While we need the results of a full investigation to be certain, I have suspected that investigating Trump and Russia from the perspective of influencing the election results is a simplistic explanation. It is also simplistic to blame Russia for Clinton’s loss and ignore both how weak a candidate she was and how poorly the campaign was run. Certainly Russia meddled in our election, as it has been doing for decades, and we have been doing in other countries, but I suspect that there are other reasons for all the suspicious behavior involving Russia and members of the Trump administration. A Dutch television report on Trump’s ties to Russian mobsters might provide the explanation for such behavior, along with Trump’s unwillingness to release his tax returns.
Donald Trump’s business partners have included Russian oligarchs and convicted mobsters, which could make the president guilty of criminal racketeering charges.
That’s one of the eyebrow-raising takeaways from a 45-minute Dutch documentary that aired last week, titled The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part 1: The Russians. The first installment of the investigative reporting series, produced by Zembla, does what no American TV network has yet dared to do—take a deep look at the organized crime links and corrupt international business strategies used by Trump and his partners in his properties…
The documentary shows how Trump not only helped hide the identity of his mobster business partner, prompting an ongoing lawsuit accusing Trump of criminal racketeering, but also how Trump used that internal company crisis to demand more money. It goes on to show how Russian oligarchs saw Trump’s properties as a way to get their money out of Russia, and describes the international financial networks that are akin to a pyramid scheme for money laundering. It also notes how the law firm of Trump’s political adviser, former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani, helped set up a money-laundering account in the Netherlands used by Bayrock.
The following description is given for the video:
Although still in its early days, Donald Trump’s presidency is coming under fire. The Russians are alleged to be in possession of sensitive information about Trump. And that exposes Trump to blackmail. Fake news, tweets Trump: “I have nothing to do with Russia – no deals, no loans, no nothing!” Trump swears he has no ties with the Russians. But is that actually the case?
For months, the FBI have been investigating Russian interference in the American presidential elections. ZEMBLA is investigating another explosive dossier concerning Trump’s involvement with the Russians: Trump’s business and personal ties to oligarchs from the former Soviet Union. Powerful billionaires suspected of money laundering and fraud, and of having contacts in Moscow and with the mafia. What do these relationships say about Trump and why does he deny them? How compromising are these dubious business relationships for the 45th president of the United States? And are there connections with the Netherlands? ZEMBLA meets with one of Trump’s controversial cronies and speaks with a former CIA agent, fraud investigators, attorneys, and an American senator among others.
Trump’s ties to the Russia mob were also verified by PolitiFact last year, but they also noted that “these connections were not atypical in the real estate and casino businesses in the 1980s.”
Donald Trump has taken many contradictory positions on issues over the years. He would sometimes even do that during the same speech, making it difficult to predict what he will do as president. Until we see his actual actions in the White House, the people he is adding to his administration will be the first clues as to what a Trump administration will be like. So far his actual and rumored choices are receiving considerable opposition.
It was hardly a surprise that Steve Bannon would be included in his administration following his role in the campaign, but disappointing that he has been given a position which is being said to be equal to the Chief of Staff. Elizabeth Warren spoke out against both the large number of lobbyists in the transition team along with the choice of Bannon at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council event:
“I think that the clearest point that comes out of this election is that the American people do not want Wall Street to run their government. They do not want corporate executives to be the ones who are calling the shots in Washington,” Ms. Warren said, to an audience comprised largely of corporate executives.
“What Donald Trump is doing is that he’s putting together a transition team that’s full of lobbyists — the kind of people he actually ran against,” she said.
A half-dozen prominent Washington lobbyists are involved in the transition team, including consultants who represent energy companies and agriculture interests. Other business leaders have been mentioned for prominent posts, including Wall Street executive Anthony Scaramucci, tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel and former Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump repeatedly vowed to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., and accused global elites of rigging the economy and the political system.
