And this is not even directly related to Trump.
What if Hillary offered Republicans one SCOTUS pick? Would that open the floodgates for skeptical Republicans to rescind support for Trump?
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) August 2, 2016
my first response is to ask if Ryan Lizza guzzles anti-freeze for breakfast as this is breathtakingly stupid.
Let’s make a few assumptions that I think are verifiable within reality.
a) Hillary Clinton has in all projection systems been favored to win the White House at all points to varying degrees (except the 538 click-bait now-cast)
b) A Republican appointed or de facto appointed Supreme Court median judge produces significantly different policy and political outcomes than a median Supreme Court justice that represents a typical Democratic nominee.
c) The Clinton campaign is better run than the Trump campaign.
Now let’s make a few more slightly shakier assumptions.
d) The Democratic coalition has good reason to believe it is a dominant Presidential level coalition ( 5 out 6 most recent elections had Dem popular vote pluralities etc)
e) The Republican coalition is a maxed out coalition with significant headwinds due to higher death and lower replacement rates of their core voters compared to Democratic core voting blocks.
f) The Donald is a dumpster fire which excerbates E
In football analytics terms, Clinton is ahead and she can win with a good, productive 8 minute offense of low variance but efficient plays. There is little reason for the Clinton campaign to adopt high variance vertical shots down the field to score when she is already up 9 with a better quarterback and a better defense. Scoring point is nice but running time off the clock and winning field position works almost as well. Interceptions and fumbles would dramatically drop win probability compared to a counterfactual of boring productive plays.
Promising to nominate a typical Republican judge as the median SCOTUS vote in order to try to capture 2% to 5% of the core Republican vote is a high variance play for a Democratic nominee. It could be worth it if the nominee was down 9 points with three months left. But that is not the case. Promising to nominate a Kennedy clone or more likely a Roberts clone may or may not get any Republican votes as a Trump Administration would nominate at least a Roberts if not an Alito clone anyways while it would cause a lot of trouble on the left flank. That could be acceptable if the left flank was legitimately faced with a “this sucks but it is the only chance to avoid the true suckage of four years of Trump” choice but that is not the choice out there.
Therefore this is the stupidest thing I’ve read this week.
Trentrunner
Villagers ALWAYS want Dems to adopt GOP positions, never vice versa.
Gindy51
Just no prevent defense crap from the Dems, it’s a sure way to lose, football wise.
amk
bw morons will always be shilling for rethugs.
Frankensteinbeck
@Trentrunner:
This. They believe Republicans are basically right, so reasonable compromise must mean doing what Tepublicans want.
Rico
Is that pick Merrick Garland?
Gin & Tonic
Um, spoiler alert, I guess, but do not read the replies to Lizza’s tweet unless you’re old and you miss goatse.
Mudge
But Hillary is the biggest liar EVER…so she’d only say yes then thumb her nose at the stupid Republicans and appoint Noam Chomsky.
Barbara
You normally win so you can get something you want, not so you can give the thing you most wanted to the loser. To respond more substantively, the Supreme Court has been at the forefront of enabling voter suppression against minorities, unchecked theft of elections by people who have billions of dollars to buy them, overt discrimination against women in the workplace (which is what depriving them of employer provider reproductive coverage amounts to), and numerous other efforts to interpret the constitution as a means beat down ordinary people and any legislative means to help them. Clinton might as well concede the office to Trump if she were to do what Lizza advises.
germy
Whew! That was a close one:
dr. bloor
Week ain’t over yet.
The media is going to spin itself into a psychosis ginning up stupid controversies, nonsensical political strategies, and “competitive” polls between now and November in a frantic effort to make sure everyone gets their fill at the Great American Advertising Teat.
PsiFighter37
Yeah that’s stupid. First order of business will be to tell Chuck Schumer to do away with filibusters on SCOTUS.
