Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, August 10th, 2024.
Sam: It is 2045 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter.
Sam: Yvonne Bo is not here today, and I had no volunteers to do it with me,
Sam: so you got one of these solo shows we had had last week.
Sam: Yvonne will be back next week as far as I know right now.
Sam: So let me give you a little idea of the agenda.
Sam: I'm going to start out with a, but first I have a movie. I'll talk about a movie.
Sam: And then I think I'm going to break it into three segments.
Sam: And first is going to be Harrison Waltz.
Sam: Waltz. It's not Waltz. It's walls, walls, not Waltz.
Sam: It's like the thing you walk into when you're not watching where you're going.
Sam: It's not the dance. Anyway, Harrison Walls, and we'll talk a little bit about
Sam: them and their campaign and how that's going and the VP pick and all that,
Sam: because that happened since the last show.
Sam: And then we'll talk about Trump Advance a little bit on the next segment,
Sam: on some of the things going on on that side of the campaign world.
Sam: And then finally, we'll end up with an election graphs update.
Sam: I'll update you on how the polls are doing and how that's looking.
Sam: As of this moment, when I'm recording, it changes every day because there are
Sam: new polls coming out. But as of when I'm recording, I'll give you the update.
Sam: That is the general plan.
Sam: And yeah, it's fun. It's fun, exciting and fun and whatever I'm doing this.
Sam: You know how sometimes on the, when I end up recording on the weekends,
Sam: I end up doing sort of one segment at a time and then taking a long break and
Sam: doing other things and then coming back to it.
Sam: I have no idea. I might, I might do that. Now that we're doing the live streaming
Sam: thing, which by the way, youtube.com slash at curmudgeons hyphen corner,
Sam: you can see like the live streams when I do this.
Sam: If you subscribe and click the bell, you'll get some sort of notification, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Or if you follow the curmudgeons corner account on Mastodon,
Sam: which you can find the link to on curmudgeons hyphen corner.com,
Sam: there'll be a little announcement when I go live.
Sam: But like I was thinking, you know, if I do it in segments now,
Sam: then the live streams will also be in segments.
Sam: And I'll be like, you know, I'll do this for a little bit and then I'll come
Sam: back later and I'll do it a little bit.
Sam: It'll be a little weird, but whatever, you know, whatever.
Sam: So anyway, that's the plan. And I guess I could just get started.
Sam: The movie this time around is one I watched in February. We're that far behind at the moment.
Sam: And it's The Last Temptation of Christ from 1988.
Sam: And I can tell you, you know, to start out, I'm giving you a thumb sideways.
Sam: Because really, first of all, it's long.
Sam: It's 163 minutes. i felt like
Sam: it really really didn't need to be that
Sam: long and for i'm
Sam: gonna say roughly the first half but it may have even been
Sam: more than the first half i was dragging through it i was not impressed at all
Sam: it was just sort of it felt like you know that you were going for anybody who
Sam: doesn't know This is a, a religious drama.
Sam: Obviously you could probably tell by the name back in the eighties.
Sam: It was a major, like there was a major
Sam: controversy around it and it being sacrilegious and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And, you know, whatever it has, William Defoe plays Jesus, I guess.
Sam: And there are a few other people in it.
Sam: And, and, and the thing is like the first part of the movie.
Sam: And like I said, it may have been the first three quarters of the movie. I don't know.
Sam: Basically does the standard retelling of the Gospels.
Sam: You know, there are a few things because it's fictionalized,
Sam: obviously. Well, I mean, all things fiction.
Sam: But anyway, my personal opinion on religion, but whatever.
Sam: It's the standard story. With a few little things here and there to sort of
Sam: humanize Jesus a little bit and make him not seem completely like a superhuman
Sam: divine creature that's perfect or whatever. So there were a few elements to humanize him.
Sam: And that was fine.
Sam: The first three quarters of the movie, maybe it was a half, maybe it was three
Sam: quarters, I don't know, it was the standard biblical retelling of the story,
Sam: of the standard gospel story.
Sam: Jesus grows up, he discovers he's got this special relationship with God, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And honestly, I was a little bit annoyed.
Sam: I said it humanizes him a little bit, but not a lot, actually.
Sam: There was a lot that was sort of like, you know, oh yeah, he is talking to God.
Sam: He is doing whatever. Although there was a constantly like, is he talking to
Sam: God or is he mentally ill?
Sam: You know, and that was very unclear. And I guess that's part of why people were upset about it.
Sam: But I, his, just the way he spoke and sort of these, oh, I'm calm and blah,
Sam: blah, blah. It just really irritated me.
Sam: I was like the first half.
Sam: I sort of alternated between mocking how like, Oh look, this,
Sam: this guy really is troubled. Somebody should get him help.
Sam: And just being annoyed by the tone he used and the way he talked and then being
Sam: annoyed more when it seemed like, okay, well some of the things he's doing is
Sam: are real and there's things.
Sam: And, and I don't know, But it's still a fairly standard interpretation,
Sam: and I felt like it was slow.
Sam: It was boring.
Sam: They were clearly trying to make him seem human, but he was still human in a way that was...
Sam: Still seemed like, oh, he's not quite right.
Sam: He's not quite relatable. He's either being super good or he's not well or something,
Sam: and it just never quite gelled for me.
Sam: And it just was not clicking in an entertaining way for me.
Sam: It was like, oh, God, how much longer is this? Do we really have this much time left? left.
Sam: But, and this is why I end up with a thumb sideways instead of a thumbs down.
Sam: I liked the ending because the, the ending and I have spoilers here for,
Sam: you know, a, what, 1988, how long ago was that? Oh God, too long. Let's not do the math.
Sam: I'm trying to, it's 30 some years. Anyway, spoilers.
Sam: The bottom line is that, and this I think is the thing that causes the title,
Sam: The Last Temptation of Christ.
Sam: It's the thing that caused most of the controversy.
Sam: I mean, some of it was the stuff before this when he was clearly tempted by
Sam: Mary Magdalene and had some human frailties that came into play.
Sam: But the key here is while he's getting crucified, He's basically offered a chance at a normal human life.
Sam: And it diverges into an alternate history where he walked away from the crucifixion
Sam: and went and got married, had children,
Sam: lived a good long life, and the history of the region played out in the background around him.
Sam: And this was the last temptation. to not end up crucified and become the savior
Sam: and all of this kind of stuff, but instead live a nice human life.
Sam: And then sort of at a certain point where that has gone on for a while,
Sam: he's basically given the choice of like, look how things are going wrong in
Sam: the world because you didn't make the sacrifice.
Sam: Here you go. Can you go back? And then, you know, he makes the choice to go
Sam: back and have the, you know, the crucifixion play out as the Bible story had originally said.
Sam: That. That's the last temptation that was being talked about.
Sam: This was an adaptation of a novel as well from 1955.
Sam: So I have not read the novel. I've only seen the movie.
Sam: But I liked the ending. I thought that was actually creative and interesting
Sam: and a nice spin that was doing something different that I had not seen before with this.
Sam: And I'm, I'm sure others have, of course, but like it was actually like that part had my attention.
Sam: That part had me being like, Oh, this is cool.
Sam: This is a nice, like it's diverged from the Bible story.
Sam: And now we're talking about something that's more interesting.
Sam: It's just that to get there, You had to slog through like two hours of a not
Sam: particularly great retelling of the standard Bible story.
Sam: And, you know, I mean, there are, of course, many movies of the standard retelling of the Bible story.
Sam: It's just this one didn't really do it for me for that part of the movie,
Sam: which was most of the movie.
Sam: Which is why I give it a thumb sideways. If it had only been the standard story
Sam: of Jesus's lifetime, then I'd be like, oh, okay.
Sam: It's interesting in that it's kind of gritty.
Sam: They tried to make it seem a little bit like a little realistic in terms of,
Sam: you know, the, the, I don't know, things are dirty,
Sam: the technology of the day, you know, I don't know, not super realistic,
Sam: but it has the, the gritty sort of aspect of things.
Sam: Some things were still stylized, but it was long and boring,
Sam: and I didn't like the affect of the characters.
Sam: They're not quite fully cartoonish, but they're also not quite realistic,
Sam: and it's sort of this uncanny valley in between.
Sam: And so like that part of it just really didn't grab me and it was a slog to get through.
Sam: I don't know how many different sittings it took me to get through this.
Sam: Alex and I watched this together.
Sam: Alex and I watch all this stuff together, you know? So,
Sam: but yeah, but that last little bit, the last little bit was actually interesting
Sam: and thought provoking and was like a nice twist.
Sam: And, you know, so overall thumb sideways. And that's where we are.
Sam: That's enough movies. Next week, I'll do Yvonne's favorite that got added to
Sam: the list because he mentioned it a couple times.
Sam: And coincidentally actually came up and got watched like the week after the
Sam: last time you mentioned it or something, which is Howard the Duck from 1986.