“This is a man who says, by his very presence, that this is a White House that will embrace bigotry,” Ms. Warren said…
“I just want to underline something that every one of you know: bigotry is bad for business. Bigotry is not what your employees expect. Bigotry is not what your customers expect,” she said. “And if that’s the direction that this administration goes, that creates a real problem for everyone.”
During the campaign Trump has also made statements which gave the impression that he sided with both opponents of neoconservative interventionism and with hawks. Many neoconservatives sided with the hawkish Clinton while some opponents of interventionism are now disappointed by those being discussed as possible Secretary of State. David Weigel reported on the reactions of opponents of interventionism on the right. This includes Rand Paul speaking out against both Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton as Secretary of State:
“It’s important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn’t learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn’t be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was a big lesson,” Paul said in an interview Tuesday morning. “Trump said that a thousand times. It would be a huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war]. I mean, you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change.”
Paul argued that Giuliani and Bolton, the people whose names have circulated most widely, “have made it clear that they favor bombing Iran.” Choosing either for a key administration job, he said, would go back on the “America First” foreign policy that helped Trump win the Republican primaries, to the surprise of the Republican Party foreign-policy establishment.
“I’m hoping that if there’s a public discussion of this before it happens, people in the incoming administration realize that regime change made us less safe and the Iraq War made us less safe,” Paul said. “We don’t need, as our chief diplomat, someone whose idea of diplomacy is dropping bombs.”
Other opponents of interventionism on the right have similar concerns:
But the discussion of plum roles for Bolton or Giuliani have given some libertarians and “paleoconservatives” pause. Tuesday morning, at a post-election D.C. conference hosted by the American Conservative magazine, a series of “realist” foreign-policy writers criticized the names floated for Trump’s State Department. Daniel Larison suggested that former senator Jim Webb of Virginia — a Republican-turned-Democrat who weighed a presidential run as an independent after dropping out of the Democratic primaries — would be a fairer choice and that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) would be “the less aggressive choice” for the Defense Department.
Civil libertarians on both the right and left also have reasons to be concerned about Trump’s actions regarding civil liberties. I looked at this subject in a post last week.
The Washington Post has reported on other tensions between Republicans and Trump on national security issues.
While Donald Trump’s act worked better than most pundits predicted in the Republican nomination race, he is clearly not prepared for a general election campaign. He came out of his convention leading Clinton in some polls. If he had stuck to the message given at the convention (regardless of whether accurate) that he is a successful businessman who can get things done, and ran as an outsider against gridlock and against Hillary Clinton and her history of corruption, he might have won. Instead he has made blunder after blunder, leading to the point where Republicans are talking about an intervention, and possibly a change in candidate. NBC News reports:
Key Republicans close to Donald Trump’s orbit are plotting an intervention with the candidate after a disastrous 48 hours led some influential voices in the party to question whether Trump can stay at the top of the Republican ticket without catastrophic consequences for his campaign and the GOP at large.
Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus, former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are among the Trump endorsers hoping to talk the real estate mogul into a dramatic reset of his campaign in the coming days, sources tell NBC News.
ABC News has looked at what it would take to replace Trump:
First, Trump would have to voluntarily exit the race. Officials say there is no mechanism for forcing him to withdraw his nomination. (Trump has not given any indications that he no longer wants to be his party’s nominee.)
Then it would be up to the 168 members of the Republican National Committee to choose a successor, though the process is complicated.
One Republican legal expert has advised party officials that, for practical reasons, Trump would have to drop out by early September to give the party enough time to choose his replacement and get the next nominee’s name on the ballot in enough states to win.
Even if they could get Trump to step down and get another name on enough ballots, this would leave the Republican Party in a very weak position. Anybody coming into the race this late would be far behind on organizing and fund raising. The party would be badly fractured, with some Trump supporters refusing to vote for anybody else. Replacing Trump might be more about preventing a loss of historic proportions and about preserving down ticket races as opposed to actually winning the general election.
It is really bad when the former president from your own party is speaking out against you as George W. Bush did on Tuesday. It is less surprising considering that Trump has (correctly) criticized Bush over the Iraq war and other policies.
