Even though I'm employed full-time (and have been for years), my resume has been up on job sites in the past. This is okay, because there might be a job out there that has better pay, is closer, or is more interesting work. I thought that it would be nice to let recruiters do the job search work, and let me know of any good openings.
It hasn't worked out that way.
The first thing that you need to realise about recruiters is that you are not the customer in this relationship. The recruiter is trying to find a warm body that they can sell to the employer, and your interests don't matter in that equation. They are, basically, pimps. Recruiters will lie, wheedle, and exploit any vulnerability that they can in order to deliver for their employer: your potential new boss.
In the case of the local Twin Cities labour market, they have an unenviable task. There's a shortage of skilled workers. Anyone that has marketable skills and is sitting around unemployed probably is someone with "issues". These issues could run from horrible personalities, mental health issues, chronic medical problems, to substance abuse. This is compounded by employers with an unrealistic grasp of the labour market, and a view towards their employees as disposable. Most of these companies seem to believe that they can have their pick of dozens of highly-qualified candidates, each of which will crawl on their hands and knees to beg for the position, and will eagerly accept low pay.
The reality is that everyone is already working (except for those with "issues"), and the employer will have to hire them away from someone else. In the average case, someone has retired and the company needs to replace them. They announce the opening and wait for the line to form at the door the next day. There is no line. Then they consult their "contacts" in the field, or "word of mouth" among current employees, to find great people who are somehow also very desperate. Weeks pass, then months. They try free employment services, such as the State job service. More time passes, the situation becomes critical, and the recruiter is called.
I should point out that the employer has now created a very bad situation, and they've compounded their problems. Months of work has piled up, their current employees have struggled to handle the workload (for no extra pay), and morale is failing. Anyone that the recruiter finds will walk in to a horrible mess. There will be no time to train them or let them find their way around the company's system. And the other employees will not be inclined to help.
On top of that, the expectations of the employer are that this paid recruiter will dig up several miracle-workers that are mysteriously familiar with their company, their software, their culture, and their equipment. They have probably realised that their pay scale is woefully out of sync with the labour market, and they've resigned themselves to increase it. But, at those wages, they will demand the perfect candidate. So, they make the position "contract for hire". This will let them try out the poor victim at a lower wage to determine if this sucker really is the perfect candidate. At this point, the employer has likely tried some of those people with "issues" out of desperation, and this has only hardened their resolve and dug that hole deeper.
At no point does it occur to this employer that they are asking someone to leave a permanent, full-time job with benefits for the chance to possibly gain a permanent, full-time job with benefits -- should the poor sucker "play their cards right".
And this is the clown that the poor recruiter has to satisfy if they expect to be paid.
Basically, most of these recruiters are just digging through online resumes on Monster, Indeed, the State database, or ancient resumes the agency has on file.
And so they end up calling victims such as myself.
And so begins the stupid and ugly dance of deception. You will get a
phone call -- probably to your cell phone while you are at work. It will
go like this:
"Are you currently looking for work?" is the first question. In the past, I explained that I'm currently employed but open to new and better opportunities. This is the wrong answer. What the recruiter really means is, "Are you unemployed and desperate for any work whatsoever?". Anything besides a clear and unequivocal "No" will be conveniently 'heard' as, "Yes, I'm desperate to find a new job. Please, please tell me that you have an opening".
"I want to tell you about a great opportunity" is the next step. Spoiler alert: no matter how shitty this company is, how low-paying the position, how unrealistic the expectations, it's a "great opportunity" to the recruiter. Basically, this phrase really means that the recruiter is fairly sure that the employer's paycheck won't bounce.
By remaining on the line, you are strongly implying that you are a desperate sucker ready to be taken advantage of. It doesn't matter what actual words you say. The recruiter will 'hear' something entirely different.
"This company is a leader in its field" means absolutely nothing. It's really the recruiter's way of informing you that they know nothing about the position. They may continue with some broad financial information -- "they have revenues of over $6 million", for example. Again, this means nothing in terms of the position. Presumably, it's supposed to imply that the company is stable. This doesn't mean that the position is stable, however. The mere fact that they hired a recruiter means that it isn't a "fly-by-night" outfit because the recruiting agency did sufficient research to assure themselves that the employer could come up with their fee.
So the recruiter has already wasted your time with meaningless garbage that tells you nothing about the job, the company culture, the opportunities for advancement, the wage, etc. The purpose of this meaningless garbage is to gauge your level of interest.
If you haven't hung up the phone by this point, the recruiter is feeling pretty good. They've found a "sucker" that just might make them some money. Worst case is that they'll be able to deliver a resume to prove their value to the customer -- which, again, is not you.
"Can you send me a copy of your current resume?" is the next step. This is a sure-fire clue that the recruiter has dug up an old resume on-line, justifying their fee by merely doing a Google search. You, as the victim in this little scheme, will be expected to do the remainder of their work for them. Should you not have an updated resume, you will provide the effort for this process to move forward. The worst case is the recruiter will now have yet another up-to-date resume in their files, making themself more valuable and allowing them to annoy you more effectively in the future with their "great opportunities".
Even more annoying is when you have provided multiple up-to-date resumes to this agency in the past. Either that information has been kept by the previous recruiters for their own uses, or the recruiter has not even bothered to check the agency's own files. Providing yet another copy is stupid. At a minimum, the recruiter is merely trying to determine how big of a sucker you are. Any updated information is highly likely to be used by the recruiter in their future attempt to wheedle you into spending time in an interview.
If you still haven't hung up the phone, ask them where their information shows you as working last. If it's very old, you're not dealing with a good recruiter and you should hang up. If it's up-to-date, then they are wasting your time and you are merely confirming their suspicion that you are desperate for work by sending them a duplicate. Either lie to them and promise to send them a new copy (but don't) or ask them to work with the information that they already have.
In future conversations, the recruiter will lie relentlessly. They will not reveal the name of the employer, and they will probably be very vague as to location. I've had recruiters give the location of the potential job as merely "the metro area", when the truth is that the job is in some far-flung suburb with a 40 minute commute each way. Whatever your desired wage, the recruiter is very likely to say that it's "in their range". This means nothing. When push comes to shove, the recruiter will coach the potential employer on how to lie: the employer will "start you out" at a lower wage until you've "proven yourself", or they will talk about the "great benefits" (which are, undoubtedly, merely average) or the chance to rise in the organisation (should you demonstrate that you are sufficiently gullible by taking a pay cut).
Just keep in mind that you are the one taking all of the risk. If the potential employer isn't confident enough in your ability to handle the job by looking at your resume or posing questions, then they are really just looking at you as a short-term solution until an even bigger sucker comes along. You will have left a steady job with higher pay for a terrible situation that will probably end up with you getting fired. Best of all, the recruiter would then have a truly desperate, highly-skilled sucker that they can shop around to even worse employers. There is no "downside" for the recruiter in this situation. If you manage to last 90 days, the recruiter will get a hefty fee and the agency will look good. And the recruiter will lie to and wheedle both you and the employer to ensure that you don't get fired within that time period.
Also keep in mind that, if the employer is calling a recruiter, the position has probably been vacant for at least six months. You will be walking into a nightmare. The recruiter will have told the employer that you are absolutely fantastic and are more than up to the challenge; they will tell you nothing about this. There's probably a very good reason that "word of mouth" has failed to find someone, after all. The average person is disinclined to lie to friends in order to get them into a crappy job -- even if there's a "bonus" involved.
The entire recruiter game is one big con. If the position really was a "great opportunity", there would be little trouble finding someone to fill it. In fact, by taking the position, you are actually just confirming the employer's unrealistic assessment of the labour market and their belief that there's a limitless supply of highly-skilled suckers out there. The employer will happily toss you aside at their convenience, because they now 'know' that the recruiter can easily line up another sucker at will.
Your best bet is to watch the online job listings. Send a few resumes out to good-sounding prospects. Be up-front and firm about your expected pay and benefits. Ask for details of the benefits. Every place will tell you that they have "great" benefits. "Company-paid medical" doesn't mean a damn thing. If you have vacation built up, tell the employer that you expect to walk in with that same amount of PTO. Refuse to take a pay cut. This is still "early innings" with the employer. Time is on your side. The pressure is on them to get someone hired. You are already employed, after all. If they are stubborn and hold out for a recruiter to find someone, you just dodged a bullet. If they realise that the labour market has changed in the 30 years since they hired their last guy, then they have your name and they can reach you when they decide to be reasonable.
Nothing about this requires a recruiter.
Saturday, June 03, 2017
Saturday, March 04, 2017
Trump's war with the media
It's hard for me to see how Trump's war with the media can possibly pay off.
The hard-core Republican base severed their ties with the media (and reality) long ago. There really isn't much more room for a boycott from these people to have any effect. And the media seems to be surviving just fine.
Most Trump voters didn't vote for him to take on the media. It was supposed to be about jobs -- and a host of ill-defined other issues such as turning back the clock to the 1950's social order. This is a tiresome diversion from his promised agenda for most of his supporters.
