Octopus Overlords

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:I hear Trump talk/Clinton hate all the time at my gym. The other day two older dudes were talking about how badly the stock market would crash if Clinton is elected, which makes no sense to me. If Clinton is a continuation of Obama (as is often the charge by Republicans) and the stock market is at its highest levels ever, why would it suddenly crash if she were elected?

Geezus. Either Hillary is in Wall Street's pocket or she's not. She can't be both.

The idea that the market will be confident with a Trump presidency, presumably because he "knows economics" is also mockworthy. He's everything shitty about business and none of the good.

The latest CNN poll has Drumpf up. We'll have to see if other polls follow or if they just done messed up. My take btw is that this poll is deeply misleading. It reflects likely voters rather than registered voters used in other polls but they over represent older folks by a decent margin. *Even when you consider older folks tend to vote more*. There are practically no millennials represented in the poll (and some will inevitably vote) and GenX as nebulous as it is is under counted too.

It's easier to sleep at night if I just assume everything will work out in the end.

On the plus side, I look forward to the carnage as entertainment if the American people decide to lose their collective minds.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
What's a bit worrisome, though, is that I've probably seen hundreds of Trump bumper stickers/signs over the last few months, but until this weekend I hadn't seen on Clinton bumper sticker or sign. North Florida is a pretty conservative place, but still.

It's pretty clear by now that relatively few people are voting for someone. Most are more concerned with keeping the opposite party out.

You can't react to every poll, as there are outliers in both directions.

I long ago quit caring about every single poll released, even the ones I liked. The clearer picture comes from the aggregators like 538 and Huffpost's Pollster, where all the polls are viewed together.

I also choose to believe that whoever (I think it was tgb?) suggested that Drumpf has to do better than Romney with minorities to have a chance is correct. I don't follow electioneering closely enough to understand all the strategies, pivot points and general probabilities, but it helps me sleep at night to believe that if Romney couldn't get the minority support he needed to win, there is zero chance in hell that Drumpf can.

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
What's a bit worrisome, though, is that I've probably seen hundreds of Trump bumper stickers/signs over the last few months, but until this weekend I hadn't seen on Clinton bumper sticker or sign. North Florida is a pretty conservative place, but still.

It's pretty clear by now that relatively few people are voting for someone. Most are more concerned with keeping the opposite party out.

Except that doesn't seem to be the case for Trump. He has some die-hard supporters that will vote for him no matter what he does. And that group isn't a small portion of his likely voters; maybe upwards of 30 -40% of his total voters (numbers off the top of my head). I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
. I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

They exist. My neighbor is one of them.

Scraper wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
. I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

They exist. My neighbor is one of them.

With all this talk about under the radar Trump supporters who might not admit to voting for him, I think being a Clinton supporter in some communities may hold an even bigger stigma than being a Trump supporter. It was cool (at least in some crowds) to be enthusiastic for Obama but this is definitely not the case for Clinton. There may be just as many, if not more, quiet Hillary voters than Trump voters who just don't want to deal with any negative feedback about expressing their support.

In my area-- an educated, affluent, mostly white area of far North Dallas-- I've seen very few signs or stickers for either candidate. Meanwhile, my wife still has her Obama sticker on her car.

Scraper wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
. I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

They exist. My neighbor is one of them.

I don't doubt they are out there, I just haven't met one yet. Which is somewhat surprising since my friends and coworkers (youngish scientists with or working on higher education degrees) should fit squarely into her core demographics.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

Scraper wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
. I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

They exist. My neighbor is one of them.

I don't doubt they are out there, I just haven't met one yet. Which is somewhat surprising since my friends and coworkers (youngish scientists with or working on higher education degrees) should fit squarely into her core demographics.

Her core demographic for enthusiastic support is probably boomer women, and definitely not younger demographics like those who were most gaga for Obama.

I would figure the younger demos would still be in the Bern Ward.

Scraper wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
. I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

They exist. My neighbor is one of them.

She's at least as exciting to me as any recent (post 2000) candidate - I actually did some phonebanking. But I don't see her as flawless.

Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Isgrimnur wrote:I would figure the younger demos would still be in the Bern Ward.

I would think that his demo would be the super young but still able to vote. Which isn't really different from what you're saying. I just figure anyone who's finished college and is having success in their field is probably not a strong Bernie supporter. I don't know why I think that.

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Does Texas have a weird time zone thing like Indiana has. If so, it's completely possible.

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Any poll that has Clinton up in Texas is flawed.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5694.html

Rip wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Any poll that has Clinton up in Texas is flawed.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5694.html

Ahhh, that's how the square gets circled. I assume the poll showing Trump up in California was flawless.

