flickering back and forth. Iowa, not a big concern. Maine (4) splits its electoral votes and will likely be a wash. Nevada has a lot of working-class to whom Trump appeals. There are a lot of Latinos, but fewer college-educated people to whom Clinton tends to appeal. The general trend is disturbing.
My thoughts:
1) Negative media feedback loop? Clinton keeps getting the same bullshit media treatment: she commits a misdemeanor and gets raked over the coals; Trump commits several campaign felonies, including treason, lies on the witness stand, and the media looks the other way. Clinton’s bad news gets the same obsessively as if the next non-event feeds on the smoke of the last smoldering pile of bullshit.
2) Clinton is a terrible campaigner. Clinton, it must be said, is not a great campaigner. She’s not warm and fuzzy. Her first instinct is to obscure what should be aired. It’s hard for us to see what ads are running in battleground states, but she could use more positivity.
3) Voters are just starting to pay attention in September, unlike BMGers. For Clinton, this was an inauspicious time for more email crap and pneumonia to come out.
4) Pollsters shift from registered voters to likely voters. This would seem to be a bad sign.
5) Trump’s campaign has been domesticated. (Better late than ever, for him).
6) The kids are not on board yet.
With that said, what matters is appealing to voters that Clinton has a shot at, and polls don’t show how solid the trending support is. A lot riding on the debate tomorrow.
jconwaysays
FL, OH, IA and one of the other rust belts (MI, WI, or PA) is all Trump needs to win. And with him likely winning ME-2, there are even some combinations that result in a President Ryan.
As for your explanations I agree with all except for 1. I think shitting on bad media coverage is something bad campaigns do when they are out of ideas. The coverage of both candidates has been hypercritical, as it should be, and we have to assume it will continue to be until the end of the race. It’s a variable that can’t change.
Clinton can become a better candidate, her field operation can actually kick into gear, and she can begin making an aspirational appeal rather than one based on fear. What you didn’t mention Mark is there hasn’t been new movement toward Trump-his ceiling has been stuck at 44% since his convention.
What did happen is a month and a half of negative coverage of Clinton that wasn’t responded too since she wasted her convention bounce and the summer staying silent and raising corporate cash she didn’t need to compete against the threadbare Trump, waiting for an implosion of Trumps support that didn’t happen.
So a majority of voters have consistently rejected Trump, but nearly 10-15% of them don’t want either candidate. This explains the movement toward Johnson and Stein who combine for double digit support even after Labor Day and exclusion from the debates. That indicates to me that Clinton has a lot of catching up to do reframing herself as a principled advocate for average Americans rather than a source of stability for the etrenched elite.
She hasn’t made the former case, but has certainly been making the latter case to donors and her many surrogates in the establishments of both parties. This is not the year to be establishment, so she can channel our outsider status as a woman and as someone who’s socially tolerant, left of center on economics and right of center on security (where most of America happens to be) to show how she can really govern as a unifier and not a polarizer. This debate is the most critical in modern presidential history.
Christophersays
There have been studies consistently showing what terrible coverage Clinton has gotten, including about 500 consecutive days of her “damn emails”. If you think Clinton doesn’t have a strong field operation you clearly haven’t been to NH, or heard the stories of her dozens of offices open in FL compared to the DUMB candidate’s one (with similar situations in other states). There have been plenty of positive commercials for Clinton and while it would be nice if the DUMB candidate’s negatives spoke for themselves that apparently isn’t happening either. I say we get back most of the tossups and even lean-GOP above. On Electoral-Vote.com many of the polls include double-digit undecideds even with Johnson in the mix (Stein is not usually polled), but they have to go somewhere. If they stay home the other percentages will end up being adjusted so 100 is still the denominator.
Mark L. Bailsays
We’re not in disagreement, except on media coverage where you’re in disagreement with Vox, ThinkProgress, Paul Krugman, the odious Jon Chait, and about a million others on our side.
