Russia Likely Did Swing Votes For Donald Trump

[_Some Schmo]

To be clear, (in my opinion):

Hillary was a terrible candidate with baggage.

AND

There were other factors outside her control that contributed to her loss. There had to be, because the person she was running against is abhorrent.

[_Kishkumen]

Kevin, I am really uninterested in your flailing about to look for some argument or insult to stir up the pot. Your responses to my post aren't even coherent. By all means blame America for Hillary being a loser.

Schmo seems to get my point. Listen to Schmo.

[_EAllusion]

People will do the responsible thing if they're motivated.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights ... nt-prevent

Some 1.3 million Alabamians – more than twice as many who voted in the primary – turned out to vote in Tuesday’s special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The article goes on to explain how black Alabamians are being purportedly suppressed or whatever. The point is, if they're motivated they'll vote and Clinton just didn't do it for them. I'm not sure if Sanders would've either, but the disparity between the Black vote and everyone else is pretty noticeable.

That's on the Democrats to figure out how to overcome. Maybe they should've ran another black person. I don't know.

- Doc

The way suppression works is to make it harder for people likely to vote Democrat to vote so that people of wavering motivation or ability do not do so. Think about likelihood of voting on a continuum where convenience affects where people fall on that continuum. The goal of voter suppression efforts (requiring forms of ID Democrats have harder time getting, making voting lines longer in Democrat heavy districts, canceling early voting on days Democrats have drives to the polls, etc.) is to simply pick off people on the lower end of the continuum. Do it effectively enough, and you can move an election a few %. Given that lots of elections are decided within that margin, you can transform narrow losses into narrow victories and slight victories into big victories. That way you shrink the likelihood of Republicans losing any given election. If you want another analogy, think of it like starting a basketball game where one team is spotted 4 points at the start. Is it possible to overcome that? Sure. Is it an enduring advantage in when the average margin of victory is around 7 points? You bet.

Alabama is a good case in point here. Democrats eeked out a victory because they were in a national Democrat wave environment while running against a candidate that was credibly found out to be a child molester in the middle of the campaign. And they eeked it out. What that should tell you is that a Democrat ordinarily doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning a typical election and this is the rare exception that proves the rule. It doesn't matter how good the candidate Democrats run is. Democrats are at a massive disadvantage and need extremely good fortune to pull out an election.

Yes, insofar as this exists Democrats have to overcome it if they want to win. That seems trite to say though. Of course they do. In the context of trying to figure out what happened in an election, noting that some of these suppression efforts had teeth in 2016 when they weren't installed in 2012 seems like a relevant thing to discuss. If you are trying to win in the future, talking about how to undo suppression efforts seems like a valid thing to discuss too.

[_EAllusion]

Um, yes? When someone gets three million more votes and loses, that's an unreliable system. When a vote in South Dakota counts four times as much as a vote in California, that's an unreliable and unfair system.

And do we really need to discuss how the GOP gerrymanders control of Congress?

Gee, it's essentially the same system that Obama won twice with. Are you suggesting that we went from a system that could elect Obama to Third World nightmare politics in four years of Obama's presidency?

Really?

Were you complaining like this when Obama won? Talking about how broken and unjust the electoral college was?

Clinton wasn't running against George W. Bush's legacy in the middle of the worst economic panic since the great Depression. Clinton probably wins the 2008 general by as much as Obama and maybe even more depending on how much being black hurt him. I think you are significantly short-shrifting the different election environments they ran in. Just because it is possible to win against headwinds doesn't mean there aren't headwinds. It's possible that in a good year for generic Democrats, candidates will rise above, but in neutral or bad years, it's enough to sink them. More is needed than to simply declare candidates who won good and ones who lost bad. There's a lot of luck involved in this.

Further, Republican gerrymandering took effect after the 2010 census after Democrats were eviscerated by Republicans in the 2010 midterm election. This gerrymandering explains why Democrats lost the House by a lot despite getting more votes in 2012 and why they were crushed in 2014 and 2016 while only losing by a small margin. Most of this happened on Obama's watch and the one election where it didn't when Obama was at the top of the party was before Republican gerrymandering took effect.

