Jim has thrown the gauntlet for all Americans to “get off the couch” and support their candidates in 2020.
We had record turnouts in 2018 for midterms and it really paid off for Democrats. Will it do the same in 2020? The expectation is 70% participation. More than 2018.
This could tip the scales for Democrats in both houses of Congress. But Trump’s core is also indicating high turnout. And as usual, a few key swing states will probably make the difference. Particularly Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Personally, I think it is more critical for Democrats to keep the House and gain the Senate than just winning the White House. McConnell is just another Trump cabinet member instead of a Congressional leader. Plus he’ll probably issue another Republican agenda like he did in 2008: “Our most important goal is to make sure Harris, Biden, Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar…pick one or others, is a one term President.”
Here’s a theory should Trump keep his office, but the Democrats take Congress.
Since Trump couldn’t run again he wouldn’t need to please just his core. He might start thinking of his own legacy and work with Congress to actually be a president for all Americans.
Oops, I think I see a unicorn on my lawn.
IMHO
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Urging people to vote? Who knew that Mr. Frost was a closet progressive?!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did. I saw it coming.
LikeLike
I had a feeling Jimmy’s letter would be a popular one here.
And you are giving McConnell too much credit. The satirical representation of him as a turtle is just a bit too accurate, IMHO.
And I think unicorn is about right. Along with Santa, the Easter Bunny, and Batman.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Speaking of Moscow Mitch, turns out he is a crybaby whiner. Big surprise. Not.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-new-nickname-for-mcconnell-muzzle-mitch/2019/09/04/ad078212-cf47-11e9-8c1c-7c8ee785b855_story.html
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mr. Frost says, paraphrased: Get off the couch, do your job as a citizen/voter.
I get the sentiment. I even support it somewhat. But I’m more sanguine about it than anything else.
Theoretically, whether voter turnout is high or low doesn’t matter much. We tend to think it does because we’re happy there is high voter turnout and our candidate wins, and unhappy there is high voter turnout when our candidate loses. Either way, we attribute the cause to high voter turnout.
In reality, elections would probably produce the same results with low turnout as with high. That’s because an election is just a poll, and polls tend to produce the same results with both high and low sample rates.
Put another way, the fact of democracy is more significant than the mechanics of it.
There’s another way to see the same thing. Although I would have hated to see Hillary Clinton win in 2016, I’m pretty sure the course of history would have trundled along in pretty much the same way with or without her. Rome, as an example, continued on its set trajectory of decline despite, not entirely because of Caligula, and even then Rome managed to install a more effective successor, Claudius.
I’m not saying Don’t get off the couch and do your job as a voter/citizen. I’m saying, “Let’s be rational.”
And, “Cool it with this you-have-a-duty talk.” Such high pressure in-group/out-group formulations worry me more in the coming contest than the actual results.
LikeLike
High voter turnout indicates a more engaged citizenry. Form what you said, that is not important. I disagree. For years my wife didn’t even register to vote. For her own personal reasons, she registered in 2008. When I asked her about it, she basically told me if she didn’t vote, she couldn’t bitch about things. Not that she likes to bitch, but she felt that maybe there would be more to complain about going forward.
An informed (that is another issue) and active electorate is important to our democratic republic. – IMHO
LikeLike
RE: “An informed (that is another issue) and active electorate is important to our democratic republic.”
I used to think so, too, until I began to pay attention to politics and media.
I came to appreciate that voter’s instincts are as good as their knowledge in making decisions. I later learned there’s actually a name for how this happens, the “wisdom of crowds.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd
The idea is that the choice the crowd makes averages out all the different capacities of the members in a way that tends to be “more wise” or more accurate (in some contexts) than the choice a single expert might make.
Since the wisdom of the crowd tends to be reliable, it is not as important as we might think for every member to be an expert. We can tolerate geniuses and dummies, conventional thinkers and eccentrics, in the crowds we use to make decisions.
Anyhow, that’s how I think about democracy now.
LikeLike
“The idea is that the choice the crowd makes averages out all the different capacities of the members in a way that tends to be “more wise” or more accurate (in some contexts) than the choice a single expert might make.
Since the wisdom of the crowd tends to be reliable”
So that calls into question the “wisdom” of the electoral college. Hillary won by 2.5 million votes in the larger sample of national votes.
Then she must have been the wiser choice.
But, alas.
LikeLike
RE: “Then she must have been the wiser choice.”
Not really. The wisdom of crowds effect actually vindicates the Electoral College. To win the EC a candidate must win the majority of discrete “wise choice” contests. Hillary lost by being the “unwise choice” in too many of those.
If you increase the crowd size to that of the whole nation in a single vote, you get only one “wise choice” decision, not many. Many people, including me, think that lots of “wise choice” contests over the same decision are better than just one.
LikeLike
It is not the multiple “wise choices” that you like, it is the extra power the EC gives to the most backward and backward thinking parts of the country. If the votes in the EC were made proportionate to the populations in those individual “wise choices” you would not like it one bit.
LikeLike
As the saying goes, you are welcome to your own opinions but not to your own facts. In reality, high turnout elections favor Democrats and low turnout elections favor Republicans. And THAT is exactly why GOP legislatures all over the country are trying to make it more difficult to vote.
