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I was too wasted to attempt the drive back to the Hudson Valley yesterday, so spent the day in B’s kitchen hunched over my computer, generating income. It was rainy and very cold, though not quite cold enough to snow. I wondered about autumn’s gradient. The trees in the Catskills forests I’d passed on the drive up here were completely bare, but here in T-burg, many of the trees were still decked out in yellow and orange. Differential CO2 levels, perhaps? Assuming CO2 has some insulating effect.
In the evening B cooked me spaghetti and then screened the very lovely documentary City of Gold, which is all about the L.A. Times’ food critic and his deep affection for the City of Los Angeles – an affection I momentarily shared while I watched this film. Really! It was the first time I felt nostalgic for California since I left California.
Since EVERYTHING is about the Election, I will note here that the L.A.Times ran the only poll that consistently predicted Der Donald’s victory. Along with everything else, this election probably marks the end of random call polls as a useful tool. It may even mark the death of proscriptive data journalism except as a kind of not-terribly-illuminating postscript in hindsight analysis.
Somewhere, Nate Silver Is huddling in a closet, contemplating suicide...
###
Not much time for introspection this morning, so I will merely add to yesterday’s rant (though I promise to stop writing about politics very, very soon!):
The electorate was hungry for the change that Obama promised but never delivered.
Rule #1 in electoral politics: Mobilize your base.
Rule #2 in electoral politics: Listen to your base.
The Democratic National Party should have read the tealeaves and gotten out of the way. They didn’t. HRC said the right things, but she was the wrong messenger. She was never gonna be the change that voters wanted. Maybe if she’d picked a more dynamic running mate… Grudges from the primaries probably played a part in her defeat, especially after those revelations about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazille, but her “experience” was never gonna mobilize the base. The Dems’ Go-To Strategy became Fear of the Orange Bogeyman. Her last two weeks of campaign speeches were all variations on, Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Unfortunately, that didn’t motivate 50% of the electorate.
Because fear can never replace enthusiasm.
In the evening B cooked me spaghetti and then screened the very lovely documentary City of Gold, which is all about the L.A. Times’ food critic and his deep affection for the City of Los Angeles – an affection I momentarily shared while I watched this film. Really! It was the first time I felt nostalgic for California since I left California.
Since EVERYTHING is about the Election, I will note here that the L.A.Times ran the only poll that consistently predicted Der Donald’s victory. Along with everything else, this election probably marks the end of random call polls as a useful tool. It may even mark the death of proscriptive data journalism except as a kind of not-terribly-illuminating postscript in hindsight analysis.
Somewhere, Nate Silver Is huddling in a closet, contemplating suicide...
###
Not much time for introspection this morning, so I will merely add to yesterday’s rant (though I promise to stop writing about politics very, very soon!):
The electorate was hungry for the change that Obama promised but never delivered.
Rule #1 in electoral politics: Mobilize your base.
Rule #2 in electoral politics: Listen to your base.
The Democratic National Party should have read the tealeaves and gotten out of the way. They didn’t. HRC said the right things, but she was the wrong messenger. She was never gonna be the change that voters wanted. Maybe if she’d picked a more dynamic running mate… Grudges from the primaries probably played a part in her defeat, especially after those revelations about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazille, but her “experience” was never gonna mobilize the base. The Dems’ Go-To Strategy became Fear of the Orange Bogeyman. Her last two weeks of campaign speeches were all variations on, Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Unfortunately, that didn’t motivate 50% of the electorate.
Because fear can never replace enthusiasm.
