Everyone seems to be predicting a landslide in November. Problem is, it's predicted for both Trump and Biden. It might just be the weirdness. We learned last time not to trust the polls, but if we look back the better ones did allow some chance for Trump to win. So...are we to not trust them at all, or just take them with a cupful of salt? They've been going crazy trying to find better ways to do their job, and they've got some smart people. Is that enough? Most have Biden ahead, but all very volatile. Some have him crazy ahead. Biden does better the less he campaigns, so that's going to be strange. Doesn't he have to say something at the convention? Maybe not. The Democrats always have some fire-breathers who can inspire the crowd.
The Trump supporters are saying they don't know anyone who is going to defect, and plenty who didn't vote for him last time who will this time. But just because they don't know any doesn't mean there aren't any. It's tempting to predict it's going to be close, just because no one seems to be occupying that territory at present. Take guesses. Apply reasoning if you want.
Not sure about landslide. Mudslide seems certain.
ReplyDeleteLet's see: Lincoln or the monument? Toss... and...
ReplyDeleteAnswer: Biden, in a drawn-out squeaker, when more mail-in ballots show up unexpectedly.
I’m not going to make a prediction, but I will say that this is the most amazing strategy for winning an election I’ve ever seen. Go all in on America being horrid, let riots flourish in the cities you control, shoot your own police unions — until yesterday a central part of your party machinery — run against Washington and Jefferson, and then pick as your candidate the dude who wrote the Crime Bill of 1994 and the predecessor of the Patriot Act.
ReplyDeleteIf they win with this, it’ll be a thunderbolt from heaven. Either they’ve mastered cheating, or the body politic has turned against the whole of its ancestry and tradition— and decided to trust a six term senator as the voice of change.
I don't think they'll make Hillary's mistake again. And the wonderful world of chicanery that mail-in ballots offers has only begun to be explored. One of my daughters made the mistake of asking for a mail-in ballot--weeks in advance--and never got it. You don't need to suborn much to do go-slows in districts that tend not to vote your way...
ReplyDeleteAntifa disappeared from sight for quite a while. If they were truly an organic organization they'd have been making noise all along. It's very plain now that they are tightly controlled street muscle, no matter what they may have been in Germany originally. BLM was obvious astroturf from the get-go. So who are these groups meant to intimidate? I don't think it's conservatives; I think it's an intra-party fight. Police unions may have been part of the (D) machinery before, but if divorcing them brings the would-be leaders to power in the party, they'll do it. Better to reign in hell, and all that.
I hear a lot of "just wait till our side gets riled up," but I think an awful lot of us have too much to lose to risk anything much until it's too late. And what does a Wisconsinite do about the (lack of) integrity of Philadelphia elections?
This is a bit far afield from the original question. I'm curious what the fight over Veep will be like.
Counting on people who have not voted in the past sounds like a losing game.
ReplyDeleteMost 'mail-in-voting' will be in states already locked in for Democrats, like Cali. It's only a danger to Repubs if it passes in the iffy states.
No one cares any more how Cali, Illinois or NY will vote. Those states are locked in. Amusing that the rube states, like Wisconsin or Missouri are must-win states. How that must infuriate the coastal lefties. Hillary never figured this out, but I doubt it will be overlooked this time.
Shy Trump voters? You bet. This is hard-core Repub territory where I live, and we still don't put signs in yards or bumper stickers on cars. Why take the risk?
Trump is 10 points down? Who cares? The R candidate is pretty much always down in polling. Didn't Mondale have a commanding lead for much of the race, way back when?
From Stephen Green at Instapundit, today (21 July)
ReplyDeleteTONY KATZ: The Secret Trump Voter is Not A Secret. “The polling out of Pennsylvania backs up why polling right now should not be trusted. In a Monmouth University poll, Biden topped Trump by 13 points in the Keystone State. But, when people were asked who would win the state, they broke almost dead even. Why? Secret Trump Voters, of course.”
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/388381/
I don't think it was Mondale with a big lead over Reagan in 1984 though it wouldn't surprise me if Mondale did lead early polling. That sounds more like Dukakis and GHWB in 1988. Dukakis had a lead of over 15 points after the Democrat convention in the early summer by some polls before fading away.
I think in part the structure of polls produces some of the effect. Early Presidential race polls often feature a generic opponent and are usually sampling all adults or registered voters. Later polls reflect the actual candidate choices, as well as limiting the scope to likely voters who tend to break Republican.
The Trump supporters are saying they don't know anyone who is going to defect, and plenty who didn't vote for him last time who will this time. But just because they don't know any doesn't mean there aren't any.
