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OCTOBER 28,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

JOE SAYS NO – FROM LONDON'S TELEGRAPH:   U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has ruled out serving as Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State, should she win the presidency.  "I'll do anything I can if Hillary's elected to help her, but I don't want to remain in the administration," Mr Biden said in an interview with NBC's KBJR affiliate in Duluth, Minnesota.  "I have no intention of staying involved. I have a lot of things to do, but I'll help her if I can in any way I can," he added.  On Thursday,it had been reported that Mrs Clinton's campaign was considering Mr Biden for Secretary of State if she wins the Nov. 8 election.  In fact, it had been reported that he was her first choice.  The whole thing is baffling.  Why leak his name before checking with him?

NO HONOR – FROM DAILY CALLER:   The University of Missouri (MU) and University of Oregon have been dubiously honored as the worst major colleges in the country when it comes to respecting diverse viewpoints.  The “honor” comes from a new ranking by Heterodox Academy, a non-profit founded earlier this year by several academics concerned with the overwhelming ideological homogeneity of American colleges.  In its newly-released Guide to Colleges, Heterodox scores the top 150 schools in the U.S. (according to U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of national universities) on four factors indicating their overall openness to minority political viewpoints.  At least there are those who are fighting back, and exposing the dry rot in American higher education.

ANTHEM PROTESTS COSTING NFL BIG TIME – FROM CBS BOSTON:   BOSTON (CBS) — There are many reasons why the NFL’s ratings are down in 2016. You may be dismissive of the very idea that the backlash to the national anthem protests, sparked by the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick, has played a role in the NFL’s TV ratings, which have dropped by about 12 percent year-over-year. To continue to dismiss that is to blatantly ignore legitimate data on the subject.  A fresh poll from Seton Hall surveyed 841 adults across the U.S. Each respondent was asked to identify seven separate factors as a reason for the NFL ratings drop, allowing them to answer “yes” or “no” for each of them. The leading factor, according to the poll, was the national anthem protests, which scored “yes” at a rate of 56 percent.   The outrage of the fans is well placed.  Players have a right to protest on their own time, and in their own space.  They have no automatic right to protest while wearing a team uniform on the team's time, and before a captive, paying audience. 

October 28, 2016       Permalink

WELL, THIS IS ODD – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  We give you this for its fascination value.  I don't have anything to back it up, but, hey, you never know... From CNBC:   

An artificial intelligence (AI) system that correctly predicted the last three U.S. presidential elections puts Republican nominee Donald Trump ahead of Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the race to the White House.

MogIA was developed by Sanjiv Rai, the founder of Indian start-up Genic.ai. It takes in 20 million data points from public platforms including Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in the U.S. and then analyzes the information to create predictions.

The AI system was created in 2004, so it has been getting smarter all the time. It had already correctly predicted the results of the Democrat and Republican Primaries.

Data such as engagement with tweets or Facebook Live videos have been taken into account. The result is that Trump has overtaken the engagement numbers of Barack Obama's peak in 2008 – the year he came into power – by 25 percent.

COMMENT:  Well, we'll see.  Miracles happen in politics.  And, as the cliché goes, the only poll that counts is the one on election day.

October 28, 2016       Permalink

CURSED FROM THE START – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:   If Hillary Clinton is elected, what will she face?  John Fund, one of the best political reporters around, argues that she will be tainted from the first day, due to the revelations about her that have come out.  From National Review: 

Critics of WikiLeaks claim its leaking of sleazy Clinton e-mails is serving the interests of Vladimir Putin, who wants Donald Trump to win the 2016 election. But, if Putin is in fact behind the WikiLeaks dumps, he may actually be making a safer bet. Should Trump lose, a weakened Hillary Clinton will take office with a big chunk of the American people viewing her as illegitimate and many others as untrustworthy in foreign affairs. That kind of geopolitical advantage could be priceless.

