Sunday School 11/22/20

Remember the polls that no one's talking about anymore, the ones that showed Joe Biden way ahead before Election Day, just like they showed Hillary way ahead in 2016?  They were right, insofar as they predicted a Biden win, but there was a lot that was wrong, too.

Today, on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, we heard from Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, on what might have impacted the polls this time around.  Silver said that "the margins were pretty far off in a lot of places," even if they correctly called the presidential race in all but two states - Florida and North Carolina. The biggest problems were in the Midwest, he said. And he pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as a contributor, saying that "if people are changing their living pattern...that might affect how they respond to polls..." And, he noted a partisan impact, too.

Democrats have been more likely than Republican voters to embrace social distancing... In fact, research has shown poll response rats form Democratic voters shot up once the pandemic hit in March, increasing from 12% to 16-17%. That's enough to potentially skew the numbers. 

And remember that only 37% of jobs can be performed at home. A lot of those are white collar, knowledge sector jobs held by college-educated professionals, a group that mostly votes for Democrats these days.

And while he says COVID was a factor, it probably wasn't the only one. But he says, "knock on wood," there won't be a pandemic to mess things up in 2024. I'm curious as to the other issues he thinks were in play - the pandemic was the only one he mentioned.

Moving down the hall to the State of the Union classroom in the CNN wing,  Jake Tapper talked with my favorite Republican, Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan, who had been on the show two weeks ago, when he said he thought the president would do the right thing and concede, Tapper wondered if he still had confidence that Trump would do the right thing. Hogan said he's confident that "the president-elect is going to be sworn in" but he's not confident that the president will do the right thing.

Look, I thought the pressuring of the legislators to try to somehow change the outcome with electors was completely outrageous. And, quite frankly, I mean, we used to go supervise elections around the world, and we were - we were the most respected country with respect to elections. And now we're beginning to look like a banana republic.

It's time for them to stop the nonsense. It just gets more bizarre every single day. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that more people in the party aren't speaking up. 

On why he thinks so few of his fellow Rs are stepping up, "willing to demonstrate even basic integrity and honestly here," as Tapper put it, Hogan said what I've been thinking for the past four years: 

I just don't think that there are a lot of profiles in courage, frankly... I mean - we all know how vindictive the president can be, how powerful his Twitter account is, and how he can really pressure Republicans and go after them. Very few of us are willing to stand up.

But that's changing, he said. Governors, senators, House members - it's "slowly growing every day." And there are others, the ones who are giving the president advice - except he's ignoring them.

Hogan said the Executive Committee of the National Governors Association met (virtually) with Biden and Kamala Harris, talking about the pandemic, and he appreciated that the two reached out to the NGA set up the meeting. He said they were "mostly in listening mode" and asking the govs what was going on.

He said he was concerned there was a "smooth handoff," because "we have the current administration and the new administration not even speaking to one another while lives are at stake."

And it's the - it's kind of one of the worst things about this current situation we find ourselves in, with no communication and no transition.

He also said that 90% of Marylanders said they're not travelling for Thanksgiving, "a dramatic change." People are listening, and following the guidelines. Imagine that!

And finally, a quick drop-in on the Face the Nation classroom, where Margaret Brennan talked with former national security advisor H.R. McMaster. She asked him "how corrosive" Trump's actions are to our national security. Very corrosive, he said, and what concerns him is that "the president's kind of playing into the hands of our adversaries." He said that Russia doesn't care who wins "as long as a large number of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the result."  We need to "demand better from our political leaders," he added, so that we don't get even further divided. 

McMaster also said that, while Trump's firing of Chris Krebs, the DHS guy who said the 2020 election was the most secure ever, Krebs "overstated it" when he said the Giuliani/Powell/Ellis legal team's press conference was "the most dangerous hour and 45 minutes in American TV history, and possibly the craziest."

"We should be confident," McMaster said, while acknowledging that it was a "travesty" that Krebs got fired, and that Krebs was a big part of the efforts to improve election security.

