets to give the rest of congress a time deadline”.

    Not remotely. On so many levels. Guttierez knows that. So do the courts.

  444. Max_OK

    Ron, I’m the opposite of Levin. I oppose term limits. I don’t won’t restrictions on who I can vote for.

    I’m for term limits, but no one ever proposes the type I think would be useful. I would like term limits for number of consecutive terms in the same office.

    So for example:
    * No more than 4 consecutive terms in the HOUSE.
    * No more than 2 consecutive terms in the Senate.
    * No more than 2 consecutive terms as Prez.
    The “in between” gap should be at least 2 years not in office for house and at least 4 years or for president or Senator. )

    The consecutive issue would largely eliminate the great benefit incumbents get and it would result in politicians running for different offices. So for example: A sitting Senator could run for House and a Senator could run for Congress and house critter for Senate. President could run for house or senate (they already can but never do.) People could step down, do something else (including be in Cabinet etc), then run again later.

    No one ever proposes this though.

    Yes: it would mean I can’t just keep voting in the same person from time to time. Don’t care. I think some restrictions to reduce the advantage of incumbents in good and more turn over is a sufficient benefit for this.

  445. I oppose automatic term limits. They will force both good and bad people out of office. The latter are much easier to replace than the former, so we will end up with even fewer good people in office. Also, people in office will have to pay more attention to their next career move. In most cases, that will be a cushy, high paying job working for special interests, so they will “audition” for such jobs while in office. An invitation to corruption.
    .
    I like the non-automatic term limits called competitive elections. The problem is that so many elections are not competitive. The solution is not to restrict choices, but to make elections more competitive.
    .
    I would change the law so that an office holder soliciting a campaign contribution (either for themselves or for a party or for other candidates) is exactly the same as soliciting a bribe. That would eliminate the problem of office holders spending most of their time fund raising, reduce opportunities for corruption, and make it much harder to get reelected. With luck, the only way to get reelected would be to impress your constituents by doing a great job.

  446. MikeM

    The latter are much easier to replace than the former

    Sadly, I think not.

    I would change the law so that an office holder soliciting a campaign contribution (either for themselves or for a party or for other candidates) is exactly the same as soliciting a bribe.

    I’m pretty sure this would violate the 1st amendment.

  447. Lucia: “No one ever proposes this though.”
    I am pretty sure that some states have such a system, but I do not remember which ones. It used to be quite common for governors.
    My impression is that term limits for legislators have generally not worked out well. They tend to increase the influence of lobbyists and the power of the executive. I think that some states (Utah?, Idaho?) have abandoned them.

  449. Lucia: “I’m pretty sure this would violate the 1st amendment.”
    I don’t see why since it would not apply to private citizens, only the people who currently hold office. It would be like the prohibition of certain political activities by government employees.
    There would no prohibition on private individuals paying for campaign ads on their own, provided that they do not coordinate with the office holder. And there would be no prohibition on parties raising money. Only a ban on officeholders soliciting contributions. Small, anonymous contributions could still be allowed.

  450. Me: “They will force both good and bad people out of office. The latter are much easier to replace than the former,”
    I think Lucia may have misinterpreted this. I meant that it is much easier to replace a bad officeholder with another bad officeholder than it is to replace a good officeholder with another good officeholder.

  451. MIkeM

    I don’t see why since it would not apply to private citizens, only the people who currently hold office.

    I’m not aware of 1st amendment exception for people who currently hold office.

    I think Lucia may have misinterpreted this. I meant that it is much easier to replace a bad officeholder with another bad officeholder than it is to replace a good officeholder with another good officeholder.

    I did misinterpret. But I don’t think this is true either.

  452. Max_OK: “For further explanation of why a trade deficit can be a good thing rather than a bad thing, go to https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/are-trade-deficits-really-bad-news”
    .
    That article is from 1998. Events since then would seem to disprove the claims of the article. Some quotes from the article:
    “One reason for a trade deficit can be that the deficit country is growing faster than its trading partners.”
    “In slower-growing countries, demand for imports falls ”
    “It is no coincidence that the smallest American merchandise trade deficit since 1982, $74 billion in 1991, occurred during the period’s only recession.”
    .
    So if your economy is booming, there is no reason to worry about trade deficits. I can believe that. But the converse is that if you have large trade deficits and a stagnant economy, then something is seriously wrong. That is the situation we are in.

