Trump Leads Clinton After Convention Bounce

The worst convention in history has given Trump a yuuge bounce.

Trump Convention Speech

For the first time this year, Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton in the national polling, with a six-point bounce from the dumpster fire in Cleveland.

CNN:

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.

Of course, the Democratic convention starts today and the bounce could disappear immediately. More importantly, we don’t elect presidents in a national popular vote but rather via the Electoral College, which indirectly aggregates weighted state-by-state totals.

Still, considering how awful I and most of OTB’s readership thought the convention was, it’s truly remarkable that it made people more likely to vote for Trump.

Nor is this a CNN anomaly. Trump would be leading in the current RealClearPolitics average if they didn’t inexplicably have the pre-convention Reuters poll still in the numbers. Trump has a 4 point lead in the LA Times poll and a 2 point lead in the Gravis poll. Clinton has a 3-point lead in the latest Reuters poll, but most of the data came in before Trump’s convention speech.

Given how long Hillary Clinton has been on the national stage and the firmness which public opinion around her should therefore be, I don’t expect a comparable bounce from her convention. Four days of what I presume will be much-better-coordinated attacks on Trump in what would almost have to be a better run convention should help her some but there just can’t be that many people out there without a pretty good idea of what they think of her.

This is easily the most bizarre presidential cycle in my political memory. Perhaps 1968 topped this, but I was a toddler at the time.  Things that would have destroyed any presidential aspirant in previous years seem to make Trump more popular. Other than large numbers of people simply fed up with “the system,” I’m at a loss to explain it.

 

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, Public Opinion Polls, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Michael Robinson says:

    Yellow dog, orange dog, same difference.

  2. I’m not sure we should jump to any real conclusions based on a handful of polls so soon after the GOP Convention. It’s typically been the case that both candidates get a bounce from their party conventions, so it’s not surprising to me that Trump appears to have gotten one from his. Notwithstanding the familiarity that you mention,Clinton’s numbers have fluctuated over the course of this race so I wouldn’t discount the possibility that she could erase the bounce Trump has apparently gotten, and possibly even exceed it.

    Also, I’d note that just as many people underestimated Trump’s support during the course of the GOP race it’s important not to overestimate it too. This isn’t the race for the GOP nomination, and Trump needs to appeal to a much broader electorate if he’s going to get to 270 Electoral Votes.

  3. James Joyner says:

    @Doug Mataconis: But convention bounces have actually not been a thing the last few cycles, presumably because we’re so bombarded by information and because the old rules of getting out of the way while your opponent is having his convention have gone away. Now, campaigns intentionally do everything they can to step on the news generated by their opponent, not only constantly putting out press releases and Tweets but also things like announcing their VP choice the next day.

  4. Kylopod says:

    I’ve sensed a certain “5 stages of grief” thing going on among anti-Trump Republicans over the past few months, and a certain number of them were still in the denial stage until very recently, with their fantasies about dumping Trump at the convention. If the convention accomplished nothing else, it was to make it absolutely, abundantly clear that he’s the Republican nominee for president and that there will be no other. That in itself could account for the “bounce.”

  5. Tyrell says:

    These polls are virtually meaningless, even more so in this bizarre election year. Chairman Schultz is resigning – after the convention (she has to insure the coronation goes forth as planned). Meanwhile there were 60 rallies for Sanders the past weekend, as more reports of delegate crazy numbers come out.
    Not only will we need nose plugs to vote, but also gloves.
    “Hillary’s done went and hired an accountant – to keep count of all the scandals !”

  6. @James Joyner:

    Taking a quick look back, it appears that what recent cycles have shown isn’t so much that the convention bounce doesn’t exist anymore as it does that the bounce is much smaller and doesn’t last as long as it used to. This is likely a reflection of the fact that we’re much more polarized than we used to be and, as you said, because opposition parties are counter-programming during conventions now.

    Nonetheless, in 2008 Obama did get a small convention bounce, as did McCain and there were simtilar small bounces for Obama and Romney four years ago. It’s also worth noting that Trump has gotten bounces in the past as well, most notably in May after he clinched the nomination.

    In the past, of course, the bounces were much more substantial, such as the bounces Dukakis and Bush 41 got after their respective conventions in 1988.

  7. Scott says:

    There are several ways to look at the polls. Besides the overall trends, I will look at the trends in the individual polls also (e.g., what is the trend in the CNN/ORC polls) to take into account the differing methodologies and selected voting pools. Looking at those as well as the overall graphs, it seems as though Clinton has been going sideways while Trump has been rising, at least over the last month.

  8. SKI says:

    I’m a bit skeptical of the CNN poll for a few reasons:
    1. Had HRC up +4 with college educated whites and Trump +37! with less educated whites.
    2. More tellingly, showed a larger group 44 – 42 saying that the convention made them less willing to vote for Trump. If true, than this particular sample was even more pro-Trump pre-convention – a real outlier.

