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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Lee Camp: Hell frozen over? A CEO is jailed!

PBS & NPR: Are pesticides to blame for the massive bee die-off?

The 2016 Clown Auditions:

Minute Physics: Why isn’t it faster to fly West?

Pap: Corporate media wants you to be stupid. Let’s fight back.

Mitch McConnell drinks.

Refugophobia:

Thom with Steven Gaffney: Really! How do you know a politician is lying?

Jimmy Dore: God refuses to apologize for Paris.

California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (with Bill Maher): Why raise the minimum wage.

Redacted Tonight comedy special with Lee Camp.

Farron Cousins: Corporate media is hungering for a war.

Actual Terrorism That Happened in the U.S. This Week:

Congressional hits and misses: Thanksgiving leftovers edition.

John Oliver: Pennies.

Thom: The Good, the Bad & The Very, Very Gallionicly Ugly!

David Pakman: World hunger is a social construction.

Young Turks: Koch brothers building their own CIA to spy on progressives.

Surviving the survivalist game.

Quagmire Happening:

Jimmy Dore: Not drunk Bill O’Reilly calls about Muslims, responsibility & Muslims:

David Pakman: More Mexicans are leaving U.S. than coming in to the U.S.

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow: Origin of the “freakin’ Presidential turkey pardon”.

Thom: Why the Kochs really embrace criminal justice reform.

Stop war and start cuddling.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

HA spoils your Thanksgiving

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Obama pardons Honest and Abe.

Family Fellowship:

Classic: Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving massacre:

Red State Update: Happy Trumpsgiving.

Trevor’s Thanksgiving Thankstacular Round-Up.

Thanksgiving Stuffing:

Mental Floss: What’s the difference between American and Canadian Thanksgiving?

The Morning After:

Mark Fiore: Learn to draw Republican Turkeys.

Stephen calls the Butterball Turkey Talk Line:

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleThe past week in politics has been absolutely crazy. Conservatives have developed bladder control issues as they cower at the thought of refugees coming into the U.S. Some Washington State lawmakers joined right in on the public display of cowardice. A leading Presidential candidate has been spewing incredibly racist lies, apparently to stoke his base. And that just touches on the week’s wackiness.

Please join us for some sane political conversation over the beverage of your choice at tonight’s Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. Things start up at about 8:00 pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. On Wednesday, the Burien chapter meets. And the Woodinville, Spokane, and Kent chapters meet on Thursday.

Vitter’s loss has huge implications

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Sen. Vitter reenactmentSen. David “Diaperman” Vitter (R-LA) has lost today’s runoff gubernatorial election in Louisiana. Vitter was defeated by Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards (LA-72), who has led in all recent polling for the race.

Vitter is infamous for a 2007 sex scandal when his phone number was among those found in the “D.C. Madam’s” phone book. Vitter responded to the scandal by offering an apology with his wife, Wendy, by his side, in what might be the most awkward political moment in history. And he refused to resign.

The moniker “Diaperman” is from reports that the Senator enjoyed diaper play with at least one prostitute.

Despite the scandal, Vitter was reelected to his U.S. Senate seat in 2010. This year he ran for Governor.

Vitter’s opponent, John Bel Edwards, made effective use of Vitter’s prostitution scandal.

This race has a number of implications. First, it means that the Democrats have won back a Governor’s seat. Bobby Jindal (R) has been the Governor since 2008, but must step down on account of term limits. Jindal ran for the G.O.P. presidential nomination for 2016, but dropped out this past week.

The second big implication has to do with Vitter’s Senate seat. Vitter can run for reelection to the U.S. Senate. But tonight Vitter announced he will not run for reelection. Furthermore, he said he will fulfill the last year of his Senate term.

The implications for this are huge. If Vitter resigned now, Jindal would be able to appoint a replacement who would, effectively, be an incumbent for 2016. But Vitter and Jindal hate each other, so Vitter will not give Jindal the opportunity to pick a successor. The result is that the U.S. Senate 3rd class seat for Louisiana will be an open race in 2016.

In my recent analysis of the Senate race, Democrats would most likely win 49 seats if the election was held now. That analysis assumed that (1) Vitter would lose the gubernatorial race, (2) Vitter would run as the incumbent for his seat, and (3) he would win with 100% certainty.

Now we know that will not happen. Instead there will be an open seat in Louisiana for 2016. It is too early to tell who the candidates will be. Both sides have potential strong candidates, but none have declared yet. We do know that the strongest candidates on each side, Bobby Jindal (R) and Mary Landrieu (D), have declined to run. Maybe they will reconsider.