ReplyDeleteYes there are people who will switch but there will also be people who voted third party (or even Democrat) last time who will switch to Trump.
Trump should lose handily. There is his terrible handling of the Corona virus and now he is sending heavily armed men to grab hippies, which is shown on TV everywhere. Looks like any commie country at this point.
ReplyDeleteStill I want him to win and continue destroying your country. You have choices. A demented old man, a wildly narcissist halfwit rap star and your present ... incumbent.
You know I'll take any of em'. as they will all do pretty well what I want. Well sleepy Joe is now the Enduring State's poster boy, and will be run by that nasty group, but they dumb too. ;)
@ PenGun - again I will mention that if you take out the NYC metro area, the US numbers and Canadian are very similar - and you don't have a NYC.
ReplyDelete@ Christopher B - I flatter myself that you heard it here first: https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-libertarian-vote.html
@ Grim - we are familiar with the left denying much of the culture and history of previous generations and Western Civ in general. But we are now witnessing the denial of events just a few years ago, within the living memory of those who who are now looking the other way. It is worrisome.
ReplyDelete"the US numbers and Canadian are very similar" Wow, just wow.
ReplyDeleteYou are the poster child of how to do it wrong. Only Brazil is doing worse at this point.
I prefer evidence to assertion.
ReplyDeleteOK. Have fun, I already spent far too much time and effort trying to convince you to take this seriously. You laughed at me.
ReplyDeleteYou are out of ICU in Florida. This is going to happen in other places too. The point is to preserve your medical system so it can do what it can to mitigate your suffering. If its overwhelmed then people start to die wholesale. This is where you are now. As well there is a large number of people who habitually don't get treated, as they can't afford it. This makes your spread much worse.
I have taken the illness very seriously. When you sneer, you might find some sharp return. Perhaps I should not even do that, but I am quite scrupulous about not initiating insult. You may not perceive your own tone very well, puzzled at the reaction it provokes.
ReplyDeleteThey are not out of ICU in Florida. People are not dying "wholesale," though as a noticeably inexact number, I suppose it could mean anything. The people who habitually do not get treated for financial reasons is wildly overestimated, however much it is believed in Canada.
US deaths per million with NYC area removed 280, Canada 235. Worse, but not hugely so, and this is with significantly greater percentage of international travelers, immigrants (and their habits), and population density.
Here is a nice site: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
ReplyDeleteGo have a look.
Another URL: https://www.wpbf.com/article/florida-coronavirus-map-hospital-beds-july-21/33379528#
ReplyDeletePenGun said...
ReplyDeleteHere is a nice site: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Go have a look.
Golly gee whiz, PenGun, AVI and all his readers are eternally grateful to you for pointing out an informative site on Winnie the Flu that we were not aware of. We ignorant wingnuts are so grateful that you take the time out of your busy day to enlighten us.
Except that AVI cited the worldometer site in a posting four months ago.Panic, Anti-Panic, and Anti-Anti-Panic March 21
There is a link at Here are the C19 cases as of today, including the curves.
I usually don't waste my time with PenGun, but this time I couldn't resist.
I'm not going to predict a winner, but I am going to predict that the financial markets will suffer no matter who wins. If Biden wins, it's an "oh crap" thing. If Trump wins, it's going to be a continuation of the social meltdown and resistance which is eventually going to hurt the market.
ReplyDeleteSo... I'm planning some moves that won't make me any money, but will hopefully preserve what I have -- ie, my entire retirement fund. Wish me luck.
Richard I did not expect to surprise you with one of the most commonly used sites on the internet. I just wanted you to look at the numbers there.
ReplyDeleteThe US is not at all like Canada.
Donna B, apart from some ready cash all I have is gold and silver. Its doing very well indeed.
ReplyDeletePenGun, that is exactly the site I was using. 35% of cases in the US are NYC related. I subtracted them out to compare with Canada, as I said.
ReplyDeleteYou've just been found out and won't accept it. There is no other explanation. You sound like a fairly smart person, but you actually aren't smarter than everyone here. In fact, the average here is 1SD above the norm. Minimum. Because the crowd is so small and I know who some of them are, I also know there are at least a dozen who would pull the average up all by themselves.
Everyone thinks they are objective and look at the data, too. But here you have people who can actually put forward evidence that reason and data have changed their minds or at least modified their view. You can read it in their comments. Put forth your evidence that you follow the data rather than resorting to priors.
