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  #529  
Old November 10th, 2016, 12:46 PM
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Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 View Post
I mean, I still believe low Clinton turnout is the most important factor. Just based on the reaction in the country, I think more people would have wanted Clinton, if you polled every single person. But Trump energized his smaller base, and Clinton took hers for granted. Clinton drastically underperformed in total votes relative to Obama, and Trump did about the same relative to McCain and Romney.
It's ultimately kind of meaningless to decide that X or Y is the most important factor, but I agree with most of this. Clinton failed to generate the same enthusiasm that Obama did, and if she had it would have been enough.

(As an aside, the national reaction now, with the big protests in the street, mostly just annoys me. If you are energized enough to take to the streets in defeat, it would have been a hell of a lot more productive to use that energy knocking on some doors a week ago. Get over yourself, people.)

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 View Post
While the other factors of late undecideds swinging Trump certainly gave Trump the win, the biggest takeaway should be that the Democratic strategy did not work. They didn't have a message, they didn't have an inspiring candidate (even though she could have been the first female president, which is a pretty inspiring thing!)
My only issue here is that I don't think this constituted a strategy, except in the sense that it was a default strategy. If another version of 2008 Obama had run this year, he would have probably won the primaries just like Obama did, and he wins the election. But that candidate didn't run this year.

Instead the major challenger was Sanders, and despite the insistence of many on the left that Sanders would have won against Trump, I don't think this is anything within hailing distance of a sure thing. It would have been a VERY different campaign fought over VERY different terrain, but a lot of self-styled moderates would have had a hard time filling in the bubble for an avowed socialist.

I would argue Sanders was worse odds than Hillary a priori, and picking Hillary over him was basically a rational decision. (I actually thought O'Malley was the safest choice of the candidates that were available but he never got traction once Sanders siezed the "not Hillary" mantle. I suppose Jim Webb would have been a good direct counter to Trump, but he would have been exceptionally bad at turning out the base and was never a remotely realistic option to win a Democratic primary.)

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 View Post
and they were too confident that the other side would self-destruct. It never should have come down to undecideds, and it never should have come down to the final news cycle. They made safe choices (like, as you mentioned, Kaine) because they thought they could. Even if you want to argue that Clinton could have won this election with the strategy she took, she wouldn't have won it decisively.
I agree they were too conservative in some of their choices. However, they were also somewhat bizarrely aggressive in others. They were running ads in Arizona, Texas, and Georgia. To be blunt, these are states where the Democrat only wins in a landslide, in which case the result doesn't matter anyway. Moreover, there weren't close Senate races there where a coattails effect might have been relevant. This was just a misallocation of resources.

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Originally Posted by vegietarian18 View Post
Personally, I'm going to look at the actual outcome, to see that my personal feelings of disconnect with the Democratic party are shared by many others. I really hope that they learn from this, and have honest primaries and an honest message in the future.
I don't think they failed in either of those ways. The stories of the primaries being "rigged" are hilariously overblown. Hillary was always going to win because Sanders never got any traction with African American voters. Yes, the folks at the DNC disliked Sanders, but this is because they saw Hillary as the inevitable nominee (correct), and thought he was weakening her for the general election (arguable). The extremely minor ways they favored Hillary in the choices they made (debates, et al) were not remotely decisive.

As far as the general election campaign message, I don't think there was anything dishonest about their message. Strategically, you can question the decision to emphasize character issues so much over policy, at least in their advertising. But all the policy proposals were out there, and Clinton talked about them frequently on the stump. She probably should have run more explicitly for Obama's third term, but again, that's a strategic issue.

Last edited by dok; November 10th, 2016 at 01:23 PM.
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  #530  
Old November 10th, 2016, 06:12 PM
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Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by dok View Post
But anyway, I basically agree with the points you're making but I'm unsure if you're making them as a counterpoint to what I've said or as an additional explanation. As I said to vegie, all of these things can be simultaneously true. Trump appealed to a certain slice of the electorate in a unique way, and that was critical to his victory. But this does not change the fact that his critical wins in WI/MI/PA were very close, and the decisions of late breaking undecideds was critical in all three. And it seems fairly clear that those late undecideds were influenced by the news cycle of the last two weeks of the campaign, which was unambiguously anti-Clinton.

