[Tubby Isaacs]

In my current role of Mr Shit on Iowa Poll, I'm not all that impressed with her record.

https://www.newsweek.com/who-ann-selzer ... is-1979294

Seems like she's underestimated Republicans consistently. Trump is visibly worse than in the past, so I suppose it could be different this time.

[Crabcakes]

But also: she’s been correct an awful lot, even when others have called it differently.

I’m reassured by the reaction more than anything else. If they thought they could shrug it off, they would have. Instead, this is more like a canary in the coalmine response - like it’s confirmed what they thought may be happening rather than it being out of the blue/an easily dismissed outlier.

[Youngian]

Not a huge sample, is it? A similar character has been studying an uptake in voter registration favouring Republicans. Interesting but doesn't sound very plausible.

Of the 808 likely voters polled from October 28 to 31, 47 percent said they would choose Harris if the election were held today, compared to 44 percent who said they would choose Trump. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. That’s all. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts. Those who were making it in England, for example, did not get on the Mayflower. That’s how the country was settled. Not by Gary Cooper. Yet we have a whole race of people, a whole republic, who believe the myths to the point where even today they select political representatives, as far as I can tell, by how closely they resemble Gary Cooper. Now this is dangerously infantile, and it shows in every level of national life.”

James Baldwin in a Talk to Teachers working in the New York Public School System on October 16, 1963 discussing the American Identity

[Crabcakes]

Not a huge sample, is it? A similar character has been studying an uptake in voter registration favouring Republicans. Interesting but doesn't sound very plausible.

Of the 808 likely voters polled from October 28 to 31, 47 percent said they would choose Harris if the election were held today, compared to 44 percent who said they would choose Trump. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

This is true, but apparently the methodology used is why this poll is held in such high regard - demographics are sought out rather than some of the ‘classic’ pollster approaches which is to phone landlines or send emails, self-selecting to a certain degree as to who responds.

Anyway, we’ll see, but if the GOP are genuinely unhappy, it can’t be wholly without merit (I hope!)

[Andy McDandy]

America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.

Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight.

The real Trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He called a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab.

Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. It's time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall.
They were rouge cops and shakedown artist. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it.

It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define there time.
Here's to them.

James Ellroy has similar opinions.

[davidjay]

Was it on here, or somewhere else, that I read how, far from fleeing persecution, the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated because they wanted new peoples to persecute?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Just seen Kamala Harris having a Neil Kinnock moment...

[Youngian]

Was it on here, or somewhere else, that I read how, far from fleeing persecution, the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated because they wanted new peoples to persecute?

Think its a Gore Vidal quote
Try and find a YouTube video I was watching as to why the south was more religious. It made the point that the off spring of the New England Puritans carried on their industrious ways and educational aapiration values but that made their lives more secular than rural uneducated communities.

[Youngian]

Just seen Kamala Harris having a Neil Kinnock moment...

A Sheffield rally moment? That could be any US politician

[Abernathy]

Just seen Kamala Harris having a Neil Kinnock moment...

A Sheffield rally moment? That could be any US politician

Rallies. A right waste of time, and potential damage.

[Youngian]

I'm no JK Gailbraith but triggering an international tariff war is not the way to avoid a global depression.

[Abernathy]

That kind of shit makes you wonder why more Americans don’t see through Trump’s transparent lies .

I mean, he might just as well promise everyone in America a solid gold jockstrap and their own pet unicorn. He is so obviously full of shite it’s literally incredible.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There's just an enormous culture in America in thinking the Right are better for the economy, even more so than we have here. At least here, the public were prepared to say Labour were better when the economy was booming under Blair, but in the US now, Biden's getting very little credit for what's easily the best performance in the G7.

The Republicans do that by complaining about debt when a Democrat is president, winning the Mid Terms, and then forcing unpopular cuts. They then win the presidency and Congress, and promptly do a load of unfunded tax cuts, and surf the popularity. See Reagan, Ronnie. And Bush, George Jnr, and Trump, Donald.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Reagan didn't actually control Congress, but there were a lot of conservative Democrats in the South who were happy to work with him.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jon Ralston, the Nevada guy, has Harris holding Nevada by 0.3 points. I think he's been more pessimistic previously.

https://thenevadaindependent.com/articl ... redictions

[The Weeping Angel]

Some good news out of Nevada

Ah Tubbs has beaten me to it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha, I just beat you to it.

[Oboogie]

Was it on here, or somewhere else, that I read how, far from fleeing persecution, the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated because they wanted new peoples to persecute?

Think its a Gore Vidal quote

It may be Gore Vidal he was quoting (uncited), but I recall Stephen Fry saying almost those exact words on QI around 20 years ago, "Far from seeking freedom from religious persecution, they were actually seeking freedom to persecute".

[mattomac]

Some good news out of Nevada

Ah Tubbs has beaten me to it.

I do feel if she takes Nevada we are probably heading for her as the next presidency. It’s not big like Iowa but it’s a state that looked very Republican up to a few weeks ago.

As for Harris and Kinnock it seems Trump has had his own with that MSG thing.