Posted on 10/18/2016 1:58:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
As we rush towards the finish line in the 2016 presidential horse race, there’s little doubt the polls have been unkind to Donald Trump of late. As of Sunday the Real Clear Politics average showed Hillary Clinton with a five and half point lead.
Despite the size and permanence of Clinton’s surpluses across the various polls, one survey has consistently bucked the trend throughout the entire race. The LA Times/USC poll currently puts Trump ahead by one point Trump Wikileaks coveragebut has stubbornly maintained that the Republican nominee was leading by bigger margins over the course of months.
Needless to say, many observers have panned the LA Times poll as an outlier, arguing the great weight of the evidence has Clinton comfortably ahead. Therefore, the California based pollsters must be flat-out wrong.
Not so fast, says polling analyst Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics. After noting that the same poll got it almost exactly right in 2012 (where others failed), Trende wrote, “Does that mean the Times poll will be correct this year? Absolutely not. We should treat it as one poll among many, and should note its outlier-ish tendencies. It may be worth watching for trend lines. We might also note that this cycle, it runs contrary to both the national and the state polls, and tends to be off the RCP Average by an even larger margin.
“At the same time, though, we should recall that almost all of the objections lodged against the poll could have been lodged against it in 2012. Many were. The poll may well be flat-out wrong in 2016, but its history cautions heavily against dismissing it outright.”
It should be noted that the most recent Rasmussen poll also showed Trump ahead by a couple points, so technically the LA Times is not completely alone in its findings.
But you get the point. Liberals are screaming “foul” and “bias” because a supposedly non-partisan, objective measure intimated their candidate might not be ahead by as much as they thought and also that their ridiculous recent assault on Trump’s character isn’t working quite the way they planned.
There are a few things at play here. First, the American electorate may be tiring of the media’s ceaseless attacks on Trump that can’t be verified one way or another. With the infamous audio tape from a couple weeks ago you could actually hear Trump speak the words – and it was damaging.
But now, with various accusers coming out of the woodworks to float allegations of Trump groping from a decade or more ago, it’s a case of he said/she said that really has no way of being resolved ahead of the election.
It has all the appearances of a media hit-job on Trump. And no one trusts the media anyway.
Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner reports, “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's claim that the mainstream media can't be trusted is bolstered by at least four polls showing that as few as 6 percent have full confidence in what the press is writing and showing on TV.
“Pew, Gallup, Facebook, Rasmussen, and the American Press Institute have all recorded new lows in media trust, dismal results that bolster Trump's charges that TV and the press are throwing ‘outright lies’ at him, most recently charges of groping women.”
Second, we have three more weeks to go until most people vote and there will certainly be some events that will affect the race between now and then. I don’t believe Wikileaks is finished releasing the Democrats’ hacked emails and I can’t help but think the whistleblower group is saving some of its juiciest material for last.
I bet the Clinton campaign folks aren’t sleeping real soundly these days waiting for the next round of secrets to be sprung on the public, exposing them for what they truly are: a gigantic corrupted sleaze operation intent on fooling people into supporting them.
Lastly, all of the polls are basically just guesses at this point because there’s no way to determine what the final size of the electorate will be. Early voting will capture the most motivated folks for both sides, but if people are at all ambivalent about the election, they’re not going to be rushing to go vote early.
As I’ve predicted a number of times, I believe the late deciders will go away from Clinton, because there’s no way Americans are going to choose the status quo this year no matter how attractively it might be packaged by the Clinton campaign.
I also believe that the totality of the Clinton email leaks will begin to take effect after they’ve had time to settle in. People will be getting a serious case of buyer’s remorse on Crooked Hillary just in time for Election Day.
So yes, the LA Times/USC and Rasmussen polls may be outliers and Crooked Hillary very well could be in the lead as of today. But that doesn’t mean she’ll still be there on Election Day. Trump’s supporters need to stay engaged and remember who the true enemy is rather than trust the media’s narrative that the race is over already.
Why Evan McMullin is the perfect Don Quixote candidate for #NeverTrump
Under the “this is too stupid not to comment” category comes news that #NeverTrump leader Erick Erickson actually cut a check to the Evan McMullin for President campaign.
In case you still haven’t heard of McMullin, he’s the independent “conservative” alternative to Donald Trump, pushed forward by the same band of desperate souls who are trying to remain opposed to Trump and at the same time pretend they’re doing something relevant in this oh-so-consequential election.