  9. KM says:

    rump’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.

    Looking at the breakdown, it looks like the numbers came from Johnson and Stein, not Clinton. She’s down -6% but a large number of Trump’s bump was siphoned from Johnson (-7) and Stein (-6); since that was more then half of their supporters, it looks like Trump’s snapping up the Libertarian vote, not a big surprise. She was never going to snag them anyways. I’m not seeing a lot of unexpected results here since even a horrific convention will not deter die-hard cons and terminally CDS-afflicted individuals from going full Donald.

    Also interesting to note is the total from before was only 97% with what I’m assuming was a 3% margin of error/undecided but the post convention total was 93% (-7). Does that mean Clinton’s missing -6% is now on the fence rather then pro-Trump? Perhaps some Stein-leaning BernieBros are reconsidering her in light of this mess?

  10. SKI says:

    Another internal that smells off:

    Clinton leads by 46 pts. among nonwhites in CNN poll–vs. 62 pts. in 2012 exit poll. Seems rather implausible. Implies 30% among Latinos.— Alan Abramowitz (@AlanIAbramowitz) July 25, 2016

  11. MBunge says:

    The problem is that a lot of people are just freaked out by all things Trump. I’ve been trying to come up with an analogy and the best I can manage is what many middle and working class people have experienced with immigration or economic change. They didn’t pay much attention until one day they look around and realize their world has changed. They don’t know what happened. They don’t know how it happened. All they know is they weren’t asked if they wanted it to happen. What they feel is a loss of identity and a loss of control and they’ll grab onto almost anything to get the back.

    Josh Marshall put up a post over the weekend where he referred to Cruz’ non-endorsement as something that humiliated Trump. One could be forgiven for thinking that in the immediate aftermath but it became darn clear, darn fast that not only did it not humiliate Trump but it probably helped him. But Marshall, a fairly sharp guy, just can’t process that. His world has changed and his emotional reaction to that is affecting him more than he understands.

    Mike

  12. Guarneri says:

    Other than fed up with the system? At a loss. Really?

    Eg. “The disclosed DNC emails sure look like the potential Clinton Administration has intertwined the appointments to federal government boards and commissions with the political and fund raising operations of the Democratic Party,” Boehm told The Daily Caller.

    “That is unethical, if not illegal.”

  13. Jen says:

    Just like the Brexit vote, people willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces. That a disaster of a convention like that would produce any bounce is astounding–but then again, this is a country enamored with “reality” television. Well, the American Experiment has had a nice run, I suppose.

    At this point, I’m taking all polling seriously–not in a defeatist way, but simply because I need to face the fact that it is entirely possible that this Orange Menace could actually get elected–especially if people in states like VA and NH vote for third parties instead of voting for the only candidate who can stop him.

  14. eric1968 says:

    “I’m at a loss to explain it.”

    This blog is mis-named. You spelled “Inside” wrong.

  15. SKI says:

    @Guarneri: Except the emails have nothing to do with the Clinton campaign – and they don’t say what the right wing fever swamp is stating they do.

    They are among the DNC and its subgroups asking for lists of people to be recommended for commission-type appointments. Yes, in a completely typical fashion, the names on the list all gave money to the DNC. Most but not all gave money to Clinton. American political parties have been appointing donors to commissions for as long as there have been donors.

    The actual email chain makes zero connection between donations and nominations. It asks various chairs to recommend people “Any folks who you’d like to be considered to be on the board of (for example) USPS, NEA, NEH. Basically anyone who has a niche interest and might like to serve on the board of one of these orgs.”

    There is no gun here, let alone a smoking one…

  16. CSK says:

    @Jen:

    Speaking as your neighbor just to the south, I’m interested know know if the third party vote in NH is that substantial. I do follow NH affairs, but I don’t have a clear sense of that particular issue.

  17. Guarneri says:

    @SKI:

    Standard issue R vs D argumentation. It’s not an R vs D issue at play. It’s 50 years of ineffectual governance.

    I rest my case.

  18. SKI says:

    @Guarneri:

    I rest my case.

    What case?

    That humans reward their supporters?

    This is news to anyone over the age of 6?

  19. Stan says:

    @Guarneri: What’s your idea of effectual governance?

  20. Jen says:

    @CSK: The latest poll from UNH was a 37/37 tie between Trump and Clinton, with 5% Stein, 10% Johnson. It was of likely voters. We have a very solid core of actual Libertarians in this state due to the Free State movement, so I think the L is probably quite solid and will likely stick. The 5% for Stein is higher than “normal” Green party support. This is probably angry Bernie supporters boosting those numbers, and I’m dubious if they’ll ever come around (particularly since they all feel vindicated by the DNC email leaks).