You’re making the same false equivalency as the media in this comment:
The coverage of both candidates has been hypercritical, as it should be, and we have to assume it will continue to be until the end of the race. It’s a variable that can’t change.
People form their views of the truth by how well the media transmits information, and they are failing. The word “media” refers to a channel through which news and information travel. In the case of Fox News, the medium contains a large amount of coliform and spreads political cholera. The mainstream media has its own pollutants, but their attitude has been as long as both sides pollute, we can report on the pollution. It doesn’t matter how bad one side’s pollution is or even if it has pollution.
jconwaysays
I have argued against the false equivalency issue elsewhere making the same points by many of the folks you cite. I didn’t mean that here, I am saying certain Clinton supporters think the media is “out to get her” when in reality there are valid criticisms of Clinton missteps and mistakes that deserve a probing press. I might agree with JimC that we should expect this of any press corps toward any candidate and welcome it.
That said, I won’t argue her misdeeds haven’t been elevated to equivalency with his, they have. But constantly complaining about it is a really bad campaign strategy. Whining about the media is what losing campaigns do, I might add it’s all the Trump press people do despite their relatively kid glove treatment at the hands of the morning shows and prior moderators. It’s on the candidate to change her narrative, and I have high confidence she can with this debate.
SomervilleTomsays
There is no conflict between observing that the media is “out to get her” and that there are “valid criticisms of Clinton missteps” and “mistakes that deserve a probing press”.
When I complain about the media, I don’t do so as a campaign strategy. I do so for several reasons. One is to remind our community of the extent to which we, as well as America as a whole, are manipulated by the media. A second is to remind us that the pervasive media bias is a factor that should be incorporated into our campaign strategies.
As a specific example, I cite the “Clinton Mirrors ad. There is a very real media bias towards the sexism that this piece attacks. It isn’t just Donald Trump, it is much more pervasive than that. I think that a strength of this ad is that it addresses that bias and media sexism without explicitly naming it. Yes, it is an attack ad targeting Donald Trump. The ad works, however, because the media so strongly reinforces the various sexist insults that Mr. Trump repeats so often.
Mr. Trump makes the statements attacked in this ad because so many Americans do the same. The tragic impact on the victims of such sexism is much larger than Donald Trump. I see this ad as a positive assertion by the Hillary Clinton campaign that a great many voters — of both genders — are now sensitive to the pain that such sexism creates.
This specific example reveals a second aspect of the media bias we are discussing. Some of us have complained/observed that Ms. Clinton has not done enough positive ads promoting herself, and has instead done too many negative ads attacking Mr. Trump. It took me only a few seconds to find, on her website, a host of positive ads and video pieces.
The fact is that Ms. Clinton is doing positive messaging and has been all along. That fact does not fit the prevailing media narrative about Ms. Clinton, and so it is not reported. We react to the media narrative instead of reality, and so the BMG dialog becomes focused on our concerns about the “overly negative” approach of Ms. Clinton.
The media creates a narrative, distorts the data it reports in a way that supports that narrative, and in doing so makes the narrative true.
I think it is both valuable and important to remind ourselves that the media works this way. One of the most effective ways to defend against such manipulation, especially in our own views, is to relentlessly analyze what we see and describe the distortions when we see it.
I want to repeat again that I do not claim that the media starts with an explicit desire to attack Hillary Clinton. I suggest, instead, that the media has always had an insatiable appetite for advertising revenue. That revenue demands that every national election be a horse race (remember that every penny spent on advertising by each campaign is spent on the media). The pervasive sexism and bias against Ms. Clinton is an epiphenomenon of that reality.
Creating the false narrative that Hillary Clinton is “too negative” (itself a sexist complaint, because the same media excuse far worse behavior of her male opponent) happens because that false narrative greatly enhances the revenue of the media — that revenue enhancement is far more important than any other considerations such as truth, fairness, or journalistic ethics.
