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  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,211

    Gabs3 said:


    This is why Andrew Gillum could well be the Democratic nominee. It is also why Trump has moved his official residence to the state.

    The nominee is not going to be someone who isn't running, and whose only qualification is losing the state of Florida.
    Clinton says Hi
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,148
    edited January 2020
    Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    As the Republicans control the Senate, no surprise that Trump will likely avoid conviction.

    Despite his relatively low approval ratings the fact that you have to go back to 1980 to find an incumbent president who was defeated after only 1 term of his party in the White House (when the 69 year old Reagan beat Carter, perhaps disputing OGH's point) suggests the odd still favour Trump given the relatively weak Democratic field

    The danger for Trump isn't that he will be convicted but that he will be cleared by a minority. E.g. if 51+ Senators vote for conviction he still looks guilty.
    Any Republican who voted for conviction would be primaried by a Trump loyalist, so unlikely
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    Pulpstar said:

    Gabs3 said:


    This is why Andrew Gillum could well be the Democratic nominee. It is also why Trump has moved his official residence to the state.

    The nominee is not going to be someone who isn't running, and whose only qualification is losing the state of Florida.
    Clinton says Hi
    She's better qualified than Gillum, as he only lost Florida, whereas she managed to lose not only Florida but also Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
  • Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    As the Republicans control the Senate, no surprise that Trump will likely avoid conviction.

    Despite his relatively low approval ratings the fact that you have to go back to 1980 to find an incumbent president who was defeated after only 1 term of his party in the White House (when the 69 year old Reagan beat Carter, perhaps disputing OGH's point) suggests the odd still favour Trump given the relatively weak Democratic field

    The danger for Trump isn't that he will be convicted but that he will be cleared by a minority. E.g. if 51+ Senators vote for conviction he still looks guilty.
    The danger for Trump is the day after he is cleared, he will tweet that of course he dunnit but the Dems could not prove it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,148
    edited January 2020
    Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Hence even Starmer is moving towards alignment with the single market and customs union and the EEA and EFTA rather than returning to the full EU
    Mitigating the problems caused by leaving the EU by aligning with SM and CU will delay the date of rejoining.
    Aligning with SM and CU makes the step into the EU seem smaller fry. Especially as we already will have to join the Euro and Schengen. Having to drop trade deals elsewhere will be a bridge too far.
    If we are aligned with the SM and CU anyway if say we get PM Starmer after the next general election then we are not going to rejoin the EU which would then have no extra benefits economically but would require joining the Euro, Schengen, likely an EU army etc too which most voters bar pro EU diehards would never accept.

    The choice would then be EEA under Starmer, probably joined by the LDs and SNP or continued hard Brexit under the Tories (though in a generation probably even the Tories would accept EEA/EFTA )
  • Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    But even now what most voters know about him is that he was Obama's VP.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230
    REAGAN'S SOLICITOR GENERAL SAYS 'ALL HONORABLE PEOPLE' HAVE LEFT TRUMP'S CABINET: 'HE IS CAPABLE OF DOING SERIOUS DAMAGE'
    https://www.newsweek.com/reagans-solicitor-general-says-all-honorable-people-have-left-trumps-cabinet-he-capable-1483292
    ...He talks about loyalty. He asks for loyalty. To what? To him personally. Not to the law, which he is supposed to be faithfully executing. This comes up over and over again. Where an official—for instance, the whistleblower—following the law, performing a legally defined duty, following a chain of command, does something that undermines Trump's personal situation, he defines it as espionage, as sabotage. He looks back to the days when people could get shot for doing that....

    ...Barr knows all of this. And he's supposed to be a very moral man, and so on and so forth. But to be the apologist for perhaps the most dishonest person to ever sit in the White House? I mean, dishonest in the sense that he lies the way other people breathe. You would think that the project of protecting presidential powers would provide a worthier subject than that, particularly for a supposedly honorable man. But the fact is, all the honorable people in the Cabinet have left. And what you have left is people who are willing to say anything, as Barr is. And you saw the way he treated the Mueller Report, which he misrepresented, because that is what his boss would have wanted.

    You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. His reputation is gone.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,148
    edited January 2020

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    Mayor Pete is a woke elitist upper middle class son of a professor and a fiscal centrist ie basically a Hillary clone ideologically with little charisma.

    Biden is the son of a used car salesman (like Bill Clinton) and has white working class origins from the rustbelt which is why he polls best of the Democrats v Trump in the Midwest and rustbelt swing states
  • Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    As the Republicans control the Senate, no surprise that Trump will likely avoid conviction.