But more than that, taking on the media is a strategy much more suited for the underdog, not the Party in charge. Republicans now control everything. This idea of an oppressed minority of conservative whites fighting against an authoritarian government is no longer valid. The media casts no votes in the House or Senate. It has no seat on the Supreme Court.
What this comes down to is the weird weakness in all conservative 'solutions'; unanimous applause is always required.
What Trump seems to be demanding is the total elimination of all criticism. His denunciations are meaningless. If the media has as little credibility as he claims it does, he wouldn't need to declare it the "enemy of the people". It would simply be ignored.
It's interesting that conservative positions have so radically changed over the past decade or so. Under the Bush Administration, dissent was "tantamount to treason" - it was a major narrative of the 2004 RNC, in fact. "Shut up, that's why!", became the standard conservative retort on forums when the Iraqi occupation was questioned.
Then, under Obama, dissent became one's patriotic duty. It didn't matter if your dissent was based on reality or not, because the mere act of dissent was sacred. Again and again, conservatives and evangelicals wailed about being "silenced" by people simply disagreeing with them or failing to buy their wild assertions without question.
Now, it seems that we're moving back even further than where The Decider took it. Disagreeing with the Trump Administration is now seen as being dangerous; something that must be stopped for the good of the the country. Dissent is no longer sacred or even patriotic. People who dissent are dismissed as "brainwashed" or worse. Disagreeing with or criticising Trump now seems to mark one as a subhuman enemy beyond redemption or persuasion. It's exactly the mindset one would find in a dictatorship.
A significant fraction of Trump voters cast their ballots only reluctantly for him. Others thought that he "didn't really mean" the things that he said. If Trump's popularity falters, the unanimous applause disappears and he moves into Dubya territory. Trump's war on the media and against dissent is an existential battle.
If anything really defines the Republican political agenda it's "whatever pisses off the libs". In reality, Trump needs the media to convey the wailing and gnashing of teeth of "the libs" in reaction to his policies.
What he also needs is the equivalent of stormtroopers to physically beat, intimidate, and 'disappear' "the libs". It remains to be seen if the majority of Trump voters would support this, though.
It also seems likely that a new major war will be initiated under his Administration. Such military action would undoubtedly be ill-conceived, poorly planned, and weakly justified. The economic consequences would be disastrous. China would be unwilling to loan the vast sums needed to finance the action. Our allies are exhausted from the current conflicts. Conscription would not be unthinkable, and most are unwilling to sacrifice their offspring for Trump's ego -- much less trust them to a military that he commands.
In such a case, dissent would be dealt with harshly by a Trump Administration -- for as long as it could get away with it, of course. The internet has changed the media, and it's not nearly as simple to silence dissent as it was during the Nixon years.
The midterm elections will be a crucial test of how solid Trump's mandate is. The GOP usually does well in midterms, but the real test will be how closely the Party aligns itself with Trump. Trump remaining in "campaign mode" could have negative consequences for his support, especially if his supposed agenda is stalled or discredited.
The hard-core Republican base severed their ties with the media (and reality) long ago. There really isn't much more room for a boycott from these people to have any effect. And the media seems to be surviving just fine.
Most Trump voters didn't vote for him to take on the media. It was supposed to be about jobs -- and a host of ill-defined other issues such as turning back the clock to the 1950's social order. This is a tiresome diversion from his promised agenda for most of his supporters.
But more than that, taking on the media is a strategy much more suited for the underdog, not the Party in charge. Republicans now control everything. This idea of an oppressed minority of conservative whites fighting against an authoritarian government is no longer valid. The media casts no votes in the House or Senate. It has no seat on the Supreme Court.
What this comes down to is the weird weakness in all conservative 'solutions'; unanimous applause is always required.
What Trump seems to be demanding is the total elimination of all criticism. His denunciations are meaningless. If the media has as little credibility as he claims it does, he wouldn't need to declare it the "enemy of the people". It would simply be ignored.
It's interesting that conservative positions have so radically changed over the past decade or so. Under the Bush Administration, dissent was "tantamount to treason" - it was a major narrative of the 2004 RNC, in fact. "Shut up, that's why!", became the standard conservative retort on forums when the Iraqi occupation was questioned.
Then, under Obama, dissent became one's patriotic duty. It didn't matter if your dissent was based on reality or not, because the mere act of dissent was sacred. Again and again, conservatives and evangelicals wailed about being "silenced" by people simply disagreeing with them or failing to buy their wild assertions without question.
Now, it seems that we're moving back even further than where The Decider took it. Disagreeing with the Trump Administration is now seen as being dangerous; something that must be stopped for the good of the the country. Dissent is no longer sacred or even patriotic. People who dissent are dismissed as "brainwashed" or worse. Disagreeing with or criticising Trump now seems to mark one as a subhuman enemy beyond redemption or persuasion. It's exactly the mindset one would find in a dictatorship.
A significant fraction of Trump voters cast their ballots only reluctantly for him. Others thought that he "didn't really mean" the things that he said. If Trump's popularity falters, the unanimous applause disappears and he moves into Dubya territory. Trump's war on the media and against dissent is an existential battle.
If anything really defines the Republican political agenda it's "whatever pisses off the libs". In reality, Trump needs the media to convey the wailing and gnashing of teeth of "the libs" in reaction to his policies.
What he also needs is the equivalent of stormtroopers to physically beat, intimidate, and 'disappear' "the libs". It remains to be seen if the majority of Trump voters would support this, though.
It also seems likely that a new major war will be initiated under his Administration. Such military action would undoubtedly be ill-conceived, poorly planned, and weakly justified. The economic consequences would be disastrous. China would be unwilling to loan the vast sums needed to finance the action. Our allies are exhausted from the current conflicts. Conscription would not be unthinkable, and most are unwilling to sacrifice their offspring for Trump's ego -- much less trust them to a military that he commands.
In such a case, dissent would be dealt with harshly by a Trump Administration -- for as long as it could get away with it, of course. The internet has changed the media, and it's not nearly as simple to silence dissent as it was during the Nixon years.
The midterm elections will be a crucial test of how solid Trump's mandate is. The GOP usually does well in midterms, but the real test will be how closely the Party aligns itself with Trump. Trump remaining in "campaign mode" could have negative consequences for his support, especially if his supposed agenda is stalled or discredited.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
10/16 polling update
Rasmussen is still the outlier once again.The same pollster that showed Romney leading on Election Eve is now showing Trump leading by roughly the same margin. Oh, but those "undecideds" are this bogus pollster's excuse! If Clinton wins, it's because the undecideds broke for her.
Undecided voters almost always split relatively evenly, so this is a BS argument to make.
Once again, Rasmussen sees an electorate that is much more conservative than actual elections indicate.
Undecided voters almost always split relatively evenly, so this is a BS argument to make.
Once again, Rasmussen sees an electorate that is much more conservative than actual elections indicate.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Mexico is NOT paying for Trump's wall
Nearly $25 billion flows into Mexico every year from foreign countries. Trump falsely claims that this money is all from the U.S, and all from illegal aliens. It's a crucial part of Mexico's economy, and they have a strong incentive to have that continue.
This is like proposing a plan that bans all heroin dealers from buying a new car. If you already know someone is a heroin dealer, they'll be jailed and they won't need a new car. It's not going to induce people to stop dealing heroin.
But suppose that this plan were to work. Mexico pays for the wall. Illegal immigration is halted. Mexico loses all of these "remittances" anyway, because nobody is working illegally to send money back to Mexico. And, if illegal immigration isn't halted, then why build the wall? Even dumber, Trump promises to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. There goes the "remittances"!
There's no way that this would make any financial sense for Mexico, if Trump's plan worked flawlessly.
On a practical level, you can't stop all payments across the border. What about American retirees living in Mexico? What about American businesses operating in Mexico? What about someone's kid who gets robbed in Tijuana and needs plane fare home?
But money crosses borders even easier than drugs. This opens up a huge market for organised crime. We can pretty much assume that Mexico won't co-operate in the investigation of money transfers. An individual can carry up to $10k in cash across the border -- no questions asked. Put a "bank" on the Mexican side of the border and American citizens can walk the money across, where it is then distributed exactly as if it were a money order. Americans can set up phony "businesses" in Mexico and transfer money from their American "owners". American "tourists" can make "purchases" of nothing at all. All of this would be done for a cut of the money, in the same way that banks deal with legitimate money orders.
So now we're talking about employing an army of forensic accountants, plus expensive prosecutions and investigations. And the big pay-off would be swiping some poor person's meagre earnings. Mexico has nothing to lose either way. Major money laundering operations would be set up to facilitate money transfers. Bribes would be paid. These operations would soon encompass other illegal activities, and Mexico would have a strong incentive to look the other way.
Throughout all of this, Trump's Administration would spend enormous sums in order to coerce Mexico to pay only slightly more. And the U.S. would be forced to continue doing it, year after year. The wall wouldn't be paid for, so we'd have all of those expenses, too. And the tightening of money transfers would encourage more illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, law-abiding Americans and businesses would pay more for financial services and be subject to absurd scrutiny. I don't see this as being very popular.