Likewise, the voter suppression efforts Kevin refers to didn't exist in 2008 and were barely in effect in 2012. Saying that Obama beat them so Clinton should have too doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

The electoral college is a mild disadvantage for Democrats that they have to overcome. And yes, you can find me talking about that on this board back when the conventional wisdom was that Democrats enjoyed an electoral college advantage in the form of a "blue wall." There are several posts where I do my best to deflate that myth and argue to the contrary that there is, in fact, a red-wall that Democrats have to overcome.

[_Kevin Graham]

Kevin, I am really uninterested in your flailing about to look for some argument or insult to stir up the pot. Your responses to my post aren't even coherent. By all means blame America for Hillary being a loser.

Schmo seems to get my point. Listen to Schmo.

Is that what you got from my comments? All I did was point out what should have already been obvious to anyone who had paid any amount of attention during the election cycle.

You seem to be trapped in this anti-Hillary time warp for some reason trying to blame her for being a victim of circumstances beyond her control. The argument is Hillary was a "terrible" candidate simply because she lost the electoral college, but wouldn't you still be saying this even if she had won?

[_Jesse Jackson Jr]

That's on the Democrats to figure out how to overcome. Maybe they should've ran another black person. I don't know.

Will you help kick off my campaign for 2020? We'll let your racist views on the Travon Martin case slide. We need more people who understand that there's no room for white leaders in the Democratic party.

Sincerly,

JJJ

[_Kevin Graham]

**Kinda what Kevin Graham just said, but with far more eloquence**

Have you ever thought about giving lessons on internet communication? I really have no idea why, but after 20 years of online posting I guess something is just wrong with the way I come across to people. Because you can say the same exact thing I want to say but you can do so without coming across like you're picking a fight.

I swear I'm not trying to, Kish. I'm just trying to make the same point EA just did, and figured we could just agree to disagree. No reason to take it beyond that.

[_Kishkumen]

Is that what you got from my comments? All I did was point out what should have already been obvious to anyone who had paid any amount of attention during the election cycle.

You seem to be trapped in this anti-Hillary time warp for some reason trying to blame her for being a victim of circumstances beyond her control. The argument is Hillary was a "terrible" candidate simply because she lost the electoral college, but wouldn't you still be saying this even if she had won?

Insults and contra-factuals. Of course! If I think Hillary was a poor candidate, it can only because I have an irrational hatred for her. By all means show how rational you are by ignoring the fact that I VOTED FOR HER and have said, many times, that she would have made a GOOD or at least DECENT President. Ignore the fact that I have said many times that she was eminently qualified and highly competent.

No, I must say what I say about her being a poor campaigner because I hate her. It can’t be at all reasonable to conclude such a thing when she lost to the worst opponent in American history.

Really, Kevin, you ought to stop with disagreement. Because when you go on to level ridiculous insults at the people you argue with, I guarantee you that the other person is not the one who looks worse for it.

[_Kishkumen]

Clinton wasn't running against George W. Bush's legacy in the middle of the worst economic panic since the great Depression. Clinton probably wins the 2008 general by as much as Obama and maybe even more depending on how much being black hurt him. I think you are significantly short-shrifting the different election environments they ran in. Just because it is possible to win against headwinds doesn't mean there aren't headwinds. It's possible that in a good year for generic Democrats, candidates will rise above, but in neutral or bad years, it's enough to sink them. More is needed than to simply declare candidates who won good and ones who lost bad. There's a lot of luck involved in this.

Further, Republican gerrymandering took effect after the 2010 census after Democrats were eviscerated by Republicans in the 2010 midterm election. This gerrymandering explains why Democrats lost the House by a lot despite getting more votes in 2012 and why they were crushed in 2014 and 2016 while only losing by a small margin. Most of this happened on Obama's watch and the one election where it didn't when Obama was at the top of the party was before Republican gerrymandering took effect.

Likewise, the voter suppression efforts Kevin refers to didn't exist in 2008 and were barely in effect in 2012. Saying that Obama beat them so Clinton should have too doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

The electoral college is a mild disadvantage for Democrats that they have to overcome. And yes, you can find me talking about that on this board back when the conventional wisdom was that Democrats enjoyed an electoral college advantage in the form of a "blue wall." There are several posts where I do my best to deflate that myth and argue to the contrary that there is, in fact, a red-wall that Democrats have to overcome.