Sam: But we'll do that next week.
Sam: Assuming no major breaking news that throws the whole agenda out the window. Okay.
Sam: I'm going to take a break and yeah, so here's, here's a spot to listen to enjoy, enjoy the break.
Sam: And I think I'm going to just keep going at least for now. We'll see how it goes.
Sam: Boom. Here comes the thing, right? I guess I should hit, say boom after I hit
Sam: the button, but then I'd step on top. Whatever. Here you go.
Break: You're supposed to say do, do, do, do, do, do.
Break: Do alex samsula alex
Break: samsula is awesome its videos are fun and
Break: today once again we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell you
Break: how awesome alex samsula is i'd say on a rate from one to ten alex samsula is
Break: awesome at i don't know 37 82 he's pretty radical his videos are They are phenomenal.
Break: They're full of creativity. And they're so funny and exciting to watch.
Break: Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that Dad pretending to be you
Break: because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to? Yes!
Break: Good job on remembering, Dad. Do, do, do!
Sam: Okay, we are back. And so this is now the Harrison Walls part of the show.
Sam: You know, that kind of sounds like one name, Harrison Walls,
Sam: like Harrison Ford, except it's Harrison Walls, but no, it's Harris and Walls.
Sam: So we'll start with Harris picking Walls.
Sam: Look, we talked last week with Ed. Ed had talked a little bit about Walls,
Sam: pointed out some policy choices he'd made.
Sam: But a lot of the speculation was still on Shapiro.
Sam: And apparently, it really did come down. The last two real candidates were Shapiro and Walls.
Sam: They did a final set of interviews with Kelly as well the last weekend.
Sam: But apparently, he was in the number three slot anyway.
Sam: The question was how number one and number two were going to go.
Sam: And Walls had been seeing, and we already talked about this a little bit last
Sam: week, had been seeing an uptick in the excitement about Walls.
Sam: Or I should say, not the excitement, there'd been a lot of people pushing for Walls.
Sam: And there'd been a lot of additional buzz about him and people vocally going
Sam: on TV and such and saying, we want to do Walls. Walls is the right great guy,
Sam: you should go with walls.
Sam: And meanwhile, there was a bit of a campaign against Shapiro.
Sam: There were a number of people, especially from the left and especially from
Sam: folks where the main issue was Gaza, expressing all sorts of concern about Shapiro.
Sam: They were bringing up his history with a sexual harassment suit.
Sam: They were bringing up just how vocal he'd been in supporting Israel real since
Sam: October 7th and generally saying, you know, you should go someone else, someone else, please.
Sam: And after the choice, there's also been reports that the Trump campaign was
Sam: actually leaning into this and doing sort of a whisper campaign against Shapiro
Sam: because they really didn't want Shapiro because he would bring Pennsylvania and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But apparently from the reporting on this, and I forget which outlet had sort
Sam: of, there's a detailed report,
Sam: Here's how it went down sort of narrative of the last weekend and Harris's choice.
Sam: But the leaks that came out of that said, you know, yeah, all of those things
Sam: are potentially, you know, yeah, we didn't want to sort of intentionally poke
Sam: people on the Gaza issue.
Sam: Like, if you look substantively, I still said it wrong.
Sam: If you look across the positions of like the actual policy positions against
Sam: Israel of all of these candidates, they're actually pretty similar.
Sam: The difference was how Shapiro went around saying it.
Sam: And of course, maybe there's some anti-Semitism in the mix as well,
Sam: because of course Shapiro is Jewish.
Sam: But the Harris people said, you know, it was a factor, but it wasn't a big factor.
Sam: In the end, what it came down to is those final interviews with Harris.
Sam: And basically, Shapiro came in asking all sorts of detailed questions about
Sam: what his exact role would be as vice president.
Sam: What decisions would he get to be a part of?
Sam: What would his areas of responsibility be?
Sam: And basically asking,
Sam: you know, trying to negotiate what the job would be to make it right for him
Sam: in terms of what he wanted, his future political aspirations, all kinds of things.
Sam: But in the final interview with Walls, Walls basically just kept saying, how can I help?
Sam: You tell me. You tell me. I'll help however I can in whatever way you want me to tell me what you need.
Sam: And when asked if he had any ambitions to run for president himself, he was like, no.
Sam: Now, who knows what that would look like if she wins and someday,
Sam: you know, eight years down the line, whatever, he may change his mind.
Sam: But right now he's like, no, no, I, I, I, no, just tell me how I can help.
Sam: And that plus like, you know, apparently, you know, Harris knew Shapiro for
Sam: years and years and years and years.
Sam: Personally she didn't have that
Sam: kind of long-term relationship with walls
Sam: but apparently they hit it off immediately they hit
Sam: it off immediately they got along well they were
Sam: able to laugh together and there was just you know the vibe check passed right
Sam: and also there's his sort of history and the things that have come up about
Sam: sort of his background since then i mean obviously Obviously people knew this
Sam: beforehand, but I'll be honest.
Sam: I had not spent the time to look deeply into walls until after he was picked,
Sam: because until the last maybe 72 hours before he seemed like he was probably
Sam: an also ran like, and then in the last week he started to get some buzz.
Sam: And in the last 72 hours it started to look like, Oh yeah, he's definitely a contender here.
Sam: But, you know, we've got this whole, you know, he's not from Pennsylvania.
Sam: He's not from one of the key swing states. Minnesota was more blue than those,
Sam: but he was from the Midwest.
Sam: He's sort of homey. He served in the National Guard for a long time.
Sam: He was a freaking teacher. He was a football coach.
Sam: He's got a cute little family.
Sam: He's got a wicked sense of humor.
Sam: He came up with that whole weirdo attack on the Republicans,
Sam: which has been working incredibly well the last couple weeks.
Sam: Actually, he didn't say weirdo. They've started to say weird.
Sam: Some other people have started to say weirdo. He just said they were weird.
Sam: But all of that, and he was doing lots interviews where he was quick on his feet.
Sam: I even like right on the, the, the Eve of,
Sam: Harris's decision, he was on that white dudes for Harris call and like made
Sam: some really pointed statements that got a lot of good attention about,
Sam: you know, he just wanted to see Donald Trump's face when he realized that a
Sam: black woman had kicked his ass, you know, things like that.
Sam: And so yeah.
Sam: That, so she picked him and since that pick, he's been blowing it out of the water.
Sam: You know, he has been doing great. You could see like when, when they did the
Sam: first event together in Philadelphia, you know, she talked first,
Sam: introduced him, then he came on and talked and you could see her behind him on the stage.
Sam: And when he got certain zingers off, I mean, for God's sake,
Sam: he made a couch joke about
Sam: Vance in such a way that, you know, if you are not terminally online and don't
Sam: know all of that, then it would just be go over your head.
Sam: It was like, she, he was talking about him getting off the couch and it'd be
Sam: like, you know, he implying he's lazy because he doesn't want to get off the couch.
Sam: But if you've been following, you know, the zeitgeist, then, you know, all about.
Sam: The the stuff about the couch which again was
Sam: just some guy made it up you know like
Sam: who knows what he has or has not done with couches
Sam: but some guy just made it up and yet it is a meme and they've had to respond
Sam: to it and they've had to go anyway but you know he made that comment and you
Sam: could see her like behind him nodding and smiling and being like yeah i made the right choice here.
Sam: And it wasn't just that comment. It was several other points where you could
Sam: see her being satisfied with her choice because of the way he was sort of bringing it.
Sam: Now, Shapiro at that sort of launch announcement also gave a speech and was
Sam: a very rousing speech and put his support 100% behind walls.
Sam: And it's clear he's going to be part of this campaign. He may end up in the
Sam: administration later, or he may end up staying governor of Pennsylvania for a long time.
Sam: Who knows? But the...
Sam: But Wallace has been doing great. And I've been watching like one of the things
Sam: that was going around on TikTok while he was governor.
Sam: I mean, he's still governor, but he's made a whole series of like social media
Sam: posts with his daughter when she was a teenager.
Sam: I guess she's like 22 now or something. But there's a whole like history of
Sam: videos of him and his daughter from like when she was 15 up to the present where
Sam: they're just doing things like father-daughter things and being funny and being relatable.
Sam: And yeah and
Sam: meanwhile like he's got like you know the camo
Sam: hat has now become part of this and it's like one of
Sam: those like the camo hat
Sam: has been a signifier of right wing maga kind of orientation for a long time
Sam: and there he he does his little you know they do the mocked out phone call of
Sam: like we're gonna call and tell you that you're the pick and we're gonna have
Sam: cameras is everywhere and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah.
Sam: Yeah, of course that's planned out, but he was wearing that hat there and now
Sam: they've got camo hat merch with Harris walls on it.
Sam: And it's been pointed out that that look is similar to a Midwest princess look.
Sam: I think that was Chapel Roan.
Sam: Was that Chapel Roan? Let me check.
