The Real timschochet

I have never welched on anyone. And feel free to attack me all you want for my views on undocumented immigrants. I stand by all of those. And they have nothing to do with this topic.

I think you’re going to be surprised. We will find out soon.

ZeroHedge is another of these far right sites I don’t understand any more. It claims to be rooted in the Ludwig Von Mises Austrian free market school of economics, which is laudable. But anyone in that school would be screaming from the rooftops about Trump’s tariff ideas and insisting that Kamala Harris is preferable simply by default. But of course ZeroHedge does the opposite: it slams Harris at every opportunity and ignores Trump’s ideas- and also promotes an alt-right pro-Putin agenda. What does that have to do with free market? Nothing. In the article you linked the description of Kamala’s CNN interview with phrases like “training wheels” and “nearly imploded” is so far removed from what actually took place that it destroys the credibility of the author. As does the entire premise of the article. Don’t you guys know what is actually going to happen in the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris? If you’re unsure let me fill you in: she’s going to destroy him.

Well that’s easy. Because she started way down in the swing states, then she cut the lead in half, then she closed the difference, now she’s a slight favorite. And she’s also tied it up in North Carolina and Georgia which weren’t in play a month ago. And the Georgia and North Carolina numbers are in the last few days. Meanwhile there’s no significant reversals in Trump’s favor. This leads me to conclude that her momentum continues.

He wrote that but it doesn’t make much sense. Here is RCP polling on Pennsylvania: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/pennsylvania/trump-vs-harris As you can see, contrary to Silver, Trump does NOT have a stubborn lead. In fact Harris based on all polling has a slight lead. Only the latest Trafalgar poll makes it even a tossup, otherwise Harris would average a 2 point consistent lead. So I don’t know where he’s getting this.

I think you’re being the hack not me. I note that you rely on 538 when you want and ignore them when you want. Now you’re relying on Silver to claim there’s a change in momentum when he never says that or ever indicates the trend is reversing. To the contrary he insists that nobody should put too much stock on the difference between 52-48 for Kamala vs 52-48 for Trump. I would also note that per Real Clear, the betting markets remain with Harris as slight but nearly unanimous favorite to win: https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president My estimation, based not on “feelings” but on constant reading about this subject, is that, for the moment, Kamala’s momentum continues but that the race remains a toss up. So I see no reason to change the thread title.

What ignorance? Did you read the Nate Silver poll? Here’s a summary: https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/08/40665199/trump-vs-harris-nate-silver-says-former-president-now-ahead-of-vice-president-in-electoral-college-o Read it carefully and get back to me. See if it indicates a change of momentum. It doesn’t. There are no polls that do.

No this is nonsense. The whole basis of Nate Silver’s change is the assumption that Kamala’s DNC bounce will fade. The problem with that is that there was no DNC bounce; her surge came before that. So you have Silver, and Trafalgar which is unchanged and within the margin of error, and nothing else. The vast majority of polls show Kamala continuing to have momentum. Next time try to read stuff more carefully. I DO want to have discussion but only if your facts are correct. In your case they’re usually not and certainly not this time.

I don’t see any evidence of that. There’s a few Republican funded polls that continue to show Trump slightly ahead in some of the swing states. The majority of polls do not. And Kamala continues to have a national lead in poll averages by 4 points per 538.

Harris is also closing in on Trump in Texas: https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-chances-beating-donald-trump-texas-polls-1947135 However Harris is not going to win Texas.

Um if you think Trump is winning votes as a result of this incident you’re sadly mistaken.

Lol 1. Kamala was never going to win Minnesota by 10 points. 2. Kamala was never going to not win Minnesota.

Wait- what did Biden do exactly?

Let me put this in language you’ll understand: I think she will win because that’s what Jesus wants to happen.

I thought she performed well. Outside of conservative news sources nearly all journalists seem to agree. As far as the general public goes I have no idea. I certainly haven’t seen any poll results that indicate otherwise. It’s going to be a close election. But for those of us rooting for Harris to win, the good news remains that since she entered the race just over a month ago, there has been no break in her momentum. No pull the other direction, no halt to the honeymoon and gain by Trump. That’s not to say it won’t happen at some point but it hasn’t happened yet.

Thats not what I said. There ARE costs short term and overall gains long term. Politics, however, are about short term gains and losses so my arguments won’t work with the general public.

If I were in charge of Trump’s campaign I would be running 3 ads. The first would be a video of Kamala talking credit for being the deciding vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, followed by a woman struggling to shop in a grocery store and facts about how much prices have risen. I would run this ad the most. The second ad would be the Democratic mayor of New York City saying that he can’t afford the cost of undocumented immigrants, followed by statistics about these costs, followed by statistics on border encounters during the Biden/Harris years vs the Trump years. The third ad would be a series of statements by Kamala in the past as opposed to now: against fracking, now opposed. For getting rid of the border patrol, now opposed, etc. End with Kamala saying “if I’m elected President the first thing I will do is fight inflation” followed by this question: “But she’s been in office 4 years, why hasn’t she done this already?” I think these would be effective.

Right. And again I am not arguing that tying Kamala to the border won’t be effective. The gist of my speculation is that it would be better focused on the economic costs of undocumented immigration rather than anecdotal crime incidents however brutal. But I could be totally wrong.

I wasn’t at the DNC. But I was at a Taylor Swift concert earlier this summer so….close enough!!

Incidentally, Georgia once again looks like the best team in football. No idea how they lost last year.

Well I would say that, much like me, you’re not exactly neutral on this subject, and that our views are predetermined. Neither of us is probably a good judge on how this will affect other people. We can only speculate, as we are both doing.

So I’m watching the Clemson vs Georgia game and twice now I’ve seen this commercial in which a woman whose daughter was murdered by an illegal immigrant blames Kamala Harris. Not an official Trump campaign ad but “paid for by MAGA”. Obviously I’m biased but I don’t think this ad will be effective. I know it worked against Dukakis in 1988 but his connection to the guy that was paroled was a lot more direct than anything Kamala Harris might be responsible for. Plus it’s dark and ugly and I wonder if anyone beyond those who care most about this issue (the vast majority already voting for Trump) will be convinced by it. This is not to say that immigration isn’t an issue that could hurt Kamala but it seems to me that a better argument would be focused on the economic costs. Trying to blame her for some random murder will, IMO, appeal only to the extremists on this subject.

I’ve noticed that all the budgetary hawks around here who complained so loudly about Biden’s student loan forgiveness and Kamala’s plan to give new homebuyers a $25,000 credit are strangely silent about Trump’s abrupt promise for the government to pay for all IVF treatments, which will costs many billions.

Once again the Harris campaign completely outfoxed the Trump folks: https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-first-interview-ratings-compared-donald-trump-1946932 What they did was not have Kamala give any interviews for weeks. And then they let the Trump folks complain about it. And complain about it. Pretty soon the MSM was also complaining about it. So by the time Kamala finally did give an interview the TV ratings were off the charts. And since most people think she did fine, all it did was give her tons of positive attention after weeks of hype. They couldn’t have planned it better and Trump fell right into the trap.

FTR (though I’ve explained this many times before) I hire people I presume to be undocumented immigrants maybe twice a year for a couple of hours to perform specific tasks. So this question has never come up. If somebody got hurt I would certainly do what I could to help as I would with any vendor. But these are independent contractors.