Yeah, we’ve been down this road before EA. You know how to peddle this line of argument a lot better than Kevin, but outcomes speak louder than “what-ifs.” We know Clinton’s liabilities. We know they were used against her with substantive impact, and we know she lost. If you see Putin pulling off an Elizabeth Warren email scandal, or Trump’s sexual assault given a pass because Warren’s husband perjured himself as President and Warren blamed the victim, then I will happily concede that we can identify voter suppression as THE decisive factor. Obama didn’t seem to think so. In fact, he commented on Clinton’s failure to campaign in person in her weak areas (unlike he did). But what the hell does he know? He only defeated two much stronger GOP candidates by much wider margins. One of them in 2012.

[_EAllusion]

Yeah, we’ve been down this road before EA. You know how to peddle this line of argument a lot better than Kevin, but outcomes speak louder than “what-ifs.” We know Clinton’s liabilities. We know they were used against her with substantive impact, and we know she lost. If you see Putin pulling off an Elizabeth Warren email scandal, or Trump’s sexual assault given a pass because Warren’s husband perjured himself as President and Warren blamed the victim, then I will happily concede that we can identify voter suppression as THE decisive factor. Obama didn’t seem to think so. In fact, he commented on Clinton’s failure to campaign in person in her weak areas (unlike he did). But what the hell does he know? He only defeated two much stronger GOP candidates by much wider margins. One of them in 2012.

Clinton campaigned a ton in PA and lost PA. She needed PA to win. This renders the "should've made more physical stops in WI" argument moot. That being said, research published on this suggests that physically showing up to a state to campaign in it moves the needle for presidential candidates approximately not at all. It's meaningless symbolism. It's such a iffy reason to lay Clinton's defeat at. If you are looking for faults in how she ran her campaign, there are fatter targets. A lot of Clinton advertising focused on Trump personally being unfit for office. But anyone paying attention to coverage of Trump already knew about his questionable fitness. He does the work for you on that front. Clinton's team probably didn't need to hammer it home anymore than what already was out there. Instead, her team should've taken that argument as a given and focused all their messaging might on issues where polling favored them in an effort to move the national conversation there. Oh well.

I don't think there is any "thee decisive factor." Elections outcomes are the result of a multiplicity of causes with each by themselves having potentially smallish impacts. When an outcome is close, and the 2016 outcome was razor thin, then a very large number of factors have the potential to be decisive.

I remember the weather being cold, overcast, and filled with light rain on 2016 where I was. Maybe that cost Clinton Wisconsin. I don't know. It's possible given published research on the magnitude of impact of weather on election outcomes.

I don't think you have to look to the future and hypotheticals with Warren. We have an example in the recent past. John Kerry was a strong candidate who almost certainly overperformed the fundamentals of his election a little. One of his great strengths was that he was a war hero, which cut right into the heart of George W. Bush's waving the bloody flag strategy. And yet, the man was swiftboated. His strength was turned into an albatross. It's quite possible that if he wasn't swiftboated, he wins the election. Does this mean he was actually weak? I don't think so. That was a generic R's election to win and Kerry just barely lost it. It just means that the right-wing attack machine is really formidable and something about every Democratic candidate can be manufactured into a major issue. Lying isn't hard to do.

Obama won in '08, yes, but Obama was set up with the most gimme election Democrats had for them since 1964. He then ran in 2012 with modestly favorable conditions and won a modest victory. I don't know how you can overlook factors like this. This isn't to say that Democrats are up a creek. Republicans have their own problems to work through too. But I do think you are making a mistake in equating final outcomes with strength of candidate. Clinton was hosed by a lot of factors outside of her control that I think any objective observer should regard as unfair. It's really hard to know to what extent Clinton, and Clinton alone, was susceptible to them.

To the issue of Russian hacking, it is notable that the leaked emails mostly just showed a remarkably buttoned up organization. I was genuinely surprised by how little was there given how much of a blood sport politics is. It was necessary to manufacture controversies out of that by either misleading about their contents or taking small issues likely to be present in any political campaign and magnifying focus on them to create division. Since we know Russia also hacked the RNC, and we know that if Russia can hack Clinton associates, Russia can hack Bernie or some other Democrat too. Would Russia be as brazen in their attempt to do so if they weren't trying to defeat a hawk like Clinton? Is getting world-class clown Trump in office victory enough? Would the media be so ravenous with their coverage if it were some other Democrat? Maybe. It's hard to run the counterfactual. But it is entirely possible that there is some alternate universe where presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is having to answer charges about some red-baiting pseudo-scandal regarding hacked emails that plays right into the unending media controversy over his questionable past associations with communists.