    Despite his relatively low approval ratings the fact that you have to go back to 1980 to find an incumbent president who was defeated after only 1 term of his party in the White House (when the 69 year old Reagan beat Carter, perhaps disputing OGH's point) suggests the odd still favour Trump given the relatively weak Democratic field

    The danger for Trump isn't that he will be convicted but that he will be cleared by a minority. E.g. if 51+ Senators vote for conviction he still looks guilty.
    The danger for Trump is the day after he is cleared, he will tweet that of course he dunnit but the Dems could not prove it.
    The danger for Biden is that once Trump is cleared and the book deals are done, attention will turn back to what his son was doing in the Ukraine.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,148
    edited January 2020
    Alistair said:
    Biden and Bloomberg do best v Trump there with almost a 10% lead, Klobuchar, Warren and Buttigieg do not do much better than Hillary's popular vote lead over Trump. Sanders in between
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    I think only Biden or Buttigieg can beat Trump to be honest. If I was a Dem primary voter I might be tempted to roll the dice with the mayor.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,624

    Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    As the Republicans control the Senate, no surprise that Trump will likely avoid conviction.

    Despite his relatively low approval ratings the fact that you have to go back to 1980 to find an incumbent president who was defeated after only 1 term of his party in the White House (when the 69 year old Reagan beat Carter, perhaps disputing OGH's point) suggests the odd still favour Trump given the relatively weak Democratic field

    The danger for Trump isn't that he will be convicted but that he will be cleared by a minority. E.g. if 51+ Senators vote for conviction he still looks guilty.
    The danger for Trump is the day after he is cleared, he will tweet that of course he dunnit but the Dems could not prove it.
    The danger for Biden is that once Trump is cleared and the book deals are done, attention will turn back to what his son was doing in the Ukraine.
    The Republicans in the Senate are going to want to talk about nothing else for the next few weeks.

    Despite his advanced years, Biden is the most feared candidate by the GOP.
  • HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:
    Biden and Bloomberg do best v Trump there with almost a 10% lead, Klobuchar, Warren and Buttigieg do not do much better than Hillary's popular vote lead over Trump. Sanders in between
    It looks as though the difference is just the 'Don't Knows', though. That probably simply reflects the fact that Klobuchar and Buttigieg, and to an extent Warren, are less well known nationally. That isn't really much guide to how they would do after a full election campaign.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    I think only Biden or Buttigieg can beat Trump to be honest. If I was a Dem primary voter I might be tempted to roll the dice with the mayor.
    The 'electability' argument does have traction. Buttigieg needs to address that in the South though...

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/23/joe-biden-black-voters-support-south-carolina-102365
    GREENVILLE, South Carolina — Julius Stephens is 74, black, and calls himself a liberal.
    Standing outside Big Rod’s Barber Shop in North Augusta after watching Joe Biden surrogates rally on behalf of the vice president last week, Stephens gushed about a different candidate: Elizabeth Warren. The Army veteran cited her health care plan and said he “like(s) a lot of the things Warren is saying.” He also praised Bernie Sanders’ policies.
    But then Stephens added that the country “would never vote for a woman and a liberal that’s been branded a socialist.” So he’s planning to vote for Biden....
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769
    Alistair said:
    That's very good news. Unfortunately, I just don't believe it. Trump is going to be incredibly hard to beat.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,231

    But I can't imagine them any less nauseous at the prospect of President Sanders.

    Sanders would be more a political than a personal objection. I think the latter is at the end of the day the more important. But I could be projecting my own attitude to life.
  • Gabs3Gabs3 Posts: 836

    Alistair said:
    That's very good news. Unfortunately, I just don't believe it. Trump is going to be incredibly hard to beat.
    Didn't help himself with his comments on Medicare yesterday. If Dems can suppress his grey vote he is finished.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,231

    Messrs Kinabalu & Sandpit you are here provided an example of the situation. I want to rejoin; I think we're mad to leave but if the short term problems are ameliorated by SM/CU/EFTA etc I'm happy to accept that situation even thoughts a consequence I may not live to see the happy day when we Rejoin.
    I'll leave instructions for my son to drink a glass of champagne at the place where my ashes were scattered!

    A nice idea. Not your demise (!) but the champers post "return to the European family" celebration.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769
    NYT:

    "Pete Buttigieg Once Led in Iowa. Can He Get His Groove Back?
    With three of his top rivals pinned down at the Senate impeachment trial, Mr. Buttigieg has seized the opportunity to camp out in the state, largely below the radar."

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,231

    If they're Scots? Yes I do.

    A deeply controversial implication there - which I agree with.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,805

    Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    As the Republicans control the Senate, no surprise that Trump will likely avoid conviction.

    Despite his relatively low approval ratings the fact that you have to go back to 1980 to find an incumbent president who was defeated after only 1 term of his party in the White House (when the 69 year old Reagan beat Carter, perhaps disputing OGH's point) suggests the odd still favour Trump given the relatively weak Democratic field

    The danger for Trump isn't that he will be convicted but that he will be cleared by a minority. E.g. if 51+ Senators vote for conviction he still looks guilty.
    The danger for Trump is the day after he is cleared, he will tweet that of course he dunnit but the Dems could not prove it.
    He has effectively said that already with his comments about the success in withholding the documents. We have the documents, they don't. That has no meaning unless the documents show something. In other words guilty, but I'm withholding the evidence that proves it.