I usually stay away from predictions, but I’ll offer a conditional prediction here. If the Democrats manage to reach at least 50 seats in 2016, it will be because Louisiana elected a Democrat to the Senate.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Starbucks responds to War-on-Christmas-Cup-gate.

The adventures of Young Hillary: One Woman Play.

Seals help scientists study climate change in Greenland.

Mental Floss: 52 facts about popular cities.

Paris Attacks Turn Wingnuts into Blubbering Cowards:

Adam Ruins Internships.

Congressional Hits and Misses of the week.

The Adventures of Young Hillary: Sleepover games.

Stephen does Bill Maher

The 2016 Cascade of Clowns:

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about the brain.

White House: West Wing Week.

Farron Cousins: Is there any group the FAUX News doesn’t hate.

Unintended Consequences:

Stephen: You know nothing, Barack Obama.

The adventures of Young Hillary: Teaching the less fortunate.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

The Uterid

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Once upon a July day, Washington Republican leaders were haunted by thoughts of lady parts making baby parts with capitalist intent.

“We will investigate this outrage of endometrial entrepreneurship!”, they cried from the belfry.

The scrivener issued a clarifying scroll, “Yes, we believe in free markets, unless a uterus is involved. And then we demand Big Government Regulations”

So they hatched a bold plan to use Collective Action to get the job done:

Thirty-four Republican state representatives have asked state Attorney General Bob Ferguson to investigate whether Planned Parenthood affiliates in the state have illegally profited from the sale of fetal body parts.

The leaders waited as General Ferguson’s investigation underwent a months-long gestation. They would take the fruits borne of this disquisition, parade the findings before the masses, take them apart and serially disseminate them in pursuit of political contributions.

But the fruits were bitter and cruel to the union of uterine-overseers. There was no nourishment to be had for their War on Women™.

In a 48-page report, Attorney General Bob Ferguson rejected claims that Planned Parenthood has performed partial-birth abortions or that any of its clinics sell fetal tissue for profit “rather than simply recovering costs.”

“We found no indication that procedures performed by Planned Parenthood are anything other than performance of a legally authorized medical procedure,” Ferguson wrote in his report.

Ferguson’s findings are particularly important because Washington is one of only two states where a Planned Parenthood clinic allows women to donate fetal tissue to medical research. The report is a result of a four-month investigation, which was requested by state Republican leaders.

There was no endometrial entrepreneurship to be found in the lands. The report was barren and lifeless. Their plans to sew the seeds of discontent and grow their coffers would have to be aborted.

“Surely, the investigation has overlooked something.”

“We’ll keep looking and root out endometrial entrepreneurship yon.”

More than a dozen other states have also ended investigations of Planned Parenthood without finding any illegal or suspicious activity.

“Inconceivable”, some bellowed.

“Unbearable findings”, others howled.

“More investigation!,” one cried.

“Yes…More investigation!”, another.

And they satisfied themselves by repeating the chant in rhythm, until their distant leaders took their cause.

Congressional leaders have announced their own probe into the organization, which consists of about a dozen members from both parties.

They were, once again, filled with great hope of finding endometrial entrepreneurship, but only so that they could properly abhor it. And plant the seeds of fundraising.

And so it goes.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. Things start up at about 8:00 pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities, Vancouver, WA, and Shelton chapters also meet. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets.

There are 184 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

Poll Analysis: Senate Outlook 2016

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Pres. Senate to Dems* Senate to GOP
Democratic: 43.3% probability 56.7% probability
Republican: 5.6% probability 94.5% probability
Mean of 49 seats Mean of 51 seats

Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

It is way too early to make much of anything out of the 2016 Senate head-to-head polls. After all, we still have a primary season to go before we know who will be on the ballot. Still…there is just enough polling to give us an “early-first-quarter score” in the Senate races.

Currently, the Senate is controlled by Republicans, who hold 54 seats. Democrats hold 45 seats, plus Maine’s Sen. Angus King caucuses with the Democrats. In 2016, there will be 34 senatorial elections, all of the Senate’s “third class.” (There could be additional special elections as well, but I am not aware of any right now.) The current crop of Senators were elected in 2010, a Republican wave off-year election. Six years later, Republicans find themselves with 24 seats to defend and Democrats with 10 seats to defend, in a presidential election year.

