SATURDAY, JULY 27, 2024
...they mooed and they brayed on command: Can Candidate Harris win this election?
Almost surely, it's too early for polling to be highly significant. That said, we'll look at some new polling results below.
First, we'll offer this:
Candidate Harris is a bit of an accidental nominee. She'll be running against a Republican nominee who is, by any traditional measure, essentially unelectable.
She'll also be running against a lot of positions she adopted in 2019, during her run for the 2020 Democratic nomination. (She left that race in early December 2019.)
Beyond that, she'll be running against a powerful propaganda / dumbness regime—a propaganda / dumbness regime which operates like this:
EARHARDT (7/27/24): Thanks for coming on! I know you told our producers—you said Kamala Harris thinks that our kids belong to the government. And if you hear Donald Trump's speech, he thinks that our kids belong to us, the parents.
What's your reaction?
DEANGELIS: That's right! Kamala the Communist thinks your kids belong to her and the government...
So it went in the 6 o'clock hour of today's Fox & Friends Weekend. After receiving a prompt from the maddening, vacuous Ainsley Earhardt, a reliable guest gave viewers an unlikely account of what "Kamala the Communist" thinks.
(As an aside, might that suggest where Candidate Trump will end up? Where he may end up as he seeks the most cartoonish way to refer to the woman whose first name he still can't seem to pronounce?)
Ainsley Earhardt primed her guest. He took her cue and he ran.
That said, it can get extremely dumb on "cable news" shows like the program in question. Sadly, that's one more fact which, in accord with prevailing law, cannot be expressed within the discourse created by our upper-end press corps.
With regard to today's new swing-state polling, Fox News reports that Harris is ahead by 6 points in Minnesota (52-46). The new polling says this about the three other states which were surveyed:
New Fox News poll of four swing states:
Pennsylvania: Harris 49, Trump 49
Michigan: Harris 49, Trump 49
Wisconsin: Trump 50, Harris 49
So says the new Fox News poll. On Fox & Friends Weekend, no one noticed or tried to explain the extremely high response rates reflected in those numbers.
Regarding the way polling tends to get reported, consider this! Here's the start of the report from the Wall Street Journal about the Journal's new national poll, dual headline included:
Harris Erases Trump’s Lead, WSJ Poll Finds
Two candidates are effectively tied after Biden’s exit shakes up raceThe presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is essentially tied, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll that shows heightened support for her among nonwhite voters and dramatically increased enthusiasm about the campaign among Democrats.
The former president leads the current vice president 49% to 47% in a two-person matchup, but that is within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Trump held a six-point lead earlier this month over President Biden before he exited the race and backed Harris.
The race is "effectively tied," the headline says—or it may be "essentially tied." In fact, this new national survey shows Trump with a two-point lead—but the Journal's reporters tell us that's within the margin of error.
Trust us: You'd be hard-pressed to find a single reporter who could explain the endless intricacies of that statistical artefact.
Our journalists often say that a poll like that shows a "statistical tie." We'd say that poll shows a "statistical two-point lead for Trump," with all the uncertainties that nationwide sampling is heir to.
Our journalists stumble ahead as they will. At any rate, it's much too early for these new surveys to tell us much about where this contest will take us.
Harris is a bit of an accidental candidate. Trump is an unelectable candidate—but his apparent mental / psychological / cognitive disorder is of a type the upper-end press corps has agreed we must never discuss.
And yes, dear God, the propaganda is vast! Consider the spectacular dumbness which was sold this very morning in the second hour of Fox & Friends Weekend by regular weekend friend Pete Hegseth, along with Earhardt, a regular weekday friend, and one more substitute host.
The spectacular dumbness concerned the way the GovTrack site once rated the political leanings of then-Senator Harris. In the actual Fox News report from which this trio of stumblebums worked, the alleged problem was laid out as shown, dual headline included:
Webpage that rated Kamala Harris the 'most liberal' senator in 2019 suddenly disappears
Harris was ranked 'most liberal compared to all senators' in a 2019 report card published by GovTrackGovTrack, an organization that tracks congressional voting records, confirmed to Fox News Digital it had removed a 2019 web page that ranked Kamala Harris as that year's "most liberal" U.S. senator sometime within the last two weeks.
The self-described "government transparency website" scored Harris as the "most liberal compared to all senators" in 2019, outranking Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at the time.
But the web page with the ranking, which was widely covered in news reports during the 2020 election, was recently deactivated. The link now displays a "Page Not Found" message. The Internet Archive shows the page was deleted sometime between July 10 and July 23, with some on X claiming the page was still up on July 22.
