Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

Pretty low key speech indeed, just went through the motions.

Good thing we didn't go. I was hoping for bread and circus. A spectacle.

I mean, was the govenuh even there?
No sign of the big guy in the videos.

This NBC/WSJ poll seems encouraging:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-cli ... 1476622801

And yet, only up 4 in ABC poll, basically the margin of error.

These polls are just way too close.
She's down 4 in OH, up 1 in NC, up 2 in NV.
She needs to win either NC or NV to seal the deal.
Clearly, this sex stuff did almost no serious, lasting damage to the big guy, just like was the case with Big Bill in the 90s.
I've got a very bad feeling….

OK, glad you are back in full Trumpexit mode. Let's make the most of this one. The next race might feature some really boring challenger.

So who saw the debate Saturday night?
Now Trump is blaming the media for people having a laugh at his expense.

That was funny Saturday night.

We are so flirting with catastrophe it is not even funny.

Jim, this might make you feel better (?):

"There’s nothing strange about polls showing Hillary Clinton up four or 11 points if it’s really a seven- or eight-point race."
By NATE COHN, NYTIMES Upshot

(Sorry, Art)

I just read that McCain says the repubs will block any supreme court nominees from HRC.

And he's the "moderate." <rolls eyes>

You know what is really disturbing is how she is doing like no campaigning.
I mean, Jesus, I worked harder when I was running for mayor of Lewiston!
I knocked on 10,000 doors that summer/fall.
Trump has been doing like twice as many public appearances,
He is dominating the news every night.
Just like during the primaries.
Sure, a lot of it is dirt, but he is setting the narrative.
I once saw Walter Mondale speak to 100,000 people in the Boston Common in a race in which he lost 49 states to Reagan on '84.
I saw Gore campaign for 72 straight hours without sleep in the last 3 days of the 2000 campaign.
Same thing from Obama in '08, remember how he finally cried in that very last speech in Miami, he had been up three straight days, flying from airport hangar to airport hangar, his grandmother had just died the day before, you knew he had left everything out on the field.
Utterly exhausted, spent.
Not getting that from Hillary.
Where's the urgency from Clinton?
She's at her best when she is ripping into Trump.
There have been two or three speeches like that in the campaign, where she has really gone after him, but they have been few and far between.
She seemed tired and ill, like someone sickly, with walking pneumonia, in that last debate, where he "stopped the bleeding."
More than three weeks to go. Ugh. It feels like the Donald weathered the storm and now he is about to Low-Energy-Jeb her.

The fact that HRC's campaign are sending (surrogate) boots on the ground to Arizona should be all you need to know.

Whether or not she actually has people voting for her policies (rather than against her opponent) doesn't matter much if she can run up the score and run the table.

I think the candidates have the best intel on how things are progressing, and given that we see her playing serious offense (AZ has voted blue once in 64 years) and that DJT mostly is grousing about rigged elections and crooked media should be all we need to really know.

I wouldn't begrudge H taking a lighter schedule here going into the final lap. She is far ahead, and she got that way by working hard at this for 3 decades.

Now of course pretty much everything she stands for is in opposition to my values, but I can't ignore the fact that she is a tough, determined, ruthless political creature. I left out the word 'effective' but time will tell on that.

This is one of the few points I can fully back you on, Jim. She is running a very low profile campaign. It's not normal. The only thing that can possibly said for it is the less she does, the less she can do wrong. It's a four-corners or run out the clock campaign.

Arv, the last month of a presidential election campaign can't be the time to kick back no matter how hard one has worked to get to this position. If you have a winning hand you press your bets.

Something is inhibiting her from getting out more. In the less nefarious of the scenarios imo this is due somehow to down ballot strategy. At the other end of the spectrum you have a health issue, real or perceived. And it could be just the pneumonia.

HRC is the embodiment of her constituencies desires. I don't think they care whether she actually shows up talk to a bunch of VFW guys or not.

Her base is psyched for the next month. Her opposition is fractured, demoralized, sulking.

If she's not a good, natural campaigner what's the upside in letting take risks this close to the end of the game.

This is like cramming before an exam. The well prepared should (and need) NOT do that.