Republicans are right to consider dumping Trump, or at least deny him their endorsement, and deserve some credit for this. I wish some Democrats would show some honor in also opposing the election of someone as unfit to be president as Hillary Clinton. CNBC has addressed the Democratic Party rules for replacing the candidate. Should there be more revelations which harm Clinton further (always possible) and Clinton steps down (extremely unlikely), the Democratic National Committee would chose the new candidate.
If Trump does manage to remain in the race and keep the election close, there is another twist which could affect predictions based upon the electoral college. An Republican elector from Georgia has said he would not vote for Trump. Twenty-one states legally allow electors to cast their vote different from the vote in their state, and it is questionable if laws in other states would really prevent electors from changing their vote.
In 1972 one elector voted for the Libertarian Party ticket rather than for Richard Nixon. The Libertarian Party, as well as the Green Party, could attract enough votes to affect the outcome this year with both candidates being so unpopular. There has even been speculation as to one long-shot route for Gary Johnson to become president. If he can win in some states, such as New Hampshire and western states, he might deny both Clinton and Trump a majority of electoral votes. The election would then be decided in the House of Representatives, with each state being able to vote for the top three candidates. Johnson’s hope is that Republicans who see Trump as unstable would vote for him, with Democrats also seeing the socially liberal Johnson as preferable to Trump. It is a real long shot, but so many strange things have happened this year that this cannot be entirely ruled out.
The first day of the convention did not go well for Republicans between having to put down an attempted anti-Trump revolt, poor scheduling, and Melania Trump’s speech plagiarizing even more blatantly from Michelle Obama than Hillary Clinton has taken ideas from Bernie Sanders. It is quite clear from the video above that portions were too similar to be coincidence. I wonder if whoever wrote this speech had studied at Trump University.
Actually the plagiarism might be a good thing. I see the Trump campaign as being more about ego than ideology. The more ideas they steal from the Obamas, the better.
While this probably won’t affect many votes, it is just another example of how Trump does not seem prepared to run a major presidential election campaign (or be president). Other mistakes included having Melania speak before 11 pm eastern time, leading to many people leaving the convention hall, and probably turning off their television, before the final speakers of the evening.
Melania was preceded by speakers including Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani was terrifying to listen to, and it was even worse in the original German. Maybe they knew what they were doing here. After this, Donald Trump will look sane. While Giuliani looked rabid, Donald Trump made his entrance (to introduce Melania) with his version of an imitation of God:
Besides Rudy Guiliani, it was a big night for war mongers, making it feel like Hillary Clinton should have been the keynote speaker. Of course she was mentioned frequently. While the Republicans did a poor job of raising her real faults, they did exploit the suffering of the mother of one of those killed at Benghazi, while remaining loose with the facts.
Other Republicans were on-message for interviews. For example see Steve King explain in the video above how whites are the master race. The Republican world view explained briefly.
For Cathy Scott, a Republican, being here is a message directly aimed at her party’s presumptive nominee.
“Donald Trump has said so many outrageous, hateful, inflammatory things,” Scott says. “He underestimated his female, Republican vote. I feel like he shot himself in the foot a little bit. I don’t think he knows there’s a black, single, 35-year-old mom, like me, who is listening to what he’s saying. I don’t think he knows I’m in his political party—and that’s unfortunate.”
Monica Giorgio, a 19-year-old nursing student who came straight from the night shift still wearing her teal scrubs, adds: “Because of his negative views on women. I think this is a great way to contrast that.”
“For me, it’s less about Trump and more about creating positive energy around the RNC and to create light where there maybe isn’t as much,” says Sabrina Paskewitz, 23, a student who’s done nude modeling.
Stephen Colbert turned to Jon Stewart to try to figure out how Donald Trump could be the Republican nominee.
Colbert revived a segment from his previous show, The Word, to explain Trumpiness.
Colbert also took his Hungry for Power Games character to the site of the GOP convention.
The prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the Democratic candidate has many liberals increasingly worried considering how out of step Clinton is with liberal views on foreign policy, social issues, government ethics, and the economy. If it comes to it, I believe most liberals will hold their nose and vote for Clinton as opposed to risking another Gore v. Bush campaign in which the Nader votes helped determine the result. However that would be a purely defensive vote for a candidate who does not share our values to prevent a greater evil from being elected. While we are still in the nominating process, many liberals do prefer to see the Democrats nominate a liberal candidate.
There has been considerable excitement around Elizabeth Warren, including recent calls from the Boston Globe, and just recently Lawrence Lessig, for Warren to run. There is even a draft Joe Biden web site. Martin O’Malley might not be as exciting to the grass roots as Warren but he does have one thing going for him. Unlike Warren, O’Malley is actually talking about running.
Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley took a swipe at likely 2016 contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush on Sunday, saying that “the presidency of the United States is not some crown to be passed between two families.”
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” O’Malley, who is weighing a possible run against Clinton for the Democratic nomination, called the presidency “an awesome and sacred trust to be earned and exercised on behalf of the American people.”
O’Malley — who at times has been reluctant to take on Clinton directly — declined to say whether he thought the former secretary of state would stand up to Wall Street and other special interests. “I don’t know where she stands,” he told host George Stephanopoulos. “Will she represent a break with the failed policies of the past? Well, I don’t know.”
O’Malley is trying to position himself as a more liberal and forward-looking alternative to Clinton, who holds a commanding lead in early polls among Democratic voters and is expected to make her bid official next month.
Chris Cillizza is among the journalists who see O’Mallley as getting more aggressive against Clinton:
So, what’s changed? Well, for one, O’Malley and his team quite clearly see an opening — no matter how small — caused by Clinton’s unforced error on her e-mails. Ramping up the rhetoric is a probing attempt by O’Malley to see whether there really is a plausible path to beat — or at least seriously challenge — Clinton in a primary. Could a liberal’s liberal without a famous last name have a chance — if that person was willing to push (and push hard) the idea that Clinton represents an unnecessary compromise of ideals and an unnecessary continuation of the dynastic politics that people say they don’t like?
Many front runners have lost in the past, including Ed Muskie, Joe Lieberman, Gary Hart, Rudy Giuliani, and Hillary Clinton in 2008. Clinton does have an unprecedented lead, but she is also in an unusual situation. Her support comes from a combination of her name and gender, but her views are to the right of the party base which turns out in primaries. She has been a poor campaigner, including stumbling in her book tour and response to the email controversy, in addition to the problems in her 2008 campaign. She remains the most likley winner, but not inevitable.
On the other hand, while O’Malley looks like an unlikely winner, the Democrats have often nominated governors who were not well-known nationally before the campaign. This includes ultimate general election winners such as Carter and Bill Clinton, and losers such as Dukakis. O’Malley has a long-shot, but not impossible, chance at winning just by showing up in the nomination race if more Democrats reconsider whether they really want to see the party move to the right, under a leader with a history of poor judgement and loose ethics.
It is never good for a politician to become a frequent punchline of the late night comedians. Seth Meyers had the above response to Rudy Giuliani’s false claim that Obama does not love America, along with Scott Walker’s difficulty in responding to a question as to whether he agreed. (Media and graphic below via Mediaite).
Walker is complaining of being hit with gotcha questions but he has made two major errors which a serious candidate for the presidency should not have made. At this stage in what used to be called the invisible primary, but now is very open, questions serve the purpose of dividing out the serious and not serious candidates. On the one hand a candidate does have to be able to handle difficult questions, including questions which might not be fair. On the other hand, in an era of 24/7 news and Twitter, it is hard for anyone to go for a couple of years without giving a poor response and seeing it spread instantly.
Walker’s problem is that he has recently given two bad answers which shouldn’t have been that difficult. He will face far more difficulty, and potentially unfair, questions if he runs for president. The worst response from Walker, to me, was on evolution. On the other hand, questioning evolution is a common view among Republican primary votes so it might not hurt him. The Democrats are not effective enough politically to capitalize on that in a general election.