In the memo, Trump said he would threaten to change a rule under the USA Patriot Act antiterrorism law to cut off a portion of the funds sent to Mexico through money transfers, commonly known as remittances. The threat would be withdrawn if Mexico made “a one-time payment of $5-10 billion” to pay for the border wall, he wrote.This is a really stupid idea, presented in an extremely simplistic way. Trump proposes to "impound all remittance payments from illegal wages". How do you do that? How do you determine which wages are illegal? If the government knew that someone was working here illegally, they would deport them. Not coincidentally, those "illegal wages" would no longer be earned, and Mexico would not get any further "remittances" anyway.
This is like proposing a plan that bans all heroin dealers from buying a new car. If you already know someone is a heroin dealer, they'll be jailed and they won't need a new car. It's not going to induce people to stop dealing heroin.
But suppose that this plan were to work. Mexico pays for the wall. Illegal immigration is halted. Mexico loses all of these "remittances" anyway, because nobody is working illegally to send money back to Mexico. And, if illegal immigration isn't halted, then why build the wall? Even dumber, Trump promises to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. There goes the "remittances"!
There's no way that this would make any financial sense for Mexico, if Trump's plan worked flawlessly.
On a practical level, you can't stop all payments across the border. What about American retirees living in Mexico? What about American businesses operating in Mexico? What about someone's kid who gets robbed in Tijuana and needs plane fare home?
To explain how he would have the standing to pursue his aggressive strategy, Trump begins by citing a provision in the Code of Federal Regulations that sets the standards for financial institutions in identifying their customers.Okay, so now we're talking about requiring anyone wanting to get a money order or wire transfer to show a passport. A Social Security card isn't good enough, because most illegal aliens have those (albeit falsified). How many documented citizens will be willing to take the risk for a cousin or other family member? Probably a lot. Others will do it for profit.
But money crosses borders even easier than drugs. This opens up a huge market for organised crime. We can pretty much assume that Mexico won't co-operate in the investigation of money transfers. An individual can carry up to $10k in cash across the border -- no questions asked. Put a "bank" on the Mexican side of the border and American citizens can walk the money across, where it is then distributed exactly as if it were a money order. Americans can set up phony "businesses" in Mexico and transfer money from their American "owners". American "tourists" can make "purchases" of nothing at all. All of this would be done for a cut of the money, in the same way that banks deal with legitimate money orders.
So now we're talking about employing an army of forensic accountants, plus expensive prosecutions and investigations. And the big pay-off would be swiping some poor person's meagre earnings. Mexico has nothing to lose either way. Major money laundering operations would be set up to facilitate money transfers. Bribes would be paid. These operations would soon encompass other illegal activities, and Mexico would have a strong incentive to look the other way.
Throughout all of this, Trump's Administration would spend enormous sums in order to coerce Mexico to pay only slightly more. And the U.S. would be forced to continue doing it, year after year. The wall wouldn't be paid for, so we'd have all of those expenses, too. And the tightening of money transfers would encourage more illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, law-abiding Americans and businesses would pay more for financial services and be subject to absurd scrutiny. I don't see this as being very popular.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Trump and the MNGOP
The Trump campaign has finally hired a campaign manager...in early August! Mike Lukach has stepped up to become the sacrificial lamb and future scapegoat for Trump's overwhelming loss here. Lukach isn't even from Minnesota. He's an itinerant campaign monkey that moves wherever the grift is good -- the perfect symbol of his chosen candidate.
The MNGOP has been surprisingly hesitant to embrace Trump. Usually, going "all in" on a strident loser would be something that the MNGOP would do in a heartbeat. Tom Emmer is the only elected Republican making a show of endorsing Trump. Emmer blew a tight race for Governor several years ago, and bankrupted the MN GOP with the recount costs. Now he holds the Sixth District, an R+6 gig that anyone besides Bachmann can hold cheaply and perpetually. Supporting Trump won't cost him in the Sixth, but it really limits his future hopes for U.S. Senate or Governor. Emmer, whether he likes it or not, will be tied to everything Trumpian in a state-wide election. I'm really hoping that Lukach can get Emmer on record with several juicy pro-Trump statements.
From the last election in 2014, and the current campaign, it's become painfully obvious that the MNGOP sees its future as the Party of rural MN. In 2014, the Party ran almost exclusively on an urban vs. rural rhetoric. They promised to de-fund the cities and spend vast amounts on roads in rural Minnesota. When all was said and done, they ended up with pretty much the same amount spent on rural roads as before their election. And the urban areas weren't de-funded, because about 60% of the State's voters live in the metro area.
This is just the latest incarnation of a MNGOP that seems to be constantly hitting the "reset' button and re-inventing itself.
Remember, in 2010 the MNGOP was all about evangelical causes and Tea Party craziness. Tim Pawlenty announced his support of crazy 10th Amendment 'solutions'. They put a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage. And it all collapsed.
Next, the MNGOP was all about "libertarian" causes. Never mind all of that "government pushing Christianity down your throat" stuff that they screamed two years earlier. Now, it was all about "liberty". As always, "liberty" to conservatives means, "Leave me the hell alone, and come down hard on that other guy that's different from me". Libertarian Kurt Bills lost in a landslide (65/31) to Democrat Amy Klobuchar in the 2012 election. I should note that PPP polled the race as 62/32 just before the election. Pretty damn close.
Then, in 2014, the Party hit the "reset" button again. Never mind all of that Libertarian nonsense. They never really believed that, anyway. They ran a faceless McFadden against Al Franken, with nothing other than "everybody hates Democrats, right?" as a reason to vote for McFadden. Franken won 53/43 -- not even close. McFadden was a businessman who had never held public office. The only "Tea Party" message in his campaign was an opposition to "Obamacare" - mentioned more as an afterthought than anything. Though McFadden cited God as his campaign manager, he pushed none of the evangelical agenda.
Every Republican was absolutely sure that McFadden would win. They had abandoned the craziness. They couldn't lose. Not a single poll showed McFadden winning, but that just proved that the polls were all biased. The local Fox affiliate ran an exit poll just after polls closed showing McFadden winning, and said it was "hardly surprising". Yet, he lost by ten points in the real world.
Pretty much nobody with brains thought that Dayton would lose re-election in 2014. There wasn't a single poll showing that -- even Rasmussen. Yet, virtually every Republican in Minnesota believed that Jeff Johnson would win, because Dayton was hated...by Republicans. Johnson ran an entirely "base-oriented" campaign. He lost 50/45. That rural base just isn't big enough.
That rural base was big enough to win the MNGOP a bare majority in the MN House: 72 seats out of 68 needed. This was based on promises that weren't kept once in office.
Minnesota's rural population has remained stagnant while the urban has grown. Three rural counties are actually losing population.
As you can see, the MNGOP's big bet on northern Minnesota is a big gamble. Five counties are predicted to lose population. The one growing county is growing because of urban people moving to it. The metro area is gaining population at 2-3 times the rate of most of out-state Minnesota. The Census in 2020 will prompt re-districting to move those blue rural voters into surrounding Districts.
Of course, by 2020, the MNGOP will have done yet another about-face. Whatever that make-over will look like, it's certain that they will claim that it's what they always stood for.
The MNGOP is trying desperately to lock out-state Minnesota into a hopeless conflict with urban Minnesota. And, when that fails, they will move on to greener pastures and leave rural Minnesota to fend for itself -- much as they did with the evangelicals, libertarians, and Tea Party supporters.
The rural MN vote isn't really based on economics or policy issues. It's about a deep fear of their 'way of life' changing. But the MNGOP can't prevent that, even if it were real. They can bolster resentment of the urban areas, but they can't stop urban growth and they can't lock the world into the 1950's forever.
The extent that Trump succeeds in rural Minnesota will be the extent that rural Minnesota becomes electorally irrelevant. Crazy blow-hards will reign in those districts, but lose in the Legislature. State-wide campaigns will ignore those voters as hopeless. Even the MNGOP won't try to appeal to Trump voters after this election. They're too small, too scattered, and too irrational to make the effort worthwhile.
I don't see rural Minnesota joining the "bubble" alternate reality that the Republicans exist in. Nobody wants to live their life perpetually furious and frightened. Being a Republican today, however, requires being "all in". There are no "edges".
The MNGOP has been surprisingly hesitant to embrace Trump. Usually, going "all in" on a strident loser would be something that the MNGOP would do in a heartbeat. Tom Emmer is the only elected Republican making a show of endorsing Trump. Emmer blew a tight race for Governor several years ago, and bankrupted the MN GOP with the recount costs. Now he holds the Sixth District, an R+6 gig that anyone besides Bachmann can hold cheaply and perpetually. Supporting Trump won't cost him in the Sixth, but it really limits his future hopes for U.S. Senate or Governor. Emmer, whether he likes it or not, will be tied to everything Trumpian in a state-wide election. I'm really hoping that Lukach can get Emmer on record with several juicy pro-Trump statements.