Sam: Yes, it was Chapel Roan. See, I'm not up on all this stuff myself.
Sam: You know, I mean, I have heard some of her songs, but anyway, it was Chapel Roan had
Sam: a midwest princess hat that's the same sort
Sam: of camo pattern and the same color lettering so they're tying
Sam: into that zeitgeist as well but like
Sam: all these videos of him and his daughter are like funny they're relatable they're
Sam: you know he's human and you know they're all these people talking about his
Sam: sort of dad energy because you know they're jokes online about like you know,
Sam: Tim Walls is the kind of guy who would tell you to make sure you wear your sweater
Sam: when you go outside, things like this.
Sam: And I think they're a good pair. I think it was the right pick.
Sam: I had been predicting probably Shapiro just based on Pennsylvania.
Sam: But here's the thing. I think maybe Shapiro could have sort of pulled Pennsylvania
Sam: over the line and made Made sure Pennsylvania was solid, maybe,
Sam: because he was really popular in Pennsylvania.
Sam: But I feel like he might have lost voters elsewhere.
Sam: Meanwhile, I feel like, and we'll see if this gets backed up by any polling or anything else.
Sam: Usually VPs don't matter. But I feel like he's got the right kind of Midwestern
Sam: every guy persona that could help in a whole bunch of states.
Sam: And even aside from sort of like, does the vice president make a difference
Sam: because they're the vice presidential candidate?
Sam: He's a really great campaigner.
Sam: Like watching their speeches, Harris's speeches and Walz's speeches, Walz does really well.
Sam: He has like the crowd eating out of his hand all the time. And like,
Sam: look, they're excited for Harris too.
Sam: I'm not going to take any of that away from Harris. Harris is like the focal
Sam: point of all of the excitement, but Walls does not bring that down.
Sam: He pushes it up and emphasizes it, but in different areas, like they're,
Sam: they're complimentary.
Sam: And I'm sure she also feels like he would be a good person to govern with for
Sam: four to eight years, you know?
Sam: And so I think he was a good, also, also he's known as a progressive.
Sam: He made a lot of the progressives in the democratic coalition happy with the
Sam: choice because they're like, look at all of these things he's done in Minnesota.
Sam: Minnesota when he was in Congress, he was more centrist.
Sam: But once he was the governor in a state that gained a trifecta of Democrats,
Sam: he pushed through a bunch of stuff.
Sam: Now, you know, people, there were a whole bunch of sort of never Trump Republicans
Sam: who expressed disappointment at the choice.
Sam: They were really hoping for Shapiro Shapiro's more centrist.
Sam: And this guy is progressive, he's more radical, he's going to scare away the people in the center.
Sam: And look, my take on that is that it's actually about time for...
Sam: Look, I've said this before.
Sam: I'm going to say it again. It's time for Democrats to stop running scared from their values.
Sam: We don't need to cater to how can we water down everything to the point that
Sam: we can convince some sliver of conservatives to come over the edge.
Sam: The fundamental issues at play when you pull the issues themselves,
Sam: the Democratic position has 60 to 70% majorities.
Sam: Overall, we're a 50-50 country. We're split right down the middle right now.
Sam: There's no question about that.
Sam: And there's some issues that the Democrats are behind on.
Sam: Like immigration, for one, is one where the Democrats always pull a little low.
Sam: And there are a few others like that. But on the sort of these key issues that
Sam: are here over and over, and the economy too.
Sam: For whatever reason, Democrats pull badly on the economy right now,
Sam: even though economy is going great by all the empirical standards.
Sam: But people don't feel like that.
Sam: But on all of the social, I mean,
Sam: one of the things they're pointing to when they talk about him being progressive
Sam: is making sure that kids have free school breakfast and school lunch in Minnesota that need it.
Sam: This is not a super controversial position.
Sam: Most people are fine with school meals being paid for out of taxpayer dollars.
Sam: Oftentimes, people are fine with that being for all kids, but certainly for the kids who are at need.
Sam: He's also gotten criticism for making sure there was funding to put feminine
Sam: hygiene products in the bathrooms in elementary schools.
Sam: Like, well, you know, well, fourth grade, you know, it was one of being controversial.
Sam: And, you know, on the one hand, you know, people are like, well,
Sam: that's too early, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Well, you know, kids mature at different ages, better to have the stuff than not have it.
Sam: Also, people were concerned about, you know, are you putting these things in the boy's room?
Sam: And it's unclear to me whether they actually were, I think the law just didn't prohibit it.
Sam: And in which case like okay fine
Sam: like i i know there's this whole trans panic thing going
Sam: on right now but like you know if they're
Sam: why not how does it hurt anything
Sam: like you put it in an accessible
Sam: place where kids who potentially need it have access and if kids who don't need
Sam: it have access who cares you know it's it's you know so anyway and this is another
Sam: thing where you know All of these sorts of issues, like.
Sam: Democrats need to just not hide from these things and be proud of their positions
Sam: and say, yes, this is the morally right thing to do.
Sam: If you disagree, you're the weirdo, which is what he's been doing.
Sam: And I think that going with him actually makes that stronger.
Sam: Now, again, you know, I was saying for a while, like, hey, we'll go with AOC.
Sam: That would really push that like question to the forefront.
Sam: This isn't going that far. And obviously AOC would have all kinds of other issues.
Sam: But I think this goes like the right way in that direction.
Sam: On the one hand, he has got a history of pushing those sorts of agendas.
Sam: On the other hand, his persona is all sort of Midwestern every guy.
Sam: You know the the camo hats the
Sam: apparently he was winning congressional shooting
Sam: competitions you know so he's
Sam: he's a gun owner he's a hunter he's uh you know
Sam: so you sort of balance off that with oh
Sam: yeah but also look you know he
Sam: he's not some crazy liberal that wants to take away
Sam: all your guns he's a hunter but at the same time
Sam: he's for reasonable restrictions on
Sam: guns to make sure as much
Sam: as possible you're giving them you have to show some level of responsibility
Sam: and that you're not dangerous to have on etc and that maybe you don't need the
Sam: super powerful guns capable of like killing many, many people quickly, you know?
Sam: And so it's sort of, you have those things bouncing off of each other.
Sam: Anyway, I think it was a great choice.
Sam: And the more I see of him, the more I like him.
Sam: And the more I see them together, the more I can see him and Harris working great together. Um.
Sam: So the folks who are pushing waltz, thank you.
Sam: Like I didn't know about this guy, but I think he's great.
Sam: His personality is great. His personality works well with her and he's, he's fun to watch.
Sam: Like he's a funny guy and he's personable and whatever.
Sam: And I think their chemistry is obvious, like on the, on the stage as well.
Sam: Like I said, they compliment each other there.
Sam: It's not like he's her clone. it's also not
Sam: like people hillarized hillarized people criticized
Sam: hillary clinton for picking her not herman
Sam: kane the other kane
Sam: anyway uh tom kane tim kane who is tim kane right yes tim kane as sort of the
Sam: boring white dude who would stay in the background and not rock the boat not
Sam: take attention away from the top of the ticket, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And on the one hand, you know, Hey, walls is, you know, white dude.
Sam: He's almost exactly the same age as Harris.
Sam: It's like six months older, I believe, but he looks a lot older.
Sam: So he sort of brings that older white guy vibe, but at the same time,
Sam: he's not boring. He's not quiet.
Sam: He's not staying in the background. they are clearly
Sam: working together and she is lifting him up as much as she as long as much as
Sam: he is pushing her up and anyway we'll see how it goes but so far very exciting
Sam: and they've been going around the country having the you know the rallies in
Sam: the swing states that have all been huge,
Sam: sold out at large venues.
Sam: And there were a number of comparisons of the rallies on the Trump side and the Harris side.
Sam: Some of these were unfair. Look, the most recent Trump rally,
Sam: he had been a while since he'd had one, was in Montana.
Sam: And it was on the same day as a Harris walls rally in, in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
Sam: And people pointed out like the local Phoenix metropolitan area has like five
Sam: times the population of the entire state of Montana, you know?
Sam: So yeah, the Montana rally is going to be smaller anyway.
Sam: And so maybe that's not quite fair. And they were also comparing a few Harris
Sam: walls rallies to ones that was just Vance by himself, also probably an unfair comparison.
Sam: But there have been comparisons that were at the exact same venue.
Sam: The one in Georgia, in Atlanta, is an example where the Harris Walls rally absolutely
Sam: packed the stadium they were in.
Sam: And they showed a comparison, one with Trump, from a little earlier.
Sam: I don't know how old it was, but not like super, super old, but not like the
Sam: previous day either. either, where Trump had a lot fewer people in there, whole sections empty.
Sam: And also, for that matter, just the energy.
Sam: Like, even of the people who were there, the Harris Walls rally was pumped. Everyone was excited.
Sam: Everyone was chanting. There were people waving signs excitedly.
