Election Day Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, November 3, 2020
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119 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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The headline of the day-
Russia’s ‘Sausage King’ killed with a crossbow in a sauna
The Florida headline of the day-
Florida man mauled by leopard after paying for ‘full-contact experience’ with big cat
Well, all five votes in Dixville Notch, NH. went to Joe Biden. Millfield, NH gave 16 of its votes to Trump, and five to Biden.
From: In pictures: Day of the Dead in Covid times
From Back to the Future II:
Just a reminder as to what scumbags the modern day Republicans are: my niece, going to school in Pittsburgh but residing near Allentown, voted by mail two weeks ago and then checked every day to see if her ballot had arrived. No luck. Was it Trump’s sabotaging the post office? Republican rat-fuckery in local voting offices? Who knows, but all that matters is that the modern Republican Party is all about keeping people from voting. My niece hoisted the middle finger at the bastards, rented a car, and drove back to her parents last night so she can cast a provisional ballot today. You don’t even have to ask who she is voting for.
So, the big decision I have today is whether to leave the television on or off today.
I remember 2016 quite clearly. Was watching the returns and watched how Florida was going and at 8:30pm Central Time, turned to the wife, and said, “I don’t like how this is going and am going to bed.”
I was right. And I don’t want to go through that again.
Sabato’s final ratings
https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/21320/
Not a surprise, he has FL going to Trump. But Biden is the winner w/321 EV’s, likely enough to fend off any SC high jinks.
@Sleeping Dog: He has FL as lean R, but GA as lean D. That strikes me as odd. It’s certainly not reflected in the polling averages.
@Bill:
Guess he got his money’s worth
@Bill:
“I never thought the leopard would eat MY face…”
@Kylopod:
I noted that as well and my thoughts are that GA has been trending toward Biden and particularly Ossoff for the last few weeks and the congressional district level polling is showing a Dem trend. That was similar to what happened in 16 in PA, WI and MI.
It should be noted that David Perdue has run a horrible campaign and Ossoff absolutely gutted him in the debate till the point he wouldn’t show up for the 3rd. It maybe a case that Biden rides Ossoff’s coattails.
@MarkedMan:
We requested Florida ballots to be sent to us in Colorado. We were told we should see them in mid October. They never came. Even now.
Since we did drive down, that is two more vote in the blue column.
While there, I stated that we never received a requested mail-in ballot. The person working behind the Plexiglas stated that she has heard that from several people.
I’m not saying that it was intentional, but that would be two registered Dem ballots that would have been in a very red county. Things that make you go: “Hmmmmm”.
Dixville Notch votes for Biden
sign #3,483 that trump has run out of money?
He pays to have people bused to his rallies but not to have them bused back to their cars?
And another thing…
Down here in LA (Lower Alabama, as to which the Pensacola area is referred), it is deep Trump Country. People are walking around like the idea of masks was never even discussed.
The beach bar was SWAMPED with people, with cars overflowing the parking lot. Restaurants have lots of Trump signs, likely indicating regular seating and service.
For that matter, driving across TX and Louisiana was all Trump signs. You could infer the great folks that lived at the homes when you saw the Trump, Confederate and Blue Lives flag flying.
When you hit the former redline neighborhoods, you finally started seeing some Biden signs.
We are a deeply F’ed up country. and that has me very concerned today.
@OzarkHillbilly:
More likely, he promised to pay the bus companies to drive them to and from his rallies, they drove them to the rallies, found of that the checks bounced, and then they didn’t bother turning up to drive them back…
@OzarkHillbilly:
He pays to have people bused to his rallies but not to have them bused back to their cars?
You build a Potemkin village for the empress to view… you don’t bother to tear it down later.
A Potemkin village is any construction whose sole purpose is to provide an external façade to a country which is faring poorly, making people believe that the country is faring better. So… He has made America great again for the loyal Trumpists at the rally. For that hour, they have the ability to envision their all-white country with like-minded racists.
After that, they just need to bootstrap it the bell out of there. Busses are for socialist.