Erickson wrote at The Resurgent on Friday, “Between Hillary’s email problem and Trump’s women problem, Evan McMullin is picking up name ID and becoming relevant. I have just donated to his campaign and urge you to do the same…
“Evan makes it worth voting for President instead of recoiling in horror at the choices.”
In his post, Erickson conveniently provides links to donate to McMullin. Considering the vast, vast majority of the families in America must weigh carefully where they can afford to devote precious resources to candidates, I would suggest you avoid McMullin. Even if you don’t want to donate to Trump there are any number of conservative organizations and candidates that need and deserve help.
And avoiding Erickson’s site is also a pretty good idea these days unless you need a shining example of what “unglued” looks like.
Pouring money down a political rat hole to satisfy one’s guilty conscience is not only a waste of time, it’s a waste of hard earned dollars. We’ll leave that duty up to Erickson who seems to have a lot of time on his hands if the usefulness of his posts is any indication. He’s writing a lot on his faith these days as if placing the election in the hands of a higher power is going to ease his mind. Maybe so, but the rest of us are concerned with saving the republic.
As far as McMullin is concerned, he’s got his own quirky opinions of the Republican Party to contend with.
Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports, “I sat down with McMullin, a 40-year old ex-CIA operative, and his running mate, Mindy Finn, a 35-year old Republican politico and founder of a group called Empowered Women, in a temporary office not far from the Capitol…
“There were plenty of difficulties and shortcomings to discuss, but the bottom line was this: McMullin believes the Republican Party is rife with racism. ‘That's the problem,’ he said simply. He has few, if any, ideas to change GOP policies, but he believes it is imperative that the party change its tone. And he thinks he is the candidate who can do it, or at least begin to do it.”
In York’s piece, McMullin indicated he met with a group of African-American faith leaders who said they didn’t feel welcome in the Republican Party because of their skin color. Granted it’s been a few years since I’ve attended any official Republican function but I don’t ever recall seeing a “no blacks allowed” sign at the door.
And the #NeverTrumpers say Trump is nuts. York notes that according to one poll McMullin is actually competitive with Trump and Clinton in his native Utah – which I’m thinking doesn’t say a whole lot for the people of the Beehive State who appear willing to throw away votes to a guy just because he’s Mormon -- and not Trump.
Talk about identity politics.
It only makes sense that a first-time office-seeker with zero name recognition and near zero resources would begin his political career with a more modest goal than being elected President of the United States, but when you have fools like Erickson and (probably) Mitt Romney donating to your cause, why not shoot for the moon?
Reading York’s story on the independent candidate makes me question McMullin’s sanity considering the man actually thinks he's starting a new conservative movement – again, with near-zero name recognition and no track record of ever having worked with grassroots groups or the kinds of people who could back him in such an effort.
McMullin doesn’t even have a radio show, a major cable presence or even a regular news gig…
Movements start small and grow based on sound ideas and charismatic leaders, not because of some guy who thinks running for president is going to draw the easily fooled to his side. Will anyone pay attention to McMullin once November 8 has passed? Will McMullin supplant people like Mike Pence or Ted Cruz as potential leaders of a new conservative movement within the Republican Party?
Let me think for a moment….NO.
Instead, all McMullin has going in his favor is his having recruited a pack of desperate idiots to back someone – anyone – other than Trump, Clinton, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and the handful of people who might be on the ballot who, like McMullin, no one’s ever heard of.
America is a great place where anyone who qualifies under the Constitution’s criteria can run for president. But if you decide to do so, don’t go tilting at windmills. Don Quixote already did that, remember?
Even by the numbers, media coverage is heavily slanted against Trump
In the first segment above I suggested the presidential race could eventually tighten as more revelations of Crooked Hillary’s corrupt dealings oozed out through Wikileaks, a result that would naturally follow because the public could more easily grasp the true natures of the candidates as opposed to just digesting sensationalized tabloid hogwash.
But if Americans don’t hear anything about those Wikileaks revelations, it’s going to be awful hard to change their minds. The facts indicate the equally corrupt media is focusing hard on the unsubstantiated claims of Trump’s accusers while virtually ignoring the more relevant matter of the content of Hillary and the Democrats’ email scandals.