As for history unfolding the same whether it was President Clinton or President Trump I would have to suggest you think about that one some more. With President Clinton we would NOT be giving TRILLIONS to billionaires, we would NOT be pushing Iran towards war, we would not be accelerating the destruction of the environment, we would still be working with other nations to address climate change, we would not be involved in economy-wrecking trade wars, and we would not have made ourselves laughingstocks in a way that will take decades to reverse.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love how Mr. Roberts completely blew off the key component of the discussion: voter turnout. He focused on the “what-if” of your comment and NOT what the discussion is all about.
For one who often insists others stay on topic, it was NOT surprising to see him go “there”.
LikeLike
Right. I “completely blew off the key component of the discussion: voter turnout” by writing “elections would probably produce the same results with low turnout as with high. That’s because an election is just a poll, and polls tend to produce the same results with both high and low sample rates.”
LikeLike
RE: “As for history unfolding the same whether it was President Clinton or President Trump I would have to suggest [yada, yada, yada].”
Digruntaled losers always have sob stories. They are easy to make up after the fact, as I alluded to.
In historical context, I take it you want your Claudius, and you want him NOW, a la J.D. Wentworth.
LikeLike
Huh?
LikeLike
“That’s because an election is just a poll, and polls tend to produce the same results with both high and low sample rates.”
Not exactly. Selecting polling candidates is the hard part of polling. You need to get a cross sample that reflects the group you are trying to get opinions from.
There is a relatively small number of committed voters who will vote all the time. And if they are part of a well led segment, like Evangelicals for example, you can rely on their participation much more than the average voter.
True, the ultimate “poll” is the election, but I think number of participants in a large country like ours is significant.
LikeLiked by 2 people
RE: “You need to get a cross sample that reflects the group you are trying to get opinions from.”
Yes, you do. But the attributes of the sample group is a different puzzle than its size as a matter of statistical significance.
LikeLike
Now you are just embarrassing yourself. Your logic goes something like this . . .
Polls come out the same with small or with large samples.
An election is just a poll.
Therefore, election results will be the same regardless of turnout.
Buzzz. Wrong.
An election is NOT just a poll because . . .
the size of the “sample” is not determined by some researcher but is based on the intensity of feelings of the voters who must EACH make an effort to be included in the “poll.”
Historically, hatred has been a strong motivator and as a result the GOP base is far more likely to turn out for an election because their feelings are strong. Democratic-leaning voters’ feelings have been generally less intense. That is why the GOP does well in off year elections – their voters turn out, the Democrats often do not. Trump has changed that by doing everything in his power to motivate people already motivated and – in so doing – inadvertently motivating Democrats. 2018 was just a preview.
LikeLiked by 1 person
RE: “An election is NOT just a poll…”
Of course it is. That’s why we call the locations where votes are taken “polling places.”
In any case, your explanation makes a math error. The math says that a given poll, or election, with a given sample definition will produce the same result with a large sample size as with a small one.
You explanation says that a given poll, repeated with different sample definitions, will produce different results with different sample sizes.
Your explanation is obviously true, as far as it goes, but the math is not the same as in the first example (because the sample definitions are different).
Your “logic” is to assert that the first example must be wrong, because a different example with different math gives a different result. But the first example is not wrong. It is Statistics 101.
LikeLike
Here is something that you seem not to know. English is a complex and sophisticated language in which the same word can have a different meaning in different contexts. Therefore, your “argument” based on our use of the term “polling places” is on or over the edge of laughable. You are now defending an obviously absurd “fact” – that a poll and an election are the same thing. They are not.
As for your Statistics 101, it is indecipherable. I said nothing about samples or sample definitions. I did not perform any math so there could not be a “math error.”
Maybe you did not follow, but the syllogism I presented was the essence of YOUR logic, not mine.
LikeLike
RE: “Maybe you did not follow…”
I followed just fine. Also, my syllogism is valid. It is your claim that my second premise is false that is in error.
You seem to think that polls and elections are not the same because elections reflect historical behavior patterns of voters. But that really has nothing to do with my original point.
Sure, it’s true that patterns emerge after behavioral history occurs. but history doesn’t cause new election/poll results to occur.
Hence my original observation that a particular poll/election result will be the same with either a large or small number of participants/voters is not affected by the superfluous issues you raise.
LikeLike
Your original observation is nuts. As history has repeatedly shown. The size of the turn-out for an election is not some arbitrary or random number. It is a function of the intensity of feeling by different parts of the electorate. If, for example, the ugly racist behavior of the President motivates a lot of otherwise apathetic people to vote, the turnout will be larger and the outcome could be very different. This is not rocket science. If you cannot see it, then you are maybe 1/10th the intellect you think yourself to be.
Similarly, continuing to claim that there is no difference between a poll and an election is also self-evidently nuts. A poll is an attempt to predict future behavior. An election IS that future behavior. In producing a poll some “expert” decides who to ask, how to reach them, what to ask and who to exclude. In an election the “what to ask” is fixed by the ballot and, most importantly, who takes part is decided by the individual voters, not the “expert.”
Why this reluctance to accept the obvious and go on embarrassing yourself? My best guess is that it is an attempt to believe that GOP efforts to suppress voter participation does not matter because, gee, the results will be the same no matter the turnout.
LikeLike
Vote early. Vote often.
LikeLike