This is the last Open Thread before election day. Please get your ballot postmarked or dropped off by tomorrow. President is important, but so is literally everything else on the ballot. Here once again is how you can find your ballot dropbox location in King County. Get it in by 8:00 there.
I voted straight ticket Dem. I also voted for all the initiatives (as well as ST and the Seattle hotels one). That is surprising to me, as my first instinct on any given ballot measure is to vote no.
The stock market, anticipating a Clinton win, is up big today. Boob will be too busy counting his shekels to post today.
Thoughts on the inevitable.
When AZ and NV vote to legalize recreational marijuana tomorrow that will make 100% of states in the 9th circuit legal on some form and 7 of 9 states legal recreational.
That’s the backdrop neoprohibitionists will face if the try to overturn at SCOTUS or try to enforce federal law on those states.
There really is no turning back on this. States’ rights Republicans have no arguement. Personal freedom Ds Rs Ls have no arguement.
It may take another decade and there may be a ‘dry’ state and municipality for longer than that but it’s over.
@2 There are many red states that will go dry for many more years for one reason: they can use the law the way they always have for persecuting people of color. The numbers are there for proof. It’s no coincidence the drug war started after the beginning of the civil rights era. It’s a sickness that won’t heal easily.
@3,
John Erlichman admitted just exactly that years later. The Nixon Republican White House launched “The War on Drugs” as both a way to distract from their failures in Vietnam, as part of “The Southern Strategy” and as a way to marginalize and decapitate anti-war organizations.
Whites commit more drug offenses per capita by far. But African Americans and Latinos go to jail more per capita for drug offenses. A rather small percentage of that discrepancy is due to the “tough on crime” sentencing legislation enacted during the Clinton years. The vast majority of it is simply baked in to the way police and prosecutors do their jobs. Focus is overwhelmingly on low income, urban communities, despite the preponderance of evidence that more affluent, less urban communities are more frequently engaged in drug offenses.
So we should predict that Republican controlled states with a vested interest in denying ballot access to younger and minority voters will retain prohibition.
I think once the election is over, and Clinton is hard at work on the transition, President Obama should direct Jeh Johnson to begin an investigation into the immigration status of Melania Trump.
He deserves a little fun in the closing months of his second term.
They took away my twitter account!
It is a rigged election.
@6,
does that mean Jared has to stay up all night talking you down off the ledge?
Go ahead! Jump!
The system is rigged. I did not rape that 13 year old girl.
I should not have to go to court.
She’s just gutter trash and she wasn’t that good anyway.
@7 They won’t let me on the ledge until after the election.
One way or another, this probably is Joe Arpaio’s last election.
Why I’m not overly concerned.
HRC goes into tomorrow with 252 EVs an absolute lock.
They’ve digested the numbers in Nevada and the surge in Latino voters there and the huge early voter turnout demographics advantage HRC now has in the state. Nevada goes D, 258evs
Florida is weird but every poll that has full results online is undersampling the Latino vote as a % of the whole at under what it was in 2012. And yet there are reports out there that early voting in Florida is up 75% among Latinos and nearly a third of that is first time voters. The only two polls Trump has led in FL since Haloween are internal R polls. Clinton’s seemingly small margin is much likely bigger. See Latino vote. (287EVs)
But let’s say Florida does go R and we’re back to 258.
Michigan. Trump hasn’t led a poll there, well, ever. So while some models are still calling it a tossup as there has been tightening, several polls are outside the MOE for Clinton still so Michigan probably isn’t going Trump and HRC was there over the weekend to make sure. That’s 274
But hey, let’s even say that’s wrong and MI AND FL both go Trump.
The Clinton camp seems to be really bullish on Arizona, and while I don’t really think it is going to happen first time Latino voters are also way up there. Could it be that internal D polls are telling the Clinton campaign something or are they wasting their time drawing a crowd of 10,000 in a state they don’t think they’ll win last week? Conjecture so I won’t put it in the total. But if AZ goes blue it really is all academic because Trump has almost no way to get to 270 at that point.
She’s in North Carolina all day today to try to seal the deal while Trump is inexplicably going to touch down briefly in not R friendly Raleigh and then go onto Hasn’t led a non-R poll in months PA and never led a poll MI. There’s desperation in his schedule. Nevada and North Carolina together seal the deal for Clinton without NH, MI, FL & AZ.
Columbus Dispatch’s final poll has Clinton leading and she leads every age category except 45-54 and over 75. This one could come down to GOTV ground game. I don’t need to tell you about Republican Presidents and Ohio.
This Ain’t no Brexit where polls were mostly split with about half saying leave, half saying go and a couple ties. Of the 8 National polls, Four way race released the day before the vote it’s 8-1 Clinton.
