Presidential election, 2016

[Cynic Hero '86]

Sanders supporters will not forget how hillary screwed america out of a great candidate so that she could advance her globalist agenda of a world without borders, a world without hierarchy. Millennials and Xers will vote for trump in droves. Then we could get to real business like rebuilding the nuclear arsenal, Pacifying the middle east and systematically rooting out all islamists wherever they are found and doing so with the gloves OFF. Signing spheres of influence agreements with Putin and Xi to delineate the domains of the great powers. Then the world will go from strength to strength in terms of human developing and begin the first steps toward space colonization.

[pbrower2a]

(06-23-2016, 07:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-22-2016, 11:12 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The upper echelons of the Armed Forces are not going to commit war crimes. Not that anyone wants to think a coup possible, a military coup is the definitive impeachment. No, you are not going to start a war for your glory and the corrupt gain of your cronies. The military would go through the line of succession to find someone willing to adhere to the Constitution who is eligible for the Presidency. The pretext for the removal of Donald Trump would be disability -- that anyone who commanded war crimes would have to be insane or senile, and thus acting un-Constitutionally.

There would not be military government. Whoever would act as President would not face military interference.

War crimes are literal "high crimes and misdemeanors" suitable for impeachment. They have never been named in any bill of impeachment.

I'd think the military's role would be to refuse to follow illegal orders then to notify Congress so Congress could consider impeachment.  Use of force would in theory not be necessary or appropriate.  Of course, refusing to follow orders, even of questionable legality, is a risky career move.

Of course, the problem arises if the President persists in demanding that senior officers commit war crimes on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief. Military officers at all ranks are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and war crimes are themselves violations of the UCMJ. There will probably be some attempt to clarify orders and, should those orders be criminal, a warning to the President that such orders are criminal and that they will not be obeyed. No soldier has any obligation to obey a criminal order.

Congress would be in the position to impeach, and testimony by current or recently-retired senior military officers would surely be the core of the testimony.

There is no questionable legality of an order to commit a war crime; any war crime is itself a "high crime or misdemeanor". A factual basis might be suspect, but that makes a very different situation.

[Eric the Green]

I just hope the Democrats get it real clear that Republicans today cannot be worked with, and any hope for any kind of progressive program depends not on "working with Republicans," as Hillary seems to think, but on voting them out. Trump is an opportunity to do that, if his toxic candidacy hurts down ballot Republicans. Democrats need to focus on that hard.

[playwrite]

(06-15-2016, 06:34 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: In "Seven Days in May" the premise was a "liberal" President facing a coup by a faction of the military that was under undue influence from "the Military-Industrial Complex."

Now, let us imagine the opposite scenario. A mentally unstable authoritarian President facing a coup by a General Staff upholding their oath of duty:

http://time.com/4370608/donald-trump-military/

One cannot rule out this scenario. Not in these strange times.

"Okay, who put the live Stinger on the F15 WH flyover?

Now, we got to rebuild the WH, and find a new President!

Somebody is trouble.  Okay, who?  Bueller?  Bueller?"

[playwrite]

(06-23-2016, 08:53 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Sanders supporters will not forget how hillary screwed america out of a great candidate so that she could advance her globalist agenda of a world without borders, a world without hierarchy. Millennials and Xers will vote for trump in droves. Then we could get to real business like rebuilding the nuclear arsenal, Pacifying the middle east and systematically rooting out all islamists wherever they are found and doing so with the gloves OFF. Signing spheres of influence agreements with Putin and Xi to delineate the domains of the great powers. Then the world will go from strength to strength in terms of human developing and begin the first steps toward space colonization.

Okay, CH,  calm down.  Take it easy.

And quite these Starship Troopers binge-watching all-nighters!  It's going to meltdown the few synapses you got left!

[pbrower2a]

Among other polls:

Quinnipiac FLOP:

Florida: Clinton 47%, Trump 39%
Ohio: Clinton 40%, Trump 40%
Pennsylvania: Clinton 42%, Trump 41%

https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinn...aseID=2359

("FLOP" refers to the states polled)



Others involving Arizona, Arkansas, and Maine, and North Carolina.  This is a convenient time for maps -- 130 electoral votes are discussed on this map.

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump




30% -- lead with 40-49% but a margin of 3% or less
40% -- lead with 40-49% but a margin of 4% or more
60% -- lead with 50-54%
70% -- lead with 55-59%
90% -- lead with 60% or more

Leads with less than 40% are considered TIES.

...By the way -- I suggest that we pay more attention to my polling thread on the three-way race for Clinton/Johnson/Trump. The unusually-strong Libertarian ticket may change the character of this Presidential race from the binary races to we have been accustomed the last four times.

