US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4842

On August 28 2016 16:36 RvB wrote:

Cost benefit analysis exist in public health care markets as well. See NICE for the NHS. In the end costs will always be a factor due to a limited amount of money being available whether the sector is state led or not.

Nyxisto's claim that lobying is a feature of the free market is ridiculous. Every organisation with the means lobbies. NGO's, state monopolies, multinationals. The public sector is not immune to this.

Donald Trump and his new team think they have 73 days to turn this campaign around. They’re wrong.

The Republican nominee — three months after clinching the nomination — has begun frantically trying to reposition himself in the last week, installing a new campaign manager and controversial CEO to help him escape the straitjacket that his 14 months of incendiary comments and hard-edged policy positions have him in.

His task, GOP insiders readily concede, seems close to impossible. In an interview Wednesday night, Trump’s new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, recognized how long it may take to improve the public’s negative perceptions of the GOP nominee, likening her turnaround project to turning a tanker.

Trump may not have that kind of time. Early voting begins in 28 days in Minnesota and in 32 other states soon after that. And already as summer inches to its end, 90 percent of Americans say they’ve decided. For all the televised daily drama this race has provided, the final outcome itself is shaping up to be less dramatic than any presidential election since 1984.
“Kellyanne is good at this, but she’s got a very damaged candidate and it’s very late in the game,” said Tony Fratto, a GOP operative in Washington and former deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush. “I think it’s too late, in fact. I don’t believe he can change. All of this is trying to trick voters into thinking there is a better Donald Trump out there. There is no better Donald Trump.”

Although Trump has been seemingly slow to realize it, the more than $2 billion in free media he rode to the GOP nomination was simultaneously hardening the broader country’s negative view of Trump just as it was endearing him to the conservative base. The cascade of Trump-created controversies following the conventions that precipitated Conway’s hiring appear to have irrevocably damaged his credibility as a plausible commander in chief and could prove to be the turning point in the general election itself.

“It was a terribly damaging period,” said Steve Schmidt, the GOP strategist who guided John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “It hit on his trust numbers, his fitness for office — and at a time when [Hillary Clinton]’s had some hard news cycles. In any normal cycle, she’s the de-facto incumbent and these stories would have her on defense; and she’s not on defense, so there’s an opportunity cost to all this.”

More than 60 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, leaving Clinton, with a 54 percent unfavorable rating, as only the second most unpopular presidential candidate in history. Both candidates, in fact, have held unfavorable ratings above 50 percent since launching their respective campaigns, with Trump hovering around the 60 percent mark, only a few points above Clinton. Asked about a smell they might associate with this election, the participants in a focus group conducted by Peter Hart in Wisconsin this week gave the following responses: “sulfur,” “rotten eggs,” "garbage,” “manure” and a “skunk’s fart.”

Barring any unforeseen revelations about Clinton, the next 70 days likely aren’t going to change people’s view of either presidential contender. According to a national survey released Thursday by Quinnipiac University, 90 percent of likely voters have already made up their mind about the presidential race and are unlikely to change.

Election Update: It’s Too Soon For Clinton To Run Out The Clock

Last week, Politico reported that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was set to employ a “run out the clock” strategy, declining to respond to recurring controversies even at the risk of seeming nonresponsive. In the abstract, such a strategy could make sense. Clinton has a fairly clear lead in the polls. There are only 10 weeks to go until the Nov. 8 election — and less than that until early voting, which begins in late September in some states.

But Clinton shouldn’t get too complacent. After mixed evidence before, it’s become clearer, at least according to our forecast models, that Donald Trump has regained some ground on her. Clinton’s national lead in our polls-only forecast has gone from a peak of about 8.5 percentage points two weeks ago to 6.5 percentage points as of Sunday evening — that is, a 2-point gain for Trump over two weeks. Correspondingly, Trump’s chances of winning the election have improved from a low of 11 percent to 19 percent.