  453. Lucia,
    There is nothing in the first amendment about the right to solicit campaign contributions.

  455. Lucia: “Obviously, that’s not how the constitution says it works. The rule is not “The president does what he wants unless Congress overrides him”. Nor is it “One member of Congress gets to give the rest of congress a time deadline”.

    Unfortunately, not obvious to either Obama or Clinton (she never spoke against it). Also, the prosecutal discretion argument in other contexts is valid. The way that Obama was using it, though, presents an instance where the exception ends up swallowing the rule. Some ideological judges, such as Ginsberg and Sotomayor could find ways to permit what Gutierrez was arguing for.

    ….
    If you have an ad blocker, it may be blocking the video. Also, I have had the same problem, and Chrome seems to work better than Firefox.

    JD

  456. MikeM

    There is nothing in the first amendment about the right to solicit campaign contributions.

    Oh Heavens. And there is nothing “specific” aobut the right of non-profits to spend on campaigngs. And they don’t mention anything about the right to post on the internet.

    Political speech is speech. Soliciting money to support a campaign is speech. The 1st amendment protects speech. Being able to spend money, raise money and so on is seen as important to being able to “speak”.

    It would be rather ridiculous to give wealthy individuals an edge in campaigning by prohibitting candidates from soliciting donations. But beyond being ridiculous, I’m pretty dang sure it would be found to violate the first amendement– just as Citizen’s united found the government can’t restrict non-profits from soliciting spending money on speech.

  457. JD Ohio

    Unfortunately, not obvious to either Obama or Clinton (she never spoke against it). Also, the prosecutal discretion argument in other contexts is valid. The way that Obama was using it, though, presents an instance where the exception ends up swallowing the rule. Some ideological judges, such as Ginsberg and Sotomayor could find ways to permit what Gutierrez was arguing for.

    And this is why it’s good Obama and Clinton are out.

    I only hope Trump doesn’t have the same view toward how the rules work.

  458. Lucia: “I only hope Trump doesn’t have the same view toward how the rules work.”

    I agree. The one positive difference between Republicans and Democrats is that a significant number of Republicans would oppose this if Trump did it.

    JD

  459. Lucia: “Soliciting money to support a campaign is speech. The 1st amendment protects speech. Being able to spend money, raise money and so on is seen as important to being able to ‘speak’.”
    .
    True.
    .
    Lucia: “It would be rather ridiculous to give wealthy individuals an edge in campaigning by prohibitting candidates from soliciting donations. But beyond being ridiculous, I’m pretty dang sure it would be found to violate the first amendement”
    .
    Not so simple. It is clearly constitutional to place limits on soliciting donations. Limits are placed on the size of donations, on who can make donations (corporations are not allowed to contribute directly), and on who can solicit donations. SCOTUS has ruled that it is constitutional to prohibit judicial candidates from soliciting, 30 of 39 states with judicial elections do that. http://www.vox.com/2015/4/29/8514243/Williams-Yulee-v-Florida-Supreme-Court
    So limitations are legal, the only issue is exactly what limitations would pass judicial scrutiny.

  460. JD Ohio: “The one positive difference between Republicans and Democrats is that a significant number of Republicans would oppose this if Trump did it.”
    I’m not so sure. Career politicians have a track record of being, well, “flexible” with their positions depending on the party in power.

  461. Trump was labeled the threat to the first amendment, but the Citizens United decision that Hillary railed against involved the group’s trying to publish a movie critical of Hillary Clinton.

  462. So Max, would you like it to be nationwide no marijuana, or nationwide legal?

    Chris Christie is declaring that he would prosecute marijuana users even in states that legalized.

  463. MikeN: “Chris Christie is declaring that he would prosecute marijuana users even in states that legalized.”
    That would be an interesting legal case. Would the 10th amendment point toward the state’s rule overriding federal legislation? I’m interested in what lawyers here have to say.

