An early political memory came back to me this morning.
A presidential campaign where age was a major factor for one candidate.
At the first debate he appeared weak and doddering and pundits said it fundamentally changed the race.
He won 49 states.
Debates don’t matter.
but his people used him as a puppet and achieved his stated political goals so win-win (where the second win is diminishing the power vested in a single person)
The cool thing is, if he's right (& the polls appear to be confirming it so far) it means the polling is busted in exactly the way people suspected it was, & the "historic realignment" stuff is not necessarily balderdash, but it's at least partly an artifact of partisan nonresponse
Which is exactly what we see in economic polling these days
"The economy is great for me personally, but I'm assuming it must be bad for everybody else"
I want Biden to drop out too, but I’m going to pick Biden over Trump. I am frankly going to pick nearly anyone (Dem or GOP) over Trump. He is a dangerous criminal.
Which way do people suspect polling is busted? I’d like to think it overestimates Trump’s support, but polling in 2020 actually underestimated it. Midterm 2022 polling was closer than most years.
Not sure! Probably a little in Biden's favor but the degree is basically impossible to tell. But "Trump making huge gains with nonwhite voters & voters under 35" seems a lot less likely than "those demographics being particularly unwilling to respond to pollsters unless they're sickos"
Remember how frustrating it was when every new Trump scandal confirming how much of a piece of garbage he is didn’t seem to move poll numbers one iota? Well now it is Democrats’ turn when it comes to Biden and age.
Me, a NY Times opinion person: Biden has been very nasty to me by not giving me an exclusive interview, so surely Trump is the man of the people.
The People: man, I forgot that guys a fucking asshole
I mean… Dobbs has supercharged Democrat gains. If nothing else Biden got Trump to state that he still supports the Dobbs decision in the debate. That’s a pretty big bullseye
We are not actually mysterious, it’s just that our national news media decided on a narrative several years ago and is totally disinterested and detached from what we are experiencing