    I don't know if he is too stupid to realise what he said or that he doesn't care. That is it is only wrong to do wrong if you are caught, otherwise it is ok.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,914

    Alistair said:
    That's very good news. Unfortunately, I just don't believe it. Trump is going to be incredibly hard to beat.
    I hope you're wrong.
    Remember he won 3 crucial states by wafer thin majorities and lost the popular vote by 3 million.
    He was very lucky.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,148
    edited January 2020

    Alistair said:
    That's very good news. Unfortunately, I just don't believe it. Trump is going to be incredibly hard to beat.
    Note too CNN's final 2016 poll had Hillary 6% ahead of Trump and she led by just 2% on the night in the popular vote and lost the Electoral College. Only Biden and Bloomberg and Sanders (just) lead Trump by more than 6% on this new CNN poll
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769
    NYT:

    "Large numbers of Iowans traditionally break for a candidate in the last week; this year, with four candidates knotted up at the top, many voters are not expected to decide until caucus night. The Buttigieg campaign’s ground game is designed to present undecided caucusgoers who enter their precincts with tightly knit cells of Buttigieg supporters. The campaign’s national caucus director, Travis Brock, has toured the state training more than 1,000 people to assume leadership roles in their precincts."

    Note the first point, for poll watchers.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,805
    Saw 2017 last night. Not sure what all the hype is about. It is a much poorer version of Saving Private Ryan.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769

    Alistair said:
    That's very good news. Unfortunately, I just don't believe it. Trump is going to be incredibly hard to beat.
    I hope you're wrong.
    Remember he won 3 crucial states by wafer thin majorities and lost the popular vote by 3 million.
    He was very lucky.
    I am desperate to be wrong!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769
    Gabs3 said:

    Alistair said:
    That's very good news. Unfortunately, I just don't believe it. Trump is going to be incredibly hard to beat.
    Didn't help himself with his comments on Medicare yesterday. If Dems can suppress his grey vote he is finished.
    I missed that. What did he say?
  • nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453

    Pulpstar said:

    Have to look at this state by state. Florida looks to be a lock for Trump, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania look to me to be the key states.

    Who do rednecks vote?
    Trump 100%
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,491
    edited January 2020
    Gabs3 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Hence even Starmer is moving towards alignment with the single market and customs union and the EEA and EFTA rather than returning to the full EU
    Mitigating the problems caused by leaving the EU by aligning with SM and CU will delay the date of rejoining.
    Aligning with SM and CU makes the step into the EU seem smaller fry. Especially as we already will have to join the Euro and Schengen. Having to drop trade deals elsewhere will be a bridge too far.
    The problem is (as Norway has found out more than once) that joining the EU to obtain more strategic geopolitical influence is something thinktanks and politicians care about a lot, but is a minority taste amongst the electorate writ large. So given the EU is set to learn precisely nothing from Brexit, except to reinforce its own existing prejudices, the only circumstances under which I could see those criteria being met were if (a) Brexit were a total unmitigated economic disaster *and* (nor or) (b) there was an ongoing and notable internationalist values shift amongst the wider electorate as well such they became effectively agnostic on whether Britain should remain a separate political entity.

    In the absence of that, I see no democratic route to getting consistent 60-65% of the electorate signing up to £20bn+ contributions, free movement, schengen (which would make policing the channel even harder) and the Euro.

    I don’t say it can’t happen (a huge majority centre-left Government or desperate EU could try and bounce it without a new vote) but it’s pretty unlikely for a generation; a generation in this instance being the next 20 years.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,491
    *KLOBUCHAR*

    (no-one had said it yet, so i thought I’d get it out of my system)
  • nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453
    I was wondering why Brent North saw such a large swing to the Tories for a London seat. It is to do with the large Hindu electorate moving away from Labour.

    http://www.britainelects.com/2020/01/23/previews-23-jan-2020/
  • nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453
    Alistair said:
    The idea that Trump would easily crush Sanders looks to be complete rubbish.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,491

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:
    Biden and Bloomberg do best v Trump there with almost a 10% lead, Klobuchar, Warren and Buttigieg do not do much better than Hillary's popular vote lead over Trump. Sanders in between
    It looks as though the difference is just the 'Don't Knows', though. That probably simply reflects the fact that Klobuchar and Buttigieg, and to an extent Warren, are less well known nationally. That isn't really much guide to how they would do after a full election campaign.
    Yes, it’s name recognition data and effectively worthless.