Kylroy
@Rico: The Merrick Garland nomination neatly illustrates why this entire proposal is ridiculous. If Rs were going to be mollified by a reasonable Supreme Court appointee, this whole conversation would have ended months ago.
scav
The Black Knight, the Black Knight on a sinking ship, the Black Knight on a burning sinking ship of fools negociates from a position of Strength! He has all the deals. Treat him right, maybe he’ll do you a favor.
MattF
Paul Krugman treats the general case of the same kind of suggestion (in Tweetspace):
Here.
bemused
This ridiculous suggestion makes no logical sense whatsoever and he gets paid for this tripe.
Chris
Somebody’s been watching The West Wing again, I take it.
geg6
This is how Pittsburgh won the majority of their Lombardi trophies. I find it quite effective.
rikyrah
To Ryan Lizza:
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE!!!
Larb Neur
It’s not just dumb, it’s breath-takingly dumb. First of all, the chance to change the direction of the Supreme Court for the first time in 40 years has been the single best argument to win over discouraged Bernie supporters. If HRC were to give Repubs first crack at a SCOTUS choice it would cause an absolute revolution on the left against HRC, and rightly so. Secondly, the Repubs have NEVER EVER in eight years done anything more with concessions than pocket them and then demand more. Remember how they handled Obama during negotiations about the fiscal cliff etc? Why on earth would they suddenly agree to play fair now? Dumb Dumb Dumb.
Chris
@MattF:
Let. Them. Die.
rikyrah
@Trentrunner:
We are going to win. Win big. Win unapologetically.
Again I say to Lizza…
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
Larb Neur
@Mudge: Hey! Now you’re talking! Great idea!
rikyrah
Trump’s America
Liberal Librarian
August 2, 2016
BR
Trump doesn’t get why he can’t use nukes whenever he wants as president. Oy.
Barbara
@Larb Neur: The woman who learned that the super hard way more than 20 years ago when NAFTA did not prompt any cooperation whatsoever in the area of health care reform would have to be blisteringly stupid to entertain such an idea. In addition, it shows how out of touch the pundit class is in presuming that VOTERS are motivated by Supreme Court politics the same way their so-called leaders are. If it isn’t obvious by now, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan aren’t stage managing Republican voters.
Aleta
Protracted manipulative posturing would commence and last for months while they continued to twist the offer and smear her.
scav
The masses of refugees, after fleeing from a burning country of civil strife and prolonged debates bwtween 17 warlords, then shelling out their life savings to one selling the wetback special in yuuuuuge paper boats with personally selected gold life-jackets, are now bobbing in the sea, waving to passing vessels and shouting “Room Service!”
-ly Ballou
My fondest wish is for Hillary to publicly respond with the Michael Corleone counteroffer.
aimai
@Rico: Well done!
I also, want Hillary’s offer to the Republicans to be Michael Corleone’s to the Nevada Senator in re the gaming commission. And so far, it really looks like that, in a velvet glove. I’m satisfied with the way my candidate is running this campaign and fuck the weird “how to get republican voters” crap. They will either come over on their own or sit on their hands. These are, for the most part, not honest people and you can’t bribe a crook, they will take the offer and betray you, every time.**
**I think that because I stopped by to read Rachel Evans Held’s evangelical leaning piece on why she thinks evangelicals should vote for Hillary (pro choice) over Trump (anti abortion). The comment thread is just jaw dropping in its insolence, lack of christian charity, lack of christian thought, contempt for the reader, contempt for the writer, contempt for the commenter’s own stated goals. My favorite line of all was the commenter who explained that the Democrats are at fault for putting up Hillary Clinton against Trump. He will vote for Johnson (also Pro Choice, btw) because Hillary is so terrible that he has to. And this, too, is Hillary’s fault. Nothing is ever Trump’s fault or the voter’s fault.
aimai
@-ly Ballou: Oh, snap!
Chyron HR
This is reasonable, Thomas or Alito may be replaced by a registered Republican of Clinton’s choosing.
