Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Bill Whalen Calls It
Now a prolific writer and speaker, my pal Bill Whalen served as a longtime aide to the Last Good Governor of California (that, of course, would be Gov. Pete Wilson), and Bill has as sharp a political eye as anyone I’ve ever known. With just over 24 hours before the polls close, here’s the way Bill calls it:
He’s in trouble in Florida and Nevada, less so in Arizona. She’s in trouble in Ohio and Iowa, less so in New Hampshire. North Carolina: flip a coin. Unless he can “tear down that wall” — well, take away a brick or two in the likes of a Michigan or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin — I’d wager that she prevails (the 18 “blue wall” states plus D.C, gives her 242, FL puts her over the top). But with lower popular and electoral-vote margins than Obama in 2012 (Obama won 3.9% of the popular vote and 332 electoral votes).
It ain’t over ’til it’s over, of course, but it’s time to start adjusting our expectations. (I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer any undue shocks tomorrow. Here at Ricochet we need every last member.)
Published in General
Everything I’ve seen puts him up +4 in Florida.
Think about it this way, a divided government means the Republicans can’t increase spending either, which I’m almost curtain would be the first thing to happen. How else do you “do something” after an election? You need to have a big legislative initiative, which means more government. You’re never going to be perceived as having consequence by removing something, and that’s never going to be popular.
I just read a long piece by Captain Capitalism. He concludes:
So, Peter, how can Ricochet help us enjoy the decline?
Ha, you must be selective in what you see.
Given the built in advantage Democrats have in the Electoral College, low voter enthusiasm, a disorganized to nonexistent national Trump campaign (especially a GOTV effort,) months of sustained attacks from normally friendly to Republicans media organizations, a totally out-and-proud MSM going all-in for Hillary in a way that makes David Axelrod green with envy, and an out-and-out spoiler campaign organized specifically to prevent him from winning the White House I’m not certain any Ricochetti could reasonably expect Trump to win.
It’s going to be a long eight years, presuming of course we make it through.
Silver had Trump up in Florida, Nevada, and North Carolina just a few hours ago, although he said that early voting heavily favors the Democrats in Nevada.
Silver factors in the most recent poll, the Trafalgar Group poll, Trump +4, as his 7th most accurate poll.
Trump was tied or winning the five New Hampshire RPC polls between 10/29 and 11/2, but Clinton won the last two polls by +1 and +11.
If Trump won NH, FL, NC, NV, holds OH and IA where he is leading, holds Romney’s states, he would be at 269 and 270 if he carried ME2 where he has also been leading.
We need a 269-269 tie with a 4-4 tied Supreme Court to finish out the year.
P.S. They are tied in the most recent Pensylvania poll 46-46.
PSS. They are tied in the most recent non-Democrat poll for Colorado 40-40.
http://reformclub.blogspot.ie/2016/11/why-anti-trump-commentariat-are-not.html
A comment on the reliability of elite opinions.
Silver has never had Trump +4 in Florida. The only day that RCP has put Trump up by more than 1% was September 18, when Trump was up 1.2%. “Everything I’ve seen suggests that Trump is winning in Florida” suggests that one is not terribly into polling. “Everything I’ve seen puts him up +4 in Florida” makes me curious about what it is that Douglas is reading.
I thought it was interesting that the dollar rebounded today because that’s what happened to Sterling before the Brexit vote. I’m not pulling for either candidate, but I did have a sense of deja vu when I read that.
I’m predicting Clinton 323 Trump 215. I’m basing it mainly on Nate Silver, and figuring that since Trump apparently has very little ground game, there won’t be too many upset victories for Trump. It’s just a guess.
Tevi Troy has an interesting piece at Politico in which he asserts that the intellectual divide on the right between Never Trump Even Unto Hillary and Well, OK, Trump is a divide between east coast and west coast Straussians.
His conclusion:
Troy’s analysis (as do many others) ignores Democrat agency and demographic policy. Let’s say the Even Unto Hillarys get their wish.
Hillary will continue Obama’s efforts to increase Romney’s 47%: The percentage of the population who are Democrat Party clients. Deliberate corruption of the voter rolls (which probably brought us Obamacare,) immigration and housing policy and, Congress permitting, gerrymandering. The end goal looks like California: an insurmountable Democrat electoral majority and control of the regulatory state.
I fear 2020 is too late. We’ll see.
Here’s what I think. Carajo, ya no mas. Por Dios.
I’ll just repeat what I’ve been saying to my conservative friends, on Ricochet & in person, throughout this rapidly closing year. A Clinton win. A Trump loss in-between the Romney & McCain numbers. This would prove you don’t need the party for presidential elections, so what is it even for? Also, that angry electorates are in themselves not winning coalitions. Keep a diminished House; lose the Senate. Lower turnout; more third party votes. All pieces of evidence that Americans are finding their freedom confusing & a bit of a trap & do not want to keep playing the same game. The parties will not learn.
I’ll add some predictions that I’ve made less often, but which seem at home here: The chances of a Clinton overreach are significant. Do you want to guess what the big legislative deal will be? The chances of the GOP rallying to take back the Senate in 2018, when they have a good chance?–dim. The chances the coalition will keep together with a view to that?–not good.
About your own comment, I will of course say, as all Americans should: No group of Americans can be properly understood as clients of the gov’t or of anyone else. It is a hell of indignity.
But it’s the Strauss stuff that got me to comment. The students of the students of Strauss are not really influential anymore. In short, they don’t matter. Some once did–they did great work to rehabilitate intellectually the Founders & the study of the great American politicians.