  464. Max_OK,
    First of all you need to realize that wallowing in the opposition’s over the top misery is the funnest part of winning an election, and I want to sincerely thank you for giving me that opportunity. It’s no fun spiking a football in an empty stadium.
    Second, everyone thinks the “good guys” are on their side, and they believe it sincerely.
    Third, my guess is you have a 98% chance of being under 30 years old or you would realize item #1 and #2.
    Fourth, I know your pain. I lived through Carter, Clinton, and 2008. Believe me, your chance to spike the football will arrive again, and have fun, but remember what it’s like being on the other side. Let the winners gloat, the loser’s rage, and then move on.

  465. Chris Christie is declaring that he would prosecute marijuana users even in states that legalized.

    That’s, IMO, the correct interpretation of current law. The Federal law on controlled substances trumps (as in contract bridge, I need to find a new word for that, overrides perhaps) state law. The current failure to prosecute was an executive decision and could be changed at will.

  466. Max
    “I advocate free trade because I believe it benefits more than it hurts.”
    I believe this as well, but part of this election is that those benefits are uneven and the losers in this tradeoff get to vote. Welcome to President Trump.
    The big mistake that was made here I believe is that questioning the benefits of free trade has exited the Overton window on the left, and so zero effort was made to convince Trump voters that free trade is a net positive, or that removing it will have net negative benefits to them. It was presented as an unquestionable social good and no further debate was allowed. There are good arguments here that were never made.

  467. Tom Scharf (Comment #155513)
    November 10th, 2016 at 11:36 am
    Max_OK,
    First of all you need to realize that wallowing in the opposition’s over the top misery is the funnest part of winning an election, and I want to sincerely thank you for giving me that opportunity. It’s no fun spiking a football in an empty stadium.
    _____________

    Tom, thank you. I know what you mean and I agree. I’m sure I will get over the disappointment in time. My previous biggest disappointments was the Patriots losing to the Broncos in playoffs. I soon recovered. Not that I believe a football game is as important as a presidential election. I wonder if some people do?

  468. Max_OK,

    Not that I believe a football game is as important as a presidential election. I wonder if some people do?

    If you lived where I do, you wouldn’t wonder. You’d know it for a fact.

  469. Tom Scharf (Comment #155516)
    November 10th, 2016 at 11:45 am
    Max
    “I advocate free trade because I believe it benefits more than it hurts.”

    I believe this as well, but part of this election is that those benefits are uneven and the losers in this tradeoff get to vote.
    _____

    Americans employed by firms that export a lot to foreign countries should be aware their jobs depend on free trade, but I’m not sure American consumers appreciate how much they depend on imports when shopping for the lowest prices. I doubt many look at the label on each item purchased to see where it was made.

  470. I agree with Max above that putting in place more government trade barriers would be a disaster for the US economy and consumers. Such actions invite retaliations and even military conflicts. Trump would have to go through a Republican congress to enforce those barriers and that would hopefully put Trump’s populist leanings in place. The added benefit of having a Trump president in these matters is that Democrats would also oppose some these bad policies because they were proposed by the much despised Trump.

    We should also be aware of all the trade barriers that are currently in place and attempt to eliminate them. Unfortunately populism on both the right and left does not see the common problem of getting the government to do their bidding in these matters. To be consistent they would have to also see that crony capitalism where government attempts to pick winners (and losers) does not work. Left wing populists tend to rail against the government business combines except when it supports their other agendas like renewable energy. Populists and libertarians tend to be against so-called free trade agreements but for very different reasons. Populist because they want government to put up barriers and libertarians because in true free trade the government would have little to say about with whom the trades are made. Trade agreements tend to form combines between selected nations and place stipulations even on that trade. Such agreements can hardly be called free.

  471. MikeN (Comment #155506)
    November 10th, 2016 at 11:24 am
    So Max, would you like it to be nationwide no marijuana, or nationwide legal?
    Chris Christie is declaring that he would prosecute marijuana users even in states that legalized.
    __________

    Nationwide legal. Good source of tax revenue.

    All States that legalized pot voted for Hillary.
    If Christie is Attorney General he can punish voters in those States by cracking down. Same as Bridgegate, but Potgate.

  472. DeWitt Payne (Comment #155514)
    November 10th, 2016 at 11:38 am
    Chris Christie is declaring that he would prosecute marijuana users even in states that legalized.