Climate crisis breaks open generational rifts in US families
Big rush to vote in our little hamlet first thing this morning. I think it’s possible that NH turnout will exceed 90% in some towns this year.
@Jen:
There was a line of about 10 people at my polling place at 7 a.m.
I didn’t vote then because I went for my morning walk like I always do but had no face mask*. So I went back at 8. The place was busy but there was just one married couple ahead of me.
*- I don’t wear a mask when out for my early morning walks because social distancing isn’t a problem around here between 6-7 am when I normally walk.
@Sleeping Dog:
This all took place in Davie. Davie has an interesting history.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Ku Klux clan rallies took place there. Do you know what Davie was home to at around the same time? A nudist colony. People with bed sheets and people without clothes. Don’t you just love the Sunshine State?
Heading out shortly to see how many the New Hampsterites are braving the morning chill.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Proof that getting older doesn’t equal getting wiser. Silents and Boomers like to think they know more because they’ve been in the world longer – however, that only means they’ve had longer to internalize propaganda, prejudices and bad info. It’s harder to unlearn bad habits and thought patterns then it is to pick up new ones so it’s always the olds who are the last to make meaningful changes. Old dogs can’t learn new tricks, indeed.
The youth are afraid and have every right to be. They are being left with a problem and expected to shoulder the cost and effort of fixing. Even it’s is only a minor problem, it’s still an avoidable problem their elders are poo-pooing so they can selfishly live out their lives without a care for what’s coming. “I’ve got mine, eff you” permeates so much of the thinking that it’s not a surprise GOP and Trump love is strongest among the elderly; it’s subtly baked into a lot of their personal choices and attitudes. Pretty soon there’s going to be more Millennials and Gen Z voters than Boomers and Silents, however and that’s when the rubber hits the road. Deniers are going to end up pushed to the side by folks who want to survive, not buy into feel-good guilty assuaging.
@Bill: There were at least 100+ people in line when we got there a bit after 7 a.m. The guy behind us looked at the line and said something to the effect of, “is everyone in this town an early riser?”
Our town is on the small side, fewer than 5K people.
@Kylopod:
FWIW Cooks David Wasserman has the same prediction.
And I agree that it seems crazy to me. We’ll know shortly.
I’d forgotten that around six months ago, I set up a calendar reminder on my phone “Liberation Day?”
Let’s hope so.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, when you’re done eating a piece of fruit, do you care what happens to the pit?
I have a feeling that this open forum will probably reach 300 comments today.
@Liberal Capitalist: Here is my ‘hummmm’ story:
Applied for absentee ballot on Aug 5. The county vote tracker acknowledged that and reported that my ballot package was mailed to me on Oct 13. That ballot package has yet to arrive at my home.
Now what is odd is that: I checked the vote tracking website on Oct 8, where it said that my ballot was sent on Oct 13th (five days in the future).
I called the Board of Election on the 9th, and they confirmed that the records showed the ballot had been sent on the 13th.
Their reaction? “Well that’s odd. Maybe we anticipate sending it on the 13th”
My faith was restored ! /s/
@KM: There is a part of me that thinks anyone over the age of 60 or 65 should not be allowed to vote.
What I Want for Vote-mas
– Biden to win in a landslide
– The Dems take the Senate and increase their lead in the house
– Lindsay Graham loses
– Ossoff wins
– McConnell loses
– The gun nuts stay home
For what it’s worth, I’ve just spent the last few days driving through southern Colorado, southern Utah (Moab), and northern Arizona (Flagstaff) to visit national parks. Saw a few Trump signs in what I thought would be some solid Trump regions, but far more Biden signs. Are Trump supporters highly “energized,” whatever that means, in this election? Not enough to put up a lot of signs.
Reporting in from Hampsterville. It was exactly 15 minutes from the time I got in line, till I returned to the car in the far parking lot. There were about 125 people in line when I arrived and it was out the door and about 1oo yards down the walk. Once inside, it was quick through registration as they had at least one poll worker for each letter of the alphabet and probably a 100 or so voting booths. Local election officials should be congratulated.
