The 2022 Midterm Elections

[oblong]

 

[ewsieg]

She did nothing for the roads except put out a plan that her own party didn't agree with.  Then spent the next few years blaming congress. Luckily for her, she got bailed out, along with every other governor, with Covid money.  Did she put that towards roads, education, and mental facilities, yes, so I guess that's good.  If she gets credit for stuff somewhat out of her hands, than shouldn't she take credit for this too though?

https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/michigan-school-m-step-scores-down-sharply-pre-pandemic-testing

She didn't cause Covid, but she definitely didn't push to get kids back into schools even after the science was showing just how detrimental at home learning was combined with the fact that kids were the least at risk group to Covid.  Funny thing is, she's taking credit for kids back in school now too.   Flint just went back to in-school learning.  For people that get mad about people of color getting left behind, they should be furious with this.

I'll play a political caveat that both sides do when it fits them and point to school funding.  When taking inflation into account, funding is not at an all time high per pupil.

She's handled Line 5 horribly and at the cost of Michigan tax payers to fight it.  Even the Biden administration is not supporting her on it.  She was glad it was working when she needed to call in a favor to a billionaire friend and needed gas for the private plane trip to Florida as she was telling everyone else to stay home.  Oh wait, not a favor, she paid for it....after she was caught.

Flint... are you kidding me?  Money was allocated for that before she was governor.  In fact under her leadership, Flint went away from scientific based methods in identifying and clearing lines which was not only cheaper, but was faster as well.  Governors fault... idk, might be unfair to blame her for that, but I would think Flint would be a hot button issue that any governor would stay on top off.

The subsidies for the automakers, I honestly don't know where I stand with that.  Almost feels like a necessary evil.  Corporations are taking advantage of politicians with it, but if you don't do it, you seem to lose even more.  Ford just taking a bunch from Michigan and than announcing major layoffs of their white collar (so mostly Michigan) folks hurts.  

And I know you guys will treat this like Hunter Biden, but the nursing homes.  I guess you can spin it and say she was so much smarter than Cuomo because she was too inept to even track the data, thus no need to fudge it.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Motown Bombers]

I like how Republicans break the water system in Flint and blame the Democrats for not cleaning it up to their satisfaction. 

[RatkoVarda]

I'm going to stay worried through the election

 

[romad1]

3 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

I'm going to stay worried through the election

 

I don't think their dog crap candidates are going to get any better.  

[mtutiger]

 

[mtutiger]

5 minutes ago, romad1 said:

I don't think their dog crap candidates are going to get any better.  

The article is behind the NYT Paywall so I don't know his exact argument, I do trust him a lot more than the average data guy though and agree with his caution.

The bigger problem that I have with the larger discourse on polling this time around is that it is frequently stated and implied that the pollsters haven't done anything to fix their issues from 2020. Generally people say this while, as evidence, pointing to the discrepancy between their expectations (and conventional wisdom) and what the polling is showing.

Does that suggest reason to be wary or skeptical? Sure. But I kinda think people are now going beyond that into "the polls don't matter, they are wrong because they aren't confirming my priors." So much of the punditry is backward looking and fighting the last fight, and it loses sight of the fact that no two elections are the same. Even 2016 and 2020, often compared, were much different elections and fell on much different lines.

Edited September 12, 2022 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

22 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

The article is behind the NYT Paywall so I don't know his exact argument,

"It raises the possibility that the apparent Democratic strength in Wisconsin and elsewhere is a mirage — an artifact of persistent and unaddressed biases in survey research.

If the polls are wrong yet again, it will not be hard to explain. Most pollsters haven’t made significant methodological changes since the last election. The major polling community post-mortem declared that it was “impossible” to definitively ascertain what went wrong in the 2020 election.

The pattern of Democratic strength isn’t the only sign that the polls might still be off in similar ways. Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion, some pollsters have said they’re seeing the familiar signs of nonresponse bias — when people who don’t respond to a poll are meaningfully different from those who participate — creeping back into their surveys."

---from the article

Edited September 12, 2022 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

"It raises the possibility that the apparent Democratic strength in Wisconsin and elsewhere is a mirage — an artifact of persistent and unaddressed biases in survey research.

If the polls are wrong yet again, it will not be hard to explain. Most pollsters haven’t made significant methodological changes since the last election. The major polling community post-mortem declared that it was “impossible” to definitively ascertain what went wrong in the 2020 election.

The pattern of Democratic strength isn’t the only sign that the polls might still be off in similar ways. Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion, some pollsters have said they’re seeing the familiar signs of nonresponse bias — when people who don’t respond to a poll are meaningfully different from those who participate — creeping back into their surveys."

Thanks. Time will tell, but I do think the results of special elections recently as well as the KS Amendment election shouldn't necessarily be dismissed either. Similar to the opinion that Oblong shared, it's possible to reconcile the idea that the environment has improved some for Ds due to external circumstances while still recognizing that the fundamentals remain in favor of the GOP in this cycle.

[mtutiger]

Without a doubt the most bizarre poll of the cycle.... 

[ewsieg]

11 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I like how Republicans break the water system in Flint and blame the Democrats for not cleaning it up to their satisfaction. 