Sam: There was just lots and lots of energy. Whereas watching the Trump one,
Sam: people were just sort of sitting there, oftentimes looking bored.
Sam: You occasionally get the reaction, but there was a substantial difference in
Sam: the energy levels there.
Sam: Anyway. Okay. The other thing I wanted to talk about before leaving Harris walls
Sam: and taking the next break, et cetera, is the whole complete collapse of Michelle Obama's.
Sam: When they go low, we go high.
Sam: And what's my, my ultimate take on that is that didn't work.
Sam: I love the idea of it at the time. That was back in 2016.
Sam: I love the idea of it at the time, but it did not work.
Sam: So people are talking about like a, I mentioned the couch joke.
Sam: People are also talking about the weird thing.
Sam: Kathy on our curmudgeons corner slack this week was saying, you know,
Sam: they got to cut it out with the weird thing.
Sam: It was funny the first couple times, but now as they're repeating it, it's getting grating.
Sam: And look, so I replied back on our Commodions Corner Slack about this.
Sam: Well, let me read you all the comments. Like Kathy said, they need to stop with
Sam: the Trump Vance weird references.
Sam: It was funny and good when it popped out of his mouth the first time.
Sam: And I get that it probably drives Trump crazy, but now they've run with it and
Sam: they are both saying it at rallies, et cetera.
Sam: I feel like it's sinking to Trump's level of name calling.
Sam: And I don't think it's a good look for them. They need to show they are above all that.
Sam: And and look my and then
Sam: bob jumps in i feel like it connects to people in a way that calling them fascists
Sam: or dangerous to democracy didn't or dangerous to much or dangerous to democracy
Sam: didn't and here's the fundamental look i'm going to paraphrase what i said on the slack but,
Sam: dangerous is appealing i think we might have mentioned this last week on the
Sam: show but But dangerous is appealing, but people don't want to be associated with weird or creepy.
Sam: Of course, your MAGA true believers are just going to dig in.
Sam: They weren't going to flip anyway. That's not the target for these things.
Sam: Meanwhile, it energizes those of us who felt this way for years and are having
Sam: our feelings validated. dated.
Sam: I mentioned before, like the Democrats have for years been in sort of this defensive crouch.
Sam: Like whenever, like these sort of fundamental values come up,
Sam: I've sort of been like, you know, maybe we are the weirdos.
Sam: Maybe we're the ones who are out of touch. Maybe the Republicans really do represent
Sam: sort of the real America.
Sam: That's why you get all of these, He's, you know, let's go talk to people at
Sam: a diner in Missouri and see what they think.
Sam: You know, this kind of stuff, it validates the core constituents of the democratic
Sam: party that no, you're not the one that's out of step.
Sam: They are Trump and Vance.
Sam: And frankly, yes. Also the people who support them.
Sam: They're the ones who are out of touch. We need to get back to the area.
Sam: Yvonne and I have talked about how Trump sort of gave license to all the racists
Sam: and misogynists to be open about that.
Sam: Whereas before, they were out there, but they were hiding.
Sam: They knew that wasn't acceptable in public.
Sam: But no, let's bring that back. Look, no.
Sam: They're the ones who are out of touch and need to be shunned.
Sam: They don't get to claim the mantle of normalcy.
Sam: Not anymore. We need to be done with that. They're the ones that the modern world has left behind.
Sam: This is the Democrats reclaiming the ground of the normal person.
Sam: This whole thing that's been going on for decades with the Republicans trying
Sam: to claim that they're the real Americans, they're the normal ones there,
Sam: and the left-hand side of the political spectrum were the deviants and the weirdos. No, no, no more.
Sam: They're the freaks, and it's time to be loud about it. Especially like in this
Sam: world, like where the magas have taken over, you know, it was,
Sam: it was an entirely different world when we were talking about George W.
Sam: Bush or George H.W. Bush or Romney or whatever.
Sam: Like maybe there's some, obviously there were some of these people in the background
Sam: supporting them anyway, but those people were, even when they held despicable
Sam: views were somewhat more normal.
Sam: You know, and like a lot of the discussion was around sort of,
Sam: yeah, you know, tax rates and economics and like, is approach A or approach
Sam: B better at getting this?
Sam: We've moved into an area where the fundamental disagreement is not on the method
Sam: to get to a future that everyone agrees on.
Sam: It is instead a fundamental difference on what that future is and who is included
Sam: in that future as a first-class citizen and what's left in the Republican Party
Sam: that has not fled already.
Sam: They're the freaks, and it's time to be loud about it. Now.
Sam: Do Harris and Walls themselves have to be making couch jokes? No.
Sam: Both Bob and I and our Commodions Corner Slack agreed on this.
Sam: There are plenty of surrogates who can do that for you.
Sam: The whole internet is excited about that meme, and I don't know how long it lasts.
Sam: It already shows signs of fading out. but you know you can do that wink or a
Sam: nod to the conversation that's happening online,
Sam: once or twice but then you don't have to push it they don't have to discourage
Sam: other people they don't even have to like talk about it they just do the wink or nod a couple times,
Sam: but i think the weird thing is different i think it is fundamentally i think it it triggers
Sam: the people it's aimed at because it's not like the sexy sort of opposition.
Sam: It's not the, oh my God, you're dangerous and we're afraid of you because that's positive.
Sam: People get excited about that. They like being dangerous. They like that Trump
Sam: and Vance and everybody else sort of trigger folks on the left.
Sam: This flips that whole narrative and says, no, yes, you are dangerous.
Sam: We're not going to say you're not.
Sam: But fundamentally, your positions are outside of the mainstream.
Sam: Your positions are minority weird positions.
Sam: Acquisitions your what you are
Sam: advocating for is un
Sam: is unpopular and deserves
Sam: to go into the dustbin of history it's not
Sam: you know no we're not going to idolize some mythical point in america's history
Sam: that you guys think was perfect especially if it's not the freaking 1950s or 1890s Come on.
Sam: Anyway, they can evolve the weird thing. They can use other terms.
Sam: I'm okay with sometimes calling them freaks. I'm okay with, you know,
Sam: sometimes calling them creepy.
Sam: There are other words you can use, but I like the basic theme of pounding over and over and over.
Sam: No, they are not the normal ones. Their positions are not the default.
Sam: Ours are. They're the ones who are out of step for wanting to ban books,
Sam: for wanting to keep women from getting abortions, from wanting to stop no-fault
Sam: divorce for fuck's sake.
Sam: They're folks on the right who are talking about getting rid of contraception.
Sam: Now, some of these are clear minority positions that they wouldn't get through,
Sam: but they get the time of day in that discussion.
Sam: No, all of those things should just be immediately tossed out as no.
Sam: Like 80% of the population thinks that's stupid.
Sam: 70, 80%, depending on the issue, whatever.
Sam: No, you're just dumb. You're dumb and you're out of step and you're pushing for something
Sam: that is unpopular and
Sam: considered an oddball freak
Sam: position by the majority of the country so don't
Sam: give up weird okay we're going to take a break when we come back it'll be time
Sam: for uh trump and vance so oh let's see what's our next break so when i roll
Sam: numbers for this The next one should actually be an Apple dream,
Sam: but I've decided I'll save that for when I have a co-host who can react to an Apple dream.
Sam: So the next one is this instead.
Sam: And I guess I'll, I'll keep going. I might as well finish the sucker up instead
Sam: of splitting it up over multiple days. You know what I mean? Anyway, here we go.
Break: What are you doing? No, that was bad.
Break: Oh! No, that was bad. People, people, people, people, people, people.
Break: No, no, I don't like that anymore.
Break: Once upon a rainbow,
Break: You were on the floor Eating the bugs that you found,
Break: Upon my face,
Break: What? Bye.
Sam: Okay. I'm back. So next up the Trump and fan, the fans, fans,
Sam: I should learn to talk, right?
Sam: Next up the Trump and Vance part of things.
Sam: And yeah, I know, look, aside from the movie, this show is all politics this time.
Sam: That's what I gravitate towards. You know, if I don't have Yvonne with me,
Sam: Yvonne might be like, Hey, let's go talk about the economy for a minute.
Sam: There were job numbers and all that. Of course, even that would probably be
Sam: spun based on the possible impact to the election and stuff.
Sam: But you know, look, we are, how many days is it now?
Sam: We are, I just closed the window that would tell me I was stupid.
Sam: Like, you know, that way, as of when I am recording this 87.1 days left until the election,
Sam: not until the election, until the polls start to close and we start getting results,
Sam: people will be voting like a month from now, the very earliest of the early
Sam: votes starts in like mid-September sometime.
Sam: That's a small, small trickle more come later, obviously, but we're less than
Sam: 90 days away. It's going to be all politics pretty much.
Sam: It's straight through until the election. You know, that's just,
Sam: that's just how it works.
Sam: But anyway, the Trump Vance folks, the big, so questions that have been coming up.
Sam: First of all, now that Biden has dropped out, there's more and more discussion
Sam: of Trump's age and Trump's mental ability and what's going on there.