A brief exchange with on election official revealed that the turnout was huge and when the polls opened the line was twice as long and it has been steady so far.
The expected covid precautions were in force. I didn’t notice anyone inside or in line who wasn’t masked.
The usual coterie of patriotic dress was on display, but unlike 20 years ago, you no longer can guess how they voted from the stars & stripes regalia. It’s good that Dems have taken back the flag.
If I were religious, I’d take a couple of white lambs*, to an altar of Athena, and beseech Athena, Zeus, and Aphrodite to have mercy on Trump and to deliver him a clear and unmistakable loss tonight, so as to end his agony quickly.
*No, I wouldn’t sacrifice them. I’d just offer them to the gods; they can pick them up at their leisure.
@Kathy:
Not even slow roasted over a wood fire, anointed with a nice mint sauce and served on a bed of long-grain & wild rice?
@Kathy:
Spare the lambs, sacrifice Ivanka.
I saw this ep from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight yesterday. If you fast forward to around 17 minute sin, there’s a clip of Trump talking to healthcare workers.
After the man on the left finishes talking about all the deaths they deal with and the toll that takes, Trump says “that’s a lot of death, no question about it. Would you pass these pens around?”
I thought I was beyond violent outrage, but I was wrong.
I swear if I’d been there, I’d have thrown the pen back at him and asked “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
@Mu Yixiao: I always thought the ancient Greeks were onto something by having their gods enjoy the smell of the cooking meat as the sacrifice (I can’t remember where, but that aroma was specified as the sacrifice made to the gods in one source I read), leaving the roast lamb needing to be “disposed of” somehow. 😉
@Kingdaddy: If Colorado College’s annual survey of the “State of the Rockies” is anywhere close to accurate, then Trump’s positions on energy, the environment, and federal land management can all be described as anti-West. Perhaps people have noticed.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
That’s part of it. In addition. Prometheus instructed mortals to wrap the bulk of the meat in the stomach of the victim, and to cover the bones with the fat, thus tricking Zeus into taking the fat-covered bones as his share*. You’re supposed to burn the bones with the fat as part of the offering. Then there were drink offerings, which usually meant extinguishing the burning fat and bones with wine.
*That’s what earned Prometheus a spot in Zeus S*t list, and a rather gruesome punishment.
@CSK: Trump: “Well, that settles it. I win 16 to 10. We can stop counting now because the rest will be the same. There’s no way he’s going to be able to overcome 61% voting for me.”
(And yes, I’m aware that having a numerate Trump just over played it. 😉 )
@Kathy: Yea, I saw that last night. You’d think after four years we’d be inured to that sort of behavior, but there really is no rock bottom with this guy. His superpower is always being able to find a new way to outrage and offend.
@OzarkHillbilly: A picture of contrasts between having and not having:
In my family, my mom wanted their “fee for service” healthcare policy to do a complete blood transfusion for my dying father (all 8–or whatever–pints) because “insurance will pay for it.”
I may never get over my issue with the best birthday present that I got while I was in Korea having been that my dad died on my birthday. His suffering was finally over. My brother has tried to explain how Mom was courageous in the face of crisis, but I’m not buying it. And won’t. Ever.
(And seven years later it still angers me when I think about it. I wish I could see the situation like my brother does. 🙁 )
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, you’re speaking of a guy who informed us that “not many people know” that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, so…
@MarkedMan:
Which action Trumpies and MAGAts will use to shout “We KNEW it! Voter fraud! Lock her up! Lock her up!”
WASF.
@Kathy: @Just nutha ignint cracker: @Mu Yixiao:
You three are making me H-U-N-G-R-Y.
@Kathy: I thought it was the theft of fire from the gods that was the real kicker. The bones-covered-with-fat sounds like something Hermes would do.