The Ancient Randonnuer
Excellent idea! Making a concession before negotiations begin has worked so well with the GOP over the last eight years it will prove to be a winning strategy to get all 84 uncommited Republicans to change sides.
lamh36
@BR:
So how long has Joe Scar been sitting on this “bombshell”… he was her along to get along all this time now he wants to sound the alarm…
Trump asked 3 times in an hour national security briefing why we can’t just use nuclear weapons
rikyrah
GOOD.
He needs to die IN JAIL.
BREAKING: Alabama board denies parole for one-time Ku Klux Klansman who was convicted in Birmingham church bombing.
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 3, 2016
germy
@rikyrah:
Many of these New Yorker magazine writers aren’t quite as smart as they think they are.
BR
@lamh36:
Yeah — as the rats flee the sinking ship, we’ll start hearing about all sorts of things that they wouldn’t have otherwise wanted to make public.
nominus
Krugman started a tweet storm on the same thing: She don’t gotta do shit. she already has the numbers, this is the endgame death spiral of failed ideas, not rewarding their failure
rikyrah
@-ly Ballou:
I hear you.
hovercraft
Why the hell should she have to give them a god damn thing? Who told you f**kers to nominate an insane talking yam who knows nothing. This is your god damn nominee, you voted for him so f**king deal with it !!!!!
EdinNJ
@Richard Mayhew
Nowcast has Hillary at 85%.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m not surprised this idea came up, I’m only surprised it came from Lizza and not one of the more usual suspects, Friedman or Fournier or Tweety or…..
Still not as dumb as Douthat’s “Democrats must ask themselves what they would do if their party nominated a Trump…”
Or… is it? Maybe just as dumb, but not dumber.
OzarkHillbilly
You must read a whole lot more than I.
AnotherBruce
@BR: Oh My God! Thank you Republicans, you got the candidate you deserve, but the rest of the world doesn’t.
Quinerly
Certainly not as big of a story as Trump not understanding about nukes, but it is noteworthy that he has told Fox Business Channel that investors shouldn’t invest in the stock market. Basically, he’s saying he doesn’t invest, so you shouldn’t.
The Ancient Randonnuer
@-ly Ballou:
Clinton’s campaign has responded.
p.a.
That’s Hilz problem; she’s not transformative like Trump. Giving the opposition what they want but aren’t likely to earn is real outside-the-box thinking. But a SC nominee is low hanging fruit. Now, if she were to… replace Kaine with Palin… seek to reverse the 13th 14th 15th Amendments (hell we only need the 2nd amirite?)… claim that whatever Amendments remain apply ONLY to corporations… THAT would be transformative.
kindness
Having not used the Google on him yet I don’t know who Ryan Lizza is but I have a notion of what his thoughts are worth. Who has a match so I can light this bag of poo and put it on Ryan’s doorstep?
Barbara
@germy: The issue isn’t one of intelligence. It’s having been conditioned to expect weakness from one side and strength and success from the other. At some point the expectation becomes normative — that Democrats “ought” to be the ones to extend an olive branch, perhaps made even more likely because the candidate is female and girls should always be nice. Which is to say, this is a demonstration of why being a real dick on everything all the time is in fact often rewarded by other people backing down.
Chris
@rikyrah:
Well, the GOP is now Trump’s party. I don’t see that changing even if they do get shellacked, because any attempt to change the party will run afoul of the majority of voters that supported Trump.
Republicans have been a white nationalist movement for a long time. But from the sixties onwards, as Lee Atwater pointed out in that interview, they were a white nationalist party that had to at least maintain the pretense of believing in equality for all, while slipping the rabid bigots red meat under the table.
What Trump’s done is reverse that. He’s un-Atwatered the Republican Party, which means that for the first time in what feels to them like forever, the bigots feel like they’ve got someone on the ticket who’s really one of them. Now that the genie’s out of the bottle again, they’re not going to accept just putting it back in.
sherparick
@Mudge: That would be an interesting pick. That certainly smack the gob of many a Bernie or buster. Dr. Stein I am sure would see it as sign incipient fascism. An Professor Chomsky (or Professor Krugman) could certainly go on the court with the Advice and Consent of the Senate as there is no requirement that a SCOTUS Justice be a lawyer.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF:
bupalos
Yeah, if you want to go football, this is more like a 9-3 team being up on a 2-10 team by say 24-9 midway through the forth, and offering them next year’s 1st and 2nd round draft pick to forfeit that game.