She's not campaigning much right now, as her body double is on strike ("more pay for more pantsuits"), and her docs are still fine tuning her performance enhancing cocktail of steroids, blood thinners, solvents and blow.

Trump meanwhile is providing cover for her low profile with redoubled twitter mania and ever more Wagnerian rallies.

I'm pretty sure she's not gonna let the last 3 weeks go by without some more big public events.
In the meantime, the tag team has been doing a good job of keeping Trump on the ropes.
The cycle on Trump's little head may be played out by now, and the media moving onto HRC emails for the time leading up to the debate.
That is unless there are more women to come forward.

Her handlers must think Hillary + campaigning = less is more. Plus, why risk distracting from your opponent just as he's having a nervous breakdown on national television?

So this electoral college map gives all kinds of benefit of the doubt to Trump, it gives him FL, NC, OH, IA, NV, and even ME-2.
And even then Hillary wins with 272.
So it seems pretty strong for Hillary.
But…
If he picks off ONE more state… say, NH… or NM… or CO... or a rust belt state like WI or MN... it's President Trump.

You mean if in addition to all of the rosy scenarios showing him getting to 266 we add in an additional rosy scenario getting him to 270 he wins? I mean I hope so otherwise the election would have to be rigged against him.

Ha yes but the rosy scenarios above are all well within the margin of error.
It appears he is going to win OH. He has been consistently ahead there.
Also, obviously, he has to win FL. He has been consistently a point or two behind there.
But, there has been a yuuge Republican get out the vote effort in FL.
That leaves us with IA, where he has been ahead for weeks, and NC/NV, which are a dead heat.


So… With three weeks to go, it comes down to…

A huge surprise…

Florida.

May heaven help us.

Predict number 42 for the thread:

Hillary will squeak out a victory in Ohio.

The New York Times Upshot today has Hillary at 91% vs. Trump at 9% chance of winning. I think that is the first time it has been over 90%. Still, as unpredictable as Trump has been, who knows what could transpire in the coming 3 weeks. Given his "make-up," I expect at least a couple more grenades to be lobbed.

Lots of really favorable polls for Clinton today. Even counting a crap outfit like Rasmussen, she has an 8 point lead nationally. And this is before the video of Donald Trump caught in the act of groping someone comes to light.

General Election: CBS News - Clinton +11
General Election: Rasmussen - Clinton +2
General Election: GWU/Battleground - Clinton +8
General Election: Monmouth - Clinton +12

BATTLEGROUND STATES
North Carolina: CNN/ORC - Clinton +1
Ohio: Quinnipiac - Tie
Ohio: CNN/ORC - Trump +4
Florida: Quinnipiac - Clinton +4
Pennsylvania: Quinnipiac - Clinton +6
Nevada: CNN/ORC - Clinton +2
Colorado: Quinnipiac - Clinton +8
Utah: Heat Street/Rasmussen - Trump +1

No video yet, but the latest story is Gary Busey groped someone on the Apprentice set and Donald joked about it with Busey when Don was supposed to be disciplining him.

This email issue is starting to gain some traction.

JimHow wrote:This email issue is starting to gain some traction.

I think the KGB is blackmailing Assange.

Blanquito wrote:Lots of really favorable polls for Clinton today. Even counting a crap outfit like Rasmussen, she has an 8 point lead nationally. And this is before the video of Donald Trump caught in the act of groping someone comes to light.

General Election: CBS News - Clinton +11
General Election: Rasmussen - Clinton +2
General Election: GWU/Battleground - Clinton +8
General Election: Monmouth - Clinton +12

BATTLEGROUND STATES
North Carolina: CNN/ORC - Clinton +1
Ohio: Quinnipiac - Tie
Ohio: CNN/ORC - Trump +4
Florida: Quinnipiac - Clinton +4
Pennsylvania: Quinnipiac - Clinton +6
Nevada: CNN/ORC - Clinton +2
Colorado: Quinnipiac - Clinton +8
Utah: Heat Street/Rasmussen - Trump +1

My instinct are with Blanquito's -- all the tossups and breaks are going to go HRC's way.