Outrage! According to the (factually accurate) Fox News report, GovTrack has removed a page which ranked Haris as the most liberal of all 100 senators in calendar year 2019.
According to the (factually accurate) report, that particular page has "disappeared" at that particular web site.
Now for the contribution of the propaganda / dumbness regime! Before we show you the rest of that (accurate) Fox News report, here's part of the way this morning's trio of tools reacted:
EARHARDT: GovTrack now took it down. GovTrack took this off their website now.
CHARLES HURT: It's all you need to know about the media. They're all the same! You know, they keep popping up with new media products in Washington. They're all the same! They're all the same people and they all think the same way.
HEGSETH (after a reference to reading Animal Farm with his children):
...They all just change it! They just rewrite it! That's exactly what's happening right now! Time to sanitize, time to scrub. She's the nominee, we all need to get in line. Rewrite the headlines! Disappear the website! Get rid of the GovTrack! She never held this position.
It's not going to stop. Thankfully, people are not dumb...
EARHARDT: That's why it's so important for you the voter to know the issues.
Speaking of Animal Farm, that's the way the animals brayed about what GovTrack has done!
GovTrack has scrubbed the truth from its site! These media people are all just the same! It's not going to stop!
So the creatures brayed. Meanwhile, here's the rest of what was reported in the (accurate) Fox News report from which these llamas were working:
When reached by Fox News Digital, GovTrack founder Joshua Tauberer said the page was removed because the company adopted a policy "several years ago" to end its single-year ratings of lawmakers to only do ratings based on Congressional sessions, which are two years.
"We determined that the limited data available in a single year was not sufficient to create a reliable portrait of the activity of legislators, particularly given the ebbs and flows of the legislative calendar, and therefore did not serve as a useful tool to our users and the American public," Tauberer said. "We subsequently took down the previously-published single-calendar-year statistics for the same reason."
Tauberer confirmed to Fox News Digital that the page was removed sometime in the last two weeks, but did not give a specific date. Asked why the pages weren't removed when single-year report cards were abandoned years ago, he said, "I was focused on more impactful aspects of our work."
Tauberer said the organization was still publishing report cards based on two-year congressional sessions and pointed Fox News Digital to Harris' existing 2020 web page, which ranked her ideology as the "most politically left compared to Senate Democrats" for the 116th Congress. She was ranked the second most liberal in all the Senate behind Independent Sanders.
At some point in October 2020, GovTrack changed its ranking language from "most liberal" to "most politically left."
There's a bit of a jumble in that part of the report. But while GovTrack removed the ranking for 2019 alone, it still displays its more inclusive ranking for the full 116th Congress—its more inclusive ranking for 2019 and 2020 combined.
For that two-year congressional session, GovTrack ranked Senator Harris's ideology as most politically left among all Senate Democrats. According to GovTrack, she trailed only Sanders among the entire Senate—and those rankings still sit there on the GovTrack site, as the three Barnyards would have known if they'd done even minimal homework.
The more inclusive rating is still right there. In all their mooing and braying, the animals didn't mention that fact to the voters they claim to serve.
Full disclosure! The llamas on the Fox News Channel bray this way around the clock. We'd say the reference to Animal Farm was apt, though perhaps a bit misdirected.
At any rate, according to the GovTrack ranking while still sits there for perusal, Senator Harris was the most politically left among all Senate Democrats in that 116th Congress. She was second most liberal in the Senate, trailing only Sanders.
That's part of the record this somewhat accidental candidate will have to navigate. She'll also have to navigate the barnyard behavior of tools like Earhardt, Hegseth and Hurt, with publications like the New York Times politely averting their gaze.
We'll leave you on a hopeful note. Peggy Noonan has changed her mind about Candidate Harris. She has offered this new assessment:
"I had long thought Kamala Harris couldn't beat Donald Trump. That's wrong. She can."
Noonan's essay appeared in the Wall Street Journal. It's summarized here, at Newser.
In her launch, Harris "demonstrated talent and hinted she may be a real political athlete," Noonan wrote. We'd love to see that suggestion work out. At this point, it's too early to know.
There's one thing of which we can be sure. The animals will continue to moo the way animals moo. The llamas will continue to bray about "Kamala the Communist."
Their names are Earhardt, Hegseth and Hurt. Our finer journalists won't say a word as their relentless mooing and braying shows who we secretly are.
No matter how many times we are told Biden is a drug addict, or will horribly falter under stress, something like the SOTU happens proving MAGA and Bob wrong.