From the last election in 2014, and the current campaign, it's become painfully obvious that the MNGOP sees its future as the Party of rural MN. In 2014, the Party ran almost exclusively on an urban vs. rural rhetoric. They promised to de-fund the cities and spend vast amounts on roads in rural Minnesota. When all was said and done, they ended up with pretty much the same amount spent on rural roads as before their election. And the urban areas weren't de-funded, because about 60% of the State's voters live in the metro area.
This is just the latest incarnation of a MNGOP that seems to be constantly hitting the "reset' button and re-inventing itself.
Remember, in 2010 the MNGOP was all about evangelical causes and Tea Party craziness. Tim Pawlenty announced his support of crazy 10th Amendment 'solutions'. They put a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage. And it all collapsed.
Next, the MNGOP was all about "libertarian" causes. Never mind all of that "government pushing Christianity down your throat" stuff that they screamed two years earlier. Now, it was all about "liberty". As always, "liberty" to conservatives means, "Leave me the hell alone, and come down hard on that other guy that's different from me". Libertarian Kurt Bills lost in a landslide (65/31) to Democrat Amy Klobuchar in the 2012 election. I should note that PPP polled the race as 62/32 just before the election. Pretty damn close.
Then, in 2014, the Party hit the "reset" button again. Never mind all of that Libertarian nonsense. They never really believed that, anyway. They ran a faceless McFadden against Al Franken, with nothing other than "everybody hates Democrats, right?" as a reason to vote for McFadden. Franken won 53/43 -- not even close. McFadden was a businessman who had never held public office. The only "Tea Party" message in his campaign was an opposition to "Obamacare" - mentioned more as an afterthought than anything. Though McFadden cited God as his campaign manager, he pushed none of the evangelical agenda.
Every Republican was absolutely sure that McFadden would win. They had abandoned the craziness. They couldn't lose. Not a single poll showed McFadden winning, but that just proved that the polls were all biased. The local Fox affiliate ran an exit poll just after polls closed showing McFadden winning, and said it was "hardly surprising". Yet, he lost by ten points in the real world.
Pretty much nobody with brains thought that Dayton would lose re-election in 2014. There wasn't a single poll showing that -- even Rasmussen. Yet, virtually every Republican in Minnesota believed that Jeff Johnson would win, because Dayton was hated...by Republicans. Johnson ran an entirely "base-oriented" campaign. He lost 50/45. That rural base just isn't big enough.
That rural base was big enough to win the MNGOP a bare majority in the MN House: 72 seats out of 68 needed. This was based on promises that weren't kept once in office.
Minnesota's rural population has remained stagnant while the urban has grown. Three rural counties are actually losing population.
As you can see, the MNGOP's big bet on northern Minnesota is a big gamble. Five counties are predicted to lose population. The one growing county is growing because of urban people moving to it. The metro area is gaining population at 2-3 times the rate of most of out-state Minnesota. The Census in 2020 will prompt re-districting to move those blue rural voters into surrounding Districts.
Of course, by 2020, the MNGOP will have done yet another about-face. Whatever that make-over will look like, it's certain that they will claim that it's what they always stood for.
The MNGOP is trying desperately to lock out-state Minnesota into a hopeless conflict with urban Minnesota. And, when that fails, they will move on to greener pastures and leave rural Minnesota to fend for itself -- much as they did with the evangelicals, libertarians, and Tea Party supporters.
The rural MN vote isn't really based on economics or policy issues. It's about a deep fear of their 'way of life' changing. But the MNGOP can't prevent that, even if it were real. They can bolster resentment of the urban areas, but they can't stop urban growth and they can't lock the world into the 1950's forever.
The extent that Trump succeeds in rural Minnesota will be the extent that rural Minnesota becomes electorally irrelevant. Crazy blow-hards will reign in those districts, but lose in the Legislature. State-wide campaigns will ignore those voters as hopeless. Even the MNGOP won't try to appeal to Trump voters after this election. They're too small, too scattered, and too irrational to make the effort worthwhile.
I don't see rural Minnesota joining the "bubble" alternate reality that the Republicans exist in. Nobody wants to live their life perpetually furious and frightened. Being a Republican today, however, requires being "all in". There are no "edges".
Saturday, July 02, 2016
PPP national poll shows GOP weakness in age demos
The latest PPP national poll is out.
While it shows Clinton "only" four points ahead, we should bear in mind that Obama beat Romney by "only" four points.
From the summary (emphasis added):
As for the 10% of Democrats supporting Trump, that doesn't mean much. First, PPP showed 13% of Democrats supporting Romney on the eve of the 2012 election, and 13% also in October. So Trump's 10% of Democrats is actually worse than Romney's losing share. Second, this was supposed to be Trump's big edge -- his appeal to "Reagan Democrats".
Clinton leading with independents is important, because Romney lead independents by by five points in October 2012 -- and still lost.
As far as the stupid "oversampling" (a/k/a "unskew") argument, the D/R/I of this latest national poll was 39/34/27. Current polling shows:
That's a current D/R/I of 38/35/25. So no "oversampling" of Democrats.
But what's more interesting in the bigger picture is the age demographics.
On the generic ballot, it's clear that senior citizens are the Republican Party's key age demo.
This isn't a "head-to-head" (h2h) between candidates. This is a hypothetical preference for President assuming ideal candidates. In other words, it's a best-case scenario for Republicans. I should note that PPP showed seniors breaking 52/45 in Romney's favour on the eve of the election. Senior citizens were the exact same proportion of the sample in both polls: 20%.
This means that the GOP gets 10.6% of the electorate (.20 * .53) by winning seniors with a 15-point advantage. It might also be important to note that PPP ended up with a 50/47 result in Obama's favour on Election Eve. The actual result was 51/47. So, pretty accurate.
As you can see from the age breakdown on the current generic ballot, all other age groups either break evenly or go to the Democrats. The average life expectancy is around 82. A whole lot of this demographic won't make it to 2020, and they'll be replaced by voters who aren't nearly as favourable to the GOP. The age demo will still favour Republicans, but the GOP can't afford to lose any voters -- much less their key demographic. If only 47% of seniors favour the GOP, that will bring their share of the electorate down to 9.4%. A Party that is losing national elections by four points can't afford to lose nearly an entire point and still hope to win.
Some attrition will also take place in the 46-65 age group, as well. This split demo will be diluted by voters favouring the Democrats by six points. I wouldn't expect any kind of dramatic shift over four years, but the split in the 45-65 group will probably be slightly in favour of the Democrats.
You also have to consider the influence that these older voters have on the younger voters, especially in 'red' states. Without these seniors snarling and bellowing at their adult children about the evil Democrats, the impact of right-wing propaganda will lessen. The culture war talking points that the GOP uses to animate much of their base will fall on increasingly disinterested ears.
All of this assumes, of course, that the GOP will continue on their same course. There isn't much hope of that course changing. The Party "establishment" has been thoroughly discredited in the primary, and will undoubtedly be blamed by the Republican base for Trump's loss -- just as they were blamed for Romney's loss. With the Party organisation no longer having credibility, all of the Republican 'bench' having firmly tied themselves to the current course, and the base firmly entrenched in a bubble reality alternating between fear and outrage, where will any new course originate from?
We've seen a remarkable polarisation in the electorate. Most of the Republican base now lives in a different reality than the rest of nation, and this reality is built on conspiracy theories and 'facts' that are no longer reconcilable as "differences of opinion". You are either "in" or you are "out", and there aren't any new people getting "in". There is no effort made to persuade outsiders to join this bubble reality. Anyone who isn't already "in" is presumed to be evil or stupid, or both. This base simultaneously crows arrogantly that they are the majority and whimpers that they are also an oppressed minority. It's more like a tribal identification or religious indoctrination than it is a coherent political movement. Fads and heroes are embraced and soon forgotten, with no memory that they were ever embraced in the first place. Abandoned talking points are picked up years later and shouted anew as fervently as if they were never abandoned at all.
Over all of this is a strange desire to return to the past -- a past that is hazily misremembered and cast in black and white. More or less, this past is the 1950's -- nearly sixty years ago. It's little wonder that senior citizens are the key demographic of the Party, with this in mind. It's not only a time of strictly-enforced conformity (giving the lie to the "liberty" narrative), but also a time when minorities had very little in the way of rights or dignity. Oddly, it's also a time when labour unions were strong, but that part is left out of the hazy picture.
Nobody under the age of 50 remembers this period with glowing fondness, mostly because they weren't alive back then. For these voters, it was a time of racial segregation. It was a time when you couldn't be an individual, but were tightly locked in someone else's vision of how to dress, speak, behave, and which opinions to hold. It was time when gays lived in quiet desperation, terrified of losing their jobs, being brutally beaten, and despised by all if their terrible secret ever got out. It was a time of few career options for women, and all of them were low-paid occupations. You could beat your wife (or most women, for that matter) with impunity. You could beat, cheat, or insult any minority without consequence. Basically, if you weren't a white male, it was an "anything goes" situation. There was no shortage of craven cretins eagerly willing to enforce this social order with their fists, their economic power, or with ropes and guns in other cases. And good luck if you weren't a Christian.