As here:

Three-way race:





White is for ties. Even leads in the thirties of 1% or more will be shown in the color of the winner. I am averaging for North Carolina. I do not accept the St. Leo University poll that shows Hillary Clinton up 15 on Donald Trump in Florida.   

Small states and districts in area: CT: D5,6;4 ME: D7,??;4  ME-01 (est) D14,??;6 ME-02 R2,??;4

Clinton (D)
Trump ®
Johnson (L)

[pbrower2a]

I'm also seeing some incredibly bad national polls for Donald Trump, with him behind anywhere from 5% to 13%. One does not usually see the meltdown of a political campaign before his Party's convention.

[pbrower2a]

For those who want to see whether Jill  Stein can help Donald Trump as a spoiler...

Stein: CT 3, FL 3, NC 2, OH 3, PA 4

Add or replace: CO 1 FL 1 NC 1 WI 2

Stein strength map (why not?)



Probably not. Gary Johnson can really hurt Donald Trump, though.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-26-2016, 12:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I'm also seeing some incredibly bad national polls for Donald Trump, with him behind anywhere from 5% to 13%. One does not usually see the meltdown of a political campaign before his Party's convention.

How badly would it have to melt down for him to back out?  Really strange election.

[pbrower2a]

(06-26-2016, 08:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-26-2016, 12:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I'm also seeing some incredibly bad national polls for Donald Trump, with him behind anywhere from 5% to 13%. One does not usually see the meltdown of a political campaign before his Party's convention.

How badly would it have to melt down for him to back out?  Really strange election.

This is a 4T. All sorts of strange things are possible. In a 4T, even precedent becomes brittle.

I see the GOP establishment and the Democratic Establishment both failing in this 4T -- but the GOP Establishment is disintegrating first.

[Eric the Green]

(06-26-2016, 12:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I'm also seeing some incredibly bad national polls for Donald Trump, with him behind anywhere from 5% to 13%. One does not usually see the meltdown of a political campaign before his Party's convention.

I think it should be a much bigger gap. This is not a big enough meltdown to anywhere near cause the Trumpet to back out.

[pbrower2a]

(06-27-2016, 10:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-26-2016, 12:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I'm also seeing some incredibly bad national polls for Donald Trump, with him behind anywhere from 5% to 13%. One does not usually see the meltdown of a political campaign before his Party's convention.

I think it should be a much bigger gap. This is not a big enough meltdown to anywhere near cause the Trumpet to back out.

There may be no good model for this year in Presidential politics. What's good for Donald Trump?

1. There will not be a contest in the Republican Convention. It will be the Donald Trump Show. The situation in which the acceptance speech is given at 3AM EDT because that is when the last ballot decides who will be the Presidential nominee is held will not happen.

2. Mass ignorance, and worse, the intellectual laziness of so many people, is endemic in America.

3. Donald Trump speaks in polarized terms like "WINNER" and "LOSER".  He offers simple solutions for great problems. Millions like that.

[Eric the Green]

five-thirty-eight's map

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016...-forecast/

article:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dona...president/

[pbrower2a]

Map showing likelihood of wins for Clinton and Trump, Johnson considered

Note: this is likelihood and not margin. Margin may be related to likelihood at this stage.



win
chance        sat

99%+       9
95-98.9    8
90-94.9    7
80-89.9    6
70-79.9    5
60-69.9    4
55-59.9    3
52-54.9    2


At this stage I would predict Obama 2012 + Arizona, North Carolina, and the Second Congressional District of Nebraska.

It is really bad for Donald Trump. The only electoral vote that he has a now-meaningful chance to pick up that has gone consistently to Democratic nominees for President since 1992 is the Second Congressional District of Maine.

Data from this source.

Going by chances involving states strictly within the Blue (on my source the traditional Red) Firewall I get

state  win-chance cumulative electoral votes
DC    >99.9%          3
MD      99.8             13
HI        99.6            17
MA       98.8            27
NY       98.7            56

CA       98.6           111
IL         96.9           131
VT       96.7            134
RI        95.3           138
DE       93.2           142
WA      91.9           154
NJ        91.6           168  
MI        90.7           184 
CT       89.2           192
NM       87.1           197

WI       86.0           207
MN       85.8           217
OR       85.2           224
ME       82.9           227 (not including the 2nd congressional district, which is vulnerable)
PA        81.3           247

Trump could win comfortably by losing only states that haven't gone for a Republican nominee since 1988 and New Mexico, which fits better in this list than anything else.

I am going out of sequence here. Unless Donald Trump wins the state on this list that he has the greatest chance of winning or can pick off Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Connecticut (you can forget any state 'higher' on the list) or Maine and New Mexico together, there is one state that he absolutely must win:

FLORIDA -- which Hillary Clinton has a 73.7% chance of winning.

