(09-22-2022, 12:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: 538.org found some polls that push the Democrats' lead in the generic ballot to 2.0
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pol...ic-ballot/
Lagging behind is the more-conservative Real Clear Politics average, now at Democrats +1.3:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls...-7361.html
Long shots can win. 2-1 isn't even a long shot.
Usually at this time (a month and a half before the election) three things are happening. One is that the President's Party is in trouble in a midterm. The enthusiasm for the recently-elected President fades due to disappointments with political reality. Aside from 2002 (still under the influence of the 9/11 attack) the President's Party has been losing Congressional seats. This has nothing to do with the quality of the President. It was true similarly with Barack Obama in 2010 and 2014 and with Trump -- Obama arguably the best President since at least JFK, and Trump quite possibly the worst since at least Harding. (This is not a liberal-conservative distinction. A conservative who acts much like Obama would be a good President even if one dislikes his agenda, and a liberal as unprincipled and reckless as Trump would also be a disaster). Figuring that Joe Biden is most likely to be in the 'average' range.. and the 'average' President is still quite good as a person -- the Democrats should be losing almost every contested seat in an R wave this year.
Do you see any R wave this year?
Second, those who have leads can usually squeeze an advantage out of running out the clock. Small leads that might not be decisive in May are much more decisive in September. If one did not make one's case in the spring and early summer, nothing offers a chance to make the same case in the autumn. A 5% lead in May is trivial. A 5% lead in October is usually crushing.
Usually electoral seasons force both sides into cruise control whether they want it or not, and someone who has cruise control and a lead for the same destination on the same road who is set at 70 will outpace someone set at 66.
Yes, I know. The fellow doing 70 could have a flat tire or decide to take a turnoff leading to an interesting side trip. A few years ago my brother and I were driving a car cross country in February from Michigan to the San Francisco Bay Area, and I kept reminding him "Petrified Forest National Park, so and so miles". That did slow our journey. To say that it was a worthy diversion is an understatement.
Still, nobody is going to do something to slow the progress to winning. Note well: there can be the equivalent of flat tires on the journey such as disclosures of conflicts of interests or of shady behavior in the past (spouse abuse, DUI arrests, sexual misconduct); these can disrupt the progress to an election and give the opponent a chance. If it happens late enough it can grab defeat from the jaws of victory. Such is rare! Breaking scandals rarely decide an election. The pol who lives in fear of one of those emerging in the news already has a big problem, and the news media are going to avoid giving favorable news coverage, and most likely has chosen to retire rather than risk being exposed.
Third, Dark Money often emerges, and since the 2010 election this has typically favored Republicans. The people behind the Dark Money want politics to serve only their rapacious, ruthless, plutocratic selves. These people want wealth and property to decide elections, and they can usually churn out ominous ads that tell people that if they know what is best for them (like holding onto their jobs) then they had better vote for the elitist pols who hold that those who own the gold make the rules for everyone else and that no human suffering or offensive inequity is ever in excess in the name of prosperity -- with the assumption that the only people whose prosperity matters are those who own the shares and manage the corporate bureaucracies*. If they had their way America would be the sort of place in which 95% of the people suffer for 2% of something analogous to an aristocratic clique such as slave-owning planters of the Old South or Junkers of Wilhelmine Germany. Dark money campaigns exist to create doubts among voters who might have a bit of shakiness.
I wish this were not so, but Citizens United is unlikely to be overturned. Prosperity that depends upon the savage mistreatment of the millions is itself questionable.
*I have met people like them, and I have always hated them. I hate cruelty in any form, and such people are economic sadists. They are the economic equivalent of wife-beaters, but they can be extremely effective in telling someone who has a minimum-wage job that the best way to get opportunity is to ensure that people like that plutocrat or executive have the freedom to crack the economic lash even harder, a lash to be administered in the best interests of those who experience its sting. Those who suffer the most and show their love for their suffering get the privilege of survival. Few dare tell them "F---you!" or "Roast in hell!" even if they feel such a desire.
Such people are the best argument for Marxism-Leninism; they are far more effective than wayward college professors and left-wing demagogues at making that point.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.