If this sounds like a "tough sale" to voters, it is. Were a sufficient number of Republicans to actually think the consequences through, most would reject a return to this social order. Instead, they know it can never happen so it becomes an aspirational goal and an element of tribal identification. In this purpose, it can only produce frustration and disenchantment with those that they elect, because they can never possibly deliver a return to the Golden Age.
The Republican Party has engineered a disastrous long-term situation for itself in order to achieve a short-term gain. And that short-term gain has instead become little more than a holding action. It virtually guarantees that elected Republican office-holders will have a short political life, because they can't enact the crazy brand of change that their base so strongly desires. It creates a revolving door of crazy, and even more crazy, candidates making bigger and bigger promises while failing miserably to get results. It burns through the 'bench' of electable options and leaves the Party with only clowns to run. And so we see the current desire for "outsider" candidates on the Right, whose lack of appeal outside of the Party base in seen as a major asset.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, a candidate simply has to be "not crazy". This sets a low bar, and leads to disillusionment and frustration with a perceived "lack of progress" in that Party's base. The fervent Republican hope is that their "holding action" can put enough stress on the Democratic Party that it will begin to splinter and put forward unelectable candidates in its own right. But the age demographics, inherent instability, and gaping schisms within the Right don't give the GOP sufficient time for this strategy to play out. The Democratic Party is well-accustomed to coalition politics, while the Republican Party is not. It chafes at the compromises made as a coalition, and has lost its vaunted "unified messaging". It's very identity has become lost and subsumed into little more than an "anti-Democrat" Party with no real principles of its own.
It's a political game of "chicken" that the GOP can't win, nor can it afford to lose. When the string is played out, the Republican Party will be left in a shambles. The Democrats will have free reign to shape the narrative. And most Republicans will 'forget' that ever believed any of the stuff that they now hold to be Sacred Truth. But the nation will have squandered a decade in a generational tantrum.
While it shows Clinton "only" four points ahead, we should bear in mind that Obama beat Romney by "only" four points.
From the summary (emphasis added):
I'm unsure how many supposed "Sanders supporters" are even really Democrats to begin with. It's become apparent over the course of the primary that a lot of "independents" (i.e. Republican-leaning voters) comprise the Sanders camp. These are voters that hate Trump because he's not a 'real' Republican, and hate Clinton because 'real' Republicans are required to hate all Clintons by definition. Winning over half seems possible, though.The race is shaping up pretty much as you would expect along demographic lines. Clinton leads 51/36 with women, 82/13 with Hispanics, 91/5 with African Americans, and 57/28 with young voters. Trump leads 48/37 with men, 51/32 with whites, and 51/36 with seniors.Clinton has a 39/35 advantage with independents. Trump's actually getting more crossover support with 10% of Democrats to Clinton's 7% of Republicans. That's partially because of some Bernie Sanders fans continuing to hold out from giving their support to Clinton- among Democrats and independents with a favorable opinion of Sanders 79% are voting for Clinton to 7% for Trump, 3% for Stein, and 2% for Johnson with 9% remaining undecided. If Clinton could even win over just half of those folks her support would go up to 49% and give her an 8 point lead.
As for the 10% of Democrats supporting Trump, that doesn't mean much. First, PPP showed 13% of Democrats supporting Romney on the eve of the 2012 election, and 13% also in October. So Trump's 10% of Democrats is actually worse than Romney's losing share. Second, this was supposed to be Trump's big edge -- his appeal to "Reagan Democrats".
Clinton leading with independents is important, because Romney lead independents by by five points in October 2012 -- and still lost.
As far as the stupid "oversampling" (a/k/a "unskew") argument, the D/R/I of this latest national poll was 39/34/27. Current polling shows:
That's a current D/R/I of 38/35/25. So no "oversampling" of Democrats.
But what's more interesting in the bigger picture is the age demographics.
On the generic ballot, it's clear that senior citizens are the Republican Party's key age demo.
This isn't a "head-to-head" (h2h) between candidates. This is a hypothetical preference for President assuming ideal candidates. In other words, it's a best-case scenario for Republicans. I should note that PPP showed seniors breaking 52/45 in Romney's favour on the eve of the election. Senior citizens were the exact same proportion of the sample in both polls: 20%.
This means that the GOP gets 10.6% of the electorate (.20 * .53) by winning seniors with a 15-point advantage. It might also be important to note that PPP ended up with a 50/47 result in Obama's favour on Election Eve. The actual result was 51/47. So, pretty accurate.
As you can see from the age breakdown on the current generic ballot, all other age groups either break evenly or go to the Democrats. The average life expectancy is around 82. A whole lot of this demographic won't make it to 2020, and they'll be replaced by voters who aren't nearly as favourable to the GOP. The age demo will still favour Republicans, but the GOP can't afford to lose any voters -- much less their key demographic. If only 47% of seniors favour the GOP, that will bring their share of the electorate down to 9.4%. A Party that is losing national elections by four points can't afford to lose nearly an entire point and still hope to win.
Some attrition will also take place in the 46-65 age group, as well. This split demo will be diluted by voters favouring the Democrats by six points. I wouldn't expect any kind of dramatic shift over four years, but the split in the 45-65 group will probably be slightly in favour of the Democrats.
You also have to consider the influence that these older voters have on the younger voters, especially in 'red' states. Without these seniors snarling and bellowing at their adult children about the evil Democrats, the impact of right-wing propaganda will lessen. The culture war talking points that the GOP uses to animate much of their base will fall on increasingly disinterested ears.
All of this assumes, of course, that the GOP will continue on their same course. There isn't much hope of that course changing. The Party "establishment" has been thoroughly discredited in the primary, and will undoubtedly be blamed by the Republican base for Trump's loss -- just as they were blamed for Romney's loss. With the Party organisation no longer having credibility, all of the Republican 'bench' having firmly tied themselves to the current course, and the base firmly entrenched in a bubble reality alternating between fear and outrage, where will any new course originate from?
We've seen a remarkable polarisation in the electorate. Most of the Republican base now lives in a different reality than the rest of nation, and this reality is built on conspiracy theories and 'facts' that are no longer reconcilable as "differences of opinion". You are either "in" or you are "out", and there aren't any new people getting "in". There is no effort made to persuade outsiders to join this bubble reality. Anyone who isn't already "in" is presumed to be evil or stupid, or both. This base simultaneously crows arrogantly that they are the majority and whimpers that they are also an oppressed minority. It's more like a tribal identification or religious indoctrination than it is a coherent political movement. Fads and heroes are embraced and soon forgotten, with no memory that they were ever embraced in the first place. Abandoned talking points are picked up years later and shouted anew as fervently as if they were never abandoned at all.
Over all of this is a strange desire to return to the past -- a past that is hazily misremembered and cast in black and white. More or less, this past is the 1950's -- nearly sixty years ago. It's little wonder that senior citizens are the key demographic of the Party, with this in mind. It's not only a time of strictly-enforced conformity (giving the lie to the "liberty" narrative), but also a time when minorities had very little in the way of rights or dignity. Oddly, it's also a time when labour unions were strong, but that part is left out of the hazy picture.
Nobody under the age of 50 remembers this period with glowing fondness, mostly because they weren't alive back then. For these voters, it was a time of racial segregation. It was a time when you couldn't be an individual, but were tightly locked in someone else's vision of how to dress, speak, behave, and which opinions to hold. It was time when gays lived in quiet desperation, terrified of losing their jobs, being brutally beaten, and despised by all if their terrible secret ever got out. It was a time of few career options for women, and all of them were low-paid occupations. You could beat your wife (or most women, for that matter) with impunity. You could beat, cheat, or insult any minority without consequence. Basically, if you weren't a white male, it was an "anything goes" situation. There was no shortage of craven cretins eagerly willing to enforce this social order with their fists, their economic power, or with ropes and guns in other cases. And good luck if you weren't a Christian.
If this sounds like a "tough sale" to voters, it is. Were a sufficient number of Republicans to actually think the consequences through, most would reject a return to this social order. Instead, they know it can never happen so it becomes an aspirational goal and an element of tribal identification. In this purpose, it can only produce frustration and disenchantment with those that they elect, because they can never possibly deliver a return to the Golden Age.
The Republican Party has engineered a disastrous long-term situation for itself in order to achieve a short-term gain. And that short-term gain has instead become little more than a holding action. It virtually guarantees that elected Republican office-holders will have a short political life, because they can't enact the crazy brand of change that their base so strongly desires. It creates a revolving door of crazy, and even more crazy, candidates making bigger and bigger promises while failing miserably to get results. It burns through the 'bench' of electable options and leaves the Party with only clowns to run. And so we see the current desire for "outsider" candidates on the Right, whose lack of appeal outside of the Party base in seen as a major asset.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, a candidate simply has to be "not crazy". This sets a low bar, and leads to disillusionment and frustration with a perceived "lack of progress" in that Party's base. The fervent Republican hope is that their "holding action" can put enough stress on the Democratic Party that it will begin to splinter and put forward unelectable candidates in its own right. But the age demographics, inherent instability, and gaping schisms within the Right don't give the GOP sufficient time for this strategy to play out. The Democratic Party is well-accustomed to coalition politics, while the Republican Party is not. It chafes at the compromises made as a coalition, and has lost its vaunted "unified messaging". It's very identity has become lost and subsumed into little more than an "anti-Democrat" Party with no real principles of its own.