I’ve spent a bit of time trying to divine the candidates most likely to appear on the ballot. In some cases, it was easy. Rand Paul will appear as the G.O.P. nominee in the Kentucky race. (You know…assuming his struggling presidential campaign continues its current trajectory.) Incumbents tend to get their party’s nomination, although there are retirements, like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). In some states, front-runners are obvious, like in Wisconsin where incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R) will almost certainly go up against former Sen. Russ Feingold (D). When there are multiple candidates, I’ve tried to use primary polls, newspaper accounts, FEC numbers, and other sources to find the strongest or most likely candidate to advance to the general. You can see which candidates I’ve advanced to the general by looking at the polls page.

I’ve found state head-to-head polls in 15 races and no polls for 19 races. Polled states tend to be the ones with the most competitive Senate races OR states with some other importance. For example, there are many polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, which are the early caucus/primary states. I’ve found a total of 69 polls to date, so clearly there are multiple polls for many of the 15 races. States without polling are assumed to go to the party currently holding the seat.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Democrats have a Senate majority 5,553 times, there were 37,718 ties, and Republicans have a Senate majority 56,729 times. In the event of a 50 seat tie, the President’s party controls (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3). If Sec. Hillary Clinton wins, Democrats have a 43.3% probability of controlling the Senate and Republicans have a 56.7% probability of controlling the Senate. If Clinton loses, Republicans would almost certainly (94.5% probability) maintain control of the Senate.

The good news for Democrats is that they are likely to gain 4 seats and have a good shot of taking control if they win the presidential election. The good news for Republicans is that they are still more likely than not to control the Senate. They can either lose 4 or fewer seats or lose 5 seats plus win the presidential election.

Let’s examine a few of the races.

[Read more…]

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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How the Keystone victory was won.

Mental Floss: What causes motion sickness?

Tweety: GOP Sen. Vitter chose prostitutes over patriots.

Romance with a young Hillary Rodham.

The 2016 Festival of Clowns:

Minute Physics: How to go to space.

Mark Fiore: Climate Interuptus.

Maddow: $15/Hr nationwide strike by fast food workers.

Stephen: Senators McCaskill & Klobuchar explain how women get things done.

Trevor: The Myanmar Daily Show.

David Pakman: New jobs accelerate as unemployment keeps dropping.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Thom: The good, the bad, and the very, very osmagoguely ugly!.

Our generation our choice.

Daily Show: Solution for outdated voting machines.

Maddow: Arizona Republican’s border wall flops! Oops.

Sam Seder: Bill-O-the-Clown thinks all colleges are fascist training camps.

Honest Political Ads: Meet Mrs. Fullbright.

Dick Cheney is the GOP guest of “honor” this week.

Stephen: The next debate will feature Hillary, Bernie and Mumford & Sons (sp?).

War on Christmas Caffeine:

Young Hillary gets ready to party.

How to speak like a presidential candidate.

Mental Floss: 24 facts about GOP Candidate Whine wine.

Farron Cousins: Make voting day a national holiday.

How its built: Political scandals.

Young Turks: WA school football coach won’t stop leading prayers.

Adam Ruins Everything: The Electoral College:

David Pakman: FAUX News hosts confused about good jobs numbers.

Stephen: Climate change and coital frequency.

Young Turks: Good news in the battle for voter rights.

The Adventures of Young Hillary: Hillary in the stacks .

Harry Reid’s special relationship with Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski.

John Oliver: Prisoner re-entry.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

GOP Debate open thread

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      Okay…it is not clear whether we can watch the debate here at Drinking Liberally, but I’ll be streaming and listening on a laptop.

Feel free to go at it in the comment thread.

5:58: Okay…audio and video are up and running here at the Roanoke.

6:00: National anthem before a debate suggest this is some kind of fucking sporting event! Let there be BLOOOOOOOODDDDDDD!!!

6:03: Holy fuck…get on with it already.

6:04: Why is Paul in there? Most pollsters don’t even bother doing Clinton-Paul match-ups anymore.

6:08: Carson blatantly lies about the effect of raising minimum wage.

6:10: Shorter Rubio: America is great because we have poor people for the rich to exploit.

6:14: Kasich on balancing the budget. I recall that Clinton did that, and that Shrub shot that to hell. Lesson: If you are fiscally responsible don’t elect a Bush or a Republican.

6:18: FAUX debate moderator doesn’t appear to understand “participation rate”.

6:20: Jeb Bush’s new platform: Repeal Everything Obama.

6:21: Fiorina uncomfortably wedges a anecdote in to a profound non-answer.

Well, that was awful.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle (4th GOP Debate Edition)

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DLBottle

Please join us tonight for an evening of fantasy, whimsy, and war-mongering as Fox Business Network hosts the fourth Republican Primary Debate. Shock and awwwwww (and maybe some drinking games) will prevail at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. Our normal starting time is 8:00 pm, but this week we will start with the debate at 6:00 pm (PST).