    In short, I think the numbers are probably accurate. The question is whether they will stick.

  21. CSK says:

    @Jen:

    Thanks very much for taking the time to write that. It was very helpful. I suppose some NH Republicans who are appalled by Trumps’ demagoguery might vote Libertarian.

  22. DrDaveT says:

    Still, considering how awful I and most of OTB’s readership thought the convention was, it’s truly remarkable that it made people more likely to vote for Trump.

    Non-sequitur. You and the OTB readership have essentially nothing in common with the people the convention was aimed at. Trump is courting the awful vote — successfully.

    Again, the real failure implicated in all of this is the American ‘educational’ ‘system’.

  23. Pch101 says:

    “considering how awful I and most of OTB’s readership thought the convention was, it’s truly remarkable that it made people more likely to vote for Trump.”

    These kinds of events serve as a sort of Rorschach test. Some people see a reckless blowhards, others see a tough guy who will (ironically for right-wingers) serve as their messiah.

    And then there are the large number of voters who will vote for Trump as a typical lesser-than-two-evils candidate even though he is not a typical candidate. The convention provided someone like him with the appearance of legitimacy as one of those two evils, which is enough for some people.

    In many ways, this will be a typical election, as the archetypes of each party will be largely the same as they ever were. (It’s not as if the GOP was the party of immigration, multiculturalism and nuanced foreign policy before Trump showed up.)

  24. CSK says:

    @DrDaveT:

    Well, Trump himself said: “I love the poorly educated.”

  25. Scott says:

    @Guarneri: On the other hand, Trump has actually proposed to corrupt the Civil Service System with the spoils system of government hiring.

    I remember when Karl Rove proposed during the Bush Administration to install Soviet style political officers in the government agencies. He didn’t call it that and it didn’t go anywhere but the idea was floated out there.

  26. James Pearce says:

    @MBunge:

    I’ve been trying to come up with an analogy and the best I can manage is what many middle and working class people have experienced with immigration or economic change. They didn’t pay much attention until one day they look around and realize their world has changed.

    They continue not paying attention.

    Like, we keep hearing that Donald Trump is going to look out for the working class. But this is a dude who sits in gold-leaf chairs and has marble columns in his Manhattan apartment. The “economic anxiety” is real, but Trump as the vessel of it? That’s ridiculous.

  27. MBunge says:

    @James Pearce:

    When the choice is between someone telling you they will fix your problem and someone who doesn’t even acknowledge the problem exists, does it matter if the former is lying to you or not?

    Mike

  28. SKI says:

    @MBunge:

    When the choice is between someone telling you they will fix your problem and someone who doesn’t even acknowledge the problem exists, does it matter if the former is lying to you or not?

    What if the problem doesn’t actually exist? What if the facts are that cop killings are at a record low? That immigrants commit crimes at lower levels than native born? That feelings aren’t facts?

  29. PJ says:

    @MBunge:

    When the choice is between someone telling you they will fix your problem and someone who doesn’t even acknowledge the problem exists, does it matter if the former is lying to you or not?

    Mike

    No wonder you’re a Sanders supporter.

  30. pylon says:

    There is a Dem Convention to come. There are debates to come. I don’t think the Repubs will fare well in either.

  31. al-Alameda says:

    This is easily the most bizarre presidential cycle in my political memory. Perhaps 1968 topped this, but I was a toddler at the time. Things that would have destroyed any presidential aspirant in previous years seem to make Trump more popular. Other than large numbers of people simply fed up with “the system,” I’m at a loss to explain it.

    I was student in 1968, and it is my opinion that this presidential cycle is indeed the most “interesting” since 1968.

    Americans are a sucker for a “speak your mind” kind of a candidate – the problem is we’ve had two of those types recently: (1) George W Bush – who decided to ‘bring it on’ by invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11th, and in so doing destabilized that region to the point that ISIS flourishes, and (2) Sarah Palin who is relentlessly uninformed. Trump is selling more of the same – tough non-PC talk, constant misrepresentation of facts/reality, juvenile insulting of all perceived opponents.

    Unfortunately it is likely that this race will be close, and it really shouldn’t be.

  32. CSK says:

    @pylon:

    I’m musing on what would happen if Trump simply refused to debate Clinton. It wouldn’t hurt him with his core supporters, because nothing does, but with anyone else he’s hoping to attract…

    I still have the feeling he might not stay the course.

  33. KM says:

    @MBunge:

    When the choice is between someone telling you they will fix your problem and someone who doesn’t even acknowledge the problem exists, does it matter if the former is lying to you or not?