(And any comments about the smell of roasted offering being the most important part brings to mind PTerry’s priest of the crocodile god Offler expounding upon the appropriate sacrifice to Offler….which is, of course, sausages. (Going Postal.)
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s supposed to pay round trip? What kind of a privileged snowflake are you anyway? It’s not even freezing weather! You should be grateful for the exercise, not complaining!
(Thank you, btw. That was just what I needed to get back to my happy–well snarky, anyway–place. 🙂 )
O My God Hunter Biden’s laptop!!!
😛
(Just getting in before the complete morons)
@Mu Yixiao:
I don’t much care for lamb.
For the week I made meatballs, with spaghetti and red sauce. I’d never done meatballs before, but they turned out well roasted in the oven.
I followed a recipe that advised to soak breadcrumbs in milk. I think next time I’ll do a little of my meatloaf glaze and soak the breadcrumbs in that.
FiveThirtyEights final
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/?cid=rrpromo
and their cautions
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-2020-presidential-election-forecast/
Nate has Biden taking both FL and GA
Police once more arguing for their own defunding:
(Source: Slate, October 30, 2020)
So Philly police attacked and beat an innocent mom who did nothing more than accidentally drive near a protest location, then kidnapped her toddler son to use for their propaganda. As Ryan J. Reilly of Huffpost wrote on Twitter, this incident provides, “a tremendously valuable lesson in why you always need to treat initial police narratives with intense skepticism.”
@CSK: Well that, too. But I do have a lamb shoulder chop in the freezer. (I’ve never gotten the mint sauce part though. I usually eat meat with just salt and pepper on it.)
@Kathy: Can we have your recipe for meatloaf glaze? I’m trying to figure out what it would be and can’t manage to suss it out.
@grumpy realist:
I think it was the sacrificial offerings. It makes the chronology, such as it is, work better. After all, there’s no way to sacrifice to the gods without fire.
You can argue Prometheus did that only after he was freed by Zeus in exchange for a prophecy about the son of the nymph Thetis, but that would mean by the time of the Trojan War, sacrifices had been going on for only two decades, three at most. I just can’t see the gods being deprived for so long of their due.
But then it’a all mythology, with various contradictory versions and later additions, so there’s not much point in arguing about it 😉
@Just nutha ignint cracker: God enjoying the aroma of burnt offerings is frequently mentioned in the Bible, too.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Sure!
220 gr. tomato puree (sauce)
1/4 cup ketchup
4-5 Tbsp. mustard
4 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
4 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup beef broth (or chicken broth)
1/2 tsp ground ginger (or minced or grated fresh (ginger)
2 Tbsp. Paprika
I mix about 3/4 cup of that into the meatloaf, and pour the rest over it before baking.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’ll take lamb however it comes.
According to TPM, Melania was the only person who showed up at her polling place without a mask.
Headline of the Day at Foreign Policy: “If Trump Wins, America Could Look a Lot Like Bulgaria“
@Kathy:
There’s a small restaurant on Nanjing West Road in Shanghai–in the Ritz Carlton complex–called “Beef and Liberty”. They used to have a lamb burger heavily seasoned with cracked black pepper and topped with tzatziki sauce. Every month or so I’d take the horribly long bus-and-metro ride to get some American food. I’d always stop and get a burger.
@DrDaveT:
I was talking yesterday with a friend who was complaining that shopping at her local Stop & Shop was like shopping in Bulgaria.
@OzarkHillbilly:
How can they shower him with adulation from their cars?
@Mu Yixiao:
When I visited New York in 1985 (1984?), my dad took us to a steakhouse, Gallagher’s I think, specifically to try the lamb chops. He was very annoyed that I ordered a steak instead.
Got to poll at 7:05 to find a line about 100yds (make allowance for social distancing). Voted and thanked workers and was homeward bound at 7:45. I’m the last in my local family cluster to vote — behind two daughters & two grandkids. So that’s 5 Biden (and straight D ticket) votes in Pinellas Co FL.