    What data there is tells us that Trump is very beatable, if the Democrats pick a sensible candidate.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    nunu2 said:

    Alistair said:
    The idea that Trump would easily crush Sanders looks to be complete rubbish.
    This poll either says that the Democrat's choice of candidate is effectively irrelevant to the outcome, or that asking voters about multiple hypothetical matchups simultaneously confuses them, making the poll itself irrelevant. I'm leaning heavily towards the latter.

    Note I haven't checked the methodology: it's plausible that they asked different samples one matchup each, but a) that's still very much a hypothetical and b) I would expect the sampling error thus introduced would not result in such a neat picture.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769
    nunu2 said:

    Alistair said:
    The idea that Trump would easily crush Sanders looks to be complete rubbish.
    Just don't believe it. Certainly hoping Dems don't test the theory.
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    Apologies if posted earlier.

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/109297/keir-starmer-halts-labour-leadership-campaigning

    Keir Starmer suspends campaigning, after mother in law's accident.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    kjh said:

    Saw 2017 last night. Not sure what all the hype is about. It is a much poorer version of Saving Private Ryan.

    The hype is the technique used - so it looks like a single continuous shot.

    I think it's a lot like Gravity, a so so story cleverly done.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,148
    edited January 2020
    nunu2 said:

    Alistair said:
    The idea that Trump would easily crush Sanders looks to be complete rubbish.
    Sanders would be the most left-wing Democratic nominee since McGovern was nominated to take on Nixon in 1972 and yes he would likely run Trump closer than McGovern but still be less likely to beat Trump than Biden as the new CNN poll confirms.

    If Sanders is McGovern than Biden is Humphrey, VP Humphrey only narrowly lost to Nixon in 1968 and ran again in 1972 but McGovern beat him for the nomination
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,231

    I have the perhaps incorrect impression that it's more their opponents talking about Dems talking about trans rights and white privilege rather than them going on and on about it. Whichever, it didn't seem to do them much harm in the mid terms.

    No doubt a bit of both but -

    I met a Con supporting friend for a drink a few weeks ago. We talked some politics for perhaps an hour. Or rather he did - I was in listening mode for most of it - and the thing he banged on about for almost the entire time was how irritating and ridiculous it was the likes of Owen Jones going on and on about stuff like trans rights.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,814
    I’m afraid I lean towards the view of the market here rather than OGH.

    I do draw some parallels with the uk situation and I think it likely that if the economy continues to do OK there will be a fair Shy Trump effect (that sounds all kinds of wrong).

    I don’t think polls this far out really tell us anything.
  • nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453
    edited January 2020
    Endillion said:

    nunu2 said:

    Alistair said:
    The idea that Trump would easily crush Sanders looks to be complete rubbish.
    This poll either says that the Democrat's choice of candidate is effectively irrelevant to the outcome, or that asking voters about multiple hypothetical matchups simultaneously confuses them, making the poll itself irrelevant. I'm leaning heavily towards the latter.

    Note I haven't checked the methodology: it's plausible that they asked different samples one matchup each, but a) that's still very much a hypothetical and b) I would expect the sampling error thus introduced would not result in such a neat picture.
    Deleted
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,121
    edited January 2020
    I find this attitude of some (it seems to be the left that are talking about it at least), that they couldn't be friends with say a Tory, very strange.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULCJKZlvR4k

    Given your real choices at the ballot box are between 2-3 parties, and people vote for those parties for a whole number of different reasons, then to extrapolate out the actions of a government of that party to all that voted for it, I find very odd.

    So you are going decide absolutely that you are going to rule out 30-40% of the population of being potential friends because of the way they voted in an election.

    Mrs U is more left than me, many of our friends are even further left, but I don't state I could never be friends with them because they thought Jezza was the right man for the job of PM at the GE. Obviously I think they are mistaken on that, but it doesn't mean they aren't decent good people.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230
    Judging by his tweet feed on the last debate night, not all of them are employed to good effect...
    Of more significance, if only for the buggeration factor, is his bulk buying of TV ad spots. Which has doubled prices for all other candidates.
  • twitter.com/StewartWood/status/1220334360970375168

    It is not more to do with a classic negotiation tactic. That you state a position knowing that it isn't achievable, but it shifts the window towards it. Union's do it all the time in labour disputes.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,805
    eek said:

    kjh said:

    Saw 2017 last night. Not sure what all the hype is about. It is a much poorer version of Saving Private Ryan.

    The hype is the technique used - so it looks like a single continuous shot.

    I think it's a lot like Gravity, a so so story cleverly done.
    I only read about that afterwards and I can't say I noticed it, but that may say more about me than the film. I enjoyed Gravity.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,121
    edited January 2020
    eek said:

    kjh said:

    Saw 2017 last night. Not sure what all the hype is about. It is a much poorer version of Saving Private Ryan.