Ouch.

As for the states above -- except for New Mexico these states are concentrated along the east coast to the north and east of the Potomac, the Great Lakes, and the West Coast (OK, Hawaii is far off California) and generally have some similarities of culture and economics.

Now let's look at some other states:

VA    78.6  260
NV    75.9  266
NH    74.6  270

Virginia, Nevada, and New Hampshire put Hillary Clinton at the magic 270. Replace Nevada with Iowa, and Hillary Clinton still wins. So if Hillary Clinton wins every state that she has at least a 74% chance of winning, she wins the Presidency.

FL     73.7  299 (already mentioned)
OH    70.8  317 (tipping-point state in 2004)

IA      70.1 323 (tipping-point state in 2008)
CO    68.3  332 (tipping-point state in 2012)

Figure that ME-02 is in there. This is identical to Obama 2012.

...This is a simple model. It says nothing about the character of the states. A Republican is going to lose Iowa if he says  stupid stuff about agriculture. Barack Obama knew enough about agriculture to win handily in Illinois, a very rural state outside of Greater Chicago. I saw some of his literature directed at farmers, and much of it was an excoriation of meth. Meth-makers were stealing anhydrous ammonia (a favorite fertilizer) and often letting the rest gravitate to whatever happened to be below. If whatever happened to be below was livestock, then the ammonia killed the livestock. Obama promised a crackdown on meth, and we have it the crackdown on meth. American farmers who don't like their anhydrous ammonia stolen or let loose to kill livestock can thank him. It may have swung some votes in Ohio.

I question whether Donald Trump can say anything wise about agriculture.

Trump absolutely needs these states, but he is at greater risk of losing them than of winning them:

NC    60.5   347
AZ    55.0   359
Nebraska's Second Congressional District (most of Greater Omaha) would put Hillary Clinton at 360.

At  360 electoral votes, a Presidential winner is on the brink of a landslide. Obama won a regional landslide in 2008.

It's not until Missouri that Trump finally finds a state in which he now has a better chance of winning (52%) than losing. But sticking with percentages for Hillary Clinton,

MO    47.7   369
GA     43.3   385
SC     39.1   393


The drop-off is sharp from there.

MS   32.5
KS   32.3
SD   29.8
IN    29.5
TX    28.5
ND   28.2
AS    26.8
MT    26.3
UT    24.4

I may have missed something here -- but at this stage, no Republican should have practically one chance in three of losing Kansas or one chance in four of losing Texas or Utah in a statewide election. Donald Trump has a bigger chance of losing Texas than he does of losing Florida, and he has a bigger chance of losing Kansas than of winning Ohio.

Silver's model cannot predict a collapse of a campaign. It can only recognize it as it happens.

[pbrower2a]

I look at Donald Trump's behavior and I see a collapse.

As for Arizona, he has given any Mexican-American a good cause to vote, if possible. But then you have plenty of non-Mexican-Americans with relatives by marriage, co-workers, personal friends... voting for Donald Trump might be construed as an insult.

[pbrower2a]

(06-30-2016, 01:48 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-30-2016, 12:52 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I look at Donald Trump's behavior and I see a collapse.  

As for Arizona, he has given any Mexican-American a good cause to vote, if possible. But then you have plenty of non-Mexican-Americans with relatives by marriage, co-workers, personal friends... voting for Donald Trump might be construed as an insult.

Yeah, I would not rule out a complete collapse for Drumpf. One other factor, the whole "Hillary for Prison" meme has also bitten the dust. The investigation to Benghazi has yielded a muffled "meh .... "

Judge Jeanine (aka "Dumpf's Beotch") must be weeping, given all the energy she's put into this tilting at a windmill.

...so that was the whole basis of his campaign -- that Hillary Clinton would be exposed as bungling a diplomat to his death, and that the private server would be an obvious crime instead of a necessity. Getting and transmitting classified data and then destroying it as quickly as possible sounds like the right thing to do.

[Cynic Hero '86]

Hillary's willful negligence got and ambassador and several marines killed. The scandal is right up there with Watergate but the pro-clinton media is trying to cover it up.

[Eric the Green]

Here's one for you to ignore, Cynic:

[Anthony '58]

But what about The Bradley Effect?

Might not people be lying to pollsters because they don't want to be seen as "male chauvinists" since they're not willing to support a woman for President?

[Eric the Green]

(07-02-2016, 08:20 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: But what about The Bradley Effect?

Might not people be lying to pollsters because they don't want to be seen as "male chauvinists" since they're not willing to support a woman for President?

I doubt that's a big factor, but some people might be reluctant to admit they are voting for Trump because of his various campaign statements and characteristics.