It's a political game of "chicken" that the GOP can't win, nor can it afford to lose. When the string is played out, the Republican Party will be left in a shambles. The Democrats will have free reign to shape the narrative. And most Republicans will 'forget' that ever believed any of the stuff that they now hold to be Sacred Truth. But the nation will have squandered a decade in a generational tantrum.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Welcome to 2016
I'm back at this blog for the 2016 election!
Once again, we see the usual delusions from the Right and the same worn-out narratives that were floated in the 2012 election.
The Trump campaign is being run as a Republican primary effort. Once again, we see the Republican candidate basically just talking to Republicans, rather than swing voters. This entire "Crooked Hillary" tag is ridiculous. Anyone that buys it is already voting for Trump. Likewise, Benghazi/email server/Clinton Foundation have already been out for over a year. If you haven't been persuaded by these by now, it's highly unlikely that hearing Trump talk about it more will change your mind.
We saw the same thing in the 2008 election, when Ayers/Wright/Rezko were flogged endlessly and seen by Republicans as some kind of magic words that convert people to their side. 2012 saw the magic words "You didn't build that!" paraded as the key to victory, when anyone that wasn't already voting for Romney just shrugged.
Republicans do this because they are under a few fundamental delusions:
As long as I'm at it, I'll point out the ludicrous conservative fascination with square miles, rather than electoral votes. Oooh, look! Big old Montana went red! And tiny little Vermont went blue. They have the same number of electoral votes, genius! Huge North Dakota counts less than tiny little Hawaii. Wyoming counts less than New Hampshire. New Jersey counts as much as South Carolina and Alaska combined. Rhode island counts the same as Idaho. It's about the population of the state, not the size! I'll take Delaware and Connecticut (10 EV) over Nebraska (5 EV) any day.
Right now, things aren't looking good for Trump. He's already had his "rally" from becoming the presumptive nominee -- and he's still behind. Must-win states for Trump are tossups (e.g. NC and FL). And Hillary hasn't had her "rally" from wrapping up the nomination yet. Even conservative pollsters like Rasmussen are currently showing Trump losing by five points -- and Obama beat Romney by four. Solid red states like UT and GA will probably only be narrowly won by Trump -- within five points. Trump is still thinking that he can win MN and NY!
It's just going to get harder for Republicans, too. 2020 will have even worse demographics. It's also a Census year, meaning that those gerrymandered House districts will get re-shuffled.
Republicans hit the 'reset' button after their 2008 loss. No fair bringing up Bush, because they had changed! But they've become so heavily invested in this current course - doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down -- that it will be extremely difficult to hit 'reset' again and re-define themselves. And the Party organisation that would lead that effort is nearly comatose and powerless over the base. Not to mention that this primary campaign has discredited pretty much their entire bench of 2020 potentials.
As far as policy goes, there's nothing there on the Republican side except vague and unrealistic aspirations. Mostly, the GOP exists as little more than an "anti-Democrat" party now. Whatever "the libs" are in favour of becomes the new definition of conservative policy. Beyond that, it's just a basic desire to turn back to the clock to a time that they mis-remember. And those times mean nothing to those born after them.
As the oldest of the conservatives die off or become vegetative, their influence over the younger generation will rapidly fade. 2020 will be the "last hurrah" for the current incarnation of the conservative movement. They will still control states, but never again be within striking distance of the White House. The "pendulum" only swings because the losers change to attract new voters, but this incarnation refuses to change and the pendulum will refuse to swing.
Once again, we see the usual delusions from the Right and the same worn-out narratives that were floated in the 2012 election.
The Trump campaign is being run as a Republican primary effort. Once again, we see the Republican candidate basically just talking to Republicans, rather than swing voters. This entire "Crooked Hillary" tag is ridiculous. Anyone that buys it is already voting for Trump. Likewise, Benghazi/email server/Clinton Foundation have already been out for over a year. If you haven't been persuaded by these by now, it's highly unlikely that hearing Trump talk about it more will change your mind.
We saw the same thing in the 2008 election, when Ayers/Wright/Rezko were flogged endlessly and seen by Republicans as some kind of magic words that convert people to their side. 2012 saw the magic words "You didn't build that!" paraded as the key to victory, when anyone that wasn't already voting for Romney just shrugged.
Republicans do this because they are under a few fundamental delusions:
- They believe their base is much larger than it really is. This is due to a fixation with the 1980 electorate, and the mistaken belief that the electorate is static and written in stone. Reagan's core demographic was seniors, and those people are dead thirty-some years later. Those "Reagan Democrats" became Republicans long ago. You can't count them twice. And the percentage of whites voting has gone up, while their share of the electorate has gone down. There really aren't large numbers of non-voting whites for Republicans to draw, and it seems dubious that the majority of them would vote Republican if they were drawn in to vote.
- They believe that they have strong credibility. Think back to all of the prophesies of doom in 2008 that every conservative firmly believed, and bellowed to anyone with ears. Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim usurper, who was going to throw conservatives and Christians in FEMA death camps. Guns would be confiscated. We'd be forced to bow to Mecca at gunpoint. Treason!!! AmeriCorps would become Obama's thug police force. He would be a dictator. He would change the flag. And so forth and so on. There was the whole birth certificate issue, and death panels, and persecution of Christians. Everything that happened was a "false flag". Ebola was going to wipe us out, and Obama was going to see to it. He was simultaneously a dictator and an incompetent, a warmonger and an appeaser. He would raise your taxes, and his tax cuts were dangerous. He was a "crony capitalist", and a wild-eyed socialist. He was uncompromising, and his compromises 'proved' that he was weak. The list goes on and on. Jade Helm. Net Neutrality. Gay Marriage. Benghazi. None of these things panned out, and conservatives promptly 'forgot' the last outrage when they moved on the next. For anyone outside of the conservative bubble, it was just a lot of crazy noise from people you had learned not to take seriously. So they just turn up the volume.
- They believe that they are the default choice. Again and again, we see Republicans believing that everyone wants to vote for them. All they have to do is 'prove' that the Democrat is flawed, and people will vote for whatever sorry bozo they nominate. They scream that the Democrat is 'hated', and they lose to the guy that's hated. They never see that they are hated even more. They screamed that Obama is 'dangerous'. They never figured out that the electorate is more afraid of them running the show. Now they are slated to lose to a 'corrupt', unpopular woman. And they still think that they are loved.
- They believe that, if they truly believe, they can change reality. This is "magical thinking", and it's at the core of movement conservatism. Again and again, we see conservatives assert their desired outcomes as certainties, simply because they desire those outcomes. Any facts that throw cold water on these beliefs are dismissed as "biased" or "corrupt". Only the True Believers are free of bias and corruption -- in their own minds, anyway -- so they are the only ones with access to the "facts". The entire "unskew!" narrative, which was thoroughly proven wrong in the 2012 election, is now being presented as something completely new. The same idea that there are legions of untapped white voters for the taking is once again seen as an obvious fact by the Right. They won't just win; it will be a landslide for Trump. When they lose, they will conveniently 'forget' that they ever believed any of these things, and fill those gaps with faddish new delusions that are sure to work out for the best.
As long as I'm at it, I'll point out the ludicrous conservative fascination with square miles, rather than electoral votes. Oooh, look! Big old Montana went red! And tiny little Vermont went blue. They have the same number of electoral votes, genius! Huge North Dakota counts less than tiny little Hawaii. Wyoming counts less than New Hampshire. New Jersey counts as much as South Carolina and Alaska combined. Rhode island counts the same as Idaho. It's about the population of the state, not the size! I'll take Delaware and Connecticut (10 EV) over Nebraska (5 EV) any day.
Right now, things aren't looking good for Trump. He's already had his "rally" from becoming the presumptive nominee -- and he's still behind. Must-win states for Trump are tossups (e.g. NC and FL). And Hillary hasn't had her "rally" from wrapping up the nomination yet. Even conservative pollsters like Rasmussen are currently showing Trump losing by five points -- and Obama beat Romney by four. Solid red states like UT and GA will probably only be narrowly won by Trump -- within five points. Trump is still thinking that he can win MN and NY!
It's just going to get harder for Republicans, too. 2020 will have even worse demographics. It's also a Census year, meaning that those gerrymandered House districts will get re-shuffled.