Trump’s gains have been more modest in our polls-plus forecast, which discounted Clinton’s early August polls because of a potential convention bounce and which anticipated that the race would tighten. In polls-plus, which forecasts that Clinton’s margin over Trump will narrow to roughly 4 percentage points by Election Day, the clock is more of an ally to Clinton and an enemy to Trump. Still, Trump is keeping slightly ahead of the pace of improvement that polls-plus expected of him. His chances of winning are 27 percent according to polls-plus, up slightly from 25 percent a week ago and from a low of 21 percent earlier this month.

[...[

Toward the end of the 2012 campaign, we frequently emphasized the distinction between closeness and uncertainty. President Obama led Mitt Romney by just 1 or 2 percentage points nationally, according to our models, throughout much of the stretch run of that campaign — a close race. But between Obama’s consistently strong numbers in the swing states, the low number of undecided voters, and a strong alignment between polls and economic “fundamentals,” there was a narrow range of plausible outcomes for that election, with most of them resulting in a second Obama term.

This election, at least for the time being, presents something of the opposite case. It isn’t all that close — Clinton is up by around 6 percentage points as best as we can figure, a larger lead than Obama had at almost any point in 2012 or until the very end of the 2008 campaign. But it’s August, and the number of undecided voters is high, and so the outcome remains fairly uncertain. Furthermore, while the state polls are fairly good for Clinton right now, we don’t know how they’ll react if the race tightens further. We’re going on three weeks without a live-caller poll in Pennsylvania, for example.

Coincidentally or not, the Clinton campaign was more proactive last week. It pushed back quite aggressively at an Associated Press story about donations to the Clinton Foundation. And it instigated a fight with Trump over his connections with what Clinton called “the emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right.” Clinton remains in a strong overall position, but she shouldn’t be playing prevent defense yet; we’re still in the equivalent of the third quarter.

On August 29 2016 06:37 biology]major wrote:


she is doing the right thing, she can't respond to her controversies because her responses will only make her seem even more robotic and insincere. She has the media on her side and there is no need for her to enter headlines right now, other than by calling trump names.

Her latest press appearances have been phoned in where she is literally reading off a script, that's how safe she is playing it. In her mind she has already won.

On August 29 2016 07:13 xDaunt wrote:

I think it's been fairly well-established that there's an inverse relationship between Hillary's media exposure and her approval ratings. And I agree with you: she doesn't need to do anything when the sycophantic press is ready to "go over the top" for her cause.

On August 29 2016 07:13 xDaunt wrote:

And I agree with you: she doesn't need to do anything when the sycophantic press is ready to "go over the top" for her cause.

Study: Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, gets the most negative media coverage

The biggest news outlets published more negative stories about Hillary Clinton than any other presidential candidate — including Donald Trump — from January 2015 to April 2016, according to an analysis of hundreds of thousands of online stories.

Clinton has not only been hammered by the most negative coverage but the media also wrote the smallest proportion of positive stories about her, reports Crimson Hexagon, a social media software analytics company based out of Boston.

Pre-Primary News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Race: Trump’s Rise, Sanders’ Emergence, Clinton’s Struggle

A new report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage of the 2016 presidential candidates in the year leading up to the primaries. This crucial period, labeled “the invisible primary” by political scientists, is when candidates try to lay the groundwork for a winning campaign—with media exposure often playing a make or break role.

The report shows that during the year 2015, major news outlets covered Donald Trump in a way that was unusual given his low initial polling numbers—a high volume of media coverage preceded Trump’s rise in the polls. Trump’s coverage was positive in tone—he received far more “good press” than “bad press.” The volume and tone of the coverage helped propel Trump to the top of Republican polls.

The Democratic race in 2015 received less than half the coverage of the Republican race. Bernie Sanders’ campaign was largely ignored in the early months but, as it began to get coverage, it was overwhelmingly positive in tone. Sanders’ coverage in 2015 was the most favorable of any of the top candidates, Republican or Democratic. For her part, Hillary Clinton had by far the most negative coverage of any candidate. In 11 of the 12 months, her “bad news” outpaced her “good news,” usually by a wide margin, contributing to the increase in her unfavorable poll ratings in 2015.

News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has Consequences

The news media’s fascination with Donald Trump’s candidacy, which began in 2015, carried into the primary election phase. Week after week, Trump got the most press attention (see Figure 1). [...]

