Y’all, to my surprise, Melania Trump can indeed speak.

Someone asked her what she thought about comic Louis CK comparing Trump to Hitler.

“We know the truth. He’s not Hitler,” she insisted. “He wants to help America. He wants to unite people. They think he doesn’t but he does. Even with the Muslims, it’s temporary.”

Trump: He’s Not Hitler

Hitler Trump

Where Does The Hitler Stop and The Trump Begin?

Trump: He Doesn’t Even Speak German

Oh, this is going to be fun.

Thanks to Bryan for the heads up.

I will publicly admit that I have been to Target four times in the past five days and buy something I don’t need and use the restroom because I am told that people will get molested in the restrooms in Target.

It has not happened yet and I’m only gonna give it a few more days before I give up hope.

I’m sure you’ve seen the weapons grade crazy people boycotting Target and screaming Bible verses in their stores.

So, June 4th (right around the corner) is going to be Way To Go, Target day.  Our friend John has given us a special treat for that day and any other day at Target.

Okay, this file is really big so you can print it on a tee-shirt or make a banner or a poster if you want to.  Click here if you want it full sized high resolution for tee-shirts, banners, and posters.  Click here if you want to print one on regular paper.

I’m printing mine small on regular paper and going to Target on June 4th with a little piece of tape.  I’m gonna sign my name to it and hang it on the front door of Target.

That’s what I’m gonna do.

Thanks to John for the heads up.

Having said all that about the unreliability of polls in May, I’m now going to go about making predictions in May, because Freedom!

On Friday, January 20, 2017 at Noon, Eastern Time, the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton will take the Oath of Office to become the 45^th President of the United States of America.

First, let’s look at the candidate.  There’s not going to be an e-mail indictment. Benghazi is not going to slow her down. No one is going to care about Whitewater, or Rose Law Firm billing records, or Bill’s bimbo eruptions. The shade of Vince Foster is not going to appear in the President’s chair like Banquo at the banquet.

We who sit inside these drum circles on a daily basis often forget two words I have always tried to drum into my colleagues and clients: inside baseball. Most fans don’t care about inside baseball.   On the GOP side, that disconnection from the process of elections and governance is so total that they don’t even try to engage with the hard stuff. Hence, Donald Trump.

NOBODY CARES about these things that Hair Drumpf coalesces into “Crooked Hillary” partly because they don’t care to understand them; even if there was any THERE there, that there is still inside baseball. Hell, Drumpf couldn’t even spell Clinton Global Initiative, much less explain what it does, much much less explain how not breaking any laws is somehow crookeder than his own doglegged backstory.

How do I know that nobody cares? Because think about this: in 24 years, the Clintons have been in 6 national races – 4 primaries and two generals – and in every single one, people have questioned their character.  And in every single one they’ve won the popular vote. (Yes, in 2008, Hillary won the primary popular vote.) So far, over 30 million votes have been cast for HRC in Democratic primaries, more than any other Presidential candidate from any party in American history.

So the “Clinton record” and all the mud-slinging that will be attempted against them has not yet and will not ever put any hitch in Hillary’s giddy-up.

Now, let’s look at the map. Hillary has been running fairly overtly as Obama’s third term, thus we take as our departure point the 2012 election for his second term. Obama carried 26 states + DC for a total of 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 24/206. Obama carried 51.1% of the popular vote; that victory was largely based on carrying the following demographics: Women 55-44; AfAm 93-6; Asian 73-26; Hispanic 71-27; LGBT 76-22.

Do you see Hillary’s numbers going up or down in these growing constituencies against Trump? Then consider these opportunities for growth against Obama’s performance in 2012: He lost married women 53-46; he lost independents 50-45; he lost college graduates 51-47. Do you see Trump improving or worsening on Romney’s numbers in these areas?

My cosmic political pendulum was already moving away from Republican victories, as Republicans moved away from ideas and governance because their ideas about governance were failing. In their stead, they’ve won some elections channeling on fear and ideology, tapping into the basest beasties in the darkened authoritarian mind. Far from being a change, Donald Trump truly represents the ravening Republican id. He stands as the avatar for everything that is worst about the GOP, which is exactly everything that has been turning voters off for the last quarter century.

Given that Gore and Kerry each lost by one state – and those contested! – and that every other election in the past 24 years has been won by Democrats based on demographics, then two hundred and seventy electoral votes are a lock. Hillary could underperform Obama’s 2012 map by Florida, Ohio AND Wisconsin and still win 275. As always, I am saying this based on current conditions, and people need to turn out, and there might still be some Deus in the machina that could finally make something stick against the Clintons.

But I wouldn’t bet the farm on that being Donald John Trump.

Next: 400 EV and The Perfect Storm

It seems that Virginia Republican congressional candidate Mike Webb wanted to share something he saw on his computer scree, so he took a screen shot and posted it to his website.

Webb published a post on his campaign page Monday that included a screenshot of his computer desktop. And as it happened, Webb hadn’t bothered to close his pornography tabs when he took his screengrab.