This also helped to rehabilitate practically some part of American academia & the punditry on the right.
The followers of Strauss also tend to be the clear voices explaining the radical opposition between American freedom & the administrative state, which seems to be what led so many of them to throw in with the Trump campaign, & even the man himself.
But what is coming to conservatism–which is organizationally & psychologically trying hard not to learn its precarious situation–& to the possible anti-liberal coalition in America has nothing to do with the intellectuals or academics or journalists who owe their understanding of politics ultimately to Strauss. This is probably for the best; I’m not sure how else the classical teaching Strauss resurrected could continue living.
But it does create problems. Conservatives no longer have the kind of institutional organization where someone like Harry Jaffa or even Leo Strauss can influence someone like Buckley. Neither Jaffa nor Buckley are around. In-between types, like Mr. Steven Heyward of Powerline, somehow do not achieve a station of influence.
Maybe the best thing that can be said about this is that conservatives have long held politics in contempt & not asked themselves what is the source of good politicians. Intellectuals & writers cannot substitute ultimately for politicians.
RCP’s latest Florida poll:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2016/Trafalgar_FL_November_2016.pdf
Have you thought throughout the year that you could reasonably be confident in these predictions? In other words, is this like you predicting the winner of the Superbowl (on the assumption that you understand that you cannot do so accurately), or is this like a prediction that Johnson’s claim that he wouldn’t be running if he couldn’t win and that he wouldn’t win if he didn’t get into the debates would not be followed by Johnson dropping out when those circumstances came to pass?
Everything you’ve been reading was that poll? Fair enough.
For the most part. I’m as surprised by events as the next guy. But month after month, I regained my reassurance. I have considered a Trump victory, but only very rarely, & briefly.
Have you been surprised when 538’s modeling predicted an even shot (with many additional Clinton victory scenarios also falling outwith your prediction), or that 538 currently gives Trump a one in three chance?
I’m not looking at polls at all.
A) I’m a grown up and I can wait. B) there is no “win”
It is indeed. But as Jefferson wrote, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” That is the plan of the Democrat party. For any number of reasons, many Republicans have been and are complicit in carrying out that plan.
When immigration and housing policies deliberately drive up the number of people receiving direct benefits and when the “law enforcement” authorities help them to vote illegally, what other term but “client” would you use?
But I extend the term to include not just recipients of welfare, food stamps, subsidized non-VA medical care and recipients of disability benefits, but also tax attorneys and tax accountants, income tax preparers, the employees in medical offices, pharmacies and hospitals who spend their time wrangling third party payors, the employees of the Solyndras of the day, the college administrators who wrangle Title IX etc. and whose salaries have driven up education costs, the bank employees whose job is dealing with Federal Regulations: so heavy a burden that it makes local banks much less competitive with national banks despite in many cases better knowledge of local conditions.
Some of these people will be principled enough to vote for more liberty despite their economic self-interest; most will not. So yes. Clients, at least in part. The indignity is baked in.
No, not really. I just change my mind far more slowly than, I guess, 538. All the events do not matter to me so much; I don’t think I can explain their causes in a way that lets the world know what effects to expect in another couple of days. I’m not interested in modeling for that matter.
Of course, this should not be read as contempt for 538 & modeling. I think they’re swell & they do not seem to me to be making America a worse place. I just think that’s all derivative stuff. I’d like it if someone at 538 made it his job to reflect on the assumptions involved in the modeling & try to run that against political judgment. Then I’d care.
I don’t think I agree with your interpretation, although I think the statement is good, sound observation. Government grows because Americans are constantly looking for a sense of their dignity. The only people who take that very seriously, conservatives, are dead enemies of democracy. The results are not hard to predict; they were not two hundred years back. Some of us think, yeah, it’s pretty much what happened.
Not exactly. They are republicans (small “r”) because they see a republic (if we can keep it; unhappily it seems we will not) as the happy medium between democracy and despotism. Both are toxic to liberty. Many see the direct election of U.S. senators as if not the beginning of the end, a big step towards it.
I think you need some further questions. So far as I’ve heard conservatives, they think of constitutional republican forms as an enemy of democracy, to be imposed from without on people who want to break them.
I bet the people wins in such circumstances.
Now, if conservatives had the brains & the spirit to try to find the workings of constitutional republican forms in the temper & actions of democracy–if they took their chances on educating democracy in a spirit of friendship–that does not include class contempt–I’d probably bet on conservatism.
This way, half the time I feel I signed up for the losing team. People seem far more invested in using economic arguments–which also in their own cases reduce to dignity–to prove that other people are worthless or harmful. There’s no common good left there.
& practically, speaking the business-tech oligarchy that has contempt for democracy down to an organizational scheme, with policy & purpose included, votes & donated Dem, too.
How conservatives do not see their natural fate…
By the way, here’s Mr. Olsen in NR. Interesting read. I hope the more seasoned poll talkers have some comments!
For those who were reading correctly, I said “the Trafalgar Group poll, Trump +4” — “the most recent poll”. Check his chart.
C
2.48
Trump +1
It’s the most recent poll, but he claims it is the 7th-most accurate. It appears to be possibly a quasi-Republican organization poll. He rates it a C grade.
Google says that this map is from 20 hours ago:
This is a map I saved from I don’t know, maybe July:
(Both sides just appears more entrenched, fewer pale colors…)
You’re right about Troy’s Straussian explanation but there may be something to his basic East/West observation.