Joe Concha of The Hill reports, “In viewing recordings by The Hill of each major network's evening newscasts, which are watched by an average total of 22 million to 24 million people nightly, the newest batch of WikiLeaks revelations was covered for a combined 57 seconds out of 66 minutes of total air time on ABC, NBC and CBS…
“On the other hand, allegations from four women of unwanted sexual advances by Trump were covered a combined 23 minutes.”
You heard that right. 23 minutes to 57 seconds. You literally need a stopwatch to keep track of the anti-Hillary coverage. It just ain’t there.
Concha goes on to point out the average audience size for the major networks’ news broadcasts is about three times larger than the highest rated cable news shows combined, which means the heavily slanted network coverage is not only unfair in terms of time allotted, it’s grossly imbalanced in the number of eyeballs seeing it as well.
None of this comes as much of a surprise as everyone knows the media would much rather smear Trump and give credence to poorly supported rumors about sex and groping then report on something that could truly make a difference in the minds of the voters…and the issues.
But it’s also a shame that the public is being deprived of information that goes towards the mindset of the people who have been in control of government for the past eight years and are seeking to retain the seat of power for another four.
“Those leaked emails include derogatory comments about Catholics by senior Clinton campaign officials and more disturbing examples of collusion between the media and her campaign. It's newsworthy stuff,” Concha added.
Yes indeed, it is.
For his part, the “unshackled” Trump seems to have settled on a “the election is rigged” theme similar to how he handled the latter stages of the Republican primary race. But instead of directing his ire at the potentially unfair aspects of a party’s nominating scheme, Trump is calling into question the validity of the entire system.
As Concha pointed out, Trump has an argument – at least where the media is involved. There are also concerns over voting irregularities and fraud that don’t get much play in the media either.
All in all, the media bias is going to be a lot for Trump to overcome. Can Trump’s populist wave swamp all the collusion from the media and political elites? We’ll know in a little over three weeks.
Concerns about election integrity are more legitimate than the establishment’s dismissal of them
Finally today, speaking of elections integrity, former Speaker Newt Gingrich had some rather terse words for current Speaker Paul Ryan’s outright dismissal of the notion that this year’s election could be compromised in some way.
Rudy Takala of the Washington Examiner reports, “It's a mistake for House Speaker Paul Ryan to view voters concerned about election integrity as ‘nutty,’ former Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Sunday...
“’Trump's major complaint about the election is not at the poll level,’ Gingrich added. ‘It's at the news media level. This election is being rigged by the national media doing everything they can to suppress bad news about Hillary and everything they can to maximize bad news about Trump.’”
Gingrich’s assertion was amply demonstrated by Concha’s article above.
Ryan had said through a spokesman earlier in the week that he was fully confident the states would maintain election integrity.
I have few doubts the states themselves will have a problem with counting votes by the rules. There won’t be any “dangling chad” controversies this year though there are ongoing concerns about the possibility of electronic voting machines being compromised by George Soros’s hackers.
For the elites to automatically dismiss Trump’s “the election is rigged” claim is pretty typical of the establishment’s contempt for the idea that there are forces out there that are actively seeking to fix the results. It doesn’t matter if it’s an ACORN-like group advocating for election fraud or some backroom media collusion with the Democrats to manipulate the news cycles. It’s out there regardless.
These aren’t crazy conspiracy theories or a potential plot for a new Twilight Zone movie. Trump is talking about real problems that exist, especially now that there’s a challenger to the same status quo that the establishment relies on for its power.
Paul Ryan’s once promising career has devolved into little more than rubberstamp protection for the GOP leadership and cover for the would-be election fixers.
Information can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Apparently the establishment feels an informed public could be just as threatening to their existence.
In this, they’re probably right.
Can we say,”BRIXIT 2.0”?
There are two polls that matter, because the first influences the second. The first important poll is the votes actually cast by legal voters. The second and decisive poll is the ballots counted by the often corrupt insiders who program the machines that count the ballots. I'm worried about the second one. That is why we need to get to the polls, work get out the vote efforts, get certified as poll watchers, and otherwise do what we can to reduce this year's epic democrat fraud.
Go DT!
I am just so tired of our stupid GOP folks. They are basically calling it a landslide for HC.
Trump will prevail and then I believe you’ll see mass resignations in 2018 in the House with the RINOs...
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