This kind of thing is the best evidence that the entire dc wonkosphere is tilted towards the preferences of Republican men. Can anyone even conceive of someone suggesting, if shoes were on other feet, that a Donald that was on his way to a romp should offer up liberal SC noms in return for D’s jumping off (and saving themselves) from a sinking ship?
Major Major Major Major
DC metro transit officer arrested for trying to provide material support to ISIS in FBI sting
geg6
@geg6:
And let me clarify, I believe that all Hilz has to do right now is keep the running team on the field and keep moving the ball, taking time off the clock. Now, the game can always change, in which case, the QB and WRs step up and go for some more aggressive long shots. But until it does, running out the clock and keeping the other teams’ offense off the field and the defense too tired and demoralized to make the big play late in the game is an excellent tactic in football. Witness the Steelers’ record of doing just that. And it can work for Hilz in the same way.
catclub
@Chris: What would be the one way to lose the 40% of Democrats who voted for Sanders?
Move way to the right! Sell out to the GOP view of the world!
Hunter
The Republicans would demand that they pick all federal court nominees.
gogol's wife
@lamh36:
Wow. That is chilling.
Felonius Monk
Week isn’t half over yet. Lots of stupidity between now and next week is about 100% certain.
joes527
@BR: Not that I disbelieve the possibility of Trump being this apocalyptically stupid, but Joe Scar discussing something from unnamed sources seems like the definition of “unreliable.”
NorthLeft12
Dumb? I don’t think that word means what you think it means. That is one of the stupidest proposals that I have ever heard.
This may not sound very bipartisan, but this is exactly when you step on their neck [with votes] and wait until they offer their complete surrender.
Frankly, Hillary does not need these right wingers to win, and certainly does not need to offer them olive branches. You will only alienate the large motivated base that you have already got going for you if you appear to be moderating the platform for their sake.
The Dems should make it clear that Garland will not be nominated after September, so if they want him they better move their ass and confirm him.
CONGRATULATIONS!
What if Ryan Lizza choked on a bowl of salted dicks? Seriously with the House staying GOP and the Senate only in minimal danger of flipping, the ONLY thing Dems get out of the next four years is a Supreme Court pick. THAT’S IT. I’m not giving that away for a contest in which we’re going to win anyway, and the absolute best candidate for the opposition to be running – from my point of view – is Trump.
No, of course not. They’ll take the pick and vote for him anyway. Is this guy’s other name Charlie Brown?
AnotherBruce
@gogol’s wife: Did you watch that clip? Mika is very obviously frightened at what she heard. Yes, why the hell was JoeScar sitting on that little nugget?
catclub
@The Ancient Randonnuer: Without Looking I am guessing Michael Corleone is saying ‘Nothing’.
How did I do?
ETA: Should have read the one you referenced. Oops.
bluehill
Reading the Hayden comments and can’t believe he’s still not ready to support Hillary. “Not there yet” is such a weak excuse. What does he think is going to happen to Trump? You have decades and decades of behavior to tell you that Trump is behaving as he always has. For all of the repubs accusations about Obama leading from behind, this is what it actually looks like.
BR
@joes527:
Except that Trump said something similar to Chris Matthews in a broadcast interview, so it seems quite believable.
Feebog
ohhh, ooohhh, a football analogy. Can I play? More like a team up 38 to zip at half time. The other QB has already fumbled three times and thrown a couple interceptions. The coach on the other side was brought in from the Canadian Football League and doesn’t understand the rules. And the other team hasn’t been paid in three weeks and thinks they are going to be stiffed.
Richard Mayhew
@EdinNJ: but at one point it was showing a Trump win probability over 50%
Mary G
When your opponent is beating himself, the proper response is “please proceed.”
