The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[N.E. Brigand]

With 89% of the voted counted in Indiana's Republican primary, Donald Trump is beating Nikki Haley, who dropped out two months ago, 78%-22%.

Haley has 126,000 votes so far in that very red state.

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But in national polls, Trump continues to hold a one-point lead, on average, over President Biden.

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An interesting fact that crossed my path: Joe Biden in 2020 was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Johnson County, Kansas in over 100 years.

[N.E. Brigand]

I think this is correct: "Imagine how the media would react if in 2012 Barack Obama was on trial for election campaign fraud involving a sex with a porn star. Literally every op-ed in America would be calling for him to drop out."

So what changed in the past dozen years that made the media abandon their principles?

[N.E. Brigand]

In a 2012 deposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, "I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me." He identified the cause of these issues as mercury poisoning and, I'm not making this up and apparently neither was he: a parasitic worm that ate a portion of his brain before dying.

This matters only because RFK has been presenting himself as the healthier alternative to President Biden and Donald Trump. RFK's campaign says he's fully recovered.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think this is correct: "Imagine how the media would react if in 2012 Barack Obama was on trial for election campaign fraud involving a sex with a porn star. Literally every op-ed in America would be calling for him to drop out."

So what changed in the past dozen years that made the media abandon their principles?

That's a good question. The easy answer is that Donald Trump happened, but obviously it is not that simple. But the truth is that different rules do seem to apply to him. Anyone else would be disqualified immediately at this present moment by any of a myriad of issues that he has, yet these things not only do not disqualify him, they actually constitute his only qualifications for the job. Why is that? Has a parasitic worm eaten our collective brain?

[RoseMorninStar]

The easy answer from where I'm viewing things from is racism. Trump represents old order white male entitlement.

[N.E. Brigand]

At this time, most swing state polls show Donald Trump leading President Biden by several points. But one new swing state poll, from Quinnipiac in Wisconsin, shows that among registered voters, Biden leads Trump 50%-44%. However, that drops to a one-point lead if RFK Jr. is added to the mix: 40%-39%-12%.

Meanwhile a Muhlenberg poll in Pennsylvania finds Trump leading Biden 44%-41%, but when RFK is added to the mix, they tie: 35%-35%-18%.

So it's still not clear whether Trump or Biden suffers more from RFK's participation (i.e., which side found and leaked the brain worm story).

[N.E. Brigand]

In a 2012 deposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, "I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me." He identified the cause of these issues as mercury poisoning and, I'm not making this up and apparently neither was he: a parasitic worm that ate a portion of his brain before dying.

This matters only because RFK has been presenting himself as the healthier alternative to President Biden and Donald Trump. RFK's campaign says he's fully recovered.

Nice cite to Hamlet!

[Frelga]

I scrolled by at least 6 tweets today saying that the worm must have died of starvation.

Eta: this headline

Screenshot_20240509-111501.png (399.05 KiB) Viewed 294 times

[N.E. Brigand]

Two days ago representatives of Donald Trump's campaign said that Trump's youngest son Barron, who recently turned 18, would be one of Florida's presidential delegates at this year's Republican National Convention. Today the office of his mother, Melania Trump, says that while he's honored to be so selected, he will have to withdraw due to "prior commitments."

[N.E. Brigand]

I think that commentators are right to ask: why aren't Senate Democrats using their committee powers to raise awareness of Republican scandals in the way that House Republicans have been using their committee powers to raise awareness of Democratic scandals?

Senate Democrats should already have subpoenaed Charlie Spies, who was fired a few days ago as the chief election lawyer for the Republican National Committee because he wasn't willing to push Donald Trump's Big Lie this year.

Senate Democrats should already have identified and subpoenaed the oil company executives who were at Donald Trump's fundraiser the other day when he told them that if they donate $1 billion to his campaign, he'll see that climate change regulations are gutted.

And far more Democrats, albeit not in the halls of Congress, should be mocking Donald Trump for the facts revealed in his Manhattan trial.

The problem is far older than the Jeff Daniels speech in The Newsroom, but it was right: "You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose."

[N.E. Brigand]

It was reported some weeks ago that convicted felon Paul Manafort was helping Donald Trump's campaign, but today the New York Times reports that he's out. As Marcy Wheeler notes (and she's not alone in this), the article ridiculously soft-peddles the facts of Manafort's criminal history and that of the Trump team generally -- starting with the very weird statement that Manafort was "one of only a few Trump advisers who were sentenced to prison" (which might imply to a casual reader that this sort of thing happens all the time) -- so I'm suspicious that it's some kind of cover up for something else.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Roger Stone posted this about Trump's rally in Wildwood, NJ.