    That in my opinion would be cruel and unusual punishment for those people in states where they need something to help them forget the the election results or at least temper the pain.

    Seriously, though that is another reason I have for disliking Christie almost as much as I dislike Trump and the Clintons. If it were purely politics I would throw Obama in there too, but as a person I think I would get on well with him. He would be great I think in trading personal barbs – like my brother and sons are.

  473. lucia (Comment #155473)
    November 10th, 2016 at 8:59 am
    Max_OK
    Ron, I’m the opposite of Levin. I oppose term limits. I don’t won’t restrictions on who I can vote for.
    I’m for term limits, but no one ever proposes the type I think would be useful. I would like term limits for number of consecutive terms in the same office.
    _______

    lucia, I could live with limiting consecutive terms to two if the politician who had served two consecutive terms could run again after a one term absence. We should have the same rule for presidents.

  474. Kenneth,
    The issue is not if marijuana should or should not be legal. I happen to think people could use marijuana with less harm that alcoholic beverages. But the truth is: it currently IS illegal under Federal statute.
    .
    People who disagree with the law should petition Congress and the President to change it, not pass a state referendum with no legal force. Obama’s decision to simply NOT enforce certain laws that he didn’t like caused ‘yuge’ problems, and along with his other unlawful executive orders, will lead to his ‘legacy’ pretty much disappearing in the next year or so. IMO, Christie is absolutely correct to say that the law should be enforced. If there were a state referendum which allowed private ownership of nuclear missiles, that shouldn’t ‘fly’ either. It is a question of the rule of law or rule by fiat… I’ve had quite enough of rule by fiat.

  476. (Comment #155461)
    November 10th, 2016 at 6:09 am
    Max,
    “State’s rights mean what’s legal in one State can get you arrested in another State. IMO, that’s not right.”
    .
    What is legal in Oklahoma may get you arrested in Argentina, or Saudi Arabia, or China. Is that also ‘not right’?
    _______

    No, I don’t think it’s right, but few people travel much to all those places. There’s lots of traffic between States, and it can cause problems. For example, many people who work in Mass., where pot is now legal, and commute from their homes in N.H. where it isn’t legal, may buy pot to take home, adding to the problem of law enforcement in N.H. Even worse, to avoid being fined for possession in N.H., some may just consume the pot before leaving Mass. and drive home stoned.

  477. “All States that legalized pot voted for Hillary.”
    Florida voted for medical marijuana and voted Trump. Many people on the right are more libertarian than conservative, myself included. They tend to vote for things like legalizing pot. This isn’t really a hot button issue.

  478. marc bofill,
    Trump will end up with ~306 electoral votes and in a virtual tie in the popular vote. Count on the current bellyaching by ‘progressives’ about the ‘grotesque unfairness’ of the electoral college to disappear if Trump ends up with slightly more popular votes. But don’t worry, there will be an endless stream of other complaints… Comey, lies about Hillary, etc, etc. ‘Sore loser’ is the only accurate description.
    .
    When a bunch of progressive sacred cows go to slaughter over the next couple of years, I will take pleasure in reminding those who are crying and howling of Mr Obama’s thoughtful quote: “Elections have consequences”.

  479. SteveF,

    Count on the current bellyaching by ‘progressives’ about the ‘grotesque unfairness’ of the electoral college to disappear if Trump ends up with slightly more popular votes. But don’t worry, there will be an endless stream of other complaints…

    Doubtless.

    I will take pleasure in reminding those who are crying and howling of Mr Obama’s thoughtful quote: “Elections have consequences”.

    🙂 You’re an evil man, SteveF. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

  480. There does not exist a universal set of “correct” laws that all states or nations should be held to. Segments of societies (tribes) should have the right to form rules that they wish to live under and change those as they wish. It is very presumptive to assume one tribe’s rules are superior and should be applied to an allegedly inferior tribe to make them better for their own good, and I would suggest the outcome of this process is what we many times call war.
    The US has a decent system. There are a set of laws everyone must abide by (the Constitution) and the states are left to work out the rest based on the values of their citizens. To believe that its unfair for states to have different rules is to believe in a universal correct set of rules. It is a miraculous coincidence that those who believe this think the rule set should be one that just happens to very tightly align with their own values.