    So they just want validation, not issue correction. When i was a counselor, we would have people come in just for the unconditional support , not help with their issues. They wanted yes men to tell them their family/work/life being terrible was not their fault and they were 100% in their actions. If you tried to work with them on a problem or imply it might be them, click! Total defensive shutdown and they’d move to a new counselor to get their validation fix. If you didn’t play their game, you were a terrible therapist who didn’t listen to patients’ needs.

    Acknowledging a problem exists and agreeing with someone’s presentation of a problem are two very different things. If said problem is something like illegal immigration or just immigration in general, the presentation that OMG Foreigners are Ruining Everything GTFO is not conductive to solve the issue. Until we can get past the Lie and Tell Me I’m Right stage, no real resolution can be achieved.

  34. MBunge says:

    @SKI: What if the problem doesn’t actually exist?

    Then what has Elizabeth Warren been going on and on about? What was Bernie Sanders going on and on about? What has Black Lives Matter been going on and on about? No one has, as far as I know, presented ANY statistical evidence that the number of black people being killed by cops is on the increase. For all we know, it may be substantially less common than it was in the past.

    What’s that you say? Dismissing people’s concerns over violence by falling back on statistics is brutally insensitive and misses the point? Yes, you’re probably right about that.

    Mike

  35. MBunge says:

    @KM: If you tried to work with them on a problem or imply it might be them, click!

    So, income inequality, stagnant wages, a broken immigration system…it’s all the fault of the people making $10 an hour at Walmart? They just need to be smarter and work harder and everything will be hunky dory? And does this only apply to white people or is this your attitude about dysfunction in African-American communities as well?

    Mike

  36. SKI says:

    @MBunge:

    Then what has Elizabeth Warren been going on and on about? What was Bernie Sanders going on and on about? What has Black Lives Matter been going on and on about? No one has, as far as I know, presented ANY statistical evidence that the number of black people being killed by cops is on the increase. For all we know, it may be substantially less common than it was in the past.

    ummm, seriously? The issue that BLM is raising isn’t that the problem is worse today than in the past (it clearly isn’t like it was 50+ years ago when lynchings where common) but that we need to START caring about black lives. Think of BLM as “Black Lives Matter Too” if it helps you understand the issue. Do you think the facts show that blacks get treated as well as whites by the police? Senator Tim Scott, R-SC, can educate you if you need.

    What’s that you say? Dismissing people’s concerns over violence by falling back on statistics is brutally insensitive and misses the point? Yes, you’re probably right about that

    Fail. Trump’s very specific claim is that it is getting worse. It isn’t. He wants to “Make America Great Again“.

    He claims that violence is on the rise and cop killings are soaring. They aren’t.

    People have every right to be concerned about violence in our country but you can’t claim it is getting worse and be upset when you find out it isn’t.

  37. SKI says:

    @MBunge:

    So, income inequality, stagnant wages, a broken immigration system…it’s all the fault of the people making $10 an hour at Walmart? They just need to be smarter and work harder and everything will be hunky dory? And does this only apply to white people or is this your attitude about dysfunction in African-American communities as well?

    Income inequality, stagnant wages, a broken immigration system are all real problems. I'd love to hear Trump's solutions because all I've heard is that only he can solve them – a classic authoritarian response that invites fascism.

    HRC, Sanders, Obama, all proposed real solutions, with actual plans, to these issues. Where is Trump's?

  38. James Pearce says:

    @MBunge:

    When the choice is between someone telling you they will fix your problem and someone who doesn’t even acknowledge the problem exists, does it matter if the former is lying to you or not?

    I’m a trouble shooter by trade. If you cannot accurately identify a problem, you cannot fix it.

    Try and treat cancer with pseudoscience and the most likely result is that you will die of cancer.

    But beyond that, why is it that over the last 20-30 years, the problems for the white working class have changed, but the solution always remains the same: Vote for the Republican?

  39. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Guarneri:

    It’s 50 years of ineffectual governance.

    I don’t spend enough time reading right wing stuff to follow it, so fill me in: is the above quote from Limbaugh, or someone else? I remember it from someplace, but can’t place it?

  40. James Pearce says:

    It’s 50 years of ineffectual governance.

    50 years that includes the one plus terms for Nixon, one for Gerald Ford, two for Ronald Reagan, and three for the two Bushes.

    29 of those years were presided over by Republicans.

  41. KM says:

    @Munge:

    So, income inequality, stagnant wages, a broken immigration system…it’s all the fault of the people making $10 an hour at Walmart?

    This right here? This is what I meant. You immediately jump to a blame-based conclusion that has literally zero to do with what I actually said. Reactionary defensiveness and personalizing a generality does nothing to help and everything to hinder; it’s a hurdle some can’t get past in order to work on the meat of the issue. It reinforcements a stagnant victim-mentality (“how is this my fault?!”) instead of progressing towards an achievement (“this is what I can do to improve bad circumstances”). Playing Who’s at Fault wastes time that could be used to build up the client; any therapist or counselor worth their salt will not confirm negative statements of that nature. Life is unfair and that’s never going to change unless you chose to do something to make it more fair then it was.