Our earlier study found that, in 2015, Sanders received the most positive coverage of any of the presidential contenders. That pattern carried into the primaries. During the period from January 1 to June 7, positive news statements about Sanders outpaced negative ones by 54 percent to 46 percent (see Figure 2). In fact, Sanders was the only candidate during the primary period to receive a positive balance of coverage. The other candidates’ coverage tilted negative, though in varying degrees. Clinton’s coverage was 53 percent negative to 47 percent positive, which, though unfavorable on balance, was markedly better than her 2015 coverage when she received by far the most negative coverage of any candidate. During that year-long period, two-thirds (69 percent to 31 percent) of what was reported about Clinton was negative in tone.

Trump’s coverage during the primary period was almost evenly balanced, with positive statements about his candidacy (49 percent) nearly equal to negative ones (51 percent). However, the tone of his coverage varied markedly over the course of the primary season. During the period when the Republican nomination was still being contested, Trump’s coverage was positive on balance. News statements about Trump during this period were 53 percent positive to 47 percent negative—nearly as positive as Sanders’. But after Cruz and Kasich dropped from the race in early May, Trump’s coverage nosedived. Over the final five weeks of the primary season, 61 percent of news statements about Trump were negative and only 39 percent were positive—a level of negativity exceeded only by Clinton’s coverage during 2015.

On August 29 2016 08:42 kwizach wrote:

It's interesting to read such a claim at a time when both Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon are advising Trump (not to mention others in the conservative media, such as Hannity). In any case, the three studies that I'm aware of about the coverage received so far by the presidential candidates before and during their respective primaries show that Trump received on average a more positive coverage than Clinton. If your statement is based on any actual study rather than your gut feeling, I'd be interested in reading it.

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Although one has to be mindful of the methodology used, I still think those results are interesting and largely in line with what my general impression has been. Trump's tanking coverage in recent weeks is, to me, largely due to his missteps (understatement of the year) since the end of the Republican primary and his trailing of Clinton in the polls. If anything, a fear of appearing as partisan has in my opinion often paralyzed some in the media into often making false equivalencies between the opposing sides to avoid accusations of not being balanced (for example between Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, while all major party presidential candidates have done so since Nixon, and Clinton's refusal to release her speech transcripts, something that has never been asked of any presidential candidate... ever?). This is not new or specific to this particular race, however.

On August 29 2016 08:42 kwizach wrote:

It's interesting to read such a claim at a time when both Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon are advising Trump (not to mention others in the conservative media, such as Hannity). In any case, the three studies that I'm aware of about the coverage received so far by the presidential candidates before and during their respective primaries show that Trump received on average a more positive coverage than Clinton. If your statement is based on any actual study rather than your gut feeling, I'd be interested in reading it.

Source

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Although one has to be mindful of the methodology used, I still think those results are interesting and largely in line with what my general impression has been. Trump's tanking coverage in recent weeks is, to me, largely due to his missteps (understatement of the year) since the end of the Republican primary and his trailing of Clinton in the polls. If anything, a fear of appearing as partisan has in my opinion often paralyzed some in the media into often making false equivalencies between the opposing sides to avoid accusations of not being balanced (for example between Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, while all major party presidential candidates have done so since Nixon, and Clinton's refusal to release her speech transcripts, something that has never been asked of any presidential candidate... ever?). This is not new or specific to this particular race, however.

On August 29 2016 09:16 zlefin wrote:
Yawn, silly claims of media being in the tank for anybody. I much prefer the studies and analysis.
And the posted analysis seems quite reasonable, and certainly far more thorough than the knee-jerk media bias claims that are always coming from some on the right.

On August 29 2016 09:23 Introvert wrote:


Even if they aren't knowingly in the tank, most reporters identifies themselves as at least left-leaners. At the very least a difference in coverage would be fully understandable.

Also, much of the "bias" that I notice lies in what is omitted from stories. It's incredibly hard to quantify.

For this election cycle, I'd have to find the citation (if it's not one of the ones kwizach used) that pointed out Trump's coverage turned sharply negative after he got the nomination.