But hey, Margaret, it's Thanksgiving week. We should be thankful for the framers of our Constitution because they designed our form of government based on what they saw as worst-case scenarios, worst-case scenarios based on the bloody wars in England in the 17th century...  

He added that the president doesn't have a say in the transition. Although, it's clear that not saying something about the transition - you know, releasing the funds and allowing departments to talk to the newcomers - can be just as impactful, of not more so, than actually saying something.

Wear your mask. Keep your Thanksgiving celebration small. Obey your local pandemic guidance. You know - do the right thing... Be a Marylander. 

See you around campus. 

Wondering on Wednesday (v100)

It seems somehow fitting that I would be doing my 100th Wondering on Wednesday post quoting president Trump.

Let us remember, for point of reference, that many in the punditry just got done telling us how 'presidential' Trump was on Monday night when he announced with almost startling clarity that it's different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. And then,  he clarified that statement by telling us he meant "when you're President of the United States."  I wondered, a long time ago, if he would ever realize he won and it's his job. And now I wonder, has he finally turned the corner on that?

And then it was Tuesday and it was Phoenix. Wonder on these things, or others; you can read the entire transcript here, if you like.

• Trump went off the teleprompter for a diatribe against the sick, dishonest, America-hating media.
• He threatened to shut down the government over the (see-through) border walls
• He threatened (again) to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio; 
• He slammed both Arizona senators - John McCain, and the one who won't be named 
• He promised economic growth, jobs, lower taxes, good immigration, and more. 
• He talked about coal you wash after taking it out of the ground, showing his lack of understanding about energy (again) or his sense of humor; we'll be told it's the latter even if it's the former. 
• He wants to change Senate rules to have everything be a simple majority vote, showing (again) his lack of understanding of our government, or his sense of humor (ditto the comment above).
• He claimed Republicans resist, Democrats obstruct. Both do both; always have, always will.
• He claims a better legislative record than Harry Truman - as if it matters to anyone.
• He promised victory in Afghanistan (again).
• He respects Kim Jong Un for respecting him. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
• He mistakenly stated that leftists "now" want to remove a statue of Teddy Roosevelt; this was a protest act unrelated to Charlottesville that occurred in 2016, proving (again) that he repeats fake news.

Can he really not just stick to the script, folks? How hard can it really be, I wonder? Or, was some of this actually IN the script? I wonder about that part, too.

We also learned yesterday, which was confirmed today, that the part of ESPN that live-streams college sports will not have a guy named Robert Lee narrate the live feed for an upcoming University of Virginia vs. William & Mary football game. UVA, you know, is the university in Charlottesville... The story goes that ESPN fired Lee (not true) or decided to pull him from the game so as not to offend anyone, given the similarity of his name to that of one deceased Confederate general.

Wondering immediately ensued -- what were they thinking? Are they insane? Is this the stupidest thing you've ever heard?

ESPN released a statement in which the noted the following: concerns were raised by the Charlottesville production staff that Lee would be subject to "social hectoring and trolling" as well as that it could become a "distraction" - and that Lee himself had "expressed some personal trepidation" about the game. Instead, we're told, he'll do a different game close to his Albany home.

Amnesty International photo

The last one that fits in tonight's wonder-full post (from a thematic perspective anyway), is the report that what helped drive Trump's Afghanistan decision included being shown a picture of hot Afghan women.

Seriously. There they are - this is believed to be the deal-clinching photo.

One of the ways McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black and white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return.

I can't help wondering what Trump wondered when HR McMaster handed him this picture. Or whether McMaster wondered if handing Trump a picture of young hotties was a good idea given his, well you know, given his self-confessed proclivities and all.

But mostly, I wonder how great it would be if it turned out this was just fake news, made up by someone at the White House? You know, to catch those dishonest, America-hating, failing, lying, crooked media elites who live in a much smaller apartment than Trump does, and who went to worse schools than Trump did in a lie?

Yeah, although it's not likely to happen, how much fun would it be?