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I will wait until that particular bridge appears before deciding how to cross it. The Slate article comes up with difficult choices, but so far the Democratic party has not.
Bruce K
The Twitter coughed up what might be a more, shall we say, politic response that the Hillary camp could use:
“Come with me if you want to live.”
scav
Tidbit from overseas anyone see yet: Dr Halper-Hayes (worldwide vice-president of Republicans Overseas) on BBC Donald Trump ‘is psychologically unbalanced’.
OzarkHillbilly
@NorthLeft12:
Of course she does. Don’t you know she is losing among landed white male voters between the ages of 45-75, who are the only voters who really count?
AnotherBruce
@joes527: So should we just ignore it then? What about Trump leads you to believe he wouldn’t have said this, and why would this come from Scarborough?
aimai
@joes527: Its an “admission against self interest” so I think its believable.
BR
I think Trump will agree to a “reform” his campaign, the RNC will send in a couple of pros, they’ll make a big to do, and the media will give him a second chance.
I think Trump will mess up his second chance, because Warren or Biden will bait him into saying something dumb, but still, the media would like to give him another chance.
Bex
@aimai: Rachel Held Evans is a recovering evangelical, and has been called (typically when that happens) a heretic by the talibangelical wing of Christianity, so the comments are not surprising…and they’re not all negative by any means.
catclub
@BR:
…blowing up.
Can I just make a reference here to all the times Condoleezza Rice said that we cannot be too careful about terrorism:
” But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”
ha ha.
The Other Chuck
@BR: JFC, do we ever need to start running another Daisy ad.
Major Major Major Major
@AnotherBruce: yes. Just because I can imagine trump doing something doesn’t mean he did. There’s all sorts of boneheaded stuff I can imagine Obama doing (grand bargain circa 2010, 2011 anyone?), but he didn’t.
NorthLeft12
@OzarkHillbilly: Are you referring to that population cohort who seem to be intent on killing themselves off with liquor, drugs, and guns? Those voters? The real Muricans?
Chris
@Mary G:
There’s always one particular phrase that I associate with each president. For Dubya, it was “now watch this drive.” For Bill Clinton, it was “I did not… have… sexual… relations…” For Bush Padre, it was “Read my lips!”
For Obama, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be “please proceed, Governor.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think this LOLGOP person is completely anonymous, but s/he often makes points I with the liberal-ish pundits who get on TeeVee would make
also, too, does Jeebus love me enough to put the idea in Trump’s head that the way to punish Republicans for their insolence is to turn his fire on John McCain? I really want that war-mongering old fuck to go down.
SFAW
@germy:
Maybe Lizza thought he was writing a New Yorker cartoon, instead of a “serious” “thought.”
bluehill
Talk about white male privilege. If Hillary, Obama, the dems acted like this or said a fraction of the things Trump has said, there would be no second chances, much less third, fourth and fifth chances. Trump is graded on a curve of his own behavior while everyone else is held to an absolute standard based on an amalgam of Reagan, Lincoln and Jesus.
AnotherBruce
@Major Major Major Major: Ok, then why did Scarborough say this? To drive ratings up for his show? I’m getting the vibe that this might be too big for some people to process. But I keep hearing the quote “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”
Thor Heyerdahl
@Feebog:
Not gonna let 3-down football get slagged like that;)
There have been more cases where US players and coaches come north of the border and think it’s exactly the same. They soon realize that while similar, Canadian rules (e.g. 12th man, multiple movement behind the line of scrimmage, 1 yard off the ball at the line, no free catch, goalposts at the front of the endzone, the single point (only Americans call it a rouge), bigger field, 3 downs, OT setup, national/international ratio to name a few) make it a different game.
Those who can’t adjust don’t last.
eric
Hillary is playing for the Senate. Pure and simple. There is no way she hands the rest of the GOP a life vest. She has a better ground game, more money for ads, better logistics. She does not need to bribe the squishy GOP. The ones that see God will come of their own accord (Whitman) and will get generously rewarded by NOT having a President Trump FUCKING UP the entire world.