If the news cycle of the last 10 days is more about Trump, or just neutral, then the break of undecideds is less extreme, and that probably makes the ~1% difference that swings all three of those states.
I'm just trying to show that this analysis would be incredibly complex and subject to bias. I'm sure that Comey's announcement wasn't something the Clinton campaign wanted, but I thought it was largely if not completely eliminated by the announcement the Sunday before the election. I tried to look at polls to see if I could see the impact, but this isn't a reproducible scientific experiment. There's too much noise. At the end of the day, I don't know if Comey's letter to congress changed the election.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...nton-5491.html

As you and Veg said, while Trump energized blue collar white voters, Clinton wasn't able to energize college educated voters and minority voters the same way that Obama did. I suspect that there's more to this than just another investigation by the FBI, but I don't think there's a way to prove it either way.

At the end of the day, we have a new president. I can only hope and pray that he shows more intelligence and judgment as president than he showed as a candidate.
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  #531  
Old November 10th, 2016, 06:21 PM
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Talking Re: Decision 2016

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich10 View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by dok View Post
But anyway, I basically agree with the points you're making but I'm unsure if you're making them as a counterpoint to what I've said or as an additional explanation. As I said to vegie, all of these things can be simultaneously true. Trump appealed to a certain slice of the electorate in a unique way, and that was critical to his victory. But this does not change the fact that his critical wins in WI/MI/PA were very close, and the decisions of late breaking undecideds was critical in all three. And it seems fairly clear that those late undecideds were influenced by the news cycle of the last two weeks of the campaign, which was unambiguously anti-Clinton.

If the news cycle of the last 10 days is more about Trump, or just neutral, then the break of undecideds is less extreme, and that probably makes the ~1% difference that swings all three of those states.
I'm just trying to show that this analysis would be incredibly complex and subject to bias. I'm sure that Comey's announcement wasn't something the Clinton campaign wanted, but I thought it was largely if not completely eliminated by the announcement the Sunday before the election. I tried to look at polls to see if I could see the impact, but this isn't a reproducible scientific experiment. There's too much noise. At the end of the day, I don't know if Comey's letter to congress changed the election.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...nton-5491.html

As you and Veg said, while Trump energized blue collar white voters, Clinton wasn't able to energize college educated voters and minority voters the same way that Obama did. I suspect that there's more to this than just another investigation by the FBI, but I don't think there's a way to prove it either way.

At the end of the day, we have a new president. I can only hope and pray that he shows more intelligence and judgment as president than he showed as a candidate.
Let us pray... that he does do some of the things that would truly make America Greater(it was OK) but lets just hope he doesn't do too bad for a promoted oompa loompa (Thanks Soundwarp now I can't stop calling him that)

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  #532  
Old November 10th, 2016, 06:39 PM
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Re: Decision 2016

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich10 View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by dok View Post
But anyway, I basically agree with the points you're making but I'm unsure if you're making them as a counterpoint to what I've said or as an additional explanation. As I said to vegie, all of these things can be simultaneously true. Trump appealed to a certain slice of the electorate in a unique way, and that was critical to his victory. But this does not change the fact that his critical wins in WI/MI/PA were very close, and the decisions of late breaking undecideds was critical in all three. And it seems fairly clear that those late undecideds were influenced by the news cycle of the last two weeks of the campaign, which was unambiguously anti-Clinton.

If the news cycle of the last 10 days is more about Trump, or just neutral, then the break of undecideds is less extreme, and that probably makes the ~1% difference that swings all three of those states.
I'm just trying to show that this analysis would be incredibly complex and subject to bias.
Perhaps, but I don't see how anything you're mentioning makes it moreso. All the things you brought up were important, obviously, but all of them were an explanation for how we got to that point in the election. They are, largely, independent of the question of how those who were still sitting on the fence given all of that would decide in the final two weeks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich10 View Post
I'm sure that Comey's announcement wasn't something the Clinton campaign wanted, but I thought it was largely if not completely eliminated by the announcement the Sunday before the election. I tried to look at polls to see if I could see the impact, but this isn't a reproducible scientific experiment. There's too much noise. At the end of the day, I don't know if Comey's letter to congress changed the election.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...nton-5491.html
Well, you're right that it's not a reproducible experiment, but in the absence of that, the trendlines you reference there could hardly be a more clear indicator of what I am arguing.
  • Before the announcement by Comey about the new batch of e-mails, Clinton was up by 4.6 points. This is right around where the race had been since the second debate. Polls had been between Clinton +4.6 and Clinton +6.7, with small variations but not any real pattern, for three weeks in a row.
  • Over the next 8 days, until Comey announced that there would be no new charges, the lead shrunk to 1.5 points. This was the fastest movement of the polls in the post-convention period, faster even than the movement after the Access Hollywood tapes were released. Also note that essentially all of that gain came from undecideds falling into the Trump camp, not from a drop in Clinton's numbers.
  • Over the next two days (just two days!) after that before the election, Clinton clawed back about half of those gains, to get to a 3.2 in the final poilling average. But this is still more than a full point below where she was before the news broke.
Yeah, not a repeatable experiment, and we can't know for sure, yadda yadda. But the data pretty literally could not support this narrative more strongly.