The question of whether Obama loves America was also not difficult. Other Republicans have given answers along the lines that Obama loves America but his policies are bad for America. Obviously I disagree, but I see that as a good answer politically for a Republican. Most of the base will not object as they are still critical of Obama, and sane people will not see them as kooks for saying this.
It is still early and I doubt that this will be enough to derail Walker’s campaign. Plenty of other candidates will have bad moments before the first primary. This will only hurt if it is a trend which continues, in which case many Republicans will question whether he is ready for a national presidential campaign. If he continues to make such unforced errors, this will start to become how Walker is known by the general public and the campaign sign made by Seth Meyers will then stick:
There has been a lot of news on sequels to classic science fiction movies. The teaser for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens (video above) has received considerable attention, and has led to more speculation as to the movie and the future of the Star Wars universe. There might not be that much information, but several people have broken it down scene by scene to see what can be learned. There is discussion of the trailer here,here, here, here, and here.
Other science fiction classics are also being remade, including Jurassic Park which is discussed below. Fox is planning to release Independence Day 2 on July 4, 2016. Of course for those who don’t want to wait a year or longer, many science fiction movies came out this year. What Culture has picked their list of ten best sci-fi movies of 2014. Some like Interstellar are original movies while others like the two Marvel movies (X-Men and Captain America), Godzilla, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes are also sequels or remakes of earlier movies.
The trailer for Jurassic World is above. Film discussed the movie (and leaks of the plot) with director Colin Trevorrow. As is the case with many blockbuster science fiction films, liberties are taken with the science. Trevorrow described the premise:
Yes. Jurassic World takes place in a fully functional park on Isla Nublar. It sees more than 20,000 visitors every day. You arrive by ferry from Costa Rica. It has elements of a biological preserve, a safari, a zoo, and a theme park. There is a luxury resort with hotels, restaurants, nightlife and a golf course. And there are dinosaurs. Real ones. You can get closer to them than you ever imagined possible. It’s the realization of John Hammond’s dream, and I think you’ll want to go there…
This film picks up twenty-two years after Jurassic Park. When Derek [Connolly] and I sat down to find the movie, we looked at the past two decades and talked about what we’ve seen. Two things came to the surface.
One was that money has been the gasoline in the engine of our biggest mistakes. If there are billions to be made, no one can resist them, even if they know things could end horribly.
The other was that our relationship with technology has become so woven into our daily lives, we’ve become numb to the scientific miracles around us. We take so much for granted.
Those two ideas felt like they could work together. What if, despite previous disasters, they built a new biological preserve where you could see dinosaurs walk the earth…and what if people were already kind of over it? We imagined a teenager texting his girlfriend with his back to a T-Rex behind protective glass. For us, that image captured the way much of the audience feels about the movies themselves. “We’ve seen CG dinosaurs. What else you got?” Next year, you’ll see our answer.
The crossover episodes of The Flash and Arrow are on this week but these might not be the only crossovers coming up. CBS owns CW and there are hints that their upcoming Supergirl television show will be in the same universe as The Flash and Arrow, allowing for crossover episodes between these DC characters. However, while you might think that having Supergirl in the television universe would lead to at least mention of Superman, as of now this will not be allowed. Neither Metropolis or Gotham City will be mentioned either. From IGN:
Unfortunately for those hoping to see the Dark Knight show up on the shows, Arrow and Flash executive producer Andrew Kreisberg stressed that anything you see referencing Batman on the show is “a tease.”
Explained Kreisberg, “Obviously, they have the Batman movies and there’s [the series] Gotham. DC are amazing partners and Geoff Johns, who’s the chief creative officer [of DC] and one of the developers of Flash and done episodes of Arrow, he’s been with us from the very beginning on both shows. There are things we can do and things we can’t.”