    Trump fed the stagnation with his doom-n’-gloom. Life’s awful, everyone’s out to get you. Poor innocent you, waiting while the wolves circle. He offers no advice on what to do about the wolves, just t that he’s the only one that can help. The people who buy that crap are the ones who never bother to open the door and discover its dogs outside instead. Still might get bit but much easier to tame and disperse.

  42. JKB says:

    This convention bump for Trump probably has teeth in this election as the convention introduced his very accomplished children. After Tuesday of last week, even the CNN pundits were talking about how impressed they were with Tiffany and especially Donald, Jr. That didn’t go away with Eric and Ivanka speaking.

    So for Trump, people got a new view into him. Chelsea can’t do that for Hillary as she’s a known. Neither is Hillary going to show her less bombastic side in her acceptance.

    As for the convention not being a slick performance art piece, that plays to Trump’s benefit

    Whatever you think of him, Donald Trump is not in Cleveland tonight because he’s richer, smarter, meaner, shrewder, or more ambitious than any other contender. He’s there, in my opinion, because talking without the aid of a Teleprompter made his opponents look like performers in some ridiculous charade, waiting for someone else’s carefully crafted words to appear before them on a magical screen, so they can speak while pretending not to read. The Teleprompter is in insult to thinking people. It’s also the enemy of authenticity, and if I were King of the World, I’d melt them all down and have the residue molded into a giant Trojan Horse.

  43. Kylopod says:

    @JKB:

    This convention bump for Trump probably has teeth

    I’m going to hold you to that prediction. We’ll know in about a week.

  44. James Pearce says:

    @JKB:

    The Teleprompter is in insult to thinking people.

    Mike Rowe is an insult to thinking people.

    (I’m mostly kidding. Rowe had a pretty good manifesto a few years ago about the value of working in the trades, but this “Trump is the Republican nominee because he doesn’t use a teleprompter” stuff is abjectly stupid.)

  45. al-Alameda says:

    @JKB:

    He’s there, in my opinion, because talking without the aid of a Teleprompter made his opponents look like performers in some ridiculous charade, waiting for someone else’s carefully crafted words to appear before them on a magical screen, so they can speak while pretending not to read. The Teleprompter is in insult to thinking people. It’s also the enemy of authenticity, and if I were King of the World, I’d melt them all down and have the residue molded into a giant Trojan Horse.

    Republicans are inordinately obsessed with teleprompter technology.

    You do realize that every president since 1980 – yes, even Ronald Reagan – has used a teleprompter, right?

    Use of a teleprompter is no more a measure of intelligence (or a lack thereof) than Trump’s words – spoken with or without a teleprompter – correlate to truthfulness or thoughtfulness.

  46. Dazedandconfused says:

    The media industrial complex has a financial interest in drama. Who is paying for the majority of these polls?

  47. dennis says:

    @Doug Mataconis:

    I’m at a loss to explain it.

    It’s because we (the American collective) are a stupid and ignorant people. Irrational, critically thinking failures. Tribal, insular refusers to consider any competing ideas. Fairy tale believing wishers who cling to the hope of an unevidenced world, while willfully allowing this one to go to shyt.

    Did that clear it up any?

  48. Grewgills says:

    You do realize that every president since 1980 – yes, even Ronald Reagan – has used a teleprompter, right?

    and before that notes on their podium, but looking at the words you wrote for a speech is inauthentic. I’m sure Lincoln never looked at notes when he spoke.

  49. James Brown 32 says:

    @MBunge: You threw a wild pitch here. First, BLM is the media brand for the work a lot of groups are working across the nation. Its too bad all of them get broad brushed as BLM– Many of them part with BLM over tactics for achieving the objective: Police restraint and accountability. The numbers are showing that Police killings are not heavily weighted towards race. What IS heavily influenced is escalation of force, beatings, tasings, misconduct, etc. Those are on the rise and requires people making a state to get local and state government to reform their laws governing police conduct.

  50. James Joyner says:

    @DrDaveT:

    Non-sequitur. You and the OTB readership have essentially nothing in common with the people the convention was aimed at. Trump is courting the awful vote — successfully.

    That’s sort of where I was going with that passage. The sort of people that I’m having political conversations with—including people well to my right on the political spectrum—all think Trump is dangerously unfit for the presidency. The elite/mass disconnect is simply higher than I can remember it.

    Again, the real failure implicated in all of this is the American ‘educational’ ‘system’.