The latest WikiLeaks revelation is a 2011 memo from top Clinton aide Doug Band outlining conflicts of interest at the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was secretary of state. It essentially is a confession of massive charity fraud and corruption. As Politico reports: “The memo at one point refers bluntly to the money-making part of Clinton’s life as ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’ and notes that in at least one case a company — global education firm Laureate International Universities — began paying Clinton personally after first being a donor to the Clinton Foundation.”

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former Clinton Treasury official and Hillary defender Steve Rattner didn’t even bother to swat back at the sleazy appearance of the revelations. He insisted nothing illegal had been done, but admitted that, if elected, Hillary faces “continuing, ongoing investigations.” Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, confirmed that yesterday: “It’s a target-rich environment. Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.”

COMMENT:  No doubt about it.  Hillary Clinton would have to start anew, trying to win the trust of the American people.  Winning that trust was one of Ronald Reagan's greatest achievements.  Clinton is no Reagan.  Winning trust is not on her resumé.  She has no practice. 

Read the whole thing.  Fund nails it.

October 28, 2016       Permalink

THE OUTLIERS – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  We are one week and four days away from a national election.  The RealClearPolitics of polls shows Clinton up 5.2%, just a bit lower than where she's been recently, but still with a substantial lead.  Making up that lead in ten days, especially when Trump is such a poor candidate, would be extremely difficult.

As readers know, we've been following the "dissenting" polls – IBD/TIFF, Rasmussen, and L.A. Times.  Where do they stand this morning?

IBD/TIFF: 

Hillary Clinton extended her lead over Donald Trump to three points in the latest IBD/TIPP Presidential Election Tracking Poll, 44%-41%, in a four-way race. She's also up three points unrounded, 43.8%-40.8%, up from 1.2 points the day before.

Libertarian Gary Johnson gets 7.3% while Green Party nominee Jill Stein has fallen to 1.8%, with 2.2% for "other" and 4.1% for "not sure."

In a two-way matchup, Clinton leads 45.2%-41.8%, or 3.4 points.

I'm not sure we can still call IBD an outlier, as it's moving closer to Clinton's overall lead.  Fox, too, puts Clinton three points ahead.

RASMUSSEN: 

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are dead even in the latest White House Watch survey.

The new national telephone and online survey shows Clinton and Trump each with 45% support among Likely U.S. Voters. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has fallen to a new low of three percent (3%), while Green Party candidate Jill Stein earns two percent (2%) of the vote. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and another two percent (2%) are undecided.

But the Los Angeles Times still has a razor-thin lead for Donald Trump, 45.2% to 44.5%. 

COMMENT:  Please note that Both Clinton and Trump are still in the forties.  In only two national polls, ABC and Pew, does Clinton hit 50%, and only that. 

We have an unhappy electorate, but my belief stands:  Any respectable Republican candidate could have defeated Hillary Clinton, and probably defeated her decisively.  Peggy Noonan wrote today that both parties have let America down.  So true, so true.  Hear anyone cheering?

October 28,  2016     Permalink

OCTOBER 27,  2016

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

WHAA..? – FROM THE POLITICO:   Joe Biden is at the top of the internal short list Hillary Clinton’s transition team is preparing for her pick to be secretary of state, a source familiar with the planning tells POLITICO.  This would be the first major Cabinet candidate to go public for a campaign that’s insisted its focus remains on winning the election, and perhaps the most central choice for a potential president who was a secretary of state herself.  Neither Clinton, nor her aides have yet told Biden. According to the source, they’re strategizing about how to make the approach to the vice president, who almost ran against her in the Democratic primaries but has since been campaigning for her at a breakneck pace all over the country in these final months.  "He'd be great, and they are spending a lot of time figuring out the best way to try to persuade him to do it if she wins,” said the source familiar with the transition planning.  I have no idea what the thinking behind this would be.  Appease Obama?  Appoint a figurehead so Hillary can be her own secretary of state?  Biden has been wrong on every major foreign-policy issue of our time.  Maybe Hillary believes it will take Joe almost four years to find the State Department.