The pervasive media bias is real and enormously important. That’s why I think we should continue talking about it.
Mark L. Bailsays
can be validly criticized. I don’t think she’s a great campaigner, and any campaign makes mistakes.
But the media is doing a shit job of covering her, Trump, and the campaign. We shouldn’t have a media that thinks it’s okay to pass on lies to the American people. We shouldn’t. Though that’s exactly what the NYT public editor says they should do. Covering the horse race is complete bullshit. There are a host of issues that could be discussed, but the media ignores them. Should we expect a shitty job? Sure. Do we deserve better? Yep.
If we end up with a President Trump, it won’t be all Hillary’s fault. The media is complicit. They were complicit in the Swift Boat bullshit.
johntmaysays
Her most rabid supporters will not hear of it! Why, she is “the most qualified ever!” and….anything you hear contrary to that is blatant sexism!
My fear is that this is who she is surrounding herself with, eh?
Just one point separates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in two states that are critical to both candidates’ chances of becoming president, according to new CNN/ORC polls in Pennsylvania and Colorado.
In Colorado, likely voters break 42% for Trump, 41% for Clinton, 13% for Libertarian Gary Johnson and 3% for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Pennsylvania’s likely voters split 45% for Clinton, 44% for Trump, 6% for Johnson and 3% for Stein. Those divides are well within each poll’s 3.5-point margin of sampling error.
sabutaisays
Elections are all about momentum. I would be more worried if Hillary were peaking right now, rather than rallying. With her enormous bank account, she’s holding fire and building the ground game. If it looks like this on October 26, I’ll be scared.
jconwaysays
And it was in August. She will likely narrowly beat him without any coattails, and she blew a great opportunity to protect a ten point post-convention lead and use it to retake the House and Senate. Now it’ll be a close race just to keep the White House, against a guy who makes Dubya look like Ike.
That said-never underestimate Clinton in a debate. I rewatched some of the clips on C-Span, and she definitely did a better job than Obama in 2008, had a great moment against Lazio in 2000, and really outwitted Bernie and the moderators in every debate this cycle, and I say that as a Sanders supporter. Let’s see if she gets the Big Mo back-here’s hoping she does!
flickering back and forth. Iowa, not a big concern. Maine (4) splits its electoral votes and will likely be a wash. Nevada has a lot of working-class to whom Trump appeals. There are a lot of Latinos, but fewer college-educated people to whom Clinton tends to appeal. The general trend is disturbing.
My thoughts:
1) Negative media feedback loop? Clinton keeps getting the same bullshit media treatment: she commits a misdemeanor and gets raked over the coals; Trump commits several campaign felonies, including treason, lies on the witness stand, and the media looks the other way. Clinton’s bad news gets the same obsessively as if the next non-event feeds on the smoke of the last smoldering pile of bullshit.
2) Clinton is a terrible campaigner. Clinton, it must be said, is not a great campaigner. She’s not warm and fuzzy. Her first instinct is to obscure what should be aired. It’s hard for us to see what ads are running in battleground states, but she could use more positivity.
3) Voters are just starting to pay attention in September, unlike BMGers. For Clinton, this was an inauspicious time for more email crap and pneumonia to come out.
4) Pollsters shift from registered voters to likely voters. This would seem to be a bad sign.
5) Trump’s campaign has been domesticated. (Better late than ever, for him).
6) The kids are not on board yet.
With that said, what matters is appealing to voters that Clinton has a shot at, and polls don’t show how solid the trending support is. A lot riding on the debate tomorrow.
FL, OH, IA and one of the other rust belts (MI, WI, or PA) is all Trump needs to win. And with him likely winning ME-2, there are even some combinations that result in a President Ryan.
As for your explanations I agree with all except for 1. I think shitting on bad media coverage is something bad campaigns do when they are out of ideas. The coverage of both candidates has been hypercritical, as it should be, and we have to assume it will continue to be until the end of the race. It’s a variable that can’t change.