Note: We should have sound and video for the debate. But the bar and restaurant has other customers, so the sound may not be as loud as you want, especially with the background of a busy tavern and peripheral conversations. If you are intent on hearing every word, I recommend you bring stuff to stream the audio.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities, Redmond, and Bellingham chapters also meet. The Bremerton, Spokane, and Kent chapters meet on Thursday. And next Monday, the Aberdeen and Yakima chapters meet.

There are 184 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

Not just debate moderators, G.O.P. candidates cannot handle kids with strong language

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Last week, Obama made a laughingstock of the Republican Candidates. He pointed out their words about how they would be so “tough” dealing with Putin, and then chided them for their insufferable whining over uncivil debate moderators.

Now they are whining about children expressing anger over Trump’s ugly racism in this ad:

The Donald doesn’t like it one bit.:

“I think it’s terrible, I think it’s just terrible,” the Republican presidential candidate said on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”

Young kids speaking that way “is a disgrace,” he added….

…a disgrace to The Donald because, typically, when little brown kids talk to him that way, he fires their parents.

Marco Rubio is also outraged,

“People are looking at it and say, these people are grotesque. I mean these are little children. What kind of parent allows their children to go on a video like that and use that kind of profanity and what kind of parents allow a kid to do that?”

Rubio, born to two non-U.S. Citizen immigrant parents, might qualify as a non-citizen “Anchor Baby” in Donald Trump’s world.

So…apparently, children using four letter words is more threatening than an opponent who would strip him of his citizenship.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Congressional Hits and Misses: The essential John Boehner.

Stephen: Farewell whoever you were.

VSauce: Juvenoia.

Thom: Here’s what Democratic Socialism is:

Ending gun violence.

How to FOIA the NSA for data about you.

White House: West Wing Week.

Ryan Eyes:

Maddow: The Teabagger scandal that won’t die.

David Pakman: Teabaggers are at a record low.

Trevor Noah: My first American Health Care experience.

Mental Floss: Why does daylight saving time vary by country.

Thom: Un-Koch my campus.

Redskins vs. Reformed Whores: Let’s get it on!

Was MSNBC too easy on the Koch brothers?

Ann Telnes: More proof that SCOTUS is behind the times.

Chris Cillizza: Why Joe not running matters.

Congressional Hits and Misses of the week.

The 2016 Festival of Clowns:

Anonymous KKK Hack.

Sam Seder: FAUX News infotainters have difficulty understanding jobs numbers.

Thom: Will ObamaCare survive in Kentucky?

Obama on Keystone XL.

Nancy Pelosi: “The Republican Committee to Attack Women’s Health”.

Seven mistakes in Bill-O-The-Clown’s book about Ronald Reagan.

Simone Sebastian: If you oppose Black Lives Matter, you would’ve abhorred Martin Luther King.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about famous composers.

David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: Wealth of Congress:

Red State Update: RIP Fred Thompson.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleHey…today is ELECTION DAY! If you haven’t done so already, fill out that ballot, drop it off at a nearby drop box, and then high-tail it to the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally for the 8:00pm ballot-drop watching party. And it isn’t just Washington with some important elections. Michigan, Kentucky, New Jersey and Virginia have some big races, and there are a bunch of congressional special elections happening.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. We start at 8:00 pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. The Long Beach, Tri-Cities and West Seattle chapters also meet tonight. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets.

There are 183 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

Primary happenings

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I don’t do much pontification or statistical analysis of the Presidential primary polls. The thing is, primary processes are irregular and messy. Some states hold primary elections. Some states, caucuses. And some states hold both–you know, like Washington state in 2008.

Polls can sometimes reflect the subsequent outcome of state primaries, but in states with open primaries, cross-over votes can determine an outcome that polls may not capture. And the contests are not independent. There can be a social effect whereby the outcome of one primary or caucus might drastically alter a contest held days or weeks later.

On top of all that, the elections and caucuses don’t directly select the ultimate nominee. The McGovern-Fraser reforms that followed the 1968 conventions have made the process quite transparent, but it’s still messy. Parties and individual states have different ways of going from a primary or caucus result to a binding of delegates to the candidates.