ReplyDeleteSo Bob is nervous, Trump will behave like the psycho degenerate he is and Bob's supposed decent friends and neighbors will like it just fine, demonstrating their bottomless capacity to behave like stupid, mean spirited idiots.
And Biden will do just fine.
Otherwise, why would Bob be so anxious to dismiss this event before it even takes place? There is a lot to lament about our politics and the way it is covered. Bob has no interest in that. His only interest is dragging decent people down into the sink hole his good friends and neighbors have built for themselves. As long as they are part of the "blue tribe" he supposedly belongs to.
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DeleteDoiee. Duh.
DeleteFreaking gold ...
ReplyDelete"Somerby's goal is to hurt Biden in the coming election and to boost Trump. Why would he claim to be liberal and yet pursue such a goal? It could be that he doesn't think straight any more and has decided that Red/Blue are both rotten, especially journalists, but it may also be that he doesn't care what he says as long as he passes along the right wing meme of the day. Today it is that the debate is bunk, in anticipation of Trump doing poorly and Biden showing that he is ready for a second term. The entire right wing is trying to lower expectations for the debate, now that they realize Trump will be shown as an incompetent. And Somerby is doing his part in that effort. It isn't what a liberal or a Biden voter would do, but it is plainly what Somerby is doing today -- in his indirect, pseudo-sly, dishonest way."
Yes, a good example showing that situations change. Harris is not running against Warren or Sanders in 2024. They are both as old as Biden. She is adjusting her platform to address current issues, not “running against” her 2019 positions. Is she the most liberal of the current crop of younger politicians? Somerby doesn’t say, but taking down obsolete info ahead of this year’s campaign makes sense and is not hiding or disappearing anything, except in the fever swamp. Somerby is clearly advancing an anti-Harris talking point today.
DeleteJeebus. 1:28 rubs their noses into the wrongness of their previous Somerby-hate, but 1:47 is oblivious and simply spouts more absurd Somerby-hate.
DeleteWhat’s not to hate?
DeleteDemocrats did not expect Biden to blow the debate. The rest of the paragraph stands. Now Somerby has begun attacking Harris. And PP attacks the anti-Somerby commenters. As usual.
DeleteDemocrats did not expect for Biden to blow the debate because (1) Biden had lost the ability to campaign effectively (as Somerby told us) and (2) Blue media did not warn us that Biden had lost this ability (as Somerby told us).
DeleteThat is not true given the rallies, speeches & NATO meeting Biden conducted AFTER the debate. If (1) is not true then (2) is moot. Biden was pushed out by big-money donors who do not want Biden to increase their taxes, using the media to portray Biden as too old.
DeleteRationalize away.
DeleteLook, we all make mistakes. Some of us try to learn from them; some of us delude ourselves that we were right all along.
DeleteI was right all along.
DeleteI see. Biden was such a dynamite candidate that he dropped out before the end of July. And Pelosi, Obama, the Clintons, Schumer, and Jeffries were all wrong to pressure him to do so.
DeleteIt couldn’t possibly be that you made an error in judgment, right?
Biden was pressured off the ticket by his donors. We all live in the same reality.
DeleteSo Biden was such a great candidate that nobody wanted to give money to his campaign. And this makes sense to you?
DeletePP is with the donors and elites, rather than the people.
DeleteSo now we’re spewing ad hominems?
Delete“Biden campaign says it had best fundraising month in June, raising $127 million, including $38 million in days following debate”
Deletehttps://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2024/07/02/biden-campaign-trump-fundraising-debate
Biden was doing fine, even post-debate, which contradicts your claim, PP, that nobody wanted to donate to him.
So I guess you were also wrong to suggest that donors were the ones forcing Biden to withdraw.
DeleteWho was donating to Biden’s campaign, PP? I mean, you’re the one who said nobody wanted to.
DeleteActually, I said nothing of the sort. It was you who said donors were pressuring Biden to quit, which I noted implied that donors weren’t contributing. After all, that’s their means of applying pressure. You then refuted your own premise by saying donors were, in fact, contributing. But, I guess consistency is not your strong suit.
DeleteBig donors (billionaires) were pressuring Biden, small donors wanted him to stay in the race. The billionaires are afraid of taxes, as I clearly said.
DeleteSo, in your world Biden was forced out by big donors because Biden was such a great campaigner that he would win — and then raise taxes on those donors. That’s a take.
DeleteSo why did Pelosi, Obama, the Clintons, Schumer, Jeffries, and the rest help these big donors push Biden out? Do you figure that they all want to lose the presidency to help these big donors get a Trumpian tax break?