Seen this morning on (I think) Balloon-Juice but posted there last night:
“That uncertainty you’re feeling, Americans? That’s the feeling of democracy working. An election with uncertainty? What a luxury!” Gary Kasparov
@Mu Yixiao: If someone working for me was going to the US for the first time my wife and I used to take them to Southern Belle Restaurant on Changle Lu. Ribs and burgers and pulled pork. We would explain about how you were expected to order for yourself, what the various sections of a menu were for, what food you could eat with your hands, that dishes were not usually shared, stuff like that. I would always mention that once in America they could order any way they liked and share if they wanted, and even bring their own chopsticks, because in America you could do things your own way.
@JohnMcC: Kasparov is 100% correct as a general principle.
Of course, it would be great if the uncertainty was about counting votes and not institutional obstacles and threats of legal action.
Some liberals do us no favors. Keith Olbermann should have stayed in exile. Today he tweeted (and since deleted) a tweet that read: “Yes @realDonaldTrump has always been, will always be, and on the day of his bid for re-election, still is: a whiny Kunta Kinte.”
He has since apologized, saying he used the name of the heroic slave in the mini-series Roots* as a way to call Trump a similarly spelled female slur without actually using the word. So misogyny and racism, all rolled into one! Go away again, Olbermann!
* LeVar Burton (AKA Star Trek’s Geordi), the actor who played Kunta Kinte in the original Roots, responds:
ETA: lol, I forgot Burton is also known for the kids’ show Reading Rainbow. Very fitting to correct Olbermann on vowel sounds!
@MarkedMan:
Where’s Changle Lu? I lived out in Suzhou, so I never learned much about Shanghai–except for a section to the south of Nanjing Lu (Julu Lu) which is a quaint shopping area within a short distance of Boxing Cat Brewery*. I’d often spend the night there to get away from work.
*Meatloaf in Shanghai?! Sign me up!
@Mu Yixiao: Changle Lu is just south of Julu Lu and parallel to it – at least as much as any road is parallel to any other road in Shanghai. Southern Belle was closer to the center of town than the Julu Lu Boxing Cat. Closer to the original Boxing Cat which was on… Fuxing Lu? Been a while.
@CSK: I was about to say something, and then decided not to.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It is what you do with the lamb before you cook it that matters.
@Kathy:
Lamb can go either way for me. Some of the best dishes I’ve ever eaten were lamb; so were some of the worst. The rack of lamb marinated in garlic mint pesto that I cooked about 10 years ago is the single best dish I’ve ever made.
@MarkedMan:
Boxing Cat was on Fuxing Lu.
I just took a look at the map. That’s right where I would go. Now that I see it in context, I remember it. That was the big road I had to cross to the to Boxing Cat. 🙂 Damn… there was a rib joint down there? And I missed it?
Gah!
By the time I left in 2015 I think there were three Boxing Cats. One was in Pudong, or as my Puxing snob kids called it, “Pu-Jersey”. The first time I went to the Boxing Cat was in late 2010 or early 2011. I had been wandering around for hours and just wanted a beer and something to eat and didn’t really want to deal with being so foreign. I had been reading James Fallows columns from Shanghai and the difficulties in finding anything but Chinese beers there in the late aughts. (Hard to believe now, right?) I remembered he had written a column in 2008 about an honest to god brew pub that had opened up. I pulled out my iPhone 3S, opened up Google (yes, Google in China), found the article, and then searched Google Maps and discovered I was only a ten minute walk away. I felt like I was living in the future.
From Oct 27 out of Victoria British Columbia, for what it is worth,
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/british-columbians-are-betting-big-on-u-s-presidential-election-1.5163333
Now to start closing old browser tabs, too many open!
@Mu Yixiao: The other Boxing Cat was on Fuxing Lu West, near Yong Fu Lu. I either misremembered the Pudong one or it closed. Their web site lists one in Beijing now.
@MarkedMan:
The one I remember was on Fuxing Xi Lu, if I recall. I remember that the numbering on the road was seriously fucked up. One side of the road was in the 700s, the other side was in the 900s (or something like that). It’s a lovely tree-shaded lane, and the building looks like an old stone house.