Sam: Now, I still don't think there's as much of that as was being discussed about
Sam: Biden, and I think that's probably a problem one that should be fixed.
Sam: But first of all, Trump essentially disappeared for a while.
Sam: He, you know, after, after the Republican convention, he basically took a few
Sam: weeks off and you didn't see him.
Sam: You saw Vance going around and having events, but not Trump.
Sam: He had like one, after
Sam: the conventions i think now the charitable way
Sam: to put this is okay maybe he was
Sam: traumatized by the assassination attempt that would be fully understandable
Sam: doesn't want to do big public events anymore because look what almost happened
Sam: look what did happen but i'm not sure that's it now of course there's a whole like.
Sam: How would Trump react to that? Like a normal candidate who didn't have sort
Sam: of Trump's issues could actually like admit that and talk about it and generate it into a plus,
Sam: you know, I'm not saying like, Oh, I'm, I'm scared.
Sam: So I'm going to go cower in the bank in the basement.
Sam: But somebody who like, if this had happened to walls, we were just talking about walls.
Sam: He could go on TV and give interviews about how, yeah,
Sam: this shook him up and it changed his views of the world and he has to think
Sam: a little bit different about things and blah, blah, blah, blah,
Sam: blah, and come off as human and thoughtful and whatever.
Sam: Of course, Trump can't possibly do that. His psyche would not allow that.
Sam: But maybe he's hiding a little bit because of that.
Sam: It also seems a little bit like it's still him just not knowing how to deal
Sam: with Harris as an opponent instead of Biden because everything had been around Biden.
Sam: And this is an entirely different dynamic.
Sam: And so maybe they're recalibrating. Like he said, in response to some criticisms
Sam: about not being around two things.
Sam: One, he was like, look, I am campaigning.
Sam: I'm talking to a lot of people on the phone. I'm raising money.
Sam: I'm, you know, I've had a few interviews, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: He's just not doing the rallies and stuff. He also said that he is giving them
Sam: through the democratic convention, you know, like they're going to have their
Sam: convention and then he'll sort of resume after that.
Sam: Well, I guess that's very nice of him.
Sam: Like that doesn't sound like it is.
Sam: It is sort of, in the past, has been somewhat traditional for the other campaign
Sam: to lay low a little bit actually during the other party's convention,
Sam: but not the time in between, especially if there's a long time in between like we have this time.
Sam: Like sometimes they're only days apart, but this time we've got weeks in between.
Sam: And yeah, I don't quite buy it.
Sam: It's like, oh, we're giving them some polite deference.
Sam: We're giving them some respectful time to
Sam: do what they need does that sound like donald trump to you no
Sam: but then he decided
Sam: to come back from that because like apparently all of the attention that harris
Sam: has been getting while he's been doing nothing and you know during this you
Sam: know biden drops out harris takes over harris picks a vp there's all this massive
Sam: excitement and And she's been getting all the press.
Sam: Nobody's been paying attention to him. And apparently that was really getting to him.
Sam: And then the coverage of her big rallies and all of this kind of stuff.
Sam: So he held a press conference.
Sam: And at first people were talking about, is it really going to be a press conference?
Sam: Is it going to take questions? He did take questions.
Sam: Now, there were no follow-ups. The questions weren't like hardball questions for the most part.
Sam: And what it ended up being is, yeah, there was a sporadic question asked by
Sam: an interviewer, but basically it was Donald Trump talking and rambling,
Sam: just like he does at his events, just sort of going off prompts from the reporters.
Sam: Supporters and the overall consensus of people watching it, even from his own
Sam: supporters, was that it was bad.
Sam: And I guess this adds to the one other event he did. It was of course that conversation
Sam: with the, whatever it's called the black journalists association that went badly the week before,
Sam: but this press conference was just rambling and incoherent, full of lies as usual.
Sam: He told a story about being in a helicopter accident that apparently never really happened.
Sam: Or I should say, people have dug into this a little bit.
Sam: It appears to have conflated several different events that did happen.
Sam: Like he was in a helicopter in the
Sam: 90s that did have to come down quickly because of some sort of problem.
Sam: But he may also have been mixing that up with a helicopter ride while he was
Sam: president that was to view like wildfire damage in California.
Sam: And the people that he was saying were in the helicopter with him were not the
Sam: people that were in either of those two helicopters.
Sam: And he had stated that, well, he had stated that Willie Brown was in the helicopter,
Sam: who famously was in a relationship with Kamala Harris decades ago,
Sam: and that he had said all kinds of bad things about Kamala Harris.
Sam: But he was not in that helicopter at all. He never has been in a helicopter ride with Donald Trump.
Sam: People speculated that he was talking about a helicopter ride with Jerry Brown,
Sam: who was the governor of California at the time and was on that helicopter where
Sam: they were looking at wildfires.
Sam: But Jerry Brown, first of all, hard to get Willie Brown and Jerry Brown mixed
Sam: up other than they both have the last name Brown.
Sam: But he says, you know, we didn't talk about Kamala Harris at all.
Sam: Meanwhile, in the 90s, apparently it was a state senator named Nate Holden who
Sam: was in the helicopter with Donald Trump that actually did have issues.
Sam: Another black guy like Willie Brown, but very different, very different role,
Sam: very different timeframe.
Sam: They have different builds, but whatever. Donald Trump could get the mixed up.
Sam: And he also says that they did not talk about Kamala Harris at all.
Sam: So like, it seems like this particular event is a Trump conflating a bunch of
Sam: things and be making up some additional embellishments that actually had nothing
Sam: to do with it. that would serve his story for some reason.
Sam: Now, Trump is protesting this, says he has records, says everything he said
Sam: was true and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But this is a typical Trump pattern. This has happened for a long time. This is not new.
Sam: But the degree to which he dissembles and rambles and talks about things that
Sam: bear no resemblance to the issue at hand is increasing.
Sam: There was another example of a question that was asked about whether he would
Sam: support banning the mail order abortion drugs or just abortion drugs in general
Sam: at a national level, having FDA take action.
Sam: And he went on for several minutes about stuff, but never coming anywhere near that question.
Sam: Now, politicians often don't answer the question and talk about what they want
Sam: to talk about, but it didn't feel quite like that. It felt more just disconnected.
Sam: And look, there's been more and more of that. And so the question is,
Sam: are we going to do the deep dives into, is Trump competent?
Sam: Is Trump up to the job? Is Trump suffering mental decline?
Sam: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. of course the
Sam: answer to that is twofold one yes he
Sam: clearly is declining from where he was four eight or
Sam: longer years ago but two
Sam: and one of the reasons that people don't dig into this as much he was never
Sam: competent for this stuff never not it you know so is he worse now yes but he
Sam: clearly was unqualified for the position in 2016 too and people didn't give a shit.
Sam: So I don't know. But unlike when Biden was in the race, now that the opponent
Sam: is Harris, the Democrats can make this case.
Sam: They can talk about Donald Trump's age,
Sam: his incoherence, his confusion at times, his general mental state,
Sam: and whether he's up for it or appropriate or whatever. They can make this an issue now.
Sam: They couldn't when Biden was there because everything we know about Joe Biden's age.
Sam: I would argue that no matter how much, with all of the decline that we've talked
Sam: about Biden potentially have, he's still miles better than Trump ever was.
Sam: But as long as Biden was there, the Democrats couldn't make that argument because
Sam: it would just be tossed right back in their face. Now they can.
Sam: Now they can talk about, you know, look at Trump appearing to be sundowning himself.
Sam: And, you know, he's incoherent and he doesn't know what he's talking about and X, Y, Z.
Sam: One aspect of this is going back to the absence from the campaign trail.
Sam: And Trump apparently signaled he's still going to be absent for a while yet
Sam: until after the Democratic convention. He's not going to be doing much.
Sam: Something here, something there, but not like going at a pace.
Sam: And people have talked about this also as part of, you know,
Sam: he was in the mindset. set, he's got this on the bag that no one's going to vote for Joe Biden.
Sam: And he can basically do a low-key campaign, mostly from Mar-a-Lago,
Sam: do a couple events every once in a while,
Sam: do some interviews, but basically be out golfing several days a week,
Sam: be hanging out at Mar-a-Lago and cruise to a win.
Sam: That is no longer true. And he's having a hard time adapting to the the change
Sam: in situation and some of the things he says even seem like you know while on
Sam: the one hand he's denying that that's the situation he says he's surging in the polls he's not.
Sam: All of this kind of stuff, is he going into sort of a self-destructive spiral
Sam: where he's just sort of curling up in a ball and letting things happen to him? I don't know.
Sam: Maybe the last couple weeks have been that. Maybe he'll pull out of it and you'll
Sam: see more of the old Trump, I guess. Yes.
Sam: Yeah. And some of them may just be the comparison because he looks older.
Sam: He looks more feeble. He looks like less competent even than before.