    The hype is the technique used - so it looks like a single continuous shot.
    I agree. The cinematography is fantastic, with the continuous shot in a way that makes you feel you are really walking in the footsteps of the characters. However, IMO the story is fine, but nothing more.

    But then I didn't really think the Joker was that amazing, so what do I know.
  • TGOHF up for a day trip to Auld Reekie?

    https://twitter.com/naebD/status/1220338072602189824?s=20
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    Problem with this ambiguity is that all commitments are in binding treaty form and anything that's not in the treaty essentially doesn't exist.

    So we had Johnson yesterday telling the DUP there would be no controls over goods going into NI from GB even though he will be signing a treaty with the EU that very explicitly commits him to doing just that. Either Johnson has no intention of implementing a treaty he has signed or he is barefaced lying to the people of Britain about the consequences of his Brexit.

    Neither augurs well.
  • But the square root of bugger all people watch you...that's why its getting the axe.

    https://twitter.com/vicderbyshire/status/1220337983682961411?s=20
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,038
    HYUFD said:
    After your "No Surrender!" post late last night, I'm assuming that one of them was you?
  • The Express doing its own wee Terry Jones tribute.

    https://twitter.com/MichaelSzydlo/status/1220336044144459777?s=20
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,864
    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.
  • Indeed. Not sure why Greta Thunberg can't deliver her thoughts based on her immense experience via video conference.
  • The Express doing its own wee Terry Jones tribute.

    https://twitter.com/MichaelSzydlo/status/1220336044144459777?s=20

    Fantastic! I would love to have a passport with "Your Mother Was a Hamster" on it, even if it was a silly blue colour!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230

    Indeed. Not sure why Greta Thunberg can't deliver her thoughts based on her immense experience via video conference.
    Thunberg is campaigning, which requires generating the maximum media coverage.

    Whereas the Saj has nothing to say, even if anyone were listening.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    That blue is rather fetching to be fair.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,609

    The Express doing its own wee Terry Jones tribute.

    https://twitter.com/MichaelSzydlo/status/1220336044144459777?s=20

    Fantastic! I would love to have a passport with "Your Mother Was a Hamster" on it, even if it was a silly blue colour!
    I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION wouldn't cause any issues at Customs. None at all....
  • Nigelb said:

    Indeed. Not sure why Greta Thunberg can't deliver her thoughts based on her immense experience via video conference.
    Thunberg is campaigning, which requires generating the maximum media coverage.

    Whereas the Saj has nothing to say, even if anyone were listening.
    She could still campaign without having to visit New York, or wherever she next has to fly in yachts people to.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230

    eek said:

    kjh said:

    Saw 2017 last night. Not sure what all the hype is about. It is a much poorer version of Saving Private Ryan.

    The hype is the technique used - so it looks like a single continuous shot.
    I agree. The cinematography is fantastic, with the continuous shot in a way that makes you feel you are really walking in the footsteps of the characters. However, IMO the story is fine, but nothing more.

    But then I didn't really think the Joker was that amazing, so what do I know.
    More than the Academy shortlisters...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230
    edited January 2020

    Nigelb said:

    Indeed. Not sure why Greta Thunberg can't deliver her thoughts based on her immense experience via video conference.
    Thunberg is campaigning, which requires generating the maximum media coverage.

    Whereas the Saj has nothing to say, even if anyone were listening.
    She could still campaign without having to visit New York, or wherever she next has to fly in yachts people to.
    You don’t understand the whole getting publicity thing, do you ?

    And I note you seem to accept my view of the Saj.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited January 2020
    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
  • The Express doing its own wee Terry Jones tribute.

    https://twitter.com/MichaelSzydlo/status/1220336044144459777?s=20

    Fantastic! I would love to have a passport with "Your Mother Was a Hamster" on it, even if it was a silly blue colour!
    I would definitely get that if it was an option!
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    DavidL said:

    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.

    Agree on the impeachment timing, which I think is too late.

    Sanders was a good mayor of Burlington who turned around a failing city administration, shored up the finances and improved the services. I know people in Vermont who are somewhat right wing but are big Bernie fans, simply because he's competent.
  • Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited January 2020

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
    Black turnout is the swing vote.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,624
    edited January 2020

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,230
    FF43 said:

    DavidL said:

    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.

    Agree on the impeachment timing, which I think is too late...
    With all due respect, that’s a silly argument.
    What message would it have sent not to have impeached Trump over the Ukraine business ? They really had no choice.

    And compared to our own law enforcement, it was lightning fast...
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    Much as I agree with the video link point generally, given the amount of publicity the yacht generated I'm not sure I can agree with that part.
  • Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    [Ci
    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
    Black turnout is the swing vote.
    [Citation Needed]

    I thought the vote swing in 2016 was in other segments?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,864
    FF43 said:

    DavidL said:

    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.