I was introduced to it by the friend of a friend.
Ever make it to the Senator Saloon? It was down in that same area (not too far from Boxing Cat on Fuxing West Rd). That’s definitely an experience.
@Sleeping Dog:
Yeah, this is exactly what Sabato said in his podcast revealing his final projections.
@MarkedMan:
82 Fuxing West Road
My friend Kevin:
@Kurtz:
I didn’t know he incorporated such non-data-based assumptions into his model. But then I haven’t examined Sabato’s model closely. I know in 2008 he made the strikingly accurate prediction that Obama would win 364 EVs (it ended up 365, counting the unprecedented grab of NE-02), and incredibly he said it all the way back in July–before the Wall Street crash, before Sarah Palin. At the time pundits were scratching their heads thinking that was wildly bullish.
@Kurtz:
Perdue is a classic, who moved my cheese incumbent. Came into office 6 years ago as a wealthy, entitled twit, who took over a senate seat in what had long been a reliably R state. His real constituency was fine with a bit of self dealing and petty corruption as long as they got theirs and the remainder of his voters were happy with his support of guns and god. He never expected to be challenged and expected to coast to reelection and probably would have if it weren’t for Trump and R over reaching to suppress Dem voters.
There is a post on yesterday’s thread Trump Calls Caravan Crashers ‘Patriots’ that appears to violate OTB Policy:
The post is dated today:
james hunt says:
Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 08:18
I am not a moderator. Maybe his rant is acceptable.
@Kurtz:
@Kylopod:
For what it’s worth, the gutting that Ossoff gave Perdue will cost Davie with the red neck vote. Watching parts of that debate it was easy to imagine more than one good ol’ boy expressing that Perdue is a girly-man.
Also, Nate Silver has GA going to Biden.
@Sleeping Dog:
He has for months–but consistently less than FL. His final avg for FL is +2.5. For GA it’s +1.2. His forecast gives Biden a 69% chance of winning FL, compared with 58% in GA.
Ilhan Omar said “You don’t have to be registered to go vote in Minnesota. We have same day registration so you can register at the polls.” Sean Hannity ran the clip but cut off the second sentence. Conservatards are freaking out, calling her unAmerican, demanding her arrest, etc.
I’ll say this about conservative media—they certainly don’t overestimate their audience.
@Teve:
Don’t you wish instead of setting the clock back one hour the other day, we could have set it forward three days? 🙂
@Kathy:
Thanks! Yum!!
@flat earth luddite:
You’re welcome.
That’s for about a kilo of raw beef. For just soaking the breadcrumbs for meatballs, no glaze needed on top, I’d do far less of it.
Testing
I tried to set up a gravatar for myself but it is not showing here.
BTW the Florida Democratic party has called me 3 times since 2:30.
@Mu Yixiao: Never made it to the Senator. There were some cool places in Shanghai.
Speaking of odd numbering, my wife lived in Tokyo for a year in 1990 or so. When we were in China we visited and tried to find her old building. She kind of remembered the address, but there was no hope because the buildings there are numbered in the order they were built, not by their position on the street. And if a building was knocked down and a new one built in its place, it got a new number.
@MarkedMan:
There’s a town in one of the Baja California states, I forget the town and the state, where addresses are the street’s name, plus a short descriptor of the house. For instance, “Calle Las Flores, red house with black fence.”
I know this because I filled out address forms for envelopes to out of town customers, when I worked briefly at a cord-blood bank, but I’ve never visited the town. A coworker who had, told me the houses tend to be colorful and very different from each other.
@Kathy: Sounds like most every place I’ve been in Mexico to me.
@Mister Bluster: Meh. He’s not wound tight enough to do any damage. More in the “point and laugh” category.
Wonkette: “No drinking game. Because in this election, the drinking is no game.”
What’s your playlist right now, friends? I’m on the Dead South. Canadian bluegrass. Updating regularly on the computer with election results.