Kreisberg noted, “I’m a huge fan of Nightwing,” and how exciting it was for him on Arrow “Getting to name check Blüdhaven and go there.” However, he said there are still restrictions in place even when it came to mentioning locations, adding, “There’s the cities that we can use and then there’s everything else. I don’t think you’re going to be hearing ‘Gotham’ or ‘Metropolis’ [on Arrow or The Flash] anytime soon.”
We do know that among the many DC-based TV series in development is Titans at TNT, which would feature Dick Grayson in his Nightwing persona. So could that show directly mention Gotham City and Bruce Wayne/Batman – or even go to Gotham and have an appearance by Bruce? Or is the Gotham TV show seen as the only place where a version of Bruce Wayne will be seen on TV right now? These questions and more — including how directly Superman can be mentioned on CBS’ upcoming Suprgirl TV show — are all ones we’ll slowly find out the answers too as DC expands into more TV shows and films.
There has been one tease and one indirect connection between The Flash and Gotham. I did notice a reference to Wayne Tech in a newspaper headline on The Flash. Morena Baccarin did the computer AI voice at STAR Labs on The Flash and will also be playing Dr. Leslie Thompkins on Gotham. Of course this also provides a connection to the multiple other genre shows she has appeared in.
Den of Geek has teasers, interviews, and other information on the upcoming Flash/Arrow crossover episode. Arrow also teased an ATOM suit for Ray Palmer in a recent episode, providing the possibility of yet another superhero becoming involved. There are also questions as to where Caitlin Snow’s character is going on The Flash. In the comics she is a villain named Killer Frost and Danielle Panabaker, the actress who plays here, states her evolution might take place sooner rather than later. Then there is the bigger mystery of what Harrison Wells is up to and whether he is the one who killed Barry’s mother. Theories range from Wells being Barry Allen’s future self to be being the Reverse Flash. With time travel clearly important to the Harrison Wells storyline, it is notable that a recent episode showed that time can be changed.
Gotham finally had a bigger role for young Bruce Wayne which involved food fights and even a kiss with Selena Kyle. Plus Alfred is practically a superhero on final fall episode.
I am looking forward to Agent Carter but what is the deal with the network promotion of the show with, “Sometimes the best man for a job is a woman.” This is 2014 and just because the show takes place in the 1940’s is not justification for using 1940’s ideas on women to promote the show.
Constantine has not been as successful for NBC as The Flash and Arrow have been for CW and NBC has decided not to go beyond the original thirteen episodes for this season. The producers are still hoping to be renewed, even if limited to thirteen episode seasons (which could be a plus quality-wise).
The synopsis for the Doctor Who Christmas special has been released: “The Doctor and Clara face their Last Christmas. Trapped on an Arctic base, under attack from terrifying creatures, who are you going to call? Santa Claus!” There is even more drama beyond the terrifying creatures.
Steven Moffat has never liked spoilers and in the past has said he would like to be able to keep it a secret until an episode in which the Doctor regenerated airs, but this is not possible. At least he is getting the opportunity to surprise fans with the fate of Clara Oswald. The Mirror, which initially claimed prior to the start of the past season that Jenna Coleman was leaving Doctor Who in the Christmas special now states that she had decided to remain, leading to a rewrite. When other sources such as Radio Times tried to get an answer, the BBC just told them they would have to wait for the Christmas episode.
Hulu has picked up the remaining six episodes of Selfie remaining after it was canceled by ABC.
Idina Menzel was interviewed by The Telegraph and it sounds like a sequel to Frozen is in the works.
Totally off topic, but I can’t resist noting that Rudy Giuliani’s comments on race following the events in Ferguson sound the best in the original German.
The Alabama-LSU game is getting more hype today, but the Oh0 State-Illinois game was far more important for the future of this nation. That is because a correlation has been found between winning football games and how voters feel about voting for the incumbent:
What exactly is it that makes voters reward a challenger or punish an incumbent? Do they care about the unemployment rate, GDP, or inflation, or is it how those variables are moving? Are voters motivated by position papers or a candidate’s personal history? Is the electorate responding to slick TV ads or how the candidates performed in the debates?