    Agree on the impeachment timing, which I think is too late.

    Sanders was a good mayor of Burlington who turned around a failing city administration, shored up the finances and improved the services. I know people in Vermont who are somewhat right wing but are big Bernie fans, simply because he's competent.
    Interesting. Not the image he has in our media.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited January 2020

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    [Ci
    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
    Black turnout is the swing vote.
    [Citation Needed]

    I thought the vote swing in 2016 was in other segments?
    E. g.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,864
    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    DavidL said:

    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.

    Agree on the impeachment timing, which I think is too late...
    With all due respect, that’s a silly argument.
    What message would it have sent not to have impeached Trump over the Ukraine business ? They really had no choice.

    And compared to our own law enforcement, it was lightning fast...
    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    DavidL said:

    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.

    Agree on the impeachment timing, which I think is too late...
    With all due respect, that’s a silly argument.
    What message would it have sent not to have impeached Trump over the Ukraine business ? They really had no choice.

    And compared to our own law enforcement, it was lightning fast...
    To me it looks like they are playing politics and more focused on embarrassing a couple of vulnerable republican senators than any attempt to get a conviction.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    She and her backers don;t see Davos crowd as the problem. The problem for them is the plumber having two flights a year taking his family to Spain for a holiday.

    Those are the people they are targeting. The masses they utterly despise.
  • Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    [Ci
    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
    Black turnout is the swing vote.
    [Citation Needed]

    I thought the vote swing in 2016 was in other segments?
    E. g.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/
    Thanks, there was though a reversion to mean effect there as they no longer had a black candidate (and won't this year either). Turnout still looks to have been up in 2016 on most previous elections in that chart.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    kinabalu said:

    I have the perhaps incorrect impression that it's more their opponents talking about Dems talking about trans rights and white privilege rather than them going on and on about it. Whichever, it didn't seem to do them much harm in the mid terms.

    No doubt a bit of both but -

    I met a Con supporting friend for a drink a few weeks ago. We talked some politics for perhaps an hour. Or rather he did - I was in listening mode for most of it - and the thing he banged on about for almost the entire time was how irritating and ridiculous it was the likes of Owen Jones going on and on about stuff like trans rights.
    😃

    Rather like PB - far more pixels are wasted on political correctness gone mad than political correctness
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    There are times when the only way to get things sorted is to be there in person.

    Online communication works at times but it takes a lot of skill and effort to ensure everyone is up to date and it's not suitable for everything.
  • eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    There are times when the only way to get things sorted is to be there in person.

    Online communication works at times but it takes a lot of skill and effort to ensure everyone is up to date and it's not suitable for everything.
    I'd be curious to see Greta in person telling people they shouldn't have foreign holidays. Not sure it will get that great of a response to be honest.
  • DavidL said:

    FF43 said:

    DavidL said:

    In spite of or because of? Trying to remove elected politicians up for election again all too soon is not a great look and the Dems are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.

    Of course selecting Sanders would be more like a howitzer shell aimed at their foot than a mere bullet. Corbyn writ large.

    Agree on the impeachment timing, which I think is too late.

    Sanders was a good mayor of Burlington who turned around a failing city administration, shored up the finances and improved the services. I know people in Vermont who are somewhat right wing but are big Bernie fans, simply because he's competent.
    Interesting. Not the image he has in our media.
    The British media giving a lefty bad press? Who'd have thunk?
  • speedy2speedy2 Posts: 981
    edited January 2020
    I've always done a meticulous study of american politics.
    You can get the odds of Trump winning from a variety of methods.

    One method is if the Democratic candidate is the most "electable" or not, since WW2 the most "electable" candidate who wasn't an incumbent won only 2 out of 18 elections, because voters are cynics.

    Another method is the Dow Jones, if the Dow Jones rises over the 3 months before the election the incumbent party usually wins.

    But over the past 10 years due to polarization the most effective method is simply to look at Party Registration and Self-Identification.

    If you notice in every poll for years now all Democrats say they will vote Democrat and all Republicans Republican with Independents split 50-50, so the Party lead is the candidate lead.

    This was the map when Democrats had a national lead of 8%:
    https://news.gallup.com/poll/247025/democratic-states-exceed-republican-states-four-2018.aspx

    Excluding Nebraska and Kentucky, Trump needed to win all 6 states that are a tie simply to get to 269 E.V., so his chances in 2018 where close to 0%

    Now the polls say it's down to a lead of 6%, so I think his chances are around 25% now.

    My advice, keep a close eye to the Party Registration in Opinion Polls and the Generic Congressional Ballot, if the Democratic Party lead goes bellow 4% then Trump wins.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,624
    edited January 2020
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    There are times when the only way to get things sorted is to be there in person.