The problem is that this image was taken on December 31, 1994 at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at a concert by Rod Stewart in what is known as the world's largest free music concert, with an attendance of over 3.5 million people.

[Sunsilver]

Colour me not surprised...

[RoseMorninStar]

Liars gonna lie. Alternate facts. Truth don't matter. What I don't get is why people buy into such obvious falsehoods and misinformation.

[N.E. Brigand]

In July 2017, six months into Donald Trump's presidency, he traveled to Racine, in southeast Wisconsin, to announce that the technology company FoxConn would be opening a huge new plant there that would employ some 13,000 people. The state and federal government spent $500 million preparing the site for the factory, and more than 100 homes were bulldozed, but over the next several years, the projected job numbers were repeatedly cut down, and in the end the FoxConn project only ended up creating 1,400 jobs with most of the land set aside for the plant sitting vacant. But now a new project, made possible thanks to legislation passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Presidente Biden, will result in Microsoft building a different plant on the site and more than 4,000 new jobs.

Construction is already underway. Biden was there last week. Trump was loser but Biden is a winner! And yet...



Would he be happier without a job? Apparently.

[N.E. Brigand]

And there were some bad swing state polls for President Biden from the New York Times. Donald Trump currently leads Biden by 0.3% nationally.

However, Democrats have nearly six months to turn things around and get voters to move past their stupidity. And they are at least making plans: Democrats have far outspent Republicans in buying general election television advertising for the Senate ($320 million vs. $162 million), House ($159 million vs. $2 million) and Presidency ($130 million vs. $0 -- yes, zero). That said, Republicans historically make their purchases later.

[River]

Well, to be fair, Presidential visits are a huge PITA. They have to shut everything down within a couple miles with POTUS is in the area. It sucked trying to get around Boulder that one time I got blindsided by an Obama campaign stop (I started paying more attention after that).
And when Biden came to my town after the Marshall Fire I almost panicked. Came around a bend in the road on my way home. It was winter so the sun was down. Usually I can see my chunk of Boulder Valley all lit up and cars moving but this time there were flashing lights around the edges of the town I live in and I thought we were on fire again. Then I remembered Biden was visiting. I listened to him speak while I tried to find an open path across a major highway. Eventually I realized I wasn't getting across so I just waited for him to stop talking. I think he took a couple questions and then boogied out. As soon as he was on the move, I was allowed to cross a bridge and get home. Frustrating as all get out, but I understood why he had to come and talk to us. The fire grabbed headlines around the world. When something like that hits a community, POTUS is obligated to show up.

It was nowhere near as disruptive when Biden was the VP and came to visit Boulder, Larimer, and Weld Counties following the 2013 floods. That we barely noticed. Didn't even know it happened until I saw pictures in the news.

[N.E. Brigand]

All fair points, but why does this guy apparently think it was more disruptive for Joe Biden to speak in 2024 than for Donald Trump to speak in 2017?

Oh! It's because now he has a job thanks to Biden that he didn't have when Trump visited.

[RoseMorninStar]

The FoxConn 'deal' was a disaster. We can 'thank' Scott Walker for that. Hartford (where the interviewed voter is from) isn't far from here. It's a very red area. It's pretty evident some people don't vote using logic & reasoning, but with emotion and along cultural lines. Trump has created a strong social culture of 'them vs. us' and it resonates. Evidently.

River, I hope things are improving after that harrowing experience.

[N.E. Brigand]

I have no doubt that the recent New York, Times swing state polls are reasonably accurate and show that President Biden is trailing and has a lot of work to do (although they were slightly better for him among "likely" voters than among registered voters).

And there were some bad swing state polls for President Biden from the New York Times. Donald Trump currently leads Biden by 0.3% nationally.

However, Democrats have nearly six months to turn things around and get voters to move past their stupidity. And they are at least making plans: Democrats have far outspent Republicans in buying general election television advertising for the Senate ($320 million vs. $162 million), House ($159 million vs. $2 million) and Presidency ($130 million vs. $0 -- yes, zero). That said, Republicans historically make their purchases later.

However, the Times story featuring the polls showed some lazy reporting of a type that crops up in a lot of journalism. One respondent was a Georgia man who said that he voted for Biden in 2020 but now was planning to vote for a third-party candidate. But it turns out the guy didn't vote in 2020.