(Fun side note: the overall polling error in this election, relative the final result, will probably end up being roughly the same, and maybe a little smaller, than 2012. Yes, the 2012 where most pundits went 50 for 50 predicting who would win where, instead of 45/50 like this year.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich10 View Post
As you and Veg said, while Trump energized blue collar white voters, Clinton wasn't able to energize college educated voters and minority voters the same way that Obama did. I suspect that there's more to this than just another investigation by the FBI, but I don't think there's a way to prove it either way.
I'm not sure why you'd imply that saying the FBI story was important means I don't think that those other things were important. I've repeatedly acknowledged that they were. The election was close enough that lots of different things were all critical factors in explaining the final result.
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  #533  
Old November 10th, 2016, 11:10 PM
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Re: Decision 2016

My first time posting in this forum, but I'd concur that low voter turnout contributed SIGNIFICANTLY to Hillary's loss and high voter turnout sealed Trump's win (pardon the reddit link - the data source is good):

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeaut..._vote_turnout/

http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/eligib...tered-results/

Whether this was due to hubris (most polls showed Clinton leading) or a less inspiring candidate (though you could argue that Democrats were due for a let-down after Obama, whoever it was) is pure speculation. There are arguments for both.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of American politics is that 43.2% of eligible voters did NOT vote. This has been (and most likely will continue) an aspect of American politics that consistently get ignored.

I know a lot of Clinton supporters (myself included, though I considered her the lesser of two evils) are upset and terrified right now. I hope the words from my favorite intellectual and astrophysicists, Neil deGrasse Tyson can provide some solace:

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  #534  
Old November 11th, 2016, 12:25 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

That is a wonderful video, Jet. Thanks for sharing. Here's another one from Colbert, who I think is great:

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  #535  
Old November 11th, 2016, 01:02 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

Yes Colbert, how did our politics get so poisonous?



(I used to really like Colbert, back when Bush was president and in the early years of Obama. Not so much a fan now, for things like this.)
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  #536  
Old November 11th, 2016, 01:17 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

A good bit of perspective on drawing broad conclusions from the result.

There's plenty of truth to many of the "why Trump won" analyses, but at the same time, there's also some truth to all the things people would be saying if the returns had come in very slightly differently.
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  #537  
Old November 11th, 2016, 01:59 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

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Clinton failed to generate the same enthusiasm that Obama did, and if she had it would have been enough.
The election failed to generate enthusiasm, and that shows in the numbers.

Over 90 million eligible voters didn't even go to the ballot this year. That's over 43% of people who have a voice and decided not to use it.

Funny enough, it looks like the last election to exceed 60% voter turnout was in 1968. Who knows what the results would be if that 40+% of missing voters attended the booth.

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  #538  
Old November 11th, 2016, 08:18 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

Here I was worried we'd have problems with Trump supporters pitching a fit- turns out I should've been worried about the Clinton supporters, too. Guess the two groups aren't as different as they make themselves out to be.

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  #539  
Old November 11th, 2016, 08:29 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

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Originally Posted by Swamper View Post
Here I was worried we'd have problems with Trump supporters pitching a fit- turns out I should've been worried about the Clinton supporters, too. Guess the two groups aren't as different as they make themselves out to be.
What caused you to worry about Trump supporters? Was there some sort of problems with them during the campaign?

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  #540  
Old November 11th, 2016, 08:47 AM
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Re: Decision 2016

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Swamper View Post
Here I was worried we'd have problems with Trump supporters pitching a fit- turns out I should've been worried about the Clinton supporters, too. Guess the two groups aren't as different as they make themselves out to be.
What caused you to worry about Trump supporters? Was there some sort of problems with them during the campaign?
Right. A problem with these guys? Naaaahhh. They're harmless. And their parade for Trump, when they didn't parade for any other President? A coincidence, I'm sure.

Swamper, I have no idea what you're talking about, and that's probably for the best.

Trump's campaign featured material swiped from white supremacist groups, and he has personally demonstrated racism, sexism, and xenophobic prejudices. It is possible to have voted for him (or not voted for him) and still to acknowledge these things, which are demonstrably true. If, in turn, you (generic "you," not any one person) can acknowledge those things are true, then you will understand why minorities may be nervous right now, and why some others might be nervous on their behalf, too.

Let us hope that everything is fine, but it is reasonable to fear it is not. Don't judge others for their anxiety; you would not, I'm sure, wish to be judged similarly yourself.

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