I'm still amazing that the GOP convinced their base it was the democrats (that were involved) fault and the Democrats have convinced their base that it was the republicans (that were involved) fault, and 80% of the population just goes with that as fact.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, ewsieg said:

I'm still amazing that the GOP convinced their base it was the democrats (that were involved) fault and the Democrats have convinced their base that it was the republicans (that were involved) fault, and 80% of the population just goes with that as fact.

truth be told it was the Money's fault. When money is on the table for the implementation of a bad idea, it's the responsibility of technical people to push back as hard as is necessary to stop it. The Truth is, Snyder was a jerk through all this, but if someone had actually gotten to him with the science of what was going to happen, which is/was well known, I don't believe even he would not have stopped it. A few people pushed back a little, but nobody pushed back hard enough. But engineers are just as flawed as anyone else. Easy to say "well, they don't want my input, it's their responsibility now." But it isn't, because 'they' are ignorant of what you understand. I have no sympathy for any of the pols in the case because none of them wanted to know, but I have zero sympathy for the supposed "peons they tried to railroad when it was the higher up's fault". That arg doesn't wash either.

[Tigeraholic1]

It still amazes me how many Repubs are still using Trump as a selling point to vote for them. 

[oblong]

10 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

truth be told it was the Money's fault. When money is on the table for the implementation of a bad idea, it's the responsibility of technical people to push back as hard as is necessary to stop it. The Truth is, Snyder was a jerk through all this, but if someone had actually gotten to him with the science of what was going to happen, which is/was well known, I don't believe even he would not have stopped it. A few people pushed back a little, but nobody pushed back hard enough. But engineers are just as flawed as anyone else. Easy to say "well, they don't want my input, it's their responsibility now." But it isn't, because 'they' are ignorant of what you understand. I have no sympathy for any of the pols in the case because none of them wanted to know, but I have zero sympathy for the supposed "peons they tried to railroad when it was the higher up's fault". That arg doesn't wash either.

I've been reading a book by the astronaut John Young and as the top Astronaut rep during Challenger you get the same feelings about the O Ring problem and later the problems with the tiles that doomed Columbia.  Both of those were well known issues, and in the case of the tiles, caused a lot of panic very early on in the shuttle program.  But you have too many hands in the pot and agendas.  Engineering/Safety conflicting with public policy.

I suspect what happens is you have 25 people CC'd on an email and if a question is asked everybody assumes someone else will take care of it.  

[Motown Bombers]

10 hours ago, ewsieg said:

I'm still amazing that the GOP convinced their base it was the democrats (that were involved) fault and the Democrats have convinced their base that it was the republicans (that were involved) fault, and 80% of the population just goes with that as fact.

Well, it was a Republican governor who appointed the financial manager using a law that Republicans passed, voters repealed, and Republicans passed again. The financial manager then made the decision to disconnect from Detroit and pump from the Flint River to save a buck. Things were ok getting water from Detroit but decisions from Republicans lead to the Flint water crisis in which Republicans also ignored. 

[ewsieg]

20 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Well, it was a Republican governor who appointed the financial manager using a law that Republicans passed, voters repealed, and Republicans passed again. The financial manager then made the decision to disconnect from Detroit and pump from the Flint River to save a buck. Things were ok getting water from Detroit but decisions from Republicans lead to the Flint water crisis in which Republicans also ignored. 

You are absolutely correct, ultimately Rick Snyder made the biggest mistake of everyone by trying to appease Flint and appointing a democrat to run the city under emergency management.  

Joking aside, both local democrats and republicans alike were moving towards KWA before Flint was under an emergency manager and even if Flint wasn't under emergency management and the same events happen, the State, under Snyder, still would deserve blame based on the failures of the DEQ.  So many things went wrong and yet, adding one additive at minimal cost could have still saved us from this mess.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, ewsieg said:

You are absolutely correct, ultimately Rick Snyder made the biggest mistake of everyone by trying to appease Flint and appointing a democrat to run the city under emergency management.  

Joking aside, both local democrats and republicans alike were moving towards KWA before Flint was under an emergency manager and even if Flint wasn't under emergency management and the same events happen, the State, under Snyder, still would deserve blame based on the failures of the DEQ.  So many things went wrong and yet, adding one additive at minimal cost could have still saved us from this mess.

all you had to do was lime treat the water to raise the pH and you have no problem - heck they could have installed a simple pH monitor and dribbled a tiny amount of NaOH into the water. Get the pH to ~9, which is where  most municipal systems that soften their water operate, and lead will not go anywhere.

[CMRivdogs]

2 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

It still amazes me how many Repubs are still using Trump as a selling point to vote for them. 

He is very good at convincing some people to constantly give him their hard earned money. That's all that matters to the rest of his apostles.   

[Motown Bombers]

6 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

He is very good at convincing some people to constantly give him their hard earned money. That's all that matters to the rest of his apostles.   

The problem is, the small donors are giving all their money to Trump and not to any other candidates and Trump isn't sharing. Guess trickle down doesn't work. 

[Tigeraholic1]

7 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

He is very good at convincing some people to constantly give him their hard earned money. That's all that matters to the rest of his apostles.   

You know I don't agree with a bunch opinions here but WTF, the guy he such a crook. It's really scarey how blind they are..... 

[CMRivdogs]

6 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The problem is, the small donors are giving all their money to Trump and not to any other candidates and Trump isn't sharing. Guess trickle down doesn't work. 

But they cash in in other ways. Look how much free publicity folks like Boebert, MTG, the former football player from Georgia, the current GQOP Gubernatorial candidate in Michigan and others get just by associating with him. A d getting 30 seconds of local airtime at his Rant Concerts

Edited September 13, 2022 by CMRivdogs

[oblong]

He's basically a televangelist/infomercial huckster that saw an opening in the political world through grievances.  Scare people. 

[CMRivdogs]

If you have to recruit a candidate on Twitter you've probably lost the race...

 

[mtutiger]

Bold strategy, Cotton... let's see if it pays off

[Motown Bombers]

21 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Bold strategy, Cotton... let's see if it pays off

I feel this is a trap.