Bean dip dumb doesn’t even begin to cover it.  You can see it better by clicking here.

Did you know that if all hypocritical dumb Republicans were to stand hand to hand, the line would stretch to … I dunno, Sarah Palin’s backdoor?

At a Florida GOP meeting, one of their United State Senate candidates showed how classy the GOP truly is.

Speaking about President Obama, he said to applause from the crowd …

“Unfortunately, for seven and a half years this animal we call president, because he’s an animal, OK — seven and a half years, has surgically and with thought and very smart, intelligent manner, destroyed this country and dismantled the military under not one, not two, but three secretary of defenses,” he said.

You can hear it for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl3RkzTxiPA

Thanks, Trump, for leading the way.

I’ve promised to give you all an overview of the general election, but before we get into all that, there is something we need to discuss first: polls. There’s a poll out that says Hillary is within one point of Trump in Georgia. It’s going to be a Hillary blowout! But wait: the same guys say Trump is within the margin of error in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It’s going to be a Hillary disaster!

Quinnipiac Maypolling: The Green Party is winning!

Polls are a statistically valid small sampling of a population in order to model within an acceptable margin of error and an acceptable degree of certainty the characteristics of that (much larger) population. An individual poll can never be fully trusted. That’s why sites like RealClearPolitics, Pollster and FiveThirtyEight are so popular: they apply math-y techniques across multiple polls to smooth out the error rates among them. But what if all the polls you’re smoothing all made the same types of mistakes?

Right now, in May, I am only looking at general election polls in order to indicate broad trends. Who is trending consistently ahead? What population is trending for which candidate? What states are following recent blue/red trends? Where in all these numbers is new ground being broken? We can examine these trends, but to assign hard percentages to them and call that “reality” is a fool’s errand.

The Likely Voter

The reasons for this are many. First, it’s difficult to model what a “likely” voter is in 2016. The Republican Primary brought out a strange mix of voters. The minority turnout is difficult to predict, I’m not sure how strong the African American turnout will be versus the last two elections.  Polls show that both candidates are underwater in their approval ratings, but Trump is worse off to a historically bad degree. Significantly, the type of disapproval for each is not measured, nor the strength of those feelings of disapproval. Anti-Trump or anti-Hillary? I believe we’re comparing apples to oranges there, but it’s always hard to measure who will come out to vote FOR someone they’re not particularly enamored of, and/or who will come out to vote AGAINST someone they loathe with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns.

Another reason I am less than enamored of polls right now is that polls show a bias depending on who is running them. A bias can be introduced just by the choice of methodology (e.g. by under-sampling cell phones) or by the questions themselves (for instance, by not varying the order of choices – there is small but measurable unconscious bias towards selecting the first name you hear). These biases can be accidental or deliberate, and they can be occasional or constant. What’s weird about 2016 so far is that polls I used to consider reliable have shown consistent skews in the primaries, and I don’t know if they will smooth in the general.

Something else weird about these general election polls is that they are both measuring well-known people. Usually at this time, presumptive candidates have not been fully introduced to the general election voting population, and have not been framed by their supporters or by their opponents in a narrative that would make sense to the voters. Such is not the case with Hillary, a well-known political entity. You’d also think that such is the case with the Donald, as well, except that once again we are comparing apples to oranges. Donald is a well-known ENTERTAINMENT commodity. His business record, while assumed to be well-known, has actually not been fully aired; nor has his personal life. As a politician, he has no record, not even within the context of this campaign, because he has yet to take a coherent, consistent stand on ANYTHING.

So while support in the general seems to be settling in for Trump, I believe that his numbers will continue to drop as the Clinton War Room, the DNC, and – FINALLY! – the media begin to make all his many many many shortcomings much better known.

So, again, the polls are measuring two products that some people think they like, some think they don’t like, but know one really knows for sure what Trump is, and whether any individual will actually get out of the chair, find the keys and go stand in line to vote… well, even the person you’re asking isn’t 100% sure they’re going to do that.

Another reason the polls taken right now in this cycle are particularly untrustworthy is that the candidates are in two very different stages of their campaigns. Trump has vanquished everyone earlier than the stop-Trump movement had intended, prior to its ignominious collapse. Without a focal point to coalesce around, Republican voters are starting to fall in line and respond to polls in a business as usual manner. Hillary has had to continue her primary longer than anticipated due to Bernie Sanders still doing his thing. As such, within the context of the Democratic primary, a lot of anti-Hillary sentiment has yet to settle out.

In just a regular Red vs Blue year, there are a lot that can go wrong with general election polls in mid-May. There are even more things that can go wrong with them this year. So read them in context, with a very discerning eye and a healthy dose of skepticism. And remember that the people trumpeting one poll over another are doing so for very selfish reasons; examine those, as well, but most especially remember this:

The media is in the business of making money and have invested a huge amount in election coverage. It is in their best interest to make something look like much more of a horse-race than it is.