That said, I am assuming that Clinton's not going to win in Texas (just as Trump is not actually going to be competitive in California).

Defiant wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Does Texas have a weird time zone thing like Indiana has. If so, it's completely possible.

We don't let El Paso share a timezone with the rest of the state.



And there are more pixels in my tv screen than there are people in Hudspeth county.

Isgrimnur wrote:

Defiant wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Does Texas have a weird time zone thing like Indiana has. If so, it's completely possible.

We don't let El Paso share a timezone with the rest of the state.



And there are more pixels in my tv screen than there are people in Hudspeth county.

Yeah, but I think Indiana is (or was?) even more temporally complicated, cause some places observe daylight savings while others didn't.

Defiant wrote:Yeah, but I think Indiana is (or was?) even more temporally complicated, cause some places observe daylight savings while others didn't.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but most of Indiana didn't observe Daylight Savings Time. The exception was the northwest corner, which I always assumed was because they got Chicago TV programming there, so it made sense for them to stay on CDT so they didn't have to mess with their VCRs too much.

You have to go to Arizona for that.

Most parts of the state of Arizona, except the Navajo Nation community, observe Mountain Standard Time (MST) all year long.

Defiant wrote:

Scraper wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
. I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

They exist. My neighbor is one of them.

She's at least as exciting to me as any recent (post 2000) candidate - I actually did some phonebanking. But I don't see her as flawless.

Same here. Clinton certainly doesn't inspire the same cult of enthusiasm that Obama did, but she's trusted to be a solid liberal in a race against the guy who made brutal chauvinism cool again.

On the final night of the DNC convention, my Facebook lit up with women of all ages confessing that they were crying with joy at the likelihood of a woman president.

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Here's the poll and here's some information on the methodology.

Given the sample sizes, the margin of errors range between around 1.5% and 4% per state, although it's not clear what they are for each specific state (though I was guess that larger states had larger sample sizes and therefore smaller margin of errors). And of course, with 50 polls, you would expect two or three to be outside the margin of error. It also, AFAICT, doesn't include 3-rd party candidates.

I would concentrate more on this showing Clinton having a very solid position in the electoral map overall, than on one specific state, though.

Defiant wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Quick question about poll counting. I saw a poll this morning cited in a Washington Post article showing Clinton up by 1 in Texas, and tied in a 4 candidate race. I'm pretty sure that this poll was at the same time as the CNN poll Rip is citing. Can it simultaneously be too soon for the Texas poll to count and not too soon for the CNN poll to count?

Here's the poll and here's some information on the methodology.

Given the sample sizes, the margin of errors range between around 1.5% and 4% per state, although it's not clear what they are for each specific state (though I was guess that larger states had larger sample sizes and therefore smaller margin of errors). And of course, with 50 polls, you would expect two or three to be outside the margin of error. It also, AFAICT, doesn't include 3-rd party candidates.

I would concentrate more on this showing Clinton having a very solid position in the electoral map overall, than on one specific state, though.

It does include third party candidates. Specifically, they show one set of results with only two candidates and one set with four.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
I have yet to meet one person voting for Clinton who is actually a passionate Clinton supporter.

I don't think passion is a good way to make your voting decision, but I strongly support Clinton and think she will do a great job.

El Guapo wrote: It does include third party candidates. Specifically, they show one set of results with only two candidates and one set with four.

Oops, I forgot to scroll down. Looks like with the third party vote, the two tie in Texas, which is still surprising (I would expect it to be closer than usual, but not this close).

Defiant wrote:[quote="El Guapo"
It does include third party candidates. Specifically, they show one set of results with only two candidates and one set with four.

Oops, I forgot to scroll down. Looks like with the third party vote, the two tie in Texas, which is still surprising (I would expect it to be closer than usual, but not this close).[/quote]

Yeah, I assume it's an outlier, unless further polls like that come in (which would be rather shocking). Ultimately it's mostly a curiosity (like the Trump poll in California), since if Clinton actually won Texas then she would almost certainly be winning a landslide nationally.

It also has Clinton only 2 points behind in Mississippi. (Especially surprising cause Trump has such a big lead in neighboring Alabama).

Interestingly, it looks like on blue states, third party candidates hurt Clinton more (but not enough to make a major change in the races). In swing states, they either slightly hurt Clinton more or take from both candidates, while in Red states, they either hurt both equally, or hurt Trump somewhat more.

Johnson looks like he has a good chance of getting 2nd place in NM and UT.