  481. Max,
    “Mass., where pot is now legal, and commute from their homes in N.H. where it isn’t legal, may buy pot to take home, adding to the problem of law enforcement in N.H.”
    .
    Ummm… that is not accurate. It is unlawful under Federal Statute everywhere in the USA. The problem is that State referendums can’t countermand Federal Laws… this has been upheld multiple times by the SC. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause) People need to petition Congress if they want marijuana to be legal, not pass state referendums.
    .
    “No, I don’t think it’s right, but few people travel much to all those places.”
    .
    Setting aside the fact that I have traveled to all those places more than once, are you seriously suggesting that laws should be the same everywhere on Earth? If so, you should expect a wee bit of push-back from Saudi Arabia, and most everywhere else.

  482. marc bofill,
    “You’re an evil man, SteveF. I mean that in the nicest possible way.”
    .
    Errr… OK. My kids probably thought the same when I pointed out the folly of a very bad decision. 😉

  483. If this election was based on popular vote, it would be absolute chaos right now. Can you imagine it? Barely any margin and the ability to find “missing votes” in countless different places, not to mention some precincts having less than stellar ethics. Chicago would probably find 100M votes someone accidentally dropped under a table, ha ha.

  484. Mark,
    I didn’t see CNN projecting Trump as the popular vote winner. In any case, I think the electoral college concept is easy to understand for tennis players. The winner of a 7-6 1-6 7-6 match is the one who wins two sets, not the one who won 18 games. Those are the rules, and even kids understand this.

  485. From Wikipedia:
    “In Gonzales v. Raich it ruled that the Commerce Clause granted Congress the authority to criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes. The court held that, as with the agricultural production in the earlier case [viz., Wickard v. Filburn], home-grown cannabis is a legitimate subject of federal regulation because it competes with marijuana that moves in interstate commerce.”

    The art of legal interpretation eludes me.

  486. Max_OK

    lucia, I could live with limiting consecutive terms to two if the politician who had served two consecutive terms could run again after a one term absence. We should have the same rule for presidents.

    That’s pretty much what the rules I had above would allow.

    Note I wrote

    * No more than 4 consecutive terms in the HOUSE.
    * No more than 2 consecutive terms in the Senate.
    * No more than 2 consecutive terms as Prez.
    The “in between” gap should be at least 2 years not in office for house and at least 4 years or for president or Senator. )

    The House has 2 year terms. The Senate has 6. The president 4. So I’m actually letting Senators run sooner than a full term in the Senate, I’d only make them wait 4 years. Each state has 2 Senators, and whether or not they could run again would depend on when in the cycle their Senate term was. But I’d allow it at 4 years.

  488. RB,

    Yup. But did the info on my link change already? Let me go look. No, looks like Trump is still behind in the numeric count, but CNN still says ‘popular vote projected winner Trump’ in red. I presume they are still counting, but have some estimate that causes them to believe that when the smoke clears Trump will have won the popular vote.
    But yes, I agree with you. Electoral college is easy to understand, it’s the rules, I got no bones to pick over any of that. I was just sharing this in light of the recent discussion / comments about the popular vote vs the electoral college.
    [edit: I don’t presume they are still ‘counting’. Poor choice of words. I don’t know exactly what they are doing. Tabulating, perhaps? Checking? I’m not sure why it takes so long. Then again, maybe they are literally still counting. I don’t know.]

  489. P.S. Edit function isn’t working for me at the moment. A window opens, but never fills.
    [Add: but Edit works on this comment. No idea what’s different.]

  490. Mark,
    I think the projected winner in the popular vote tab does not refer to an actual popular vote projection.

  492. HarroldW,
    From a defense lawyer’s web page:

    Under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I substance. By definition, Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and dependency, with no recognized medical use or value. Any marijuana possession, cultivation, or use is a federal crime, subjecting a defendant to fines, prison time, or both. Large scale cultivation and trafficking (transporting or selling marijuana, often across state lines) incurs harsher penalties, and tends to be the main focus of federal drug enforcement attention.

    .
    Pot is unlawful everywhere in the USA, independent of whether or not someone thinks it should be.