SICKENING – FROM THE HILL:   A woman is claiming that Justice Clarence Thomas groped her when she was a young scholar in 1999, an allegation the justice denies.  Moira Smith claims Thomas squeezed her on the buttocks several times at a dinner party when she was a Truman Foundation Scholar, according to the National Law Journal, which first reported the allegations.  In a statement through a Supreme Court spokeswoman, Thomas denied Smith's allegations.   “This claim is preposterous and it never happened,” the spokeswoman said.  The woman making the charge is a Democratic Party activist (shock).  The timing is suspicious, to put it mildly.  She has also made similar charges against men in the past.  Justice Thomas has a long record of working with women, like law clerks, in private surroundings.  There has never been a charge against him in the years he's been on the Court.  Obviously, I can't say absolutely that it never happened, but the story is wobbly on many levels.

THE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GIVE YOU THE NEWS – FROM AP:   SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Donald Trump repeatedly rages that the media is biased against him, putting claims of press prejudice at the center of his campaign for president. Most voters — and not just those who are backing the Republican nominee — agree with him, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.  Overall, 56 percent of likely voters say the media is biased against Trump, just 5 percent say it's biased in his favor and 37 percent say coverage is mostly balanced.  Eighty-seven percent of Trump's supporters see the media as biased against him, and even Hillary Clinton's supporters are more likely to see bias against Trump than bias in his favor, 30 percent to 8 percent. Sixty percent of Clinton's supporters see no bias in either direction.  The people are catching on.  The mainstream media is a cheering squad for the Democratic Party.

October 27,  2016     Permalink

TRUMP ON BLACKS – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  If Trump had made speeches like this throughout his campaign, he'd be in a better place.  From greensboro.com:

CHARLOTTE — Donald Trump on Wednesday pledged what he called a "new deal for black America" as he attempted to make late inroads with a voting bloc that polling shows favors Democrat Hillary Clinton by a vast margin.

"I will be your greatest champion," Trump said during an campaign rally here. "I will never ever take the African-American community for granted. Never, ever."

In a scripted speech heavy on policy specifics, the Republican presidential nominee laid out a plan that he said is built on setting up better schools, lowering crime in inner cities and creating more high-paying jobs. 

COMMENT:  I've always believed that the so-called "black vote" is far more vulnerable to a good conservative argument than the Dems believe.  Many blacks are indeed frustrated.  They elect the same people every time, and they get no results.

But this is too little, too late. 

October 27,  2016     Permalink

DAILY OUTLIER REVIEW – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  As readers know, we've been following the three outlier (but respected) polls – IBD/TIFF, Rasmussen, and L.A. Times tracker, which have dissented from the conventional polling view that Hillary is well ahead.  We might have to add Fox to the "outlier" list, as its latest poll, which we reported last night, shows that Hillary's lead has been cut to three points.

IBD-TIFF: 

Hillary Clinton's lead widened to two percentage points over Donald Trump in the latest IBD/TIPP presidential tracking poll, with a 43% to 41% edge in a four-way matchup. But unrounded results using one more decimal point show Clinton with a smaller 1.2 percentage point lead, 42.6% to 41.4%.

Libertarian Gary Johnson holds 7.5% of the vote, while Green Party standard bearer Jill Stein's support fell to just 2.2% -- less than "other" (2.8%) and "don't know" (3.6%).

However, in a head to head matchup, Clinton now holds a 2.6 percentage point lead over Trump -- 44.2% to 41.6%.

RASMUSSEN: 

Both major party candidates are creeping up in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports White House Watch.

The new national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters still finds Democrat Hillary Clinton with a one-point lead over Republican Donald Trump – 45% to 44%. Libertarian Gary Johnson remains at a low of four percent (4%), and Green Party nominee Jill Stein earns just one percent (1%) of the vote. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Only the L.A. Times tracker has Trump ahead, 45.2% to 44.5%.

By the way, the new AP poll shows Clinton 14 points ahead, but that, too, looks like an outlier the other way. 

The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Clinton with a 5.4% lead, a difficult gap to close in these final days of the campaign.

We'll only know on November 9th which pollsters got it right.

October 27,  2016     Permalink