    Online communication works at times but it takes a lot of skill and effort to ensure everyone is up to date and it's not suitable for everything.
    Absolutely, in fact I’m working on a project right now that involves a fair amount of travel. Managing remote teams is difficult.

    But this was a climate change conference, where everyone was standing up and saying we should fly less - when they’ve all arrived either on private planes or first class commercial.

    Given how many other attendees were trying to latch on to Greta and her ‘movement’, perhaps the best thing she could have done was to have called them all out by appearing remotely and going on about how much carbon their talking shop was generating.

    I still don’t understand why someone hasn’t organised one of these international conferences in association with a company like Cisco, as a demonstration of what high-end conference systems are now capable of doing. But those involved don’t want to do that, they enjoy the ‘networking’ aspects of these events far too much.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
    Black turnout is the swing vote.
    Is that dependent on the candidates, or the effectiveness of Republican voter suppression efforts? I thought the Dems' success at the 2018 Gubernatorial elections might mean a more level playing field this time round, but I could be wrong.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited January 2020


    Thanks, there was though a reversion to mean effect there as they no longer had a black candidate (and won't this year either). Turnout still looks to have been up in 2016 on most previous elections in that chart.

    The Clintons had a long history of support from black 'community leaders'. Hillary still dropped significantly amongst AAs.

    Biden has similar (Bill Clinton-esque) support from AAs.

    Mayor Pete...does not.

    There is no guarantee that if the Democrats pick someone relatively alien to the community that the black turnout won't fall back to its historic levels.

    Btw I've seen you imply PA is mid-western, and hence somewhere Pete might play well. Apart from the sparsely-populated Rep-voting west, the rest of PA is most definitely Northeastern in culture.
  • Bit of a 'My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain' vibe off these lads.

    https://twitter.com/NewsOnScotland/status/1220340222094979076?s=20
  • Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    There are times when the only way to get things sorted is to be there in person.

    Online communication works at times but it takes a lot of skill and effort to ensure everyone is up to date and it's not suitable for everything.
    Absolutely, in fact I’m working on a project right now that involves a fair amount of travel. Managing remote teams is difficult.

    But this was a climate change conference, where everyone was standing up and saying we should fly less - when they’ve all arrived either on private planes or first class commercial.

    Given how many other attendees were trying to latch on to Greta and her ‘movement’, perhaps the best thing she could have done was to have called them all out.

    I still don’t understand why someone hasn’t organised one of these international conferences in association with a company like Cisco, as a demonstration of what high-end conference systems are now capable of doing. But those involved don’t want to do that, they enjoy the ‘networking’ aspects of these events far too much.
    Its like religion. It isn't about what works or doesn't work, but about preaching to others regardless of what you do yourself.

    The British government has the best environment record of any government this country has ever had and one of the best in the entire world but you wouldn't know it listening to so-called "Greens".

    Self denying ordinances or curtailing holidays (or even conferences) won't affect climate change. To stop climate change we don't need to stop flying, we need to develop clean alternatives. The solution to climate change is to find a way to switch our planes from fossil fuels to renewable energy, probably via hybrids, just as we're doing in vehicles.

    And given vehicle emissions vast, vastly outstrip aerospace emissions we should in the short term be thinking about how to get everyone into electric vehicles on the roads while scientists and engineers are tasked with developing clean planes of the future.
  • Bit of a 'My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain' vibe off these lads.

    https://twitter.com/NewsOnScotland/status/1220340222094979076?s=20

    Which one is HYUFD?
  • speedy2speedy2 Posts: 981

    Gabs3 said:

    A good starting point for looking at the US election is Larry Sabato's map:

    http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/

    He's generally fairly conservative in the sense that if he says a state 'leans' towards one of the two parties, that generally means it's unlikely not to be won by that party.

    On that basis - and admittedly starting from a map from a map which hasn't been updated since November - the two parties each have 248 electoral votes which are reasonably secure, and the election will be decided by the four tossups:

    Arizona (11 EVs)
    Wisconsin (10)
    Pennsylvania (20)
    Nebraska NE2 (1)

    This race is too close to call.

    Penn is going to be super critical, which is a good reason to nominate Biden.
    I feel one of the younger candidates like Buttigieg would be better in Penn than Biden but there's a lack of evidence either way.

    Its worth noting that Obama won Penn by quite a healthy margin and Clinton lost it with a swing I believe much bigger than the national average. Biden strikes me more as a older Hillary Clinton than a younger Bill Clinton or Barack Obama type figure.
    Biden is from Scranton. He has a lot more genuine working class pedigree than Clinton.
    77 years ago sure he came from there. He has more pedigree than most people not just Clinton but that doesn't mean the Midwest will vote for him. He's also a tired, staid, old lifelong Democrat political insider which is not what the Democrats need to win the Presidency.