Biden was forced out because he was too old and it was 100% certain he would lose to Trump. Almost everyone knew it. A majority of Americans polled thought we was too old to run. They were right. He was. This is a good thing for Democrats in many ways. With Harris they have someone with a decent chance of beating Trump whereas Biden had no chance. Remember, besides the age-related issues that were so sad to watch, Biden was also the most unpopular president of the last 75 years. People really didn't like him. Americans had made it clear for years - they thought he was a bad president, they didn't like him, they didn't want him, they were not impressed or inspired by him and they wanted him to not be president as soon as possible. He was disliked by so many American voters. It's really sad to have had to watch him succumb to age the way he has. But it's good he's gone because that is what a huge majority of voters wanted.
DeleteThis view of Biden’s chances was not supported by polls, whiched showed a statistical tie with Biden gaining.
DeleteBig money buys a lot PP.
Delete"This view of Biden’s chances was not supported by polls, whiched showed a statistical tie with Biden gaining."
DeleteCorrect, other than the fact that the polls showed Trump ahead and Biden declining. But beyond that, this is spot on analysis.
Go look it up at 538. Biden gained after the debate and in the two weeks before.
DeleteThey all knew it.
DeleteIt was obvious to everyone except cult members who even believed Biden's sad debate performance was because of a cold. !!! Or as the idiot Heather Cox Richardson claimed, because Trump's answers confused and overwhelmed him and he simply couldn't speak due to his stutter. What insane garbage people will believe. But Biden was the most unpopular president in modern history. He was behind in the polls for months. And his bid for a second term ended on the night of the debate, about 10 minutes in. Everyone could see it except the rubes.
The media couldn't cover for him anymore. The donors dried up which was the final straw.
So Pelosi privately told Biden that polling showed he had no chance of beating Trump and that Biden would destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House if he continued seeking a second term.
Then Biden had a medical event in Las Vegas and was rushed back to his million dollar beach house. Biden's press people called it Covid but it was worse.
Obama was sent in the next day and delivered the coup de grace: Retire or we pull the 25th amendment.
Biden lost the night of the election. He had no chance of beating Trump. He was a horrible candidate. He should have never been running in the first place.
(Biden lost the night of the debate.)
DeleteBiden had seven million more votes than Trump, but whatever,
DeleteI'm glad Biden still had his mind when he beat Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election by a landslide.
DeleteBiden got in because Trump fucked up Covid and George Floyd. If not for Covid, Biden would not have won anything. People never liked him or thought he was a good politician. His two previous presidential campaigns were complete fiascos. He wouldn't have even been nominated in 2020 if the DNC didn't intervene on his behalf. He voted for the Iraq war. He had a terrible progressive record. He was always a total dick. That's why he was the most unpopular president in the last 68 years. He's a corporate tool who doesn't give a fuck about the people who vote for him.
DeleteIt’s like George Carlin used to say:
“Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they’ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.”
Pull Biden's dick out of your mouth. Biden fucking hates you. Or he hated you when he still had a functioning brain. Stop getting played and displaying your naive political imbecility.
You can stop lying about Biden -- he isn't running.
DeleteIf it wasn't for Trump causing hundreds of thousands of deaths of Americans because he tried to gaslight a viral pandemic like it was some common NY Times political reporter, Biden might not have wiped the floor with Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
DeleteTrump supporting the police after they choked an unarmed black man to death on video, didn't help, either.
Trump fucked-up in 2020, when he allowed women to keep their right to vote, after he killed Roe v Wade.
DeleteMaybe, choosing a guy known for fucking couches to be his running mate in November will give him a better chance of regaining the Presidency.
We'll have to wait and see.
Here’s a report on Kamala Harris in Berkeley CA. It was first published in 2019.
ReplyDeletePlainly, today's essay was written to trash the upcoming debate by calling it not real. Biden has taken the debate seriously in preparation and will be showing up. If Trump does not, that is on him. Everyone in the Trump camp has been trying to lower expectations before the debate. This is clearly Somerby's assignment and his effort today. It stinks that Somerby is part of Trump's campaign and that he has to write something so unfair to Biden, but why else would he put a piece of crap essay like this in front of readers?
ReplyDeleteThe DNC trolls here are so freaking dumb.
ReplyDelete“Their names are Earhardt, Hegseth and Hurt. Our finer journalists won't say a word as their relentless mooing and braying shows who we secretly are
ReplyDeleteSecretive? We know exactly where these anchors stand.
What is wrong with a Democrat being liberal?
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with it, but the media seems to believe that would decrease the Democrat's chances of getting elected so down the memory hole it goes.