Demoralized conservatives (like moi) will try to distance ourselves from the slaughterhouse that will be Tuesday, by staying away from the polls.

Perhaps by not voting we can emotionally absolve ourselves of the impending disaster.

(although technically I vote by mail)

I love voting by mail. In Colorado with its traditional of "direct democracy", there are literally dozens on ballot initiatives we have to vote on every 2 years and most of these come with an official description written in the worst legalese imaginable. So figuring out how to vote is time consuming and it really helps to go online to research. This also makes for voting in person a long, long day (even if you skip the ballot questions, there are still long lines from those in front of you who don't). In 2006, my first Colorado election but before vote by mail, I waited in line 4 hours to vote. Voting never took more than 5 mins when in lived in New York, so this was a new experience for me.

It is a scandal to me that people have to wait in line to vote.
i just don't get it. In Maine we don't have to wait at all.
Maybe ten or fifteen minutes during rush hour after work.
When I see these lines where people have to wait 12 hours.
How can that be?
Why don't they just hire more workers at each polling place?
I mean, at, what, $9 per hour once every two or four years, these states with multi-billion dollar budgets can't afford it?
That's crazy.
I love voting on election day, I love the whole social element to it, the local candidates greeting you outside, petition tables inside, the clerks saying hello, Mr. Mayor, when I'm checking in, seeing people at the polls you haven't seen in years, etc.

Voting in Chappaqua was five to ten minutes at 6:30 am before the commute to NYC. I won't know what Florida is like this year, we are in Israel and have already sent in our absentee ballots. No prizes for guessing who we voted for.

AKR wrote: Demoralized conservatives (like moi) will try to distance ourselves from the slaughterhouse that will be Tuesday, by staying away from the polls.

Perhaps by not voting we can emotionally absolve ourselves of the impending disaster.

(although technically I vote by mail)

It would seem to me that HRC is a clearly better choice for conservatives since she is known as a centrist who works for consensus on both sides of the aisle.
I mean, how many conservative newspapers have endorsed her for president?

Basing one's vote on passion rather than reason is a good way to create trouble.
DJT isn't a conservative and I'm sure he wouldn't govern as one, more like a dictator methinks.
IMO he isn't even capable of being a leader.

Hey cheer up, Curt Schilling is running for U.S. Senate in MA.
<rolls eyes>

He'd be as viable as any fringe conservative if it were not for the RI fiasco. And contrary to his assertions he benefitted personally from the state-guaranteed loan because it enabled him to get off the hook for his personal guarantee of the company's indebtedness.

True. And OJ was a great guy except for the slaughter of his ex-wife and her friend.
Taibbi did quite an article on The Schill a few weeks back:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/fe ... =082316_16

JimHow wrote:...
I love voting on election day, I love the whole social element to it, the local candidates greeting you outside, petition tables inside, the clerks saying hello, Mr. Mayor, when I'm checking in, seeing people at the polls you haven't seen in years, etc.

I was just saying to my wife last night that absentee voting eliminates one of the big benefits of in-person voting - community.

Around here the lines are always short so no big incentive to go absentee.

Jim, thanks for posting that link on the Schilling article. Great stuff.

You're welcome Jon, yeah, The Schill is pretty hard to stomach, he makes regular appearances on the morning drive radio show on Boston's WEEI. I was there (with Whuzzup__) the night of the bloody sock game in Yankee Stadium, though, in October 2004. Oh, sure, I didn't mind him then! Just like Tommy Brady supporting the Donald... although, at least TB12 is keeping out of it.

I think Hillary is laying low right now thinking if she doesn't present herself as a target then she won't be adding any oxygen to the email fire.

On NPR this afternoon a poll of millenials showed people would rather see a massive asteroid hit Earth rather than seeing either Donald or Hillary elected.

Some of this stupidity by some of the electorate I chalk up to the elimination of basic civics classes in high school. There is a general lack of understanding of how politics works and the underlying concepts of our system of government. The art of the deal and compromise has been lost. Now it's "my way or the highway" and and any compromise is seen as being weak and caving in. My fear is years from now we either have to relearn how to govern a democratic society and respect alternative points of view or we'll be headed towards a totalitarian state for survival.