    Certainly, almost all of the best educated folks I know are anti-Trump. But I don’t know that it’s the schools that’s the problem here. Rather, I think the elite frame of reference in both parties seems to be failing to understand the core concerns of a huge swath of the electorate.

  51. JKB says:

    @al-Alameda:

    Rowe was just commenting on the absurdity of considering any politician’s telepromptered words as anything but performance art. It certainly isn’t indicative of them as a person or their political beliefs.

    On the other hand, Trump, much to many people’s chagrin, often talks off the cuff and off the focus-grouped message. That makes him appear more authentic. And remember, Rowe got his break by sitting on television speaking extemporaneously about junk for hours on end. Also, when Obama spoke off message to Joe the Plumber, he revealed a lot that had been hidden behind his teleprompter performances.

    Really, the take-away is that anyone speaking from a teleprompter should be considered giving an acting performance.

  52. DrDaveT says:

    @SKI:

    Income inequality, stagnant wages, a broken immigration system are all real problems. I’d love to hear Trump’s solutions because all I’ve heard is that only he can solve them

    Not true. Trump doesn’t want to solve any of those. He’s fine with income inequality (obviously), he has no interest in stagnant wages, and he wants to eliminate the immigration system, not fix it.

    What he wants is for people to be angry about these things.

  53. Michael Robinson says:

    @James Joyner:

    I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.

  54. JKB says:

    @DrDaveT: and he wants to eliminate the immigration system,

    He does not. Where do you think he has gotten two of his three wives? And Marla being from Georgia was considered far more an immigrant by the NYC society than Ivana or Melania.

  55. gVOR08 says:

    In the aftermath of The Great Depression a general turn to communism/socialism was feared. After all, everyone had just seen a demonstration that capitalism wasn’t working. However Germany turned Nazi, Fascism was entrenched in Italy. And the U. S. got lucky and kept electing FDR. A turn to the right is a likely reaction to something like The Great Recession, and we voted out the party in power. (Palin or no Palin, McCain had a snowball’s chance.)

    Now we’re still collectively unhappy, so it’s easy to think about voting the bastards out. And in the popular imagination, the “in” party is the President. Are our current problems due to Obama or due to an international failure to regulate finance? The simple answer is wrong, but simple, and appealing to a lot of people. Have GOPs controlled congress almost this whole time? Have they consistently failed to allow fiscal stimulus? At the state level have they killed state employment? What’s that got to do with anything? Obama hasn’t produces rainbows and unicorns, dump him.

    This is supported by what I’ve called the Kirk Fallacy, the belief that all change one disapproves of was caused by liberals. For conservative politicians it’s an easy sell. Did Obama create modern finance, communications, and transportation,;making globalization inevitable, NAFTA or no? Did Obama drive the banks to abuse Credit Default Swaps and fail to regulate the shadow banking system? Did Obama relentlessly push gay marriage? Is he gonna get blamed anyway?

    The upshot is, we’re probably lucky this hasn’t gotten worse than Brexit and a chance of a Trump Presidency. If we can collectively avoid the Trump Presidency we’ll probably all survive this.

  56. DrDaveT says:

    @James Joyner:

    But I don’t know that it’s the schools that’s the problem here.

    What do schools have to do with education? [rim shot]

    Seriously — one of our two parties has fought long and hard to keep education in the hand of local cultural blocs, and to defend it from fact-based or multicultural influences. It’s not a coincidence that the same party has anointed Trump.

    Rather, I think the elite frame of reference in both parties seems to be failing to understand the core concerns of a huge swath of the electorate.

    Again, I think you’re being either naive or even self-serving here. The elites of both parties are quite aware of the core concerns of the masses.

    The Republicans, on their good days, misattribute the causes and apply ‘fixes’ that make things worse for the masses and better for the elite. On their bad days, they try to turn those concerns into fear, then exploit and pander to the fear in order to consolidate privilege.

    The Democrats, on their good days, try to address the actual causes of the problems. Their results are mixed, at best, but sometimes progress is made, and they’re at least aware of actual empirical research. On their bad days, they leap to conclusions about causes before the data are in, or implement good ideas in inept and unproductive ways.

    The only misunderstanding we’re seeing here is an underestimation of just how out-of-control angry those riled-up masses are, and how little they care about actual politics or philosophy.

  57. DrDaveT says:

    @JKB:

    Where do you think he has gotten two of his three wives?

    I was not aware that “marry a citizen” was the proposed GOP immigration reform path.

  58. dennis says:

    @dennis:

    @James Joyner:

    See, James; I told you we were stupid and ignorant … :-b

    Sorry, previous comment was for you.

  59. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @James Pearce: Well that’s why he was trying for “Both sides do it.”

  60. steve s says:

    You do realize that every president since 1980 – yes, even Ronald Reagan – has used a teleprompter, right?