Clinton can become a better candidate, her field operation can actually kick into gear, and she can begin making an aspirational appeal rather than one based on fear. What you didn’t mention Mark is there hasn’t been new movement toward Trump-his ceiling has been stuck at 44% since his convention.
What did happen is a month and a half of negative coverage of Clinton that wasn’t responded too since she wasted her convention bounce and the summer staying silent and raising corporate cash she didn’t need to compete against the threadbare Trump, waiting for an implosion of Trumps support that didn’t happen.
So a majority of voters have consistently rejected Trump, but nearly 10-15% of them don’t want either candidate. This explains the movement toward Johnson and Stein who combine for double digit support even after Labor Day and exclusion from the debates. That indicates to me that Clinton has a lot of catching up to do reframing herself as a principled advocate for average Americans rather than a source of stability for the etrenched elite.
She hasn’t made the former case, but has certainly been making the latter case to donors and her many surrogates in the establishments of both parties. This is not the year to be establishment, so she can channel our outsider status as a woman and as someone who’s socially tolerant, left of center on economics and right of center on security (where most of America happens to be) to show how she can really govern as a unifier and not a polarizer. This debate is the most critical in modern presidential history.
There have been studies consistently showing what terrible coverage Clinton has gotten, including about 500 consecutive days of her “damn emails”. If you think Clinton doesn’t have a strong field operation you clearly haven’t been to NH, or heard the stories of her dozens of offices open in FL compared to the DUMB candidate’s one (with similar situations in other states). There have been plenty of positive commercials for Clinton and while it would be nice if the DUMB candidate’s negatives spoke for themselves that apparently isn’t happening either. I say we get back most of the tossups and even lean-GOP above. On Electoral-Vote.com many of the polls include double-digit undecideds even with Johnson in the mix (Stein is not usually polled), but they have to go somewhere. If they stay home the other percentages will end up being adjusted so 100 is still the denominator.
We’re not in disagreement, except on media coverage where you’re in disagreement with Vox, ThinkProgress, Paul Krugman, the odious Jon Chait, and about a million others on our side.
You’re making the same false equivalency as the media in this comment:
Bullshit. Coverage has been disproportionate.
Matt Lauer’s interview was roundly criticized as unfair to Clinton, cutting her off, focusing on the emails, and letting Trump off the hook. NYT Public Editor embarrassed herself and the paper for saying their coverage of Trump was fine. See Vox or Think Progress as well. Krugman wrote a column about it.
People form their views of the truth by how well the media transmits information, and they are failing. The word “media” refers to a channel through which news and information travel. In the case of Fox News, the medium contains a large amount of coliform and spreads political cholera. The mainstream media has its own pollutants, but their attitude has been as long as both sides pollute, we can report on the pollution. It doesn’t matter how bad one side’s pollution is or even if it has pollution.
I have argued against the false equivalency issue elsewhere making the same points by many of the folks you cite. I didn’t mean that here, I am saying certain Clinton supporters think the media is “out to get her” when in reality there are valid criticisms of Clinton missteps and mistakes that deserve a probing press. I might agree with JimC that we should expect this of any press corps toward any candidate and welcome it.
That said, I won’t argue her misdeeds haven’t been elevated to equivalency with his, they have. But constantly complaining about it is a really bad campaign strategy. Whining about the media is what losing campaigns do, I might add it’s all the Trump press people do despite their relatively kid glove treatment at the hands of the morning shows and prior moderators. It’s on the candidate to change her narrative, and I have high confidence she can with this debate.
There is no conflict between observing that the media is “out to get her” and that there are “valid criticisms of Clinton missteps” and “mistakes that deserve a probing press”.
When I complain about the media, I don’t do so as a campaign strategy. I do so for several reasons. One is to remind our community of the extent to which we, as well as America as a whole, are manipulated by the media. A second is to remind us that the pervasive media bias is a factor that should be incorporated into our campaign strategies.