Sam: And, and maybe I'm convinced some of that is real, but it's also just the comparison
Sam: again, like stick them next to Biden. Biden, then it's a, Oh my God, we got two old men.
Sam: You know, they both suck. Stick them next to Harris and he doesn't have her energy.
Sam: You know, his criticism of, of Jeb Bush was low energy.
Sam: Well, you know, in comparison now, who's the low energy one? Donald Trump is.
Sam: And so is he quiet quitting?
Sam: Is he sort of not giving it his all and sort of recognizing that he's in trouble?
Sam: I don't know. I feel like, you know, his impetus for running again still was
Sam: like, he doesn't really want to be president again.
Sam: He wants to like get away from all the legal shit.
Sam: And his best way to do that is to win. And then he can make the federal cases
Sam: go away and pause the state cases because they won't want to do stuff while he's in office.
Sam: And, you know, and by the time he finishes another four years,
Sam: he may be dead anyway, or they'll, they'll drop it just because,
Sam: oh, look at the pitiful man. I don't know.
Sam: But, or in for the federal stuff.
Sam: Yeah, he'll come up with other things. But the main thing is,
Sam: I don't know, but he at the moment is, is clearly struggling.
Sam: At least, I don't know if he's got some sort of internal mental struggle of
Sam: what to do. That's not necessarily what I'm saying. He's just not doing well.
Sam: He is not responding well to the challenge of Harris taking over from Biden.
Sam: And he seems to be spiraling a bit and doing things in desperation.
Sam: And when he does do things, his level of incompetence and is shining through
Sam: in a way that hopefully will get more attention than it has the last few years. I don't know.
Sam: Again, it changes everything when you take away the Biden comparison. Harrison.
Sam: Meanwhile, Vance has continued to be underwhelming.
Sam: He's continued to be more the butt of jokes than an actual lift for the Donald Trump campaign.
Sam: We may be past the worst of that. It seemed like there were a couple of weeks
Sam: where the hits just came on coming for Vance.
Sam: It seems to have slowed down a little bit, but he's still clearly unpopular. He's not,
Sam: He's not doing a lot to help, and arguably he's been hurting.
Sam: When Trump was asked about the weird comments recently, he said,
Sam: oh, but they're not talking about me. They're talking about J.D.
Sam: And no, sorry, they're talking about both of you.
Sam: But J.D. has definitely been the lightning round, lightning rod for those criticisms.
Sam: Because Donald Trump has never really cared about any of the policy issues.
Sam: It's clear that he can change policy positions at a moment's notice if he thinks that will help him.
Sam: J.D. actually seems to be a true believer in certain areas, especially some
Sam: of the weird versions of family values
Sam: that basically, you know, the purpose of a woman is to have babies,
Sam: you know, and that sort of thing.
Sam: So yeah, Vance has not helped in terms of this kind of stuff,
Sam: but you know, Trump clearly
Sam: is struggling to figure out what to do.
Sam: And again, I don't want, I don't mean to imply some sort of mental battle with
Sam: inside it, with inside, within Trump's head.
Sam: I don't know if he's that self-reflective to be able to do that,
Sam: but he's struggling to actually be effective in this situation.
Sam: And I don't know, I think it's too early to say that this will continue through to November.
Sam: There are plenty of ways that Trump could sort of pick things up and reverse
Sam: the trend and get back on his game, but it hasn't happened so far.
Sam: And meanwhile, the Harris campaign has been running on all cylinders.
Sam: So we'll see. Now that seems like a good time to take another pause and come
Sam: back with a little bit about the election graphs analysis and what the polls are looking at,
Sam: and what the polls have been looking like lately.
Sam: And we'll talk about that and then wrap up the show. So continuing to go right through,
Sam: and this was a random pick, but it's apropos, here's the election graphs break,
Sam: and then we'll be back and talk about election graphs and the polls and all that kind of stuff.
Break: Do you want to understand what is really going on with the presidential election cycle?
Break: Then go to electiongraphs.com right away.
Break: There you'll find charts and graphs covering the nomination processes in both
Break: parties and the general election race for electoral college votes.
Break: For the delegate races, we track not just delegate totals, but also the ever-important
Break: analysis of how each candidate has to do with the remaining delegates in order to actually win.
Break: For the Electoral College, we track state-by-state poll averages to categorize
Break: which states are actually in play and which are not in order to show you the
Break: range of likely electoral results and how that changes over time.
Break: Sure, you can get some of this stuff elsewhere, but not in exactly the same way.
Break: And not from me, Sam, your prime curmudgeon. I think my election trackers are
Break: better than the rest, so come look at mine, electiongraphs.com.
Sam: Okay, we are back. So, election graphs, first of all, so I'd been talking about
Sam: how Harris was surging and all of that kind of stuff.
Sam: Now, and on August 1st, for the first time, Harris took a narrow lead on my
Sam: election graphs averages in the tipping point metric.
Sam: Again, for those of you who don't remember, the tipping point is the margin
Sam: in the state that would put the winning candidate over the edge to win.
Sam: She took the lead on that on August 1st in my, well, distinctions most people don't care about.
Sam: August 1st was the date where I, where we got the polling data that indicated she had gone over.
Sam: But of course those polls were for a little bit earlier.
Sam: So if you look at the date, when it looks like that happened,
Sam: it was July 27th was when she actually.
Sam: Had polling averages that, you know, put her in a very, very slight lead.
Sam: And that's because Pennsylvania and I, you know, first Michigan and Wisconsin,
Sam: and then later Pennsylvania went on to the blue side of the line.
Sam: It looks like now that we've got polls going back a little bit,
Sam: uh, on my tipping point metric, Harris hit a maximum on July 29th.
Sam: I think I said last week, I didn't think she'd quite hit a leveled off yet,
Sam: but I was wrong at the moment.
Sam: Anyway, it does look like she hit a maximum on July 29th,
Sam: which of course we didn't know until a little bit later as those polls came
Sam: out and then gave up the lead again on August 2nd.
Sam: And so as of right now, So it went from when Biden dropped out,
Sam: the tipping point in the Harris versus Trump match was Trump up by 2.9%,
Sam: which was significantly better than the same thing for Biden versus Trump,
Sam: which I believe Trump was up by like 4.9, maybe even 5 at the end.
Sam: Man, I should check. Hold on.
Sam: It was 5%. Tipping point was Trump ahead by 5% in North Carolina as of the very last Biden polls.
Sam: But it went from 2.9% in the Harris versus Trump rage, Trump up by 2.9%, to Harris up by 0.7%.
Sam: And as of now, it's back to Trump up by 0.5%.
Sam: That is exclusively that last movement because of Pennsylvania,
Sam: essentially. Essentially, exclusively, essentially, I'm obviously hedging a
Sam: little bit there, I guess I shouldn't be hedging. This is all about Pennsylvania.
Sam: Pennsylvania is the key state for a short period of time.
Sam: Harris pulled ahead in Pennsylvania. Now she's behind in Pennsylvania again by a very small amount.
Sam: The bottom line is that right now, if you just straight out to trust the polls, you.
Sam: We're, we're in a very close race. You know, it's, it's essentially neck and neck right now.
Sam: Trump's up by 0.5%. A few days ago, Harris was up by 0.5% and it'll probably
Sam: bounce back and forth again.
Sam: That initial big push towards Harris,
Sam: Harris, that initial big movement towards Harris seems to have maxed out though,
Sam: at least in the short term.
Sam: But I want to caveat that by saying the counter movement is all about Pennsylvania.
Sam: It's just Pennsylvania is the key state.
Sam: Everywhere else, she continues to look like she's getting stronger.
Sam: Michigan is still trending in her direction. Wisconsin is trending in her direction.
Sam: Nevada is trending in her direction. It just went blue with the most recent
Sam: set of polls. and red states have gotten less red as well.
Sam: Arizona is trending towards her right now.
Sam: Trump is only ahead in my poll average for Arizona by 0.2%. Georgia has been
Sam: trending towards her. North Carolina has been trending towards her.
Sam: So like all of these key swing states have been moving in the Harris direction
Sam: except Pennsylvania, which went rapidly in the Harris direction,
Sam: but then has been bouncing back.
Sam: However, some of those polls have been by pollsters that traditionally have leaned red.
Sam: For instance, one of the polls currently in averages Pennsylvania is Trafalgar,
Sam: who has been criticized over and over and over again for.
Sam: Artificially, who knows what their methodology is, showing results that were
Sam: better for the the Republicans than what anybody else was seeing.
Sam: And they have Trump up by 2%. And if the Republican-leaning pollster is saying
Sam: Trump's only up by 2%, then, yeah,
Sam: factor that into your consideration.
Sam: And again, the average ends up being only Trump by 0.5%.
Sam: And so that could easily move back. Right now, of the five polls I include in
Sam: my average right now, one has Harris up.