It may be something else altogether. Recent research has revealed that voter irrationality may be more arbitrary than we think. And in a razor-thin election just enough irrationality can make all the difference. Just how irrational are voters? It is statistically possible that the outcome of a handful of college football games in the right battleground states could determine the race for the White House.
Economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia Mo make this argument in a fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They examined whether the outcomes of college football games on the eve of elections for presidents, senators, and governors affected the choices voters made. They found that a win by the local team, in the week before an election, raises the vote going to the incumbent by around 1.5 percentage points. When it comes to the 20 highest attendance teams—big athletic programs like the University of Michigan, Oklahoma, and Southern Cal—a victory on the eve of an election pushes the vote for the incumbent up by 3 percentage points. That’s a lot of votes, certainly more than the margin of victory in a tight race. And these results aren’t based on just a handful of games or political seasons; the data were taken from 62 big-time college teams from 1964 to 2008.
The good news, we suppose, is that sports really can cheer us up and make the world seem like a brighter place. The sports fan is left happier and more satisfied all around, not just on the gridiron. When you are feeling upbeat and happy, you feel more satisfied with the status quo in general. And feeling satisfied with the status quo makes you more likely to vote for the incumbent politician, even if that’s totally irrational.
The study’s authors control for economic, demographic, and political factors, so the results are much more sophisticated than just a raw correlation. They also did a deeper analysis that took into account people’s expectations. It turns out that surprise wins are especially potent, raising local support for incumbent politicians by around 2.5 percentage points.
Alabama and Louisiana will go to Romney regardless of the score of a football game, but Obama has such a narrow lead in Ohio that we’ll take any benefits from Ohio State beating Illinois. Michigan is probably safe for Obama, but it doesn’t hurt that Michigan won today (despite Denard Robinson still being out after the injury suffered during the Nebraska game). Florida came back to beat Missouri, possibly delivering another swing state. Virginia beat North Carolina State, helping in the southeast swing state where Obama’s chances were already better. Miami beat Virginia Tech on Thursday, providing mixed results. Colorado was no match for Stanford so Obama better clinch reelection without waiting for the results from the western states just to be safe.
Going to more serious predictors. Obama maintains a lead in Ohio and smaller leads in Florida and Virginia. Karl Rove says that Sandy has helped Obama. Is he preparing the spin for a loss by Romney? Authoritarian war-monger Rudy Giuliani calls on Obama to resign in a fiery speech which sounded much better in the original German. This looks like a faux issue which only those already believing the right wing alternate reality believe. A more objective view, and consideration of the facts, shows that this attempt to Swift Boat Obama has failed. Despite the attempts by the right wing to twist the facts, Condoleeza Rice has defended the actions of the Obama Administration regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
It looks like mayors from the east make poor surrogates. Rudy Giuliani had his Cory Booker moment today on CNN”s State of the Union:
“Well, I mean, there’s a certain amount of personal ego in that — at that point, I was probably comparing his record to my record,” he said about his dings at Romney. “And maybe it was circumstances or whatever, but I had massive reductions in unemployment. He had a reduction in unemployment of about 8,10 percent — I think it was 15 percent. I had a reduction of unemployment of 50 percent. He had a growth of jobs of about 40,000; we had a growth of jobs of about 500,000. So I was comparing what I thought was my far superior record to his otherwise decent record. … That’s all part of campaigning.”
The spring, before many are paying attention, is providing both campaigns with a period in which to look at potential surrogates and decide who might be helpful to the campaign. Of course Giuliani is generally a more effective speaker when ranting against liberalism, especially when he delivers his speeches in the original German.
The New York Daily News reports that authoritarian war monger Rudy Guiliani plans to announce that he will not be running for Governor of New York as many have speculated. They report that instead he will announce plans to run for the Senate. A Senate seat might be used as a spring board for a future presidential run.
There’s no word as to whether Giliani’s announcement will be in English or German. The speeches he gave at the Republican National Convention in 2004, along with many of his subsequent speeches, did sound much better in the original German.