DeleteI don't foresee Kamala moving right to for the general. Most all liberal (fact based / forward thinking) policies are popular with people not the press. She and her staff are really laying into the incoherent convicted old man out on bond in three jurisdictions, waiting sentencing on 34 felony counts, and owing about $500 million for being a fraud and adjudicated rapist. Also conservative policies now only boil to keep money with rich people and punch down on others. So their outcomes are complete shitstorms:
DeleteBREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting
Mississippi’s own record illustrates how little facts on the ground have changed since Roe and Casey, notwithstanding the majority’s supposed “modern developments.” Ante, at 33. Sixty-two percent of pregnancies in Mississippi are unplanned, yet Mississippi does not require insurance to cover
contraceptives and prohibits educators from demonstrating proper contraceptive use.19 The State neither bans pregnancy discrimination nor requires provision of paid parental leave. Brief for Yale Law School Information Society
Project as Amicus Curiae 13 (Brief for Yale Law School); Brief for National Women’s Law Center et al. as Amici Curiae 32. It has strict eligibility requirements for Medicaid and nutrition assistance, leaving many women and families
without basic medical care or enough food. See Brief for 547D eans, Chairs, Scholars and Public Health Professionals et al. as Amici Curiae 32–34 (Brief for 547 Deans). Although 86 percent of pregnancy-related deaths in the State
are due to postpartum complications, Mississippi rejectedfederal funding to provide a year’s worth of Medicaid coverage to women after giving birth. See Brief for Yale Law
School 12–13. Perhaps unsurprisingly, health outcomes in Mississippi are abysmal for both women and children. Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the country,
"...but the media seems to believe that would decrease the Democrat's chances of getting elected so down the memory hole it goes." Jesus -- how many things can someone get wrong in a single clause of a single sentence? 1) "The media" is not a monolith. 2) Much of "the media" has been terrible for Democratic presidential candidates, as has been shown over and over again by Somerby and various commenters (Gore, Clinton, Biden). 3) GovTrack is not "the media." 4) But even it were, did you not read Somerby's entire post? It didn't "memory hole" anything. It still shows Harris' record and rates it as second most liberal. Holy shit balls, was that Monaco Mao that posted such a dumb comment? If so, I propose a new nickname for Mao: Moron Mao of Monaco.
DeleteAnonymouse 2:02pm, who stated or implied anything that would cause this rumination of yours?
ReplyDeleteWhat phony baloney grievance are you coughing up now?
DeAngelis accidentally spilling the news that an unborn fetus isn't really a parents child, at all.
ReplyDeleteWho knew the "pro-life" crowd is really just anti-women?
Everyone.
Just as we pronounce 'Kamala' correctly, we refer to JD Vance by the name he prefers.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is JD now wants to be called Vladimir Futon. My name is Don Von Shitzhizpantz and I approve this message.
DeleteI call him sugar bear.
DeleteTrump thinks pronunciation is important.
DeleteNever ever hit an anonymouse link.
DeleteDo conservatives think of clicking a link as “hitting”? Or is this more of Cecelia’s non-native English leaking through her fake red state persona?
DeleteVance pretends to be a hillbilly, Trump pretends to be a human being, and Cecelia pretends to be female and a MAGA. A whole lot of faking going on!
And you are an anonymouse. Nuff said.
DeleteHere’s an ABC News story by Alexandra Hutzler:
Deletehttps://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-mocks-kamala-harris-campaign-putting-front-center/story?id=112303183
Trump mispronounces ‘Kamala’ intentionally. He’s petty.
Kevin noticed that conservatives intentionally mispronounce 'Kamala'.
DeleteI pronounce the Republicans three-time Presidential nominee as Ray Pissed.
DeleteWhat we learned recently at TDH:
ReplyDelete1) Bret Stephens doesn’t like Harris and will not vote for her.
2) Harris was rated one of the most liberal senators.
Bret is a bug.
DeleteSeen on Fox News recently:
ReplyDeletePoll results
Trump x%
Kamala y%
Note that they didn’t refer to her as “Harris.”
It’s a dumbass tactic.
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ReplyDeleteYou son't even challenge the statement about Kamala Harris wanting to turn over kids to the government.
ReplyDeleteNo, I son’t, and I never sill.
DeleteSon't it ain't true
DeleteTrump and Vance are like those two weird middle schoolers who share a table off to the side of the cafeteria for lunch. But 9:50, pull up a chair, there’s just enough room to squeeze in. The three of you can bond telling each other your Kamala stories.
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