Sam: It's one of these that released multiple versions, depending on whether you're
Sam: looking at likely voters, registered voters, head-to-head, or with third parties attached, whatever.
Sam: Whatever, range from Harris up by two to Harris up by four, depending on which
Sam: of those combinations you like to look at.
Sam: Meanwhile, we have Trafalgar. That was Sienna, by the way.
Sam: Then we have Trafalgar with Trump up by two, Redfield and Wilton with Trump
Sam: up by two, Fabrizio Lee tied, and PPP Trump up by one.
Sam: Those are ones in my average right now. But it's right on the edge.
Sam: But I think it is real that we had a big, big, big reaction to Harris roughly from...
Sam: Roughly from when Biden dropped out, which was, I think, the 22nd to around
Sam: the 29th. So the first week or so, things moved really, really rapidly towards Harris.
Sam: And in part, like this is, you know, just to be clear, where my average as of
Sam: the time that Biden dropped out, Harris wasn't running.
Sam: There were a smattering of polls that include Harris as a hypothetical,
Sam: but they were just a hypothetical and they were over a long period of time.
Sam: Many, many states did not even have the full five polls I use in my average,
Sam: so I had to use old elections brought in.
Sam: And still some states don't, but like all of the really critical states at this
Sam: point have at least five actual Harris versus Trump polls.
Sam: And I think all of them at this point have five polls that were actually after
Sam: Biden dropped out at this point.
Sam: Some other states that like Iowa is still showing up as a close state on my
Sam: site because nobody has polled Harris versus Trump yet in Iowa.
Sam: But those things will take care of themselves. All the close states that now
Sam: have, all the real close states, like not counting Iowa, have lots of polls now.
Sam: So that first big move towards Harris was just the first polls that actually
Sam: had Harris as a real candidate, not some hypothetical, but, oh,
Sam: no, she is really the Democratic candidate.
Sam: And we saw that big move.
Sam: Four or 5% move in most States. And I think we are, you know,
Sam: like I said, it's mainly Pennsylvania, but I think even in the non Pennsylvania
Sam: States, we've leveled out a little bit in Pennsylvania.
Sam: We've are actually gone back towards Trump a little bit.
Sam: And maybe some of it is because of sort of Republican leaning pollsters.
Sam: We shall see, but here's the thing.
Sam: I am not yet convinced that that's a, okay, we've bottomed out.
Sam: And now we're at the real state of the race that we're going to have from now until November?
Sam: Maybe. If so, the real state of the race is a neck biter. Is that the right word? Neck biter?
Sam: You know what I mean? Nail biter. That's what I meant. Not neck biter. Okay. Well, fine.
Sam: Maybe that's the title of the show. Neck biter.
Sam: Anyway, I'm not yet convinced that that's the true final state of the race.
Sam: We've got a bunch of things coming up.
Sam: The Democratic Convention hasn't yet happened.
Sam: And Trump's bounce, if any, from his convention was immediately neutered by
Sam: the Biden-Harris announcement.
Sam: There's no immediate event right after the Democratic Convention that's likely to do that.
Sam: So we probably will have some sort of bounce out of that.
Sam: It's going to be a big, exciting party. with, if any of the rallies so far are
Sam: an indication, with a lot more excitement than we got out of the Republican convention.
Sam: So we'll see how that goes. Biden and Harris did actually agree to a debate now.
Sam: Trump had tried to back out of the already agreed to second debate scheduled
Sam: with Biden for September 10th, I believe it is, on ABC. DC.
Sam: And his backing out wasn't playing very well. So he ended up agreeing after
Sam: all, basically to all the original conditions.
Sam: So complete retreat. He was like, I'm not going to come after all.
Sam: How about this debate on Fox?
Sam: And Harris was like, well, I'll be there. Whether you're there or not, I'm going to be there.
Sam: He eventually backed out and they're going to the debate. So that's going to happen.
Sam: I have a feeling that's going to play differently than Biden versus Trump did as a debate.
Sam: And then we've got coming right up after that is if things go as scheduled,
Sam: which who knows, they may not, then we've got Trump's sentencing coming up for his New York trial.
Sam: We'll see how that goes. Now, there may be ways to delay that further depending
Sam: on judge rules against him on immunity stuff. He immediately appeals.
Sam: It gets delayed. Who knows? So take that with a grain of of salt,
Sam: but it is scheduled to happen.
Sam: So there are lots of things. And then if the current trends keep up with the
Sam: highly energetic Harris campaign and the lethargic Trump campaign and the huge
Sam: enthusiasm gaps we're now seeing that are very different than they were with Biden,
Sam: then I could see things moving back in the Harris direction.
Sam: But a thing to keep in mind as well, though, and so far I've only talked about
Sam: the tipping point on election graphs. photographs.
Sam: But here's the thing compared like right now we have Trump ahead by 0.5,
Sam: which okay, squint a little and call it a tie.
Sam: It trumps a little bit ahead, but call it a tie at this same time in, you know, what did I say?
Sam: We're 87 days before the election. I said 87.1 before now it's down to 87.0,
Sam: you know, cause I've been talking for a little while.
Sam: I haven't been talking for a whole 10th of a day, but rounding, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But anyway, on this exact same day, 87 days before the election,
Sam: we have Trump ahead by 0.5.
Sam: But in 2020, Biden was ahead by 5.1% in the tipping point at this time.
Sam: And in 2016, Clinton was ahead by 6.0.
Sam: So right now.
Sam: Harris is still 5.5% to 6% behind where the Democrats were in the last two elections.
Sam: And obviously, in 2020, Biden won, but just barely.
Sam: And in 2016, Clinton lost. So, when speaking to potential differences between
Sam: where people are polling 87 days ahead of the election to the actual results,
Sam: in those last two cycles,
Sam: obviously, the final results were a lot more Republican than where polls had things at this time.
Sam: And Harris is way behind.
Sam: Those paces. Still, even though she's doing significantly better than Biden
Sam: was, she's still significantly behind the pace of those last two elections.
Sam: And so there's a lot of excitement on the Democratic side right now,
Sam: but this is by no means at the spot yet where you can say hey, Harris has got this.
Sam: She has pulled ahead in national polls.
Sam: She's only slightly behind on my election graphs thing based on state polls.
Sam: The betting markets now have her ahead.
Sam: Let me just check election betting odds right now, just real quick.
Sam: Electionbettingodds.com, by the way, is a place that aggregates a whole bunch
Sam: of different betting sites to try to determine, you know.
Sam: The aggregate, they aggregate Betfair's, Smarket's, Predictit,
Sam: and Polymarket, apparently, which are a bunch of like political betting sites.
Sam: Anyway, right now they have Harris's chance to win at 52.9%.
Sam: And Trump at 44.8. And then a whole bunch of other random stragglers as I guess
Sam: people think what would happen if the meteor hit both candidates and somebody else had to run.
Sam: So, I mean, they've got Michelle Obama at 0.6%. She's not running.
Sam: She doesn't want to run. She doesn't want to be president.
Sam: Whatever scenario that would make her president is like way an oddball.
Sam: They betters are crazy for some of this stuff. But anyway, they have Harris
Sam: essentially at 53%, which is close to a toss-up.
Sam: My analysis using how far election graphs averages have been from the actual
Sam: results 87 days in advance of the election,
Sam: depending on how correlated states are with each other, I provide both extremes of that view.
Sam: I have odds somewhere between 28.9% for Harris and 38.7%. So I still have her as an underdog.
Sam: And the reason for that is exactly what I just said.
Sam: I take into account 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020.
Sam: But on aggregate, looking at all of those, polls have underestimated the Republican.
Sam: And so I have got, I essentially assume that, okay, they're still underestimating the Republican,
Sam: which would mean that Harris being behind by 0.5% might in the tipping point
Sam: state may actually be behind, may actually be that she's behind by several percent
Sam: in the tipping point state.
Sam: Like in other words, have I said in other words, like eight times, that's fine, whatever.
Sam: Bottom line is my analysis sort of says, hey, got to assume polls are underestimating
Sam: the Republicans in the close states again, which means if it looks like it's
Sam: neck and neck, the Democrats are actually behind.
Sam: And so the Democrats, and yes, me, and Harris, et cetera, should not actually
Sam: think or act like they're ahead unless they're ahead by a lot.
Sam: Not right on the edge, right on the edge.
Sam: You treat like you're behind and maybe the polls are wrong in the opposite direction.
Sam: This time I've talked on this show before about a variety of reasons why you
Sam: might think that they're, you know, I've talked before about the, how midterm, how,
Sam: how midterm special, special, how special elections have gone since the midterms
Sam: and also have generally underestimated the Democrats or the Democratic position on referendums.
Sam: And we've also talked about maybe pollsters are overcompensating for their errors
Sam: in the last couple of cycles.
Sam: We've talked about, look, there are a variety of other things.
Sam: You can come up with all kinds of reasons why, hey, the polls are probably wrong
Sam: in the opposite direction this time.