Defiant wrote:It also has Clinton only 2 points behind in Mississippi. (Especially surprising cause Trump has such a big lead in neighboring Alabama).

Proportionally, Mississippi has the largest African-American population in the country at nearly 40%. If they were mobilized and had a high rate of participation, I could see Mississippi being somewhat competitive. I think Romney won it by about 12%, so a single digit margin is likely this year.

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
What's a bit worrisome, though, is that I've probably seen hundreds of Trump bumper stickers/signs over the last few months, but until this weekend I hadn't seen on Clinton bumper sticker or sign. North Florida is a pretty conservative place, but still.

It's pretty clear by now that relatively few people are voting for someone. Most are more concerned with keeping the opposite party out.

So far it's all been about fear of Trump vs. hatred of Clinton. It is not clear to me whether fear or hatred will prevail. It's possible that debates will reframe the question.

Captain Caveman wrote:In my area-- an educated, affluent, mostly white area of far North Dallas-- I've seen very few signs or stickers for either candidate. Meanwhile, my wife still has her Obama sticker on her car.

I should take a picture of the TRUMP house in downtown McKinney for you. It's comical.

Washington Times has you covered.

Kraken wrote:

tgb wrote:

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
What's a bit worrisome, though, is that I've probably seen hundreds of Trump bumper stickers/signs over the last few months, but until this weekend I hadn't seen on Clinton bumper sticker or sign. North Florida is a pretty conservative place, but still.

It's pretty clear by now that relatively few people are voting for someone. Most are more concerned with keeping the opposite party out.

So far it's all been about fear of Trump vs. hatred of Clinton. It is not clear to me whether fear or hatred will prevail. It's possible that debates will reframe the question.

I don't think that's quite accurate. While the mainstream Republicans seem to be voting for Trump out of a hate for Clinton, a non-negligible portion of Trump's support comes from die hard supporters that will love him no matter what he says or does. Those are the supporters that won him the primary and will do whatever they can to get to the polls on Nov. 8, no matter the weather/lines at the booths, etc.

As far as I can tell, Clinton doesn't have anywhere close to that size of rabid fandom in her support. And it seems to me that her supporters that are voting mainly out of fear of Trump are less likely to make sure they cast a vote on Nov. 8 if it turns out the be inconvenient.

I really hope I'm wrong, though!

I'm thinking about obtaining American citizenship just so I can vote against Drumpf, if that tells you anything.

I'm sure I'm not alone in my loathing for the man or my deep, deep concerns about what a president Drumpf will mean. One thing's for sure, it will be humiliating for America on the world stage.

But you guys don't give a shit what the rest of the world thinks, even when it's laughing.

GreenGoo wrote:I'm thinking about obtaining American citizenship just so I can vote against Drumpf, if that tells you anything.

I'm sure I'm not alone in my loathing for the man or my deep, deep concerns about what a president Drumpf will mean. One thing's for sure, it will be humiliating for America on the world stage.

But you guys don't give a shit what the rest of the world thinks, even when it's laughing.

I think a bunch of you should try. Then after Trump wins we can use that for a Casus belli pulling a Crimea on Canada. That should alleviate the need for a northern border fence.

Rip wrote:I think a bunch of you should try. Then after Trump wins we can use that for a Casus belli pulling a Crimea on Canada. That should alleviate the need for a northern border fence.

And I'll bet there's even a job for Manafort somewhere in there!

GreenGoo wrote:I'm thinking about obtaining American citizenship just so I can vote against Drumpf, if that tells you anything.

Why bother with citizenship? What's one more out of 11 million?

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:As far as I can tell, Clinton doesn't have anywhere close to that size of rabid fandom in her support. And it seems to me that her supporters that are voting mainly out of fear of Trump are less likely to make sure they cast a vote on Nov. 8 if it turns out the be inconvenient.

I really hope I'm wrong, though!

Having the same anecdotal evidence as you, it would seem to me that there are just as many if not more rabid Clinton supporters saying Hillary has done wrong as there are Trump supporters saying he can do no wrong. Maybe it's where we live and the people we surround ourselves with? I am constantly bombarded with "40 years of experience. She is the most qualified in our lifetime. Everything wrong you hear she's ever done is republican smear. End of discussion." That said, neither rabid side seem close enough to be the main driving force of the election. So far, fear of Trump seems to be the overriding force, I'd love to say "as it should be", but I simply can't. Again, that's just in my corner of the world and Internet. However, my corner is still considered a swing corner, so it's more indicative of reality than a partisan corner would be.