You are ridiculous. Your virus is out of control. The weird particular set of numbers you think is important, is actually irrelevant. Its not a contest. Your president has badly screwed the pooch on this and will probably lose because of this. Remember the premise?
ReplyDeleteWe are opening in BC and have had a mild uptick. We did expect this. No part of our medical system is unable to cope. You have not done the first part and went straight to the opening while the virus was rampant. Obviously this is what we see now. Your own CDC says the numbers are probably 10 times what we see in America. A milli0on dead. I dunno I sure hope not.
There may be smart people here, I guess I have not noticed them.
Deaths per million is the first number that matters.
ReplyDeleteI imagine you are correct that you haven't noticed the other commenters here, however. You might have a try.
Gold and silver. Bless your heart, how precious! If I were to invest exclusively in metals, it would be heavier ones -- lead, for example.
ReplyDeleteToday Canada has 315 new cases. America is doing 2600 an hour.
ReplyDeleteIts hard to understand why you play these silly games. Only people who need to impress people, act like this. Intelligent people know how dumb they are and do not rattle on about their superiority. To put it bluntly your compliments on my intelligence are not something I value at all.
Donna B, I have been a follower of the Buddha all my life. I will not hurt living beings. My gold is up about 30% and my silver about 30% as well in the less than a year I have held it. I don't believe there is a better performing asset at the moment.
Surprisingly, I agree with PenGun in this argument. If you remove the worst area from your analysis, in any country, you will find a vastly lower infection rate for that country as a whole. The Leftist northeast did do amazingly horribly at controlling the virus. We imagine we know why, Cuomo and DeBlasio are sociopathic assholes who don't appear to care how many people die so they didn't bother doing obvious things to stop the spread. They actually did things to encourage the spread!
ReplyDeleteBut PenGun, you have to be able to explain why some countries are doing well and others poorly. And so far we can't do that. Why did some Euro countries do more-or-less well, like Germany, and others very badly, like Belgium? We don't know. Not really. Until we do know, it's silly to trumpet Canada's numbers compared to the US.
My guess? It's cultural, or possibly genetic. All the Euro Latin countries (Latin defined very broadly to include all Italian, Spanish and French speakers) have done very poorly. In the US the Latin community is suffering much more than the White community (defined broadly). Our Black community is suffering very badly. Toronto, a city of 2 million-plus people, has tiny Black and Latin populations, and large Asian and White populations. Chicago has very large Latin and Black populations.
That in a sense 'explains' the difference between Canada and the US. But it still doesn't explain why these differences exist. Is it because diabetes and obesity are higher in some populations? We are down a rabbit hole with this chain of causation. Why is obesity higher in US Blacks? Why is obesity lower in Canadian populations than US? Is obesity higher in Belgians than Germans? Diabetes?
Canada is not like America. Our medical system is based on the idea that money or lack of it, should not affect medical outcome. Its built into the documents that define it. We take care of everyone.
ReplyDeleteAs well, we understood early on that this was a pandemic and acted accordingly. We did social distancing right from March and kept that up. We got Vancouver Island, where I live, to no cases, and have been dealing with the odd one that shows up by contact tracing. BC in general is doing well and that's partly to do with Dr Bonnie Henry who has managed us in BC. She is pretty well revered at this point. She was in charge of the SARs response in 2003 and we are so lucky to have her.
We are opening and our new cases in BC went from around 10 a day to 30 a day because of this. So we are scaling back just a bit, in the face of this increase. We have adults running the show, not like in your country.
"Canada is not like America. Our medical system is based on the idea that money or lack of it, should not affect medical outcome. Its built into the documents that define it. We take care of everyone."
ReplyDeleteWhich is why so many Canadians come to America for medical care, and in particular, cluttering up the waiting lists at prestigious clinics for second opinions. It's one of the advantage of a free system, that you have that choice in our country. You're welcome.
We hear so often from Canadians how shortsighted and ignorant Americans are. You receive very little criticism from us in return. Yet it is tiresome to keep hearing the same accusations, refuting them, and then hearing them again from the next Canadian in line. You do like these myths you keep telling yourselves up there.
It is clear that you specifically fit the stereotype of someone who simply does not observe himself nor listen to himself very well, however well you might observe others. It's a personal problem. It is visible. You don't see it, and are sure it is everyone else. It is unlikely you can develop the ability at this point, but you should at least ask yourself the question if all these unpleasant interactions are even 1% your fault.
@ Tom Bridgeland. FTR, it was I who suggested removing the largest troublesome areas from the calculations by country.
ReplyDeleteTell ya what. I'll leave you alone, I think I've made my point.
ReplyDelete