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JULY 26,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET:

THE CONVENTION – Bill Clinton showed tonight that he still has it, whatever "it" is.  He gave a speech about Hillary that was well-crafted, and, to use the word often attached to Clinton, slick.  We learned that Hillary was a young goddess, and is now an older goddess.  Untrustworthy?  Why, she was a model for everything a Girl Scout could be.  Dishonest?  The spirit of Lincoln lives within her.  Reckless, as in e-mail reckless?  Why, she'd never drive at more than 10 miles an hour, just to protect others.  Of course, certain people will buy Bill's retail offerings, but I think they'll fade away with the end of the convention, and the nation will be left with Hillary herself, who has among the highest negative ratings in the history of polling.

OH DEAR, OH DEAR – Maybe the Democrats need an executive search firm.  From Daily Caller: The new interim head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has a colorful history, which includes demanding former President George H.W. Bush confess to an extramarital affair and a belief that “white boys” shouldn’t be allowed to win.  Donna Brazile is set to take over the DNC from Debbie Wasserman Schultz as soon as the Democratic convention in Philadelphia wraps up. Brazile has worked as a political strategist and Democratic party operative for over thirty years, going all the way back to a job on Jesse Jackson’s 1984 effort in the Democratic presidential primary.  Real class.  I'm glad to see the Democrats are pushing for the best.

JUSTICE, FOR A CHANGE – FROM THE COLLEGE FIX:    A Jesuit university employee who was suspended and investigated for the “hate crime” of believing in two genders has been reinstated by the school.  Her identity was also revealed for the first time by the religious freedom law firm that took her case, the California-based Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF).  The law firm declined to tell The College Fix how it persuaded Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles to reinstate alumni relations employee Gigi Kurz and remove the black mark from her record.  The FCDF has filed a few defamation suits against institutions that allegedly smeared its clients.  President and Chief Counsel Charles LiMandri even threatened to file suit against a law professor, the college that employed him and a newspaper for an op-ed that LiMandri said defamed him personally.  Kurz was investigated by LMU’s Bias Incident Response Team, which roped in the Los Angeles Police Department, after female students reported Kurz for “denying transgenderism.”

July 26, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER VOICE POINTS TO A POSSIBLE TRUMP VICTORY – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  First it was ace analyst Nate Silver.  Now it's equally acey Sean Trende, at RealClearPolitics: 

Now we are in the post-convention phase of the campaign. Trump leads by .2 percent in the RCP Average and has cleared 44 percent of the vote. FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 46.1 percent chance of winning overall and a 54.5 percent chance of winning on Election Day, if things look then the way they do today. Yet we continue to hear arguments as to why he just won’t win: She’ll move into the lead after her convention, or after the debates, or when people go into the polls and have a final soul-searching moment.

At a certain point, the goalposts have got to stop moving. It should be obvious by this point that, yes, there really is a winning Trump coalition with a non-trivial chance of coming together. I don’t think the evidence compels a conclusion that Trump is going to win, but the fact that he really might do so strikes me as undeniable.

Nevertheless, echoing the commentary about the Brexit vote in England, there seems to be vehement resistance to serious suggestions that Trump might emerge victorious. Even among analysts who concede there’s a real chance Trump can win, almost all of them seem to think Clinton will eventually pull it out. This is the equivalent of everyone concluding that the opening possession in a game is determined by a coin toss, but then unanimously declaring that the coin will come up heads.

I think there are two factors at work here. First, as I noted back in June, there’s a real tendency toward groupthink among the pundits. This most likely stems from the fact that both liberal and conservative intellectuals dislike Trump. For many, the prospect of a Trump presidency remains unthinkable. Given this, many go looking for arguments to confirm their pre-existing biases that Trump won’t win. Since no one actually has a crystal ball, it is unsurprising that people are able to find those arguments....

...Second, I don’t think people fully appreciate just how damaged Clinton is as a candidate. It is true, I think, that Republicans have nominated the one candidate whose flaws can neutralize Clinton’s downsides. I think Republicans get this. But I don’t think Democrats realize that they have a candidate whose flaws neutralize Trump’s.

COMMENT:  Very interesting analysis.  As we've noted, we're hearing arguments like this more and more from knowledgeable people.

But let's see what happens Thursday night, when Hillary makes her acceptance speech.  When Trump made his, most of the pundits panned it.  We later learned, though, that the general public felt differently, and Trump got a big bounce from his convention.

This is definitely not the year of the pundits.  It may turn out to be the year of the people.

July 26, 2016       Permalink

THAT HIDDEN VOTE – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  We noted this development last night at "Short Takes."  The discussion is growing.   From the Washington Examiner: 

PHILADELPHIA — Advisors to Hillary Clinton are worried that Democratic white men are lying to pollsters and secretly plan to vote for Republican Donald Trump.