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: my favorite New Yorker cartoon of the cycle is a man sitting at a cartoonist’s desk and his wife comes rushing into the room saying Honey! Stop! That Donald Trump cartoon you came up with this morning just happened!
BR
@AnotherBruce:
I think it’s rats fleeing the ship. As I mention above, Trump has said something similar himself in an interview, so hearing this this morning isn’t that unbelievable.
Major Major Major Major
@AnotherBruce: why does Scarborough do a lot of things? The simplest explanation here is incompetence, or it’s made up.
burnspbesq
@Hunter:
They’ve effectively done that already with their stance on Garland. As lomg as McConnell has 40 votes at his disposal, there is no reason to believe that Climton will ba able to get anyone confirmed to any office.
rikyrah
@catclub:
time for a DAISY AD – 2016 version.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mudge: That would be awesome.
BR
@AnotherBruce:
From an interview a few months back:
joes527
@BR: Do you have a link? Everything I find sources back to morning joe.
EDIT: and… it looks like the link is above. I’ll look.
@aimai: Joe is not a Trump lover, so there is no admission against self interest here.
@AnotherBruce: I never said ignore it, and I explicitly stated that I would believe it of Trump. But running with everything you hear in the media just because it agrees with the narrative in your head is a practice that will bite you.
It is entirely believable that Trump said what he said he said. But if Joe told me that water was wet, I’d consider it pending independent confirmation.
AnotherBruce
@Major Major Major Major: That is entirely possible, but we know now that Donald Trump is capable of saying anything. And it’s always a mistake to assume he can’t go any lower. So I’m not giving him the benefit of any doubt. And I think it’s dangerous to do otherwise, But carry on, I’m done with this.
Iowa Old Lady
@rikyrah: Do you think he’s talking about Mika’s father? That was my guess from how Scarborough worded what he said and his and Mika’s demeanor as he said it.
Citizen_X
“Now that Stalin has reached the outskirts of Berlin, he should offer to split Poland with Hitler again.”
Chris
@BR:
We make them so we won’t have to use them, that’s the whole point of deterrence/MAD. For fuck’s sake, how hard is this to understand? Every other Cold War movie in forty years made this point.
Fair Economist
@burnspbesq:
Reid got rid of the judicial filibuster in 2014 for everything except the Supreme Court. If the Republican use the filibuster for either the Court or for administrative appointees with a Democratic Senate it’ll be gone for that too. Maybe the Republicans could get away with filibustering an occasional administrative appointment, but not wholesale, and not the Court.
sigaba
Khan controversy: Donald Trump fans don’t know or don’t care.
Your vaunted and desired low-information voter, ladies and gentleman. Instead of waiting until the last moment like they usually do, they all went Full Trump in April and never looked back.
Even the ones who disagree with Khizr Khan seem unsure about what he actually said or what the actual controversy is about. You can’t argue with them because they don’t even seem to know what’s going on.
Major Major Major Major
@AnotherBruce: well I’m not closed to the possibility, but this just isn’t a credible source yet. I spend enough time worrying about what people actually said to want to worry too much about what they might have said.
bemused
@lamh36:
He’d kill off the human race faster than climate crisis.
AnotherBruce
@joes527: “The narrative in my head.” Fuck you, that’s damn insulting. The narrative came from Joe Scarborough, you’re implying that I made this up somehow. I’ve mentioned that it could be made up. I just don’t think that’s probable.
AnotherBruce
@Major Major Major Major: Fair enough.
