Featured NBC Poll has Trump winning by LANDSLIDE

I wouldn't mess too much with Manafort, that guy is hardcore lethal.

What is so terrible about holding a rally in CT? They're covered nationally and it's not even Labor Day.

What I'd like to know is why Hillary is spending so much on broadcast ads here in WA State, and I hear she's even throwing more money into California . . . why?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/t...-to-keep-lights-on-doors-open/article/2599272

This election, whatever the "experts" say, best to ignore it. A month ago, all I heard was how much more money Hillary was raising, but now she's begging her supporters for donations to "keep up" with Trump.

 

Ah yes, the secret plan to win the election. Like Rocky going after Apollo Creed, punching with his other hand, Trump has some masterstroke waiting in the wings. LOL!

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I will eat a massive helping of crow if I'm wrong, but Trump is going to lose. And it seems like he's trying to make that happen. It really looks like he's trying to lose. I'm almost ready to buy into the theory he's a DNC plant.

I am floored by how badly he is running this campaign. Thinking that his campaign is anything other than a dumpster fire is wishful thinking at best.

 

You might want to consider that you're probably being brainwashed by the liberal media in your thinking.

I'd think it better to be a winning participant in making a change from the do-nothing Establishment and as far away as possible from those supporting Hillary, but if you feel you must join in with the rhetoric of "losers", don't worry, you won't be alone:

 

I'm not being brainwashed by anyone. I don't even watch the news. I don't have cable, and I don't care to watch the NBC/ABC/CBS channels I can get by antenna except on rare occasions. That's mostly for local news. But I read online, and I listen to different perspectives. I do also listen to Five Thirty Eight podcasts, which you might say are liberal, but they are much more wonkish than political.

I'm not a participant in anything. I think the GOP should have nominated Marco Rubio, for whom I voted in the Arkansas primary, but I will not vote for Trump. I could vote for a good man, but a man who unrepentantly has boasted of his serial marriages and adulterous affairs, his unethical business deals, and his general lack of a decent demeanor is not someone I can support. A man who doesn't believe he needs to ask God for forgiveness is not qualified to be President, IMO.

But my thoughts don't matter anyway.

I'm considering a third party (Libertarian) because my vote won't matter at all, and it could help toward future ballot access in the state. Arkansas is a super-safe state for the GOP, so no matter how I vote, it won't matter.

But I do lament that the once-great GOP has devolved into a disrespectful mob openly celebrating a candidate who is one of the two worst major candidates in recent history.

So, no, I don't care about "winning." If a "win" comes by the wrong means, it's not a win at all. The ends don't justify the means, and I wouldn't even be getting my 30 pieces of silver with Trump.

I'd be trading my birthright for one hot meal.

 

Excellent reply, Stefan.

Speaking of wasted votes, since Trump is going to win by a landslide he doesn't need Stefan's vote. In fact, if Trump is going to win with 60% of the vote there's going to be a whole lot of wasted votes. After all, it only takes 1 vote more than the opponent to produce a winner.

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Yes indeed. Bernie was beating by quite a lot. She stole the nomination.

I wasn't referencing Reagan. I was speaking of #41, G.H.W. Bush. He had 53.4% of the vote compared with 45.6% for Michael Dukakis. In the Electoral College it was Bush 426 and M.D. 111.

 

Yeah, and those big crowds but few votes were all in the primaries, Hillary and Trump have moved onto the general. They will both need to adapt and adjust and, from that other thread, I doubt that third-party nobody will end up winning Utah or any other state. Mormons are big Republicans, but they are not that into identity politics and that guy IS a spoiler. A spoiler doesn't mean it's somebody who prevents another candidate from getting to 270 EC votes, in 1992, Perot was a spoiler and in 2000, Nader was a spoiler and neither of them even won one electoral college vote.

I've been trying to look through the past elections to predict this one, and I'm having a big problem since this time both of the conventions were so early - that throws my "polls in August don't matter, wait for Labor Day" idea a monkey wrench. But they had to go change it to make this election season even longer.

Rip's post reminded me of the last presidential election in the way both years were pretty slim popular vote wins, but blowouts in the EC. You sure couldn't say that about 2000 and now I recall in 2012, Romney's own internal polls were wrong, and that's why they were all acting so weird. Mitt's polls were showing him hours before election day winning Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia and tied in some other states (Iowa). Whoops!!!

 

This is key. We have no basis for believing that the average size of rallies correlates to victory. (I would exclude those who have very small rallies. If you can't attract even a respectable crowd, you don't really have a chance.) Simply put, after a certain point, rally size is practically irrelevant. They attract the very fired-up voters.

But elections aren't won just by very fired-up voters. They are won by a mix of voters, include the barely interested who made a last-minute decision, casual voters who only somewhat care, and people who are passionate but who wouldn't bother with going to a rally (because of work, family time, etc.).

Trump could have a rabidly supportive voter base that dwarfs Clinton's, but if Clinton can pull in those casual voters, she can still win.

I think Trump is wrong about the candidate that the "silent majority" is trending toward.

 

OK, but my point still stands. Bush Sr. had a real campaign with TV and radio ads, a ground game, and a unified GOP. He had Lee Atwater, probably the smartest campaign manager in GOP history.

Dukakis made many missteps--the video of him wearing a helmet riding in a tank trying to show he was strong militarily, the ridiculous photos of him in a clean room suit trying to show he was high-tech, and his fumbling of the debate question about seeking the death penalty for someone who (hypothetically) raped and killed his wife.





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But Dukakis was also running against Reagan's VP, and four years after he won, made his own set of unforced errors - breaking the tax pledge, ignorant on the price of groceries, glancing at his watch repeatedly during a debate, and so on.

Later candidates found their own unique mistakes - "stop lying about my record", windsurfing. MSM (Fox News, IIRC) breaking a 20-year-old DUI story, going "back to work" in the Senate when your opponent didn't, picking a naive VP then trying to muzzle her, "check the transcript, Candy" and so on again.

Stephan is referring to "voter intensity" and I've seen it on both sides. Yes, there are some die-hard fans but it also can contain die-hard opponents. There are voters that dislike both of them but really hate one of them. Love and hate factor into voter intensity.

It's just still too early to tell. Trump is volatile and Hillary could have very serious health issues, she had to take off the weekend to rest and that's not a good sign. Laterz.

 

That would exclude both of Reagan's victories, and they were definitely landslides. Reagan got close to 60% in 1984, but he didn't hit it. Nevertheless, he destroyed the competition.