"I worry that there is a bit of a secret Trump vote," said influential pollster Celinda Lake.

She has proof revealed in polls that find more white male support when live people are doing the interviewing and less support for Clinton in anonymous online surveys.

"The pattern is in the online surveys, even if you control for demographics, Trump does three to nine points better than in telephone surveys. So it really does suggest that there is a secret vote for Donald Trump," said Lake.

She said that it happened in polling for President Obama.

"We've had this phenomenon before. We had a secret vote against Barack Obama. White Democrats who thought they were talking to an African American (survey questioner) were more supportive than white Democrats who were talking to whites, or thought they were talking to a white interviewer," said Lake.

She also said that the white male, blue collar worker is a ripe target for Trump. "Trump can also mobilize some voters, some white downscale voters who also haven't voted for awhile," she said.

COMMENT:  Others are making the same argument.  We'll know more about it as polling continues.  But remember, Trump is not the most likeable guy in the world.  He might turn off his own base, just as he has turned off a serious chunk of his own party. 

July 26, 2016       Permalink

WE WAKE UP TO ANOTHER ISIS HORROR – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  An ISIS attack in France, which has been hit repeatedly, has left a priest beheaded and a nun fighting for her life.  From the New York Post: 

Two knife-wielding jihadists broke into a French church during mass Tuesday — brutally murdering a 84-year-old priest by slitting his throat before they were killed by police, according to reports.

Two nuns and two worshipers were in the church in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy when the men came in through a back door and shouted “Allahu Akbar!” – Arabic for “God is greatest” — and killed Jacques Hamel.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out by “two soldiers of the Islamic State.”

An elite police unit responded after one of the nuns escaped and called for help, and after an hour-long standoff, cops killed the assailants and freed three hostages.

One hostage suffered life-threatening injuries in the attack on the church, which was one of several houses of worship that appeared in a hit list discovered on an ISIS suspect in April 2015, sources told the Express of the UK.

One of the attackers was a convicted terrorist who had been monitored with an electronic tag and should have been living with his parents, the paper reported.

French President Francois Hollande pointed the finger at ISIS for the “vile terrorist attack,” which shocked a nation already reeling from strikes by ruthless jihadists.

“We must lead this war with all our means,” he said in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

COMMENT:  I'm sure President Obama is trying hard to determine the "motivation" of the attackers.  Maybe they had to stand in line too long at a department store.  Hmm, that's a good one.

I'd love to see if this latest outrage is even mentioned at the Democratic National Convention.

July 26,  2016     Permalink

JULY 25,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

THE DEM CONVENTION – We aren't paying that much attention to the convention because the only really important moment comes Thursday night when the coaches and white horses pull up to the convention center in Philadelphia, and Hillary gives her acceptance speech.  Then we can compare Hillary with Trump, knowing that the nation is doing the same.  Thus far, the Bernie Sanders faction has been loud, rude and passionate, but they won't be able to change anything.  They have been booing Hillary's name, however Sanders himself is publicly pleading with them to get real, and get behind the nominee.  We'll know during Hillary's speech Thursday, the most important of her life, whether the party will heed Sanders's plea.  If it doesn't, Hillary is history.

HIDDEN TRUMPSTERS?  They seem to be cropping up all over.  From Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard:  In any case, we were chatting with our waitress, a young (apparently single) mom who was looking forward to taking her two little kids to Disney World, where she'd never been, at the end of this busy work week. We drifted into a discussion of politics, and after some hesitation she acknowledged she intended to vote for Trump. Why, we asked? Because, she said, she had a low opinion of Hillary, thought Trump would be a strong leader and bring about change, and because of Trump's stance on law and order (one of her cousins is a policeman). I asked her whether she'd voted before. Yes, she said, she'd voted for Obama, hoping he'd bring about change, and feeling the Romney Republicans were out of touch with people like her. Wow, I thought. How many other Obama-Trump voters are out there? They're not the types who'll volunteer their views to pollsters. Could there be more of them than there are Romney-Clinton switchover voters? It strikes me as quite possible.  I'm getting that same sensation in just going out and talking to people.  It's clear that Trump has hidden support, and that his crudeness and, frankly, lack of knowledge, don't bother a whole mass of people who are fed up with the current establishment.

IS THIS REAL? – FROM BUSINESS INSIDER:   If the election were held Monday, Donald Trump would likely win.  That's what renowned statistician Nate Silver projected on Monday for his data journalism outlet FiveThirtyEight.  In his "Now-cast" election model for who would win if ballots were cast Monday, Silver gave the Republican nominee a 57.5% chance of winning the presidency.  Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had a 42.5% chance of securing the nation's highest office if voters were to take to the polls Monday.  Silver's model had Trump winning in the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire. He would win 285 electoral votes in Silver's model.  It's the first time in Silver's "Now-cast" forecast that Trump has been projected to win.  Look, it's early, and polling at this stage is more entertainment than political prognostication.  Having said that, it's also clear that Trump has been underestimated.  His political obituary was written just before every primary day, and torn up the next day.