I’m going to sleep OK tonight. Same as 2012. Trump has to run the table of so much moving away from him. Can it happen? Sure. Will it? very very very unlikely.
@4 The irony is these states could be exploiting drug use by taxing it and shutting prisons. But, like N.C., they prove time and time again they are willing to cut their own throats out of hate for others. It’s why they occupy the top of every problem list and the bottom of every prosperity list. And, shamefully, always will.
@11,
“Can it happen? Sure. Will it?”
As I see it, only with a pretty decent, credible, and well run field operation built to use voter targeting data to bring out support. And so far as all the reporting thus far is concerned, neither the RNC nor the Trump campaign have mounted such a field operation. The field director quit just two weeks ago. Trump has been hostile to big data and using web marketing strategies from the beginning. The state level field ops never materialized, with most state level qualified talent shying away from the campaign (worried that they wouldn’t get paid, career damage, etc). The money has been tight since Pussygate leaving the campaign to choose between field ops and paid media. Paid media/surrogate media appear to have won.
If this is an accurate picture of the campaign I’d have to assume Trump’s chances of landing even half the toss ups to be very low. But we’ll know for sure in less than 48 hrs. Win or lose, if Trump manages to dramatically increase turnout among non-college-educated whites it might turn much of the modern game plan of national campaigning on its head. If that happens it would be down to the misinformation/scandal campaign targeting Clinton in my opinion. And would signal a shift in strategy for all campaigns hereafter.
Every national campaign will have to take that large pool of low information eligible voters into account. And if the Trump strategy proves successful in that regard, more campaigns will have to compete for the White Male Privilege Working Class Rage vote in future elections. The tactics will include using every bit of leverage available to smear and discredit opponents, as Republicans have done with Clinton. That will also include using every position of elected office at every level, again as Republicans have done. So I’m really not joking when I suggest that the President go after Melania after the election. That is precisely the kind of tactic this sort of strategy calls for.
But so far at least, there is virtually no evidence that this is the case. And I still expect field operations to be decisive in battlegrounds.
The question remains as to whether the outcome will be determined by the voters, or by the vote counters. It would be naive in the extreme not to expect some shenanigans in states like Florida, Michigan and (certainly!) Wisconsin under the cover of a bunch of gun-totin’, Bud-drinkin’ “patriots” getting in front of the cameras and making a lot of noise. Ohio has also been witness to much the same thing in the past. It remains to be seen whether Kasich is actually enough of a straight arrow to put a stop to it.
@14,
Why on earth would a Republican like Kasich interfere?
Overt minority vote suppression has been a key element of Republican electoral strategy since the Bush White House. Kasich rose to power under that system. His entire career has been built on the well established Republican rear guard strategy of resisting shifting demographics through gerrymandering and vote suppression. Ohio has been a state laboratory for it under his leadership. He won’t abandon it now just because he hates Trump. Anyway, it’s hard wired into the Ohio election system. There isn’t a single Republican holding elected office in the United States who can qualify to be called a “straight arrow”. Kasich wouldn’t even be among the top candidates.
@ 10
One way or another, this probably is Joe Arpaio’s last election.
You know, I bet Walter Mondale woke up on Election Morning In America 1984 thinking the same thing about Ronald Reagan.
@ 11
HRC goes into tomorrow with 252 EVs an absolute lock.
That’s funny. Darryl had only 109 EVs as “safe” for Clinton as of yesterday, CZ.
Did Comey’s Sunday letter make that much of a difference?
@sloppy
If that makes you feel good. His safe + strong equals 253. One more than I started with. If you want to eliminate the Strong column then Trump has a shot here in Washington.
Surely you can understand why I’m good calling the “strong” a lock.
@ 18
Surely you can understand why I’m good calling the “strong” a lock.
Was it for the same reason you thought Ted Cruz is Floridian, CZ?
(((Goldy))) @GoldyHA
Make of it what you will, but it looks like the markets are anticipating a Clinton victory.
More of a relief really, I think.
I mean, who wants to drop $675k for nothing?
If Trump gets elected it will fucking entertaining, and the Dems would control Congress after the midterms.
If Trump gets elected would Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit shut the hell up about his pitiful portfolio?
“If…”
Probably going to be the new RNC tagline.
If California passes legalizing recreational marijuana it just brings the inevitable state/federal conflict to a head. I don’t think it makes much difference who is elected, both candidates must uphold the laws of the United States once they put up their hand and take the oath. Congress isn’t going to make any changes during the lame duck session, nor is it likely Congress will make any changes afterward. Clinton’s support for legalization is lukewarm, Trump might be more supportive than Clinton is. Still soon the Courts will have a case where they remind the Executive branch what Federal law is, that it trumps State law and the Executive branch must uphold Federal law until congress does its thing in making law. Congress will do nothing except some members drinking Glen Levit (invest now) and remembering they have to be tough on crime.