BR
When you’ve lost Chuck Todd…
First Read: GOP, Trump Go From ‘Unraveling’ to ‘Break Glass’ Mode:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Iowa Old Lady: I don’t think old man B would be meeting with Trump. I think Henry the K is a better possibility.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Iowa Old Lady: Difficult to see Zbigniew advising Trump.
dmsilev
@sigaba: Trump’s base may be sticking with him, but his fundamental problem is that this is no longer the GOP Primary, and his base is only a small fraction of what is needed to win. Republican tribalism will get him more votes, but there’s a limit to that (see, for example, Meg Whitman’s announcement yesterday that she’s voting for and fundraising for Hillary), and even pure tribalism only gets you to maybe 40 or so percent of the vote; if you disgust and repel everyone who isn’t a card-carrying member of the GOP, winning becomes really really hard.
PaulWartenberg2016
Usually a long-winded retort like this would have me going “GET ON WITH IT” but the one-liner payoff at the end is sure worth it. :)
dmsilev
@BR: Wow. So, I guess the media narrative has, at least for now, switched from “horse race!” to “train wreck!”. And note to Chuck: Unless Trump agrees to step aside, there’s nothing the GOP can do to force him out short of arranging for an “accident”. Even if there was some sneaky underhanded rules-lawerying way to oust him from the nominee’s slot, just imagine how his base would react.
rikyrah
@bluehill:
I go back to when the Campaign Manager said that Trump wouldn’t really actually DO – THE JOB – of being President. He’ll leave that to the Vice-President. He’ll just SHOW UP for the fun stuff of being President.
Just imagine the reaction if then Senator Obama’s Campaign, or if Hillary’s Campaign had said this…
UH HUH
UH HUH
rikyrah
@Iowa Old Lady:
Could be.
Military people are scared TO DEATH of Ferret Head. They see him clearly as the insane person that he is.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
All Hillary has to do is to avoid turnovers, especially, the unforced kind.
There is little doubt that Trump will continue to fumble at least once a day
until the November election. It would be nice to think that Trump would
only get the magic 27%. But the system is designed for a low point
of 45% for Republicans.
germy
@dmsilev: So then Roger Stone’s threat was as much against the GOP as it was against Democrats.
NorthLeft12
@sigaba: I agree with you completely. There is no getting these people to come back to sanity. They are all in for der Trumpf.
Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes by Mark Twain; “It is a lot easier to fool a person, than to convince him that he has been fooled.”
Major Major Major Major
@germy: kind of how I read it.
rikyrah
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
He doesn’t have to be advising Trump. Those military guys all know one another.
trollhattan
@kindness:
Same here, but guessing he’s a zuper zecret friend of Mitch McConnell, who’s going to look like an especially moronic ass when Garland continues with his day job as Hillary chooses a nominee out of Every Liberal’s A list and he can’t do shit to stop it. Ha-ha-ha you fucking turtle, Obama gave you a gift and you didn’t even know it.
trollhattan
@BR:
Just. Wait. ‘Til. The. Debate.
Somebody lock the RNC exit doors from the outside. They get to experience their handiwork firsthand, in person.
Tom Levenson
@jake the antisoshul soshulist: I’m guessing the low is actually around 40%, as in Bush ’92. Train wrecks empower third parties so I can easliy imagine a 50-40-10 (all minor parties) kind of election.
But note: Trump did well (by his own account…) fundraising in July. He’s got (he says…”believe me!”) 80-some million cash on hand — more than Hillary if those numbers are even remotely accurate. He’s got that money because he’s not spending it on anything, not ads, not campaign infrastructure, but still, he’s got it.
IOW — It’s been an amazing week. But ain’t nothin’ done yet.
James E Powell
@dmsilev:
And which candidate from the Republican’s Hall of Losers would Ye Cool, Cool Conservative Men choose to save their party, and thereby save America?
SiubhanDuinne
@Iowa Old Lady:
Mika’s dad was my immediate thought too.
dmsilev
@James E Powell: Mitt Romney! He’s rested, rebooted, and ready!
J R in WV
Hey Omnes, Happy, Happy..!!!
And you too, SiubhanDuinne. And many happy returns!.!
I’m assuming you are both 39 and counting backwards. Keep up the good work!
