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We could be wrong, you know – politicalbetting.com
We could be wrong, you know – politicalbetting.com
OK. For a moment, I want us all to play a game. This is a very useful management technique I’ve learned, and it’s called the premortem. What I want us to do is to imagine it’s December 2020, and President Trump is re-elected – what did we get wrong, what were the signs we missed?
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Guess I must be first then....
Second!Damn, third! Good piece Robert.
https://twitter.com/ivankatrump/status/1312590918915108866?s=21
https://twitter.com/matt_higginson/status/1312564392127614982
With only 5 days to go to the election, Trump announced $THING. Democrats protested that $THING would be wildly impractical, and in any case the president had no power to enact a unilateral $THING. But as GOP focus groups had shown, $THING was wildly popular among swing voters in key states, and they appreciated Trump's decisiveness and get-$THINGs-done attitude. Only 4% of voters were strongly enough pro-$THING to swing from Biden to Trump, but that was enough to win the Electoral College.
$THING will then not be delivered, which won't be the President's fault, but will instead be the result of deep state manouverings.
This election is a rarity in that it takes place in a national crisis. There is no enemy that can be railed against, although that hasn't stopped Trump trying. Nowhere can be bombed. It's obvious to most Americans that the pandemic has been mismanaged and that a lot of people have died who needn't have.
There is no blueprint for this election. No template to which you can make a connection. The most intelligent approach is to look at the facts in front of you which see a low Trump approval rating. The crisis has been fuelled by his incompetence. Is it likely that he will be re-elected? Or will the U.S. choose someone who appears a safer pair of hands to lead them through the storm?
Clearly when you're 1 month out and the polling has a big, stable lead that candidate is favourite to win, but this is also not certain, and for better purposes you want to work out how less-than-certain it is. That means doing what @rcs1000 is doing and squinting at the various indicators for ways it might not happen.
Young Mr S is giving us, and perchance the Dem campaign, a warning that chickens should NOT be counted before the hatching. Nothing is in the bag until it is! Mr in-Tokyo is absolutely right when in his second para, above he writes that the Dem campaign management should be 'doing what @rcs1000 is doing and squinting at the various indicators for ways it might not happen.'
After all, in 1944 the by then war-winning FDR only won 53:46 in the popular vote. Enough, of course, and distributed widely enough, to give him a big EC victory.
He gets sympathy/attacks on him seem unfair
People rally round the head of state
If he dies Pence wins on sympathy vote.
If he recovers he says he beat the virus, but Biden wouldn't be able to.
Probably the best result of the illness for the Democrats is recovery but ongoing fatigue like we see in Johnson.
Death in office may or may not help Pence. There could be a sympathy vote, but on the other hand Pence is uncharismatic and also too narrowly evangelical, even for America.
https://twitter.com/FRANCE24/status/1312634442809110528?s=19
But here's why I don't think it will happen. Trump's path to victory seems to rely on an almost exact repeat of 2016: the polls being a bit wrong in the same places, the Democrats not paying attention in the Midwest, the distribution of votes across the electoral college being sufficient to deliver victory despite a big popular vote loss.
I can't remember an example of such a repeat in elections anywhere - indeed it is more likely that you get an over-correction in the other direction as parties and pollsters try to avoid getting caught out again. Show me how Trump wins without a repeat of 2016 and I will find it more convincing.
‘Vote yes - we implement the treaty.
Vote no - well, we’ll keep voting until we get the right answer.’
https://twitter.com/RealRBHJr/status/1312621276280872961?s=19
I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong, but that’s not said with any sudden uprush of admiration for Pence.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/03/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-walter-reed/index.html
what stands out is how quickly his condition appears to have deteriorated after having been admitted to hospital on Friday with next to no symptoms. The suggestions he has made significant recovery are less convincing coming so quickly afterwards, but I guess hospital rest and all the various treatments he has already had may have had some very rapid effect?
Given that experts point toward the 7-10 day point as the critical one for the course of the virus, everything with Trump seems to be happening too quickly.
I particularly like the bit where he abandoned his Mrs and kids on holiday to scale of the wall of Petronalla "Petsy" Wyatt's Italian villa where he threatened to top himself if she stopped fucking him. Absolute scenes.
And we all thought Donald Snr. was as mad as a bag of monkeys.
This is depressing, isn't it?
Biden has led Trump in head to head polling since 2017 - we are talking of a polling error many times worse than 2016 for Trump to win. And even if the polls are wrong, it’s possible of course that they could be wrong in Biden’s direction.
If Trump survives, he has already defeated it once. Who better to defeat it Nationally?
That's the narrative the GOP are desperately trying to spin.
If he doesn't survive, is a martyr better than a hero?
Watch Wag the Dog...
https://qz.com/1912440/who-is-the-republican-nominee-if-trump-dies-before-the-election/
And even if you do it, changing the nominee won't change what's on the ballot papers.
The other option is to just go through with the election but for Trump to say he's making a recommendation to the people elected for Trump/Pence. The process for this isn't *totally* clear even if Trump just died and only Pence is left - technically some state laws may be read as banning their delegates from voting for anyone except Trump, which sounds bad if he's dead, and those states may need to have legal battles or hurriedly change legislation. But ultimately it's the Electoral College that decides who to pick.