@Monala: True, but my understanding (and I may well be wrong) is that in Judaism, the sacrifice that was burned on the altar was, in fact, to be completely consumed by the fire. Somewhere in Chronicles or Second Samuel, there is a reference to the sons of the high priest (may have been Eli, may have been Samuel, too lazy to look it up) that they had fallen out of favor with the Lord by insisting on eating meat that had been roasted rather than boiled–the practice being that the priests would dip a hook into the pot of boiling meat and whatever they pulled out was to be their portion. (Any Bible or Torah scholars who want to dispute this are welcome to correct me. I am too lazy to look it up and working from memory.)
@Kathy: Grazi!
@CSK: Of course. 🙁
@Steven L. Taylor: The problem is always words in context, it seems. True.
@Jax:
A capella groups.
Pentatonix: Hallelujah, Mad World, Sound of Silence, Mary Did You Know, Be My Eyes
Home Free: Ring of Fire, Man of Constant Sorrow, How Great Thou Art
Peter Hollens feat. Home Free: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
The Nylons: Up the Ladder to the Roof, Town Without Pity, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Also the not-quite-a-capella Geoff Castelluci “Blackbird”
@Kylopod:
I just happened to listen to his podcast yesterday. He was talking about discussions among his team. I think he was discussing the varying opinions on how to interpret the model. I was under the same impression of his model as you.
On election night 2004, I was hanging out with a girlfriend and some of her friends at her house in Raleigh, and at 7 PM the numbers were looking great and John Kerry was definitely in the lead. We were all excited and got in somebody’s car to go buy some celebratory booze. We left one person watching the TV. By the time we got home with the booze, the girl who had stayed turned from the TV to look at us. And we knew it was no longer celebration booze.
I found it too stressful to watch, or even follow online. so I’m signing off and hoping for good news tomorrow morning.
You folks decided my dinner tonight. Lamb.
What to do on a night like tonight (USA election night)? Answer, celebrate regardless of the outcome (too much doom and gloom from the media and folks that seemingly want to be afraid). Sounds good, so some frozen Costco lamb chops are tossed in the sous vide with red wine and chimmichurri (Badia). What wine? Time to open that bottle already so I go to the “good” storage area, haven’t opened it in months. Has to be USA. Lots of candidates (sort of like the 2020 Dem Field) but decide on 2006 Enzo Magic Hill Napa (Oakville) Cabernet Sauvignon (finally coming into drinking window – ha)
For Kathy, on odd BC addresses, I’m guessing Santa Rosalia BCS (French designed mining town). I know it isn’t Loreto BCS where my parents had a townhouse (duplex) on the Malecon in the early 90s (don’t even want to think what that is worth today, sold around US$120K in 1995) 6M high ceilings. Not San Felipe BCN either. Mulege BCS is fun (to me, not party central), but not colorful (mangrove estuary). In the USA, Carmel CA is similar (Clint Eastwood was the mayor in the 80s) – no numbers, but everyone has a post office box. A friend’s address was “The Trees on xyz street”
Annoying thing for me tonight is NPR ‘cast (local station) on computer is 10 seconds offset from Amazon Echo on another floor. 5 minutes until polls close here.
No good.
This is no good.
@Kurtz:
I can’t tell — neither CNN nor PBS seems to have any clue about which states count early ballots first, or last, or ongoing, or what. The usual patterns of early vs. late returns don’t apply.
Time to take another Zantac.
Damn… Well, I was wrong. Way wrong.
@DrDaveT: @EddieInCA:
Biden still has a bunch of paths with or without Georgia or PA, as long as Arizona holds.
From the 538 chat. maybe feel a bit better.
NATE SILVER
NOV. 4, 12:34 AM
A lot of states have been called on some networks and not on others. If you plug in all the states where any network has called the state for Biden or Trump, it shows Biden at 88 percent to win the Electoral College, Trump at 6 percent, and a 6 percent chance of a tie. But that depends on Biden winning Arizona and Minnesota, which ABC News hasn’t projected yet.