Dennis
@Rico: My thoughts exactly. Garland was Orrin Hatch’s choice, for God’s sake. If Obama allows his nomination to be voted on after Hillary wins the election, he is just rewarding bad GOP behavior.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: If any Democrat had ever said that he or she wanted to have the title of President but not to be in charge of any of the policy, it would be the appalling remark of the century. It would be a legendary gaffe well beyond Dukakis in the tank or Bush and the supermarket scanner. It would be in textbooks. When Trump said it, it wasn’t even a story. That’s fucked up.
germy
@FlipYrWhig:
He’s a victim of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
scav
Heads up. Have we see the twitter-shrapnel-fettii over this yet?
Guard Liveblog’s reporting that the Hollywood reporter really did (theoretically) track down the actual size of the hand.
burnspbesq
Hey, now that the Pollster aggregate shows Clinton up seven-point-something, whete oh where is Poll Obsessed Guy?
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV:
Thanks very much!
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Hippo birdies 2 you!
Capri
@jake the antisoshul soshulist: My hope is that Trump wins exactly the same states that Wallace won in ’68, no more and no less. The symmetry of that appeals to me.
Jeffro
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes – as with so many other examples this race, if it had been the Democrat, the media would have already declared the race over and closed up shop.
Picture the head of the DNC + 2 major Ds + members of the Clinton family flying to meet with an out-of-control Hillary, to beg her to do a ‘reset’ after two straight weeks of non-stop party-burning pyromania??!? (This is what’s going on in Trump-land today) It boggles the mind…she’d never recover from that…and yet, Trump will be given every chance to try and make it a close race.
Martha from Augusta
My understanding is the tweet is a sneak peak of his upcoming Broadway special, “Lizza with a Withered Frontal Lobe.”
Joyce H
@AnotherBruce:
We don’t know that he was sitting on it. If you look at what he said – ” Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump” – he doesn’t say that he himself learned about it several months ago, but that it happened several months ago. I would speculate that the foreign policy expert just recently came to him and said, ‘for god’s sake, you’ve got to get this out there and flush me out of the tall grass.’
RaflW
@Trentrunner:
QFT. The Village has no concept of what is happening underneath them. Trump is plainly exposing that most GOP base voters don’t give a shit about conservative economics. Zero resonance. But the Village desperately believes that the GOP is “pro-business.”
I think most VIllagers are also personally socially liberal – they like the gays, feel cool having professional-class black friends, etc. So their dream date is John Kasich, but they know he polls terribly.
So they want Clinton to do a replay on Bill’s triangulation. But those days are o-o-o-o-ver. We will see resistance to the new way of things from the Village. But so what, they are busily making themselves irrelevant anyway.
Calouste
@jake the antisoshul soshulist: McCain got 45.7%, and despite picking Sarah Palin and flubs like his 7 houses, his campaign was relatively normal. And the electorate was 74% white then, this year it’s probably going to be 69-70%.
Kenneth Kohl
Let’s go with a basketball analogy. It’s late in the game; you have the lead and you have the ball. You bleed the shot clock, then work the ball inside, where you know your opponent will commit the foul. Maybe a flagrant foul…
Plantsmantx
@bemused:
EricaGrieder @EricaGrieder 18h18 hours ago
@RyanLizza Oh man I suggested back in May that Clinton should pledge to nominate @JusticeWillett. Dems were not amused, lol.
Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza 18h18 hours ago
@EricaGrieder people are so mad at me right now lol
EricaGrieder @EricaGrieder 17h17 hours ago
@RyanLizza lol well yes that’s what you get for having an awesome idea, lizza
Plantsmantx @Plantsmantx 17h17 hours ago
@EricaGrieder @RyanLizza Y’all get paid for this?
catclub
@Plantsmantx: It is a point of pride that I cannot tell which person wrote which tweets, here.
And please do not explain it for me. Thanks.
pluky
I love it when you go all game theory on us! Makes my actuarial heart beat faster, even if your health care economics posts are more informative.
Richard Mayhew
@pluky: did not think this was all that game theoretical just an incentive analysis