I think in practice if Trump said he was standing aside in favour of Ivanka and he recommended before the election that anyone elected as a Donald Trump + Mike Pence elector should instead pick Ivanka Trump + Mike Pence, he could probably get away with that, although there's a risk of losing some electors along the way.
Mind you, when Jared becomes President I wouldn't want to be a Palestinian.
Alternatively, does the author's social circle of disenchanted Californians lead to Biden winning by a comparatively small margin there, but by a landslide elsewhere where it counts?
https://spectator.us/letters-politically-homeless-election-swing-voters/
"Since my last column, headlined ‘Why I won’t vote’, I’ve received hundreds of emails from others who feel politically homeless. I’ve also heard from many who have voted Democrat or Republican their entire lives and, for the first time, in 2020 will vote for the opposite party. Lifetime conservatives are voting for Biden. Independents are being radicalized to vote red or blue. People who didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016 are enthusiastically voting for him now."
Barron is the only hope. Although he is a creepy fucker and you certainly wouldn't leave him alone with any small animals.
https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/1312386676971495424
Of course, this does require that he's actually beaten it (or can convincingly pretend) - at his age isn't it plausible that it doesn't kill him but it just drags on and on?
In the right setting, he’s clearly been a man able to exhibit warmth and charm over the years, though these qualities have been almost totally lacking in his public persona since he entered politics.
Base case from here for me is Biden wins handily, Trump offers heartfelt congratulations and passes over the baton without any whisper of a dispute. Though I don’t think we can rule out a 2-4% swing from this that nudges him over the line, if he makes it to one more debate.
The ghouls hoping he succumbs should bear in mind that the c.10% of his profile that have died once infected would in most cases have had to wait a relatively long time before being tested or receiving any medical intervention at all. He’s had prompt oxygen and antibody treatment and a team of 9 doctors exclusively dedicated to his care (excluding the osteopath). He has also had the fortune to contract it in September and not March, meaning he gets to benefit from the perhaps halving in case fatality ratios due to simple things like prone position sleeping and dexamethasone.
Which is all good news. Because the sore his passing would open in American society might never heal.
"It was the regular habit for Boris’s parents to walk around their home and Exmoor farm naked in the summer.
His father, Stanley, told their young family’s two au pairs in 1976 that a water shortage meant they were unable to wash their clothes so they, too, should not wear any.
Both complied and walked around in the nude.
Stanley insisted on two au pairs – and embarked on an affair with one, in front of his children."
Protocols exist for a reason, to prevent errors.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2020/10/voters-have-turned-but-all-is-not-lost-for-the-tories/#more-16486
Last year, Johnson stormed to victory by attracting both Brexit-backing voters in former Labour heartlands and culturally different voters, including many remainers, who were not only horrified at the idea of Prime Minister Corbyn but worried that Labour would bankrupt the country. With Brexit all but done, Corbyn consigned to history and austerity all but repudiated by the Tories themselves, that will be a much harder trick to pull off next time.
It is debatable whether his Government's Covid strategy has subsequently improved.
As I keep pointing out America is not a functioning democracy in any real sense and such steps seem to me to be an inevitable consequence of a system that is genuinely not fit for purpose. Some of it may even be true. What are the chances of one or both sides farming votes from care homes etc Tower Hamlets style, of there being strong suspicions that a ballot box has been stuffed by having more apparently legal votes than were ever available in that ward ? Pretty high I would say. The lawyers will not be short of ammunition.
In particular, venues based around direct or indirect local and central government support.
Pre-recording a series of videos in case of Covid, wouldn't be the most sophisticated form of subterfuge adopted by the administration to date.
It is not government policy that is the problem, it is the pandemic.
There's also a policy option of "just let it burn", but that would likely also kill the cinemas, because no matter what the government tells them people don't want to get covid.
cross
10:21 In Rome, from this weekend, outdoor masks are mandatory. A measure that the Italian Government intends to transfer to the entire country. Despite the fact that the situation is more controlled than in other parts of Europe, Italy is close to 3,000 infected daily, data that has not been given since the confinement ended.
The economic consequences of overly prescriptive policies which make having a viable business simply impossible are going to be with us longer than the virus.
Personally, I would have thought a bit of pre loading with oxygen for an aerial transfer a wise precaution. Flight often worsens hypoxia, though not much altitude on this short trip.
But Leeds is bigger than most cities. I think the only other ones comparable, beyond London, of course, would be Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow.
It has reopened, with socially distanced seating etc. All the acts have been booked for the next few months and, like last night, they are sold out. People do want to go out and enjoy themselves and have some sort of social life, even with a pandemic.
Maybe Cumbrians are hardier folk than you soft Midlanders and Southerners. I dunno! But people do still want to have a life.
I still however cut the tongue from anyone who says 'this moment in time' in my presence.
Pulp Fiction is a good clean family film with lots of biblical quotes in it.
There seem to be significant gaps in the targeting of sectors which were viable before Covid and will be viable once Covid is beaten. The 20% universal furlough is no more than a band aid to repair a severed limb.
Who pays? Well the debt is so astronomical, and already unrepayable, I say in for a penny, in for a pound.
That’s why I have a certain amount of insurance on a narrow Trump win, the cost of which doesn’t make much of a dent in my prospective Trump loss winnings.
The Cotswolds has one of the lowest Covid rates in the country.