    Mayor Pete is also from the region but is a lot fresher.
    A very large proportion of the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania comes from majority-black Philly.

    Mayor Pete will go down there even worse than Hillary.
    You mean how Clinton "only" secured 91% of the black vote? What's Mayor Pete going to slump down to? Only 90% of it?

    That's not the swing vote FFS.
    True, minorities are not the swing vote until California and New York are swing states.

    Buttigieg is very unusual because he is hated by minorities in a party that is almost majority-minority, if he is the nominee will get 85% of the African A. vote but turnout in the group will also slump.

    It will endanger the Democrats in Michigan and Pennsylvania but he would already have lost because of the White Working Class, the losing margins will just be bigger.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    edited January 2020
    What is this evidence that Pete Buttigieg is hated by minorities? He’s not their first choice but that seems to be largely because they don’t know him.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,609

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    I regularly teleconference with researchers across the planet. These conferences not only seem hypocritical and exclusive, they're a bit anachronistic given modern technology.
    I’m sure Greta could have generated way more publicity (and avoided a dozen people taking flights to support her boat), if she’d turned up at the NY conference via video link and had a real go at all the hypocrites who travel around the world going to these five-star all-expenses-paid climate change conferences.
    There are times when the only way to get things sorted is to be there in person.

    Online communication works at times but it takes a lot of skill and effort to ensure everyone is up to date and it's not suitable for everything.
    Absolutely, in fact I’m working on a project right now that involves a fair amount of travel. Managing remote teams is difficult.

    But this was a climate change conference, where everyone was standing up and saying we should fly less - when they’ve all arrived either on private planes or first class commercial.

    Given how many other attendees were trying to latch on to Greta and her ‘movement’, perhaps the best thing she could have done was to have called them all out.

    I still don’t understand why someone hasn’t organised one of these international conferences in association with a company like Cisco, as a demonstration of what high-end conference systems are now capable of doing. But those involved don’t want to do that, they enjoy the ‘networking’ aspects of these events far too much.
    Its like religion. It isn't about what works or doesn't work, but about preaching to others regardless of what you do yourself.

    The British government has the best environment record of any government this country has ever had and one of the best in the entire world but you wouldn't know it listening to so-called "Greens".

    Self denying ordinances or curtailing holidays (or even conferences) won't affect climate change. To stop climate change we don't need to stop flying, we need to develop clean alternatives. The solution to climate change is to find a way to switch our planes from fossil fuels to renewable energy, probably via hybrids, just as we're doing in vehicles.

    And given vehicle emissions vast, vastly outstrip aerospace emissions we should in the short term be thinking about how to get everyone into electric vehicles on the roads while scientists and engineers are tasked with developing clean planes of the future.
    Science is the only possible way out.
  • Bit of a 'My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain' vibe off these lads.

    https://twitter.com/NewsOnScotland/status/1220340222094979076?s=20

    I would have gone with 'Begbie's looking well' myself.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,624

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:
    There are times when the only way to get things sorted is to be there in person.

    Online communication works at times but it takes a lot of skill and effort to ensure everyone is up to date and it's not suitable for everything.
    Absolutely, in fact I’m working on a project right now that involves a fair amount of travel. Managing remote teams is difficult.

    But this was a climate change conference, where everyone was standing up and saying we should fly less - when they’ve all arrived either on private planes or first class commercial.

    Given how many other attendees were trying to latch on to Greta and her ‘movement’, perhaps the best thing she could have done was to have called them all out.

    I still don’t understand why someone hasn’t organised one of these international conferences in association with a company like Cisco, as a demonstration of what high-end conference systems are now capable of doing. But those involved don’t want to do that, they enjoy the ‘networking’ aspects of these events far too much.
    Its like religion. It isn't about what works or doesn't work, but about preaching to others regardless of what you do yourself.

    The British government has the best environment record of any government this country has ever had and one of the best in the entire world but you wouldn't know it listening to so-called "Greens".

    Self denying ordinances or curtailing holidays (or even conferences) won't affect climate change. To stop climate change we don't need to stop flying, we need to develop clean alternatives. The solution to climate change is to find a way to switch our planes from fossil fuels to renewable energy, probably via hybrids, just as we're doing in vehicles.

    And given vehicle emissions vast, vastly outstrip aerospace emissions we should in the short term be thinking about how to get everyone into electric vehicles on the roads while scientists and engineers are tasked with developing clean planes of the future.
    Science is the only possible way out.
    Exactly. Government focus needs to be on carrots more than sticks at this stage - give tax breaks for R&D and early implementations of new technologies, rather than simply making it more expensive for normal people to get to work or heat their homes.

    As others have mentioned, the efforts on green technology in the U.K. have been astonishing in the past few years. Not that you’d know from the constant negativity.
This discussion has been closed.