Pass the rum and hope have a 2nd American civil war over marijuana which would be ironic since the Constitution is on hemp paper.
Seahawks will be playing in a couple hours. They are favored to win by 55%. Wonder if the Bills know that? Hmmm outcomes of football games are totally predictable, just like elections.
Still the Cubs won. Although candidate Clinton had little to do with Cub victory, that Bill Murray guy have played a hand.
@24 Rudy Giuliani as Attorney General. The private dungeon industry will see boom times.
So in my only foray to the world of RW radio this afternoon was fun. The surge in Latino voting in Florida is pro-Trump Cubans excited about Rubio.
Maybe. But that excitement got Rubio trounced in the FL Primary. The Pro-Embargo Cubans he was saying are voting Trump are a dying breed. I guess no one remembers they polled Miami Cubans after Obama normalized relations and 70% were in favor of that move and 63% were in favor of fully lifting the embargo. I guess now normalized relations have made the sky fall all those Cubans have changed their minds or something.
So yeah, I think RW radio is fooling themselves (or just hoping they can keep the demoralized old white voters from staying home and pretending Cubans are the New Latino FL voters) about this Florida thing.
@27,
if you’re interested, you can start tracking real exit poll data (as opposed to all the rampant speculation) starting in just over 10 hours here.
Should be more enlightening than listening to millionaire media pimps pander to low information racists.
@24
Trump said during the campaign that Colorado’s recreational legalization was “a real problem” though he expressed full support for medical.
Clinton supports medical, her campaign supported rescheduling marijuana from schedule 1, and this is her official campaign position
The political will for cracking down on states via Federal law isn’t there and HRC has openly said she isn’t interested in doing so.
Some alcohol-industry supported lawfirm will need to go shopping for a plaintiff in a legal state and find some way to get the case out of state court and into Federal. Since most of the new State laws have provisions against interstate sales that is going to be hard.
@28
I know but four years ago I got hear a shrieking Tammy Bruce on skewed polls and ending a show with something along the lines of, “This! Biased! Media! Will! Be! DESTROYED! When the polls close tomorrow and Mitt is the president. America won’t STAND for their LIES anymore! They will RUE THE DAY! And the lying polling companies will have to ANSWER for it!”
I remember her clearly saying Rue the Day which I found funny. What is this, a 1920s melodrama, I can’t pay the rent, you must pay the rent? I’ll tie a pollster to the train tracks!
@26 Somehow that invoked a mental image of Rompin’ Rudy in thigh-highs and fishnets, holding a riding crop. Don’t know whether to laugh or puke.
@31 I’d like to see the fucker on the rack. In fishnets. Turned into a long, tall Sally.
We all need to see a whole lot more of this.
Look, I know that shit is hard to watch. And it really isn’t funny, even if that douche bag is a clown. But this isn’t about moving the election or showing Trump, the Republican Party, and their base of support for the raging dumpster fire they are. By now that’s pretty much a given.
People need to see stuff like this. Megyn Kelly, Joe Scarborough, Michael Gerson and David Brooks need to see stuff like this. Too many of us are way too insulated from the minds of these people and what makes them tick. It’s time for everyone to stop pretending just because it makes us feel better. This is a great big chunk of who we are in America right now today. And we won’t make much progress trying to change that until we face it head on and really look at it.
Meanwhile we see how Donna Brazile is real pond SCUM! https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/57027
Seems Donna knew Careless Crooked Heilary could not handle tough questions!
More Soros BULLSHITTIUM… https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2016/11/07/leaked-documents-reveal-expansive-soros-funding-to-manipulate-federal-elections/
When libtards run amok http://www.hollywoodreporter.c.....ase-945057
While Obummer does the unprecidented campaigning, six of our best die… http://www.businessinsider.com.....ed-2016-11
Stevie Wonder puts it nicely:
“If you had an emergency situation and needed to go to the hospital… would you want me driving your car?”
The babbling buffoon @34-37 is too brain damaged to comprehend this.
@37
And they would still be alive if he was sitting at a desk in DC?
While Piddles was having vegetarian lunch all week six of our bravest died. Clearly he should have been fasting and praying do they might live.
Post hoc ergo Procter hoc.
The loon’s head will evaporate with hate.
“Glenn Beck now supports Black Lives Matter — and says ‘Obama made me a better man’”
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/1.....etter-man/
Too bad Obama couldn’t make the loon a better man.
@39, 40,
I think that lying racist Fuckwad is covering someone else’s paper route this month. The quality and volume of it’s word salad posting is significantly diminished. It only seems to have time to gather a small handful of fringe hate links and post them quickly at the end of each day with little or no comment. Every time I click to reveal one of them I feel a bit cheated.