Republicans hit the 'reset' button after their 2008 loss. No fair bringing up Bush, because they had changed! But they've become so heavily invested in this current course - doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down -- that it will be extremely difficult to hit 'reset' again and re-define themselves. And the Party organisation that would lead that effort is nearly comatose and powerless over the base. Not to mention that this primary campaign has discredited pretty much their entire bench of 2020 potentials.
As far as policy goes, there's nothing there on the Republican side except vague and unrealistic aspirations. Mostly, the GOP exists as little more than an "anti-Democrat" party now. Whatever "the libs" are in favour of becomes the new definition of conservative policy. Beyond that, it's just a basic desire to turn back to the clock to a time that they mis-remember. And those times mean nothing to those born after them.
As the oldest of the conservatives die off or become vegetative, their influence over the younger generation will rapidly fade. 2020 will be the "last hurrah" for the current incarnation of the conservative movement. They will still control states, but never again be within striking distance of the White House. The "pendulum" only swings because the losers change to attract new voters, but this incarnation refuses to change and the pendulum will refuse to swing.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Benghazi
rob delaney (@robdelaney) tweeted at 0:34 AM on Sat, May 18, 2013: This is hilarious. RT @TeaPartyCat: http://t.co/j2L5drxXF7 (https://twitter.com/robdelaney/status/335629450463023105) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download
Saturday, November 03, 2012
Rasmussen revealed
This is Rasmussen's Polling chart for 2012.
As you can see, it showed Romney ahead from April onward.
Interesting that Rasmussen makes you pay to see these results.
This is PPP's chart for 2012.
As you can see it showed Obama ahead.
Right now, it's 11/3/12.
If Obama wins, Rasmussen can claim that he was within the MoE (margin of error), and thus "accurate".
If Romney wins, obviously Rasmussen can claim "accuracy".
Note: the links below will probably not function after the election, or will require payment.
Since Rasmussen will charge you to see this after the election, let's look at Rasmussen's latest Ohio results:
Now realise that Rasmussen's MoE on these State polls is +/- 4%.
Even if Obama wins these States, Rasmussen will still be able to claim "accuracy", even though he predicted a Romney win in two of these three. Scotty does not even have to pick the correct winner to be considered "accurate".
Let's look at Rasmussen's chart for Florida:
As you can see, Rasmussen showed Romney leading in every poll that he did of the State. That's pretty different than showing one poll where it could go for Obama and still be within the MoE.
And now, let's look at Rasmussen's chart for Colorado:
Romney is ahead and steadily gaining since July. Wow, it sure looks as if Romney couldn't lose, doesn't it?
Now for Ohio. Let's see Rasmussen's view of the race:
Obama was ahead all year, except up to the very end when Romney pulled ahead. Weird, right? But Scotty's still within the MoE, isn't he? No harm in giving Republicans a little hope, when you can still claim accuracy even if Romney loses.
Let's see how "accurate" Rasmussen really is after the election. It should be fun to hear him spin, but he will probably hide all of this information shown on his own site, or require payment.
As you can see, it showed Romney ahead from April onward.
Interesting that Rasmussen makes you pay to see these results.
This is PPP's chart for 2012.
As you can see it showed Obama ahead.
Right now, it's 11/3/12.
If Obama wins, Rasmussen can claim that he was within the MoE (margin of error), and thus "accurate".
If Romney wins, obviously Rasmussen can claim "accuracy".
Note: the links below will probably not function after the election, or will require payment.
Since Rasmussen will charge you to see this after the election, let's look at Rasmussen's latest Ohio results:
Let's also look at Rasmussen's latest Colorado survey:Friday, November 02, 2012With four days to go, President Obama and Mitt Romney are tied in the critical battleground state of Ohio.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Ohio Voters finds Obama and Romney each with 49% support. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, while one percent (1%) is undecided.
And Florida, which Scotty hasn't polled since 10/26. Latest results:Thursday, November 01, 2012Mitt Romney still holds a narrow lead in Colorado.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Colorado Voters shows Romney still holding 50% support, while President Obama earns 47% of the vote. Two percent (2%) favor some other candidate, and one percent (1%) is undecided.
Friday, October 26, 2012Mitt Romney still earns 50% of the vote in the key battleground state of Florida, but his lead is smaller.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Sunshine State finds Romney with 50% of the vote to President Obama's 48%. One percent (1%) is undecided.
Now realise that Rasmussen's MoE on these State polls is +/- 4%.
Even if Obama wins these States, Rasmussen will still be able to claim "accuracy", even though he predicted a Romney win in two of these three. Scotty does not even have to pick the correct winner to be considered "accurate".
Let's look at Rasmussen's chart for Florida:
As you can see, Rasmussen showed Romney leading in every poll that he did of the State. That's pretty different than showing one poll where it could go for Obama and still be within the MoE.
And now, let's look at Rasmussen's chart for Colorado:
Romney is ahead and steadily gaining since July. Wow, it sure looks as if Romney couldn't lose, doesn't it?
Now for Ohio. Let's see Rasmussen's view of the race:
Obama was ahead all year, except up to the very end when Romney pulled ahead. Weird, right? But Scotty's still within the MoE, isn't he? No harm in giving Republicans a little hope, when you can still claim accuracy even if Romney loses.
Let's see how "accurate" Rasmussen really is after the election. It should be fun to hear him spin, but he will probably hide all of this information shown on his own site, or require payment.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
PPP: Obama leads by 7 in OH
Ohio is another crucial swing state, worth 18 electoral votes (EV) out of the required 270 EV. Polling this year has shown Obama with varying leads, with the exception of a February Fox News poll showing Romney leading by six points. Even Rasmussen gave Obama a four-point lead in April (46/42). HuffPo averages out the polling to show Obama with a five-point lead (47/42), making it a State that "leans Obama". The President won Ohio 51/47 in 2008.
The latest poll from PPP for OH (875 RV, ±3.3% MoE, 5/3 - 5/6) gives Obama a seven-point lead (50/43).
Let's look at the ideological breakdown of the sample to dispel notions of bias:
PPP's Tom Jensen sums up the phenomenon that has allowed Obama to assume this lead:
Even worse than Romney's "favourables" are those for Ron Paul:
We are now well past "Rosen-gate", where Ann Romney was supposed to have won over female voters and erased the gender gap by playing the victim card. It hasn't worked. Jensen notes:
Conservatives, as one would expect, are Romney's biggest supporters. Those who describe themselves as "somewhat conservative" break overwhelmingly for Romney in a match-up 67/25 (9% undecided). Unfortunately for Romney, 67% of the 22% of the electorate that describe themselves as "somewhat conservative" is only 14.7%. He gains less than 15% from this overwhelming margin toward his 43% support. And only 59% of this demographic has a favourable opinion of Romney, which leaves him with eight points of soft support among those "somewhat conservative" voters.
For those describing themselves as "very conservative", the situation is much the same. Romney wins them by an even larger margin (79/15, 5% undecided). However, this only nets him another 15% of the electorate. Out of his 43 points of support, nearly 30 points (69%) of his support is from conservatives. The price of this is losing moderates steeply to Obama. And only 65% of those "very conservative" voters have a favourable opinion of Romney. That leaves a considerable 14% of soft support with this demographic.
Let's look at Obama's soft support. Among moderates, 58% have a favourable opinion of him -- two points more than break for him. Actually, with these subgroups, these small margins are meaningless. Among women, 53% are favourable (negligible two points soft support). Among white voters, 44% have a favourable opinion, leaving three points of soft support. Obama's senior supporters are solid at 47% favourable, compared with his 45% share of the demographic. Independent voters break for him at 43%, while 41% approve. Even the 25% of "somewhat conservative" voters breaking for Obama show 23% favourable opinions of him. He shows five points of soft support among "somewhat liberal" voters, but he's solid with "very liberal" voters (for what their 9% of the electorate is worth).
With Obama's support being so firm, it's unlikely that negative attacks will be effective against him. Romney, however, is vulnerable to depressed enthusiasm among his base -- especially among the "very conservative" voters showing considerable soft support for him.
Even worse, Romney's team has shown no ability to make Romney himself look better. Instead, they have concentrated on trying to make Obama look bad.
The latest poll from PPP for OH (875 RV, ±3.3% MoE, 5/3 - 5/6) gives Obama a seven-point lead (50/43).
Let's look at the ideological breakdown of the sample to dispel notions of bias:
Q13 Would you describe yourself as very liberal,So, that's 41% conservative, 27% liberal.
somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat
conservative, or very conservative?
Very liberal ...................................................... 9%
Somewhat liberal ............................................ 18%
Moderate......................................................... 31%
Somewhat conservative.................................. 22%
Very conservative ........................................... 19%
PPP's Tom Jensen sums up the phenomenon that has allowed Obama to assume this lead:
Ohio voters don't love Obama. They're evenly split with 48% approving and 48% disapproving of him, although that is an improvement from the negative numbers he's posted during most of his time in office. Obama's lead in the state may be driven more by the fact that Ohioans just don't much care for Mitt Romney. 37% have a favorable opinion of him to 53% with a negative one. That includes a 33/59 spread with independents. Romney's performance in Ohio in the primary wasn't terribly impressive and his issues seem to be extending to the general election.We see this frequently in state polling. It's not so much that Obama is immensely popular, but rather that Romney is just not well-liked at all. This also means that significant margins of key demographics for Romney show soft support -- a greater percentage of a particular demographic saying that they will vote for him than the percentage that has a favourable opinion of him. Voters exhibiting soft support are less likely to turn out, volunteer, donate, or "talk up" their candidate, though they don't usually flip to the opposing candidate.