  493. If that’s so, in my defense, that’s a heck of a misleading HTML div. All one color, one div, Popular Vote Projected Winner Trump, atop the counts for Clinton and Trump votes with ‘est. 93% in updated 3:32 pm ET, Nov. 10’ below.
    What the heck else is a reader supposed to make of that I wonder.

  494. marc,

    Trump will pick up a few more votes (not yet counted) in Alaska and Arizona, but these will probably not close the gap by more than 50,000, so Hillary will end up with a tiny popular vote advantage…. which is irrelevant.

  495. I’m not convinced of the value of term limits, other than for president. I appreciate the idea that they might prevent, or diminish the effect of, a class of professional congresspeople, people who do nothing else.

    Shirley term limits would increase the population of lobbyists. Would that be good?

    To make the case for term limits, one would have to show that folks now past the proposed limit are worse than the freshmen they would be replaced by. I’m not sure that’s easy given some of the crackpots (in my view) who have found their way into congress in recent years.

    I think the problem is that we really lack exposure to how these folks behave in office. The congressional committee on which Barbara Jordan served had public hearings during the Watergate reviews. i watched all that were televised and found some of the people quite impressive, especially Barbara Jordan, but there were some others….

    Later I read that with one exception, none of the people who had failed to grasp the magnitude of the problem or who was just plain goofy, was returned by his constituents in the next election.

    The control here was that the constituents had never seen their heroes in action and when they did, decided to look elsewhere.

    It might be fun for the rest of us to see who the seekers of term limits think has served too long.

  496. SteveF,
    Agreed. I’ll cancel [posting on] this train of thought due to lack of interest, myself included. 🙂

  497. Proposed Constitutional amendment: “Any Law passed by Congress shall automatically expire and become null and void 50 years after passage unless renewed during the last 5 years of its validity by a majority vote of both House and Senate.”

  499. SteveF (Comment #155537)

    You are correct about the law but I would not start with a crackdown on pot by the feds.

  500. I’m not convinced of the value of term limits, other than for president. I appreciate the idea that they might prevent, or diminish the effect of, a class of professional congresspeople, people who do nothing else.

    Shirley term limits would increase the population of lobbyists. Would that be good?

    I would like to make two points here in reply, j ferguson.

    First of all the intent of a least some of those who framed our constitution was that a diverse group of individuals with diverse backgrounds would be sent to Washington to represent their populaces. That mission was to be more a duty and something one did as a duty and not as a matter of self aggrandizement and a creating a resume that would allow influence peddling when the political career was finished. The politician was expected to go back to his original occupation when his term was up.

    Secondly we will have lobbyist as long as the government has great power over people’s lives and can take from one group to give to another. It will not matter in the least whether there are term limits or not.

    I cannot understand why people would think that a politician who has spent years in Washington would not after awhile lose touch with the reality with which the people that he represents deal.

    A politician in a safe voting district can probably serve as long as he wishes and probably even after he has peed his pants a few times seating in chamber. That thought should make you think again about term limits.

  501. Kenneth,
    I’m fully aware of what the founders’ intentions were regarding service to the country to be a sort of duty, not an office to be coveted. I think that horse is so far from the barn that it cannot be corralled. (more to follow)

  502. ON charter schools:
    WSJ: today

    Mr. Trump has said that he would pump billions into “school choice,” including backing voucher programs, which are popular with many parents but often opposed by public-school districts. And as the nation’s new education law is set to be fully implemented next school year, some educators are wondering if it will be derailed.

    He’s for charters and vouchers.

  503. voucher programs, which are popular with many parents but often opposed by public-school districts.

    Fewer filled seats means fewer dollars in the till for public schools and eventually fewer teachers and staff. That’s anathema to the teacher’s unions, which usually control the public school boards.

  504. Yes. The article says teachers unions don’t like this.

    Vouchers also means things can happen fast because in many cases schools already exist. For example: I live two blocks from Benet Academy, whose students get the highest ACT score averages in the state.

    They have competitive entrance exams, so this is almost certainly partly due to “filtering”, but still. The school exists. Parents who want their kids to go there would, I am sure love vouchers.