    Use of a teleprompter is no more a measure of intelligence (or a lack thereof) than Trump’s words – spoken with or without a teleprompter – correlate to truthfulness or thoughtfulness.

    Stupid republicans believed the “Obama can’t talk no good ‘cep if’n he gots a teleprompter.” and if you remember jan and feb 2010, they went into the bipartisan health care summit with the notion that sans telepropter, Barry the Dummy would be exposed as the lazy affirmative action president that he was.

    If you recall, his command of the issues, and their inability to respond to him one-on-one humiliated them so badly over the course of seven hours that the next day staffers admitted they never should have allowed cameras.

  61. Barry says:

    @al-Alameda: “You do realize that every president since 1980 – yes, even Ronald Reagan – has used a teleprompter, right?”

    Reagan was the president who *started* it.

  62. JKB says:

    @gVOR08: And the U. S. got lucky and kept electing FDR.

    The U.S. got lucky and although compromised, the Supreme Court beat back the worst of FDR’s drive toward “the German pattern of socialism, the Zwangswirtschaft of the Nazis”. Although, the Nazis got their economic slogan from the New Deal.

    The slogan into which the Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, viz., Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit), is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal and the Soviet management of economic affairs. It implies that profit-seeking business harms the vital interests of the immense majority, and that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.
    –von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos (LvMI)

    Zwangswirtschaft (German) is an economic system entirely subject to government control. “Zwang” means compulsion, “Wirtschaft” means economy. The English language equivalent for Zwangswirtschaft is something like compulsory economy

    We could observe that with Obamacare, Obama has moved the American economy much more decisively toward Zwangswirtschaft in a grand leap as opposed to the creeping interventionism of the prior decades.

  63. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @steve s: God, watching him embarrass those stuffed shirts was deliciously tastee.

  64. al-Alameda says:

    @JKB:

    The slogan into which the Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, viz., Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit), is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal and the Soviet management of economic affairs. It implies that profit-seeking business harms the vital interests of the immense majority, and that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.
    –von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos (LvMI)

    Yes, at 22% of GDP our federal government share of gross domestic product, and our confiscatory rates of taxes on income (among the lowest of all industrialized countries) are indeed approaching Soviet levels of oppression.

  65. anjin-san says:

    @JKB:

    We could observe that with Obamacare, Obama has moved the American economy much more decisively toward Zwangswirtschaft

    You could observe it if you took some really bad acid…

  66. JKB says:

    @al-Alameda: @anjin-san:

    The Dictatorial, Anti-Democratic and Socialist Character of Interventionism

    Many advocates of interventionism are bewildered when one tells them that in recommending interventionism they themselves are fostering anti-democratic and dictatorial tendencies and the establishment of totalitarian socialism. They protest that they are sincere believers and opposed to tyranny and socialism. What they aim at is only the improvement of the conditions of the poor. They say that they are driven by considerations of social justice, and favour a fairer distribution of income precisely because they are intent upon preserving capitalism and its political corollary or superstructure, viz., democratic government.

    What these people fail to realize is that the various measures they suggest are not capable of bringing about the beneficial results aimed at. On the contrary they produce a state of affairs which from the point of view of their advocates is worse than the previous state which they were designed to alter. If the government, faced with this failure of its first intervention, is not prepared to undo its interference with the market and to return to a free economy, it must add to its first measure more and more regulations and restrictions. Proceeding step by step on this way it finally reaches a point in which all economic freedom of individuals has disappeared. Then socialism of the German pattern, the Zwangswirtschaft of the Nazis, emerges.

    von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos (LvMI)

    There is the Soviet pattern of all-round socialization of all enterprises and their outright bureaucratic management; there is the German pattern of Zwangswirtschaft, towards the complete adoption of which the Anglo-Saxon countries are manifestly tending; there is guild socialism, under the name of corporativism still very popular in some Catholic countries. There are many other varieties.

    von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos (LvMI) .

    That America has been resistant to socialism doesn’t meant the long march won’t be completed. The undermining of education is now, as we see with the success of Bernie Sanders, bearing fruit.

  67. al-Alameda says:

    @JKB:

    That America has been resistant to socialism doesn’t meant the long march won’t be completed. The undermining of education is now, as we see with the success of Bernie Sanders, bearing fruit.

    Yes, the long march will take place on public sidewalks, public streets and highways, along the way we’ll meet people on public Medicare and or public Social Security too, and quite often we’ll drink safe public water that’s been treated in accordance with publicly legislated environmental regulations (that is, unless we’re in Michigan where the Republican governor rolled back the early onset of socialism and caused the poisoning of the water supply in Flint).

    Quick question: When will conservatives stop equating modern democratic socialism with Soviet Russia, Albania, North Korea, or Mao’s China?