Even worse than Romney's "favourables" are those for Ron Paul:
Q2 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinionPaul loses to Obama in a match-up 48/40. He loses women to Obama in the match-up by 24 points, splits white voters (45/43 O+2), loses voters 45 and under by at least 15 points, and loses moderates by nearly 30 points. He has all of Romney's weaknesses with key demographics, but he holds a higher percentage of undecided voters in most of them than Romney does.
of Ron Paul?
Favorable........................................................ 26%
Unfavorable .................................................... 51%
Not sure .......................................................... 23%
We are now well past "Rosen-gate", where Ann Romney was supposed to have won over female voters and erased the gender gap by playing the victim card. It hasn't worked. Jensen notes:
The GOP's struggles with women and young voters really show themselves in Ohio. Obama's up 55-36 with women and has a 62-30 advantage with those under 30. If you extend the definition of 'young' voters to those under 45 Obama still holds a massive advantage at 56-35. Romney's winning seniors 49-45 but he needs a much bigger lead than that to make up for his weakness with young people.Seniors are a reliable Republican demographic, and they are only breaking for Romney by four points. Men break for Romney by six points (50/44, 7% undecided), which isn't strong. It hardly begins to counter the nineteen-point lead Obama has with women. Moderates, as we've seen in so many States, break strongly for Obama. Apparently they don't believe that Obama is some kind of radical Marxist. In Ohio, Obama wins moderates 56/31 (13% undecided) in a match-up against Romney. The moderates that do support Romney show five points of soft support.
Conservatives, as one would expect, are Romney's biggest supporters. Those who describe themselves as "somewhat conservative" break overwhelmingly for Romney in a match-up 67/25 (9% undecided). Unfortunately for Romney, 67% of the 22% of the electorate that describe themselves as "somewhat conservative" is only 14.7%. He gains less than 15% from this overwhelming margin toward his 43% support. And only 59% of this demographic has a favourable opinion of Romney, which leaves him with eight points of soft support among those "somewhat conservative" voters.
For those describing themselves as "very conservative", the situation is much the same. Romney wins them by an even larger margin (79/15, 5% undecided). However, this only nets him another 15% of the electorate. Out of his 43 points of support, nearly 30 points (69%) of his support is from conservatives. The price of this is losing moderates steeply to Obama. And only 65% of those "very conservative" voters have a favourable opinion of Romney. That leaves a considerable 14% of soft support with this demographic.
Let's look at Obama's soft support. Among moderates, 58% have a favourable opinion of him -- two points more than break for him. Actually, with these subgroups, these small margins are meaningless. Among women, 53% are favourable (negligible two points soft support). Among white voters, 44% have a favourable opinion, leaving three points of soft support. Obama's senior supporters are solid at 47% favourable, compared with his 45% share of the demographic. Independent voters break for him at 43%, while 41% approve. Even the 25% of "somewhat conservative" voters breaking for Obama show 23% favourable opinions of him. He shows five points of soft support among "somewhat liberal" voters, but he's solid with "very liberal" voters (for what their 9% of the electorate is worth).
With Obama's support being so firm, it's unlikely that negative attacks will be effective against him. Romney, however, is vulnerable to depressed enthusiasm among his base -- especially among the "very conservative" voters showing considerable soft support for him.
Even worse, Romney's team has shown no ability to make Romney himself look better. Instead, they have concentrated on trying to make Obama look bad.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
PPP: Obama leads VA by 8
Virginia is a crucial swing state, and one that Romney supporters continue to assert the Republicans will win. Actually, they assert this because there is no realistic path to 270 EV for Romney if he loses VA's 13 EV. Rasmussen, of course, found VA as a virtual tie, but this was mostly a propaganda piece to support the narrative that Romney is seeing dramatic improvement after winning the nomination. It should be interesting to see how Rasmussen walks this back as we get close to the election, since he gave Obama a nine-point lead one month earlier. For Obama, winning VA opens up several different paths to 270 EV, and it would be very difficult for Romney to block all of them.
PPP's latest survey of Virginia (680 RV, ±3.8% MoE, 4/26 - 4/29) shows Obama ahead 51/43.
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling notes:
Obama's approval rating in Virginia is 50% with 46% of voters disapproving of him. This marks just the 3rd time in our polling of the state since he took office that Obama's hit 50% on that front. Meanwhile Romney continues to be pretty unpopular with only 38% of voters rating him favorably while 52% hold a negative opinion.
Remember, this is weeks after Santorum dropped out. The poll was in the field while Gingrich virtually dropped out. Romney is the nominee, for all intents and purposes. We've been told of the impending surge (or "rally") for Romney once his primary opponents were defeated. It hasn't really materialised. In fact, undecided Republicans are only 2.2% of the electorate in VA. How do you overcome an eight-point lead by picking up 2.2% of the electorate? Magical thinking, that's how. Why is Romney still so unpopular if Republicans are "rallying" to him?
This isn't some one-time phenomenon. Obama has showed a lead in VA of four points or more since 11/10:
Romney has held steady in the low 40's, while Obama has been moving into a slender majority. And this has happened during a bad economy with the GOP mercilessly attacking him. Yet, Republicans think that mercilessly attacking Obama, combined with a bad economy, will win the State for them. How? Magical thinking, that's how.
Tom Jensen again:
Obama's winning 57-33 with voters under 30, which is not unusual. But he's also up 56-37 with voters between 30 and 45 which suggests the GOP has a problem in Virginia not just with the very young but also with the somewhat young. That generational gap speaks to the days of Virginia as a solid red state in Presidential elections probably being over.
How about Ron Paul?
Q6 If the candidates for President this year were
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron
Paul, who would you vote for?
Barack Obama................................................ 50%
Ron Paul ......................................................... 39%
Undecided....................................................... 11%
Ron Paul even loses those who voted for McCain in 2008 by 36/46 to Obama. He loses moderates 61/24 to the President. He loses women 55/35 in a match-up. He loses all age groups from anywhere from 7 to 13 points. Yeah, he's the one to save the day.
In a match-up with Romney, Obama's worst case is a split with voters over 45. He splits Independent voters 44/46 (R +2), and wins women voters 55/38. Male voters aren't particularly strong for Romney, either. He splits them 47/48 (R +1), which is not a good way to overcome a gender gap. Obama also strongly wins over moderates in a match-up 62/28. Moderates were 31% of the sample, meaning that Obama gets 19.2% of the VA electorate here alone.
Comparatively, Romney wins "somewhat conservative" voters (24% of the sample) very strongly in a match-up - 19/73. That accounts for 17.5% of the VA electorate. And "very conservative" voters (17% of the sample) break a bit more strongly for Romney - 13/82. But that's only about 14% of the VA electorate. So winning conservatives gets Romney 31.5% of the electorate, which is the bulk of his support. He really can't squeeze much more out of the conservative base. Undecided "very conservative" voters are less than 1% of the electorate (0.7%) in VA, and undecided "somewhat conservative" voters are only about 2% of the electorate. Even if Romney won over every single undecided moderate, that would only yield 3.1% of the vote. Add it up: 5.8% potential gain if Romney won every single undecided moderate, somewhat conservative, and very conservative voter.
Even with this very unrealistic scenario, Obama would still narrowly win.
With no strong advantage with any age group, either gender, Independent voters, or race, Romney is left with his base. He wins only a slim majority of white voters (51/42) for a mere nine-point lead in this crucial Republican base demographic. His "favourables" with white voters are 44/46, which means he already has 7% of white voters breaking for him who don't really like him. That's soft support.
Obama's favourables with white voters are 41/55, which means that all of Obama's white supporters have a favourable opinion of him. That's strong support, even though it's less than Romney's. Take away that 7% of Romney's white supporters who don't like him, and Obama virtually breaks even with the demographic.
Even though Ann Romney thinks that she scored big over Rosen-gate, Romney's favourables with both genders are underwater. Women in VA see Romney unfavourably (35/44), as do men (42/50). That means that 6% of men break for Romney, although they don't like him.
This poll changes the average in HuffPo's electoral map to a narrow +3 lead for Obama in VA. If Rasmussen's results are removed from the average, Obama would show a 4.4% lead.
If Obama holds all of the States that lean for him (WI, MI, OH, PA, and VA), he wins the election with 282 EV. He could lose every single "toss up" State, and still win. Even in those "toss up" States, Obama has shown leads in most of them in PPP's surveys. For example, PPP polled Obama with a five-point lead in FL (29 EV) less than three weeks ago. And PPP polled CO (9 EV) with 13 point Obama lead less than a month ago.
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