We’re going to have a lot to talk about in the coming days, but as of this writing Biden still has a pretty solid path to the White House, despite the fact that it’s not going to be the rout some of us hoped for. The Senate’s looking increasingly doubtful, and that’s a disaster in itself even if Biden wins. Most importantly, we seem to be headed toward exactly the chaotic situation we were hoping to avoid, with the winner uncertain for several days and Trump trying to stop the counting of absentee ballots (and I don’t trust the integrity of those ballots to begin with).
Well, I’ve had enough for tonight but one observation:
The Democrat strategy of racking up large margins in urban ares, and moderate margins in suburbs–only to get destroyed in rural counties is simply not a good way to play this game. Im not a Democrat so Im not paid to develop a rural strategy—but if I were on the payroll this is area Republicans need to be contested in. You simply can’t get beat 70%-30% / 80%-20% in these drive-through counties–it adds up. Look at the Florida returns.
Trump just said “We won.”
So far votes are still being counted and neither candidate has reached 270 Electoral Votes.
Trump said “we are going to the Supreme Court” but did not say why.
@Jim Brown 32: As long as we’re excoriating Democratic strategy (while trying to avoid Pearce-like concern-trolling), one thing I’ve noticed over the past few years is that a lot of Dems are in denial over the fact that Trump has won over some voters since 2016. I’m not saying his net support has necessarily increased–I still think there’s a good chance Biden expands on Hillary’s popular-vote lead at least–I’m saying there are many people who didn’t vote for him last time and did this time. And this should have been entirely predictable to anyone paying attention.
For one thing, most people didn’t expect Trump to win in 2016, so that depressed the motivation of many who might have been leaning toward him. And Dems forget how ambivalent much of the GOP was about him that year. They weren’t sure how reliable he would be as president, particularly with all his populist rhetoric during the campaign. They didn’t abandon him, but they didn’t unify around him to anywhere near the extent that Dems often imagine.
There was a lot of room for Trump to mobilize various groups who were already leaning in his direction–white evangelicals, Cuban-Americans (who may have delivered FL to him), and far-right conspiracy wackos who typically don’t vote. Trump also lost support from traditionally Republican-aligned groups–make no mistake about it. And that may yet cost him reelection. The point is, it was a tradeoff. But this image some Dems have had that 2016 represented some kind of absolute high watermark for Trump’s support, and that once his con artist shtick was exposed he would just bleed support without gaining anything in return, was always overly simplistic.
Democrats down 35 in the fourth quarter. Asked the “refs” to stop play, let them regroup, go find new players and resume play… and they’re are letting them. LOL
If Biden was up 600k in Texas and suddenly the game paused, this place would be calling for World War III.
@Jim Brown 32:
Look at Washington. Or Oregon. Or really any state. The drive through counties are pretty empty, and the majority of the people live in cities and suburbs. Democrats don’t need a rural plan, they need an exurban plan and a small city plan.
I think one of the big stories of this election will be Biden underperforming with Latinos. The Spanish media has gotten a lot of ads from the right that weren’t answered because the Democrats take minorities for granted — as if not hating them is enough. Bernie showed Biden was weak with Latinos, and Biden stayed weak with Latinos. (Bernie would have gone down in flames for being weak with lots of other parts of the coalition).
The other big story will be Texas. Voting totals are through the roof, red and blue, and that’s what happens when a state edges towards a swing state and people’s votes might actually matter. If we had a popular vote, we would see that everywhere.
Oh, and democracy not really functioning in this country.
I think we pull out a win. If you look at the WaPo exit polls, and compare them to the results for the called states, they are very close, and throughout the evening the state totals have been edging towards the exit polls. And the areas with outstanding ballots are Biden areas, so it all matches up. We should get PA, WI, MI and likely GA. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
I never trusted the likely voter screens this year. The exit polls remove some of that uncertainty. They still might not get a representative sample, but the balance between mail-in, early and day-of votes is going to be easier to calibrate after the fact.