mtutiger

I've come to this conclusion as well... 2020 was as much about persuasion as turnout, but Biden's issues at the moment are with groups that historically have been in the Democratic corner. He has to consolidate.... there's time, but a number of things have to go right between now and November. I don't know that tonight will change much, but certainly the spin from Trump's campaign going in doesn't exactly project confidence about their candidate IMO

This sort of voter is probably already voting for Trump and really isn't the target, IMO

The human psychology of it is easy to understand, especially as one gets older... they based their careers around this stuff, and it's hard to start over; it's easier to just put your head down and play dumb and lie on Trump's behalf than it is to stick to principles

NBC wrote an article a while ago about people reevaluating Florida or choosing to leave, discussing a number of factors including skyrocketing cost of living, property insurance rates and (of course) political climate.... Nate Silver, of course, had to respond and basically trashed the article because the data suggests that Florida remains popular. Silver isn't wrong, but data is a lagging indicator.... I don't expect the overall trend of "north to south" to change, certainly with boomers being a large demo relative to their younger peers and with boomers all hitting retirement age, that in and of itself will keep population growth health in the south. But if this was starting to happen, you wouldn't see it immediately - it would show up gradually over time in the data. I don't know if rates of growth will decline going forward or not (I doubt it myself), but sometimes data analyst types can miss the forest through the trees if they just ignore anything qualitative that doesn't reflect in last year's population estimates. Having said all of that, I think there *is* a story about people choosing to move back up north or second guessing moves to the south as well. And it's not necessarily all political - some of it is simply not wanting to move away from family or being miserable all the time during the summer. The hidden costs of being down south as well - anecdotal of course, but we have now have a state income tax and somewhat higher property taxes compared to living in Texas (not to mention gas prices), but it costs less for property insurance and home heating / electric and utilities overall where we live now. Government services are better, schools are better, etc. There are tradeoffs to the lifestyle down there that tend to get lost in these discussions that focus exclusively on taxes, and that shouldn't be brushed aside IMO. And for demographic data to reflect a change in attitudes, it's not going to happen overnight.... people have been talking about Detroit's upswing for a while now, yet it took until last year (per the latest estimates) to reverse a 40+ year streak of population declines. This stuff just takes time to manifest.

I love how Byron York just unironically shares this stuff as if it isn't word salad mixed with absolute horse****

It sounds like "The Running Man" lol

WTF

Now reading about that movie, I had forgotten that his role came down to him or Gene Hackman.... Hackman is phenomenal, but I don't know if he would have quite gotten to the emotional depth that a movie like that required.

Such a good scene.... and I don't care what the Scorsese people all say, Ordinary People was an Oscar-worthy film.

Between this and outsourcing ground game to Charlie Kirk, a lot of interesting tactical decisions being made Just get the sense that this is a campaign that's getting high on it's own supply

He seemed to have stepped into it with his comments on giving out green cards... not very MAGA. Granted, he'd never do it and just tells people (such as the tech bros on that podcast) what they want to hear.

One underrated thing going into this debate, IMO, is that while incumbent Presidents usually are at a disadvantage going into debate #1 because they are rusty (think Obama v. Romney in 2012), challengers usually are more accustomed to the debate format for having gone through it in the primary cycle. That isn't the case here.... the GOP had primary debates, but Trump ducked every single one of them. And now, apparently, he's not even doing mock debates. Caveat being that some of this may be expectation setting on their part, but regardless it's not hard to imagine that Biden is taking prep more seriously than Trump is.

Even when you have local media these days, views are still colored through the nationalization of media. If you're a sicko like me and read the comments under news articles from local radio / news outlets on Facebook, for instance, it's hard not to notice people bringing in national political figures into discussions about the tax rate being adjusted for the local High School District or otherwise benign local issues. As if Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whoever have any relevance to local property tax rates lol

Their strategy (both the campaign and it's media apparatus at Fox) of lowering expectations to floor-level for Biden may be rhetorical junk food for his base, but it doesn't help either in the grand scheme of things.

We may be underrating the idea that RFK is a non entity when it's all said and done

Interesting but not surprising...

Certainly understand why he has weighed in, and that is likely reflects a majority of his constituents considering the demographics of Dearborn in 2024. But in general, I wish politicians at the local level would just focus on the basic 'blocking and tackling' of government and not draw some much focus / attention onto national politics. Not even saying that he's wrong to have an opinion or express it, but I'm not sure it should completely overshadow his day job either.

Glad at least one outlet noticed...

Uhhh

And, to the extent that he talked about anything policy-wise yesterday, it was that insane "replace income tax with tariffs" idea... If you're a CEO of, say, Target, does that sound good for business to you? Or other retailers? Does that help get more people into stores?

Said it before and will say it again: if you're on this message board posting about politics, you're likely more tuned in than 95%+ of the population on politics. Including some CEOs, believe it or not. The guy has largely been out of the public eye... combine that with Joe Biden having low approval ratings, the time that has passed since Trump's term in office ended, and a population that is a lot more tuned out on politics than it was at this time four years ago, it's not hard to see how people can forget or even lie to themselves about his qualities as a candidate. But just as the CEOs apparently got a reminder of what he's like (or perhaps even the way that he's lost some MPHs on his fastball in the past four years), we all will as well. It doesn't guarantee anything, of course, but regardless of if he wins or loses, he's not going to be able to hide the ball for the next five months.