Democrats use a largely proportional system, with some differences among states. Republicans use a proportional system for state contests before March 14th. Contests after March 14th can be winner-take-all or proportional or a mixture of both—the decision is made by the states. And then there is the issue of “unpledged delegates” (or superdelegates) that are employed by both parties. These are the wild cards that can affect (but, in practice, haven’t really affected) the selection of candidates at the national nominating convention. Unpledged delegates make up about 5% of the Republican delegates and 20% of Democratic delegates.

Like I say…it’s a messy process. Any attempts of using statistical analyses to ascertain the nominee is either absurdly simplified or absurdly herculean.

Still, this season brings us an incredibly interesting primary. So I may, on occasion, offer some thoughts–typically based on collections of polls, but without the formal analyses.

The Democratic primary is not the interesting one. I’ve seen pretty much every Democratic state primary poll and everything points to an easy win by Sec. Hillary Clinton. Sen. Bernie Sanders is providing a great service to his party by running against Hillary, but he ain’t gonna be the person nominated. Well…not unless Hillary’s emails reveal something startling (“Back off, Rahm, or I’ll do the same thing to you that I did to Foster….”). And even then, only if there’s an actual indictment.

Never mind what you see in (way overly-polled) New Hampshire. In the 100 or so national primary polls taken to date, Clinton has only twice dipped below a double digit lead. Currently she is up from 15% to 30% with a strengthening trend for six weeks. Sanders has stayed about the same over the same period.

The Republican primary is the really “interesting” one. Currently, “outsider” candidates have been leading with a pack of insiders, who are languishing in the mid-single digits. Until mid-July, there wasn’t a lot of differentiation, but Gov. Jeb! Bush was the national front-runner, with Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Scott Walker nipping at his heels. Real estate mogul turned reality TV star, Donald Trump, “broke out” of the pack in mid-July and has pretty much remained on top. Notable surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, “broke out” a month later and has held a solid second place lead since, typically within single digits of Trump. Former CEO Carly Fiorina spent the last week of September in third with over 10% support, but she has subsequently fallen to the middle of the single-digit pack.

These days, when I start talking among friends about the general election, people want to know my predictions for the GOP nomination. So, allow me to speculate a bit here. First, I maintain that Carson has virtually no chance of becoming the Republican nominee. His inexperience as a politician and campaigner and his relative ignorance of policy and politics will do him in. And I believe sooner rather than later.

Trump is a different story. He has much more political experience than Carson, though still an amateur. But he has the resources to make up for his inexperience. And he is adept at using his resources to undertake big “projects.” Furthermore his real-world experience is highly conducive to undertaking a large, complicated project like a campaign.

What Trump lacks is verbal discipline and a “presidential temperament.” This caps his support ceiling. He may also lack the discipline necessary to learn the policy details that will eventually become important in the nomination process.

Jeb! has hit rock bottom following a mediocre debate performance that launched a “disaster” feeding frenzy among the media. It’s overblown and likely wrong. Give it a month or two, and Jeb may well bounce back. He, among the GOP candidates, has the strongest “foundation”, in a broad sense, for a presidential bid. On the other hand, maybe Barbara is right: We’ve had enough Bushes

Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz supposedly had a great 3rd debate. Maybe…if by “great” you mean they each made a couple of brief non-policy statements that received applause. Really, each candidate’s “great” performance is little more than a media snowballing meme. I mean, if they didn’t have Jeb to kick around, the meme might be about how Cruz was overly whiny or how Rubio lacked spontaneity and was merely peppering us with overly rehearsed lines. Media reaction is a fickle thing.

There haven’t been many polls released since the 3rd G.O.P. debate, but I don’t think that matters much. From the collection of recent polls (before and after the debate), we can divine something of a trend. Bush is down to 4 or 5 percent buried in a cluster with Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Rand Paul, Fiorina, and Gov. John Kasich. Cruz seems to have ticked up slightly, but is still below 10% (except, of course, in Texas where he is at 14%). Rubio, on the other hand, has seen a big jump into the land of double-digits. This is true in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and in a national poll taken after the debate.

For awhile, I’ve given Bush the greatest probability of taking the nomination. Now, I sort of feel like there is a two way tie between Bush and Rubio, perhaps a 30% probability each. Then I would give Trump a 20% probability, Cruz a 15% probability and anyone else a 5% probability. In other words, I offer a subjective probability of 75% that a person with Hispanic children will be the G.O.P. nominee. And a 99.9% probability that a woman will be the Democratic nominee. In terms of diversity, it’s likely to be a historic presidency.

We’ve come a long way from the last time a Clinton ran in the general election for President, when a pair of Southern white male Baptists ran against a Midwestern white male Methodist with a white male West-coast Presbyterian running mate. Progress, baby!

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