  68. John D'Geek says:

    @James Joyner: There’s something else to consider here.

    Dr. Ben Hunt has a finance newsletter called Epsilon Theory. It’s a look at the world of finance that takes the non-accounting influences on the economy* into account using Game Theory.

    This takes into account the Common Knowledge Game, the Narrative (what “everybody knows that everybody knows”), and what happens when the Narrative is no longer trustworthy.

    For instance: how many people reading this blog– right or left — actually trust the News Media? Do you actually believe that your government servants tell you the truth? (Do you even believe them to be “servants of the people”?)

    So why do people believe “The Donald”‘s communication to be of the same “value” as HRC?

    You will find the answer to that question in the note I linked above. The biggest take-away I got was: when we are constantly in “crisis” mode (either manufactured crises used to persuade rather than educate or solve problems, or falsely inflated crises used to seize power) then the value of communication goes down. We are now to the point where all communication from “the powers that be” are evaluated exactly the same.

    From the most well though out and poignant, to the most ridiculous and extreme — they all have the exact same “value”.

    And just like bad money drives out good money, bad communication drives out good communication. Irrationality drives out Rationality. The irony here is that it was, essentially, started by the Narrative of the Central Banks of the world: the FED and the ECB (among others) indirectly gave us Donald Trump and Brexit; it’s what brexit has in common with Donald Trump and Ms. Le Pen.

    Without the Narrative of Central Bank Omnipotence (q.v.), we would not have Donald Trump.

    It’s definitely worth the read.

    * Alpha and Beta are “Reward” and “Risk”. Epsilon is … err, “Systemic Risk”. E.G. Risks outside of the normal business parameters, such as a war or FED actions.

  69. John D'Geek says:

    @Doug Mataconis: @James Joyner: Nate Silver over at 538 has a pretty good analysis of the issues with measuring the “bump” this time. His analysis of the bump is likewise thorough.

    That said, statistically speaking, the fact that Donald Trump has been climbing fairly consistently for a couple months is probably the biggest issue in measuring the “bump”, and that’s something we won’t be able to analyze for at least another month. Right now, taking the apparent “bump” into account, the election is roughly 60/40 — but that’s well ahead of where he was even a month ago, much less two. The overly-simplistic “now analysis” puts him ahead (now analysis doesn’t take into account anything but the polls), though not by much.

    But the trends favor Trump — if he can keep it up.

    That said, we still have Scott Adams’ prediction (which, sadly, I cannot find) that the real Trump attacks will wait until after the Democratic Convention — so that the Democratic Party won’t have a chance to change it up and send someone better his way. (Bernie would have been great, FWIW).

  70. JKB says:

    @al-Alameda: Quick question: When will conservatives stop equating modern democratic socialism with Soviet Russia, Albania, North Korea, or Mao’s China?

    Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps if the democratic socialist/social democrats prove they aren’t like the socialists of the USSR, China, North Korea, etc. But granted, the democratic socialist often doesn’t want social ownership of production but they do want the compulsory economic control of the fascists of Italy, of Germany like back in the 1930s.

    The Social Democrats were democratic only so long as they were not the ruling party; that is, so long as they still felt themselves not strong enough to suppress their opponents by force. The moment they thought themselves the strongest, they declared themselves— as their writers had always asserted was advisable at this point— for dictatorship. Only when the armed bands of the Rightist parties had inflicted bloody defeats on them did they again become democratic “until further notice.” Their party writers express this by saying: “In the councils of the social democratic parties, the wing which declared for democracy triumphed over the one which championed dictatorship.”

    Of course, the only party that may properly be described as democratic is one that under all circumstances— even when it is the strongest and in control— champions democratic institutions.

    Mises, Ludwig von (1927). Liberalism

  71. Matt says:

    @Guarneri: So correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t 50 years ago when the civil rights thing was going on and started making headway? So basically you’re mad because non whites and women were able to vote as easily as white men? Which ruined government…

  72. Matt says:

    @JKB: I cannot fathom how you function in life. You’re so disconnected from reality when it comes to the vast majority of Democrats and liberals that I find it hard to believe you’re integrated with reality in other areas.

    I really do love how you posted a quote from almost 90 years ago that has no relevance to modern society or political parties. Don’t get me wrong there are some quotes that are effectively timeless but your quote isn’t even about anything that exists today in the USA.

  73. al-Alameda says:

    @JKB:

    Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps if the democratic socialist/social democrats prove they aren’t like the socialists of the USSR, China, North Korea, etc. But granted, the democratic socialist often doesn’t want social ownership of production but they do want the compulsory economic control of the fascists of Italy, of Germany like back in the 1930s.

    Oh okay, then .. you win.
    The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Austria, Denmark and all western European democratic socialist countries are exactly the same as Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China.