  505. In Massachusetts, a ballot issue was defeated which would have provided for an increase in charter schools. As far as I can tell, the opposition was teachers’ unions, arguing that charter schools would take $$ away from public schools. The clear implication is that education would suffer, omitting mention of the proportionate reduction in the number of students that the public schools would have to educate. I was quite disappointed, having seen a newly-established local charter school help some of my children’s friends who weren’t doing well in the (excellent) public school.

    As much as I agree with increasing alternatives to public schools (charter schools, vouchers), I disagree with mandating this from Washington. It’s easy to support Federal initiatives when they go along with one’s own beliefs/preferences, but it usually works out that later on, programs may go in an unwanted direction, and by then there’s little chance for local resistance to the Federal juggernaut.

  506. Lucia, have you read Freakonomics? In it, they talk about the Chicago school system which held a lottery for kids to go to better schools. Studies showed that students performed much better at the new schools, but also so did the kids who weren’t selected.
    The critical factor wasn’t the school but the student and the parents.

  507. HaroldW, I wonder if the objection to charter schools is a little like the post office’s objection to anyone else delivering ordinary mail. I think the idea is that the post office has to deliver at great expense to everywhere but at a fixed fee, Cold Tit, Montana for example while the commercial outfits could siphon off the easy stuff and not go to Cold Tit at all.

    And maybe the charter schools would do the same thing. the Public schools would have to take everyone but the charter schools although open to anyone might never see the really hard cases.

  508. j ferguson,
    I think a lot depends on how access to the charter schools is set up. You may not want the charters to exclude kids based on test scores…. that really would diminish the remaining public schools. But a lottery based selection seems to me like it could work.
    .
    Truth is, lots of public school systems effectively already have a ‘charter like’ system in place, where very good students have access to advanced courses, often smaller classes (not everyone can qualify!), and some of the best teachers (advanced degrees in the subject area). This flys with the teachers’ union because it does not reduce their numbers.

  509. jferguson (#155625)
    A fair question, although my understanding is that charter schools aren’t allowed to select based on (for example) grades or test scores. They’re not intended to resemble magnet schools, for example. The idea was to allow a greater degree of innovation in education, with the hope of eventually transferring successful methods back into the public school system.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_School_%28Massachusetts%29

  510. Is it possible that the students in charter schools are almost all there because their parents want them there, and hence will encourage them and participate in their educations, and the kids that are left will include a lot whose parents have other worries ie. don’t give a damn?

    Somehow, I see charter schools opening the opportunity for at least the appearance of separate and unequal.

    fixing our public schools seems a really difficult problem. you wouldn’t think it would be.

  511. j ferguson,
    Parents of kids in charter schools do differ from those outside charter schools in so much as they are ones who took the step to locate an option and put their kid on the list. Some of those kids got in, some did not.

    The “separate but unequal” issue here wouldn’t be a civil rights problem because it’s a parent choice– it’s not the local system or government dictating which kids are eligible for benefits and which are not. (FWIW: Kids with parents who make better choices will also be better off anyway. This just happens to be an option. )

    Beyond all that: this sifting by parental choice wouldn’t even matter if the non-charter-publics were better than they are.

    WRT to vouchers access to that could potentially open up more options and permit more kids whose parents do want them out of bad public schools to get out. We don’t know details of how that would pan out yet.

  512. jferguson –
    Again, good points. I imagine that parents whose children are not doing well in public school will be more motivated to apply for a charter school admission, hence a before-and-after comparison is likely to favor the charters. But to the supporters of charter schools, that is exactly the point — to provide an alternative.
    .
    In this state (MA), each town — or sometimes a group of a few nearby towns — has its own school system, largely funded by local real estate taxes. The level of funding, as measured by per-student expenditures, varies from town to town. Support from local PTAs, and parental involvement, varies from town to town. People who are able to, tend to relocate to towns known to have the better school systems. In other words, it’s already separate and unequal. I don’t consider that, in and of itself, to be a problem.

  513. DeWitt, federal enforcement of marijauna law is impossible without state cooperation. The resources required is too high. If a state legallizes, then the feds can either respect that decision, or expect to increase their enforcement by 100x.

    Max, given that we have a federal ban, would you support having states legalize, or do you think it’s more important to have consistency across states?

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