July 25,  2016     Permalink

THE DEMS MEET – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  The Democratic National Convention starts today in Philadelphia.  The party of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy has now become the party of Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.  Or is it the party of Hillary Clinton?  There is chaos, there is anger, there is mayhem.  I love it all.  From The Wall Street Journal:   

PHILADELPHIA — It’s not just Republicans that want presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in prison.

At a lively Sunday march in support of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, chants of “lock her up,” “Hillary for Prison” signs and t-shirts and calls for indictment were common among the most ardent supporters of Mr. Sanders, who arrived in Philadelphia to make their voices heard to the delegates attending the Democratic National Convention.

Republicans used last week’s Republican National Convention to make the case that Mrs. Clinton’s perceived ethical lapses made her unfit for office. Delegates to the Republican convention could be heard chanting “Lock her up!” while “Hillary for Prison” shirts and bumper stickers have proliferated across the country.

Mrs. Clinton hasn’t been accused of any criminal wrongdoing — in fact, Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey explicitly said that her use of a private email server for government work did not rise to the level that would justify criminal charges. However, Mr. Comey called her “extremely careless” in her handling of the nation’s secrets by running her work email off a private server, while a State Department probe concluded that she was in violation of Department rules.

COMMENT:  I'm guessing we'll see some pretty good reality TV.  And hear some pretty good unreality speeches. 

This may be even more entertaining than last week.  If the Sanders delegates really get going, they can turn the convention into a shambles, and they just might.  I get the feeling that many of them aren't real Democrats.

July 25, 2016       Permalink

AND AGAIN, ISIS – AT 10:17 A.M. ET:  A new attack in Germany was clearly carried out by someone radicalized by ISIS.  From Britain's Sun:

A SYRIAN migrant who killed himself and injured 12 others after setting off a bomb in front of a wine bar in Germany recorded a video on his phone pledging allegiance to ISIS.

The attacker, who was due to be deported to Bulgaria, also had violent videos on his phone in one of which he committed himself to the Islamic State’s leader.

The bomber, who was denied asylum in the country last year, had originally tried to get into a music festival hosting 2,500 people in the southern city of Ansbach – but was turned away as he had no ticket.

After being turned away the bomber walked to a nearby bar in the centre of Ansbach to set off the deadly device, which was packed with metal.

It has now emerged that the bomber was due to be deported to Bulgaria from Germany.

The attacker is being named locally as Mohamed Deleel and was already known to police for possession of drugs and also spent time in a psychiatric facility having attempted suicide twice before.

Residents at the man’s asylum shelter have described him as a “lying attention seeker”.

COMMENT:   This happened over the weekend, the third attack in Germany in the last week.  But of course we must not jump to conclusions about Islamic terrorism.  He may have been shortchanged in a beer hall, which would certainly make his actions understandable...to Barack Obama.

July 25, 2016       Permalink

STUNNING POLL RESULTS – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  Donald Trump got a greater-than-expected bump from his Cleveland convention.  From CNN:

(CNN) The bounce is back.

Donald Trump comes out of his convention ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, topping her 44% to 39% in a four-way matchup including Gary Johnson (9%) and Jill Stein (3%) and by three points in a two-way head-to-head, 48% to 45%. That latter finding represents a 6-point convention bounce for Trump, which are traditionally measured in two-way matchups.

There hasn't been a significant post-convention bounce in CNN's polling since 2000. That year Al Gore and George W. Bush both boosted their numbers by an identical 8 points post-convention before ultimately battling all the way to the Supreme Court.

The new findings mark Trump's best showing in a CNN/ORC Poll against Clinton since September 2015. Trump's new edge rests largely on increased support among independents, 43% of whom said that Trump's convention in Cleveland left them more likely to back him, while 41% were dissuaded. Pre-convention, independents split 34% Clinton to 31% Trump, with sizable numbers behind Johnson (22%) and Stein (10%). Now, 46% say they back Trump, 28% Clinton, 15% Johnson and 4% Stein.

COMMENT:  Trump's job now is to stay on message, which he may not be able to do.  His public comments since the convention have shown a retreat to the off-the-cuff, sometimes incoherent stands he took early in the campaign.  He has to flesh out his message, be prepared to answer questions in detail, and yet maintain the rebel image that has gotten him this far.  The campaign will last three months and a week.

July 25,  2016     Permalink