Sam: But again, there's so much room there for motivated reasoning where you look
Sam: for reasons why the Democrats may actually be in a better position than the
Sam: polls indicate rather than in a worse position than the polls indicate.
Sam: And I'm just like, you know, let's just look at the data from the previous years, use that assumption.
Sam: Polls are going to be wrong and they have been wrong in the opposite direction
Sam: before. It's not like they always underestimate Republicans.
Sam: They sometimes underestimate Democrats. They underestimated Obama in one of the two years.
Sam: I always forget which one, but you know, so yeah.
Sam: So Harris is doing a lot better than Biden, but, and it's close to a toss up
Sam: even like my, my odds, like I said, I think are between 28.9 and 38.7% chance for Harris.
Sam: And I think we're probably really closer to the higher end end of that range
Sam: than the lower end because polling error, the same pollsters are polling all the close states.
Sam: And if they get one, if they have a systematic bias, it's probably going to
Sam: apply to all the close states.
Sam: So I think it's closer to the uniform swing probabilities than independent states,
Sam: which means it's closer to the 38.7 than it is to the 28.9.
Sam: So, and round the 38.7, we're basically talking a 40-60 race right now,
Sam: which is close to a toss up Trump slightly favored, but we're basically talking,
Sam: this is not a race that anybody has wrapped up.
Sam: Either side could easily win right now. And.
Sam: And Harris is doing great so far, but there's no letting up the gas,
Sam: no letting up the gas at all.
Sam: They have to keep this momentum through to
Sam: November and hope that Trump stumbles some more and hope that the Democratic
Sam: enthusiasm brings a lot of people out
Sam: to vote who wouldn't otherwise while demoralized Republicans stay home,
Sam: basically. That's the formula here.
Sam: And that formula looks good right now.
Sam: I'm hearing more and more anecdotal stories of people who voted for Trump in 2016,
Sam: 2020, or both, who are now at least thinking about Harris, some of which have flipped entirely,
Sam: but who are at least thinking about it.
Sam: That's anecdotal you know treat
Sam: it for what it is but you hear a lot of that you i've seen people talking about
Sam: how the overt signs of enthusiasm like people driving around with with trump
Sam: flags on their truck and stuff like that is a lot less than it used to be even in the reddest of places,
Sam: where you know those may still be trump voters but the enthusiasm the enthusiasm is flagging,
Sam: so we'll see anyway that's the state i probably should do another election graphs
Sam: post soon i don't know if i'll get to one this weekend or not i did one at the 100 day mark so it's been,
Sam: that'll be two weeks tomorrow i guess can i do my math that i think that's right i don't know,
Sam: maybe not i don't know sometime i i should probably do i need to be doing them
Sam: more and more rapidly as the election approaches, but I don't have it in me
Sam: quite yet to do it weekly or even every two weeks seems like, I don't know.
Sam: Of course, I can do them more rapidly.
Sam: If I do them more frequently, I don't have to do as big a post.
Sam: I can do something quick, but I'll make another post sometime.
Sam: I don't know when, this weekend or next week. I don't think I'll let it go past
Sam: next weekend, but we'll see. Because there have been exciting developments.
Sam: Harris first took the lead, then she dropped it again, then whatever. I don't know.
Sam: I expect at this point, it's going to go back and forth a few times before things
Sam: stabilize more, but we'll see.
Sam: Okay. That's it. You guys know the drill.
Sam: Election graph. No, I keep doing that. Election graphs.com. Yes.
Sam: Look at election graphs.com.
Sam: All kinds of good stuff there, but no curmudgeons hyphen corner.com.
Sam: You can see our archives. You can read transcripts of recent episodes.
Sam: You can find all the ways to contact myself and Yvonne and you can link to our
Sam: Patreon where you can give us money.
Sam: At various levels, we will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell.
Sam: We will, what else will we do? Send you a postcard, send you a mug.
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Sam: It's a lot of fun. The more, the merrier. Please join us.
Sam: And, oh yeah, I said $2 a month. Did I also say, or just ask us?
Sam: I usually say that if I missed it or just ask us, we'll, we'll let you.
Sam: And also, I haven't yet added a link to that site, but I mentioned earlier,
Sam: youtube.com slash, slash, very exciting, slash, youtube.com slash at,
Sam: the at sign, very important, curmudgeons-corner.com.
Sam: We'll get you to the YouTube versions of these shows, which for the last, how long has it been now?
Sam: This will be the sixth, no, fifth. There was one that I split into two separate parts, I guess.
Sam: Fifth episode that I have live streamed while we're recording it.
Sam: So you can get the unedited with all the ums and ahs and long pauses while I
Sam: look things up, pauses while the dog is barking or Alex interrupts me, etc.
Sam: All coughs, all kinds of things that get edited out of the audio version usually.
Sam: Yeah, go check it out. Subscribe, click the notification bell.
Sam: And eventually I'll add a link to the website for that, but I haven't yet.
Sam: What else is left here? I usually do a, whatchamacallit, a thing from the Slack.
Sam: Should I do a thing from the Slack before saying goodbye?
Sam: I guess I should. It's tradition, although usually Yvonne does that.
Sam: Oh, I know what I'll mention. I don't have a whole topic on this,
Sam: but it's worth noting and making sure it's there.
Sam: We have not talked about the war in Ukraine for a long, long time.
Sam: This last week has had a significant development. Well, two significant developments I'll mention.
Sam: Number one, the Ukrainians have invaded Russia now.
Sam: Now, for a long time, they've been sending drones into Russia proper,
Sam: attacking various military installations,
Sam: things along those lines with drones and missiles and all kinds of other stuff.
Sam: But they have done a ground incursion into Russia and not just special forces
Sam: doing random little sabotage over the border, which they've done before.
Sam: But they're actually taking and holding territory.
Sam: As of the last update that I saw, they'd taken about 45 square miles,
Sam: including a couple settlements and villages.
Sam: They've got Russian forces retreating from those areas, civilians retreating for those areas.
Sam: They're taking POWs as well. And meanwhile, Russian forces have had to move
Sam: from other parts of the battlefield from inside Ukraine,
Sam: have had to pull out in order to go defend Russia proper from the Ukrainians.
Sam: And apparently the target of this, unlike the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
Sam: as far as I know, there's no intention to permanently hold any of this territory.
Sam: They are specifically doing this to remove a couple of military installations
Sam: that were being continuously used to attack them and to divert those troops from other places.
Sam: So we'll see how that goes. The other Ukrainian news is they are starting to
Sam: deploy robot dogs on the front lines.
Sam: Currently, the reports so far are not that these are weaponized robot dogs. I'm sure that's coming.
Sam: The Ukrainian war has seen on both sides massive exploration of the ways that
Sam: you can use drones in warfare.
Sam: Drones have been used in warfare for a long time, especially the expensive ones,
Sam: but even the cheaper ones.
Sam: But they have really been working on taking off-the-shelf drones,
Sam: adding weaponry to them, and using them as an active part of the battle on both sides in a way,
Sam: to a scale that has not been seen before.
Sam: And they're really iterating quickly on that technology, making it better and
Sam: better, which is kind of scary, but it seems inevitable as well.
Sam: Anyway, the robot dogs are apparently at least initially not going to be directly armed,
Sam: but are being used essentially for spying and being able to sort of sneak up
Sam: on enemy emplacements in a way that would be very risky for a human soldier to do,
Sam: get some reconnaissance and return.
Sam: Potentially some mind detection, some other things like that.
Sam: But, you know, come on, let's be real. Somebody is going to strap guns or explosives
Sam: to these things sooner rather than later, and that will be a part of how the war continues,
Sam: even if right now they're using them for surveillance and stuff.
Sam: Because also, the ones I've seen of these aren't that quiet,
Sam: so I'm not sure they're the best for stealth.
Sam: I guess it's still like, you know, compared to sending a human in,
Sam: you're not risking the human.
Sam: At worst, you're risking the dog, which isn't a real dog.
Sam: But these things are still kind of expensive though compared
Sam: to like a lot of the other warfare they're using with
Sam: off-the-shelf drones that are not that expensive these dogs these robotic dogs
Sam: are still a pretty penny so they're they're probably going to be careful with
Sam: them but apparently they're deploying the robot dogs so i think that's it i'm
Sam: gonna say goodbye now hopefully yvonne will be back next week hope you enjoyed
Sam: the show even though it was just me,
Sam: And if you've been watching on video, you've seen my son doing some things in
Sam: the background at various times, interrupting a couple of times.
Sam: You won't notice on the audio version, hopefully.
Sam: I keep him in when he contributes, but when he just interrupts me, I edit those.
Sam: Anyway, we're done. Thank you very much for joining us. Stay safe. Have a good week.
Sam: Enjoy. Roy and I'll be back next week. Hopefully with Yvonne. See ya. Bye.
Sam: Okay. I'm going to hit stop now. Anybody who's still left. Bye.