As a specific example, I cite the “Clinton Mirrors ad. There is a very real media bias towards the sexism that this piece attacks. It isn’t just Donald Trump, it is much more pervasive than that. I think that a strength of this ad is that it addresses that bias and media sexism without explicitly naming it. Yes, it is an attack ad targeting Donald Trump. The ad works, however, because the media so strongly reinforces the various sexist insults that Mr. Trump repeats so often.
Mr. Trump makes the statements attacked in this ad because so many Americans do the same. The tragic impact on the victims of such sexism is much larger than Donald Trump. I see this ad as a positive assertion by the Hillary Clinton campaign that a great many voters — of both genders — are now sensitive to the pain that such sexism creates.
This specific example reveals a second aspect of the media bias we are discussing. Some of us have complained/observed that Ms. Clinton has not done enough positive ads promoting herself, and has instead done too many negative ads attacking Mr. Trump. It took me only a few seconds to find, on her website, a host of positive ads and video pieces.
The fact is that Ms. Clinton is doing positive messaging and has been all along. That fact does not fit the prevailing media narrative about Ms. Clinton, and so it is not reported. We react to the media narrative instead of reality, and so the BMG dialog becomes focused on our concerns about the “overly negative” approach of Ms. Clinton.
The media creates a narrative, distorts the data it reports in a way that supports that narrative, and in doing so makes the narrative true.
I think it is both valuable and important to remind ourselves that the media works this way. One of the most effective ways to defend against such manipulation, especially in our own views, is to relentlessly analyze what we see and describe the distortions when we see it.
I want to repeat again that I do not claim that the media starts with an explicit desire to attack Hillary Clinton. I suggest, instead, that the media has always had an insatiable appetite for advertising revenue. That revenue demands that every national election be a horse race (remember that every penny spent on advertising by each campaign is spent on the media). The pervasive sexism and bias against Ms. Clinton is an epiphenomenon of that reality.
Creating the false narrative that Hillary Clinton is “too negative” (itself a sexist complaint, because the same media excuse far worse behavior of her male opponent) happens because that false narrative greatly enhances the revenue of the media — that revenue enhancement is far more important than any other considerations such as truth, fairness, or journalistic ethics.
The pervasive media bias is real and enormously important. That’s why I think we should continue talking about it.
can be validly criticized. I don’t think she’s a great campaigner, and any campaign makes mistakes.
But the media is doing a shit job of covering her, Trump, and the campaign. We shouldn’t have a media that thinks it’s okay to pass on lies to the American people. We shouldn’t. Though that’s exactly what the NYT public editor says they should do. Covering the horse race is complete bullshit. There are a host of issues that could be discussed, but the media ignores them. Should we expect a shitty job? Sure. Do we deserve better? Yep.
If we end up with a President Trump, it won’t be all Hillary’s fault. The media is complicit. They were complicit in the Swift Boat bullshit.
Her most rabid supporters will not hear of it! Why, she is “the most qualified ever!” and….anything you hear contrary to that is blatant sexism!
My fear is that this is who she is surrounding herself with, eh?
It frustrating for me to watch this unfold.
Released today:
Elections are all about momentum. I would be more worried if Hillary were peaking right now, rather than rallying. With her enormous bank account, she’s holding fire and building the ground game. If it looks like this on October 26, I’ll be scared.
And it was in August. She will likely narrowly beat him without any coattails, and she blew a great opportunity to protect a ten point post-convention lead and use it to retake the House and Senate. Now it’ll be a close race just to keep the White House, against a guy who makes Dubya look like Ike.
That said-never underestimate Clinton in a debate. I rewatched some of the clips on C-Span, and she definitely did a better job than Obama in 2008, had a great moment against Lazio in 2000, and really outwitted Bernie and the moderators in every debate this cycle, and I say that as a Sanders supporter. Let’s see if she gets the Big Mo back-here’s hoping she does!