2016 Saw The End of "Punditry" As Anything But Blatant Propaganda

Apart from the election of Donald Trump as president 2016 brought another welcome benefit, the end of punditry and pundits as something of "value".

For most of America's history the press and more latterly television and the pundits therein (e.g. Cronkite/Huntley-Brinkley) held a high and privileged place in the culture. 

Who a newspaper endorsed for president used to be a highly coveted item in any campaign and a journal or magazine that had a respected pundit or pundits would carry enormous weight in respect of voters considerations if not actual choices.

By their actions in the 2016 campaigns the media with their blatant one-sided and grossly distorted bias. 

About two newspapers nationwide endorsed Trump for president, towards Clinton and against Trump gave up any pretensions to being in any way a focal point for genuine analysis. 

The entire media with its liberal bias is now simply a home for its audiences prejudices. 

Nobody could honestly advise that the various 'Posts' and 'Times' in Washington/New York and California are anything but propaganda pieces for the urban left. 

Similarity Fox TV, Breitbart and "A Point of View' are repositories for center-left discussion.

This is actually all for the good. The fact that any pretensions to evenhandedness are gone allows for any media site to be taken at face value as well as providing a comforting bubble for its audience. 

The same applies to "pundits" too. 

Any thundering volley from the likes of Josh Marshall or Nate Silver of any of the Washington Posts's stable e.g. Dana Milbank are now taken with a huge grain of salt or as an indication of what propaganda line the DNC wishes to promote at any one time.

The Election In Retrospect;State Polls Showed Obvious Trump Win

Having reviewed the election night broadcasts from the major networks it is clear the entire punditry on show were utterly befuddled by the result. "How did we not see this coming?" Nobody predicted this."

to state "nobody predicted this" is really just an extension of the blindness inherent in 'we did not see this coming' as a number of pundits, including in all modesty myself, and an academic who has always been right, saw a Trump win.

The stunned reaction included 'the polling industry is broken, they got it wrong." As the night started the consensus was "Trump has a very narrow path, he has to thread the needle whereas Clinton has multiple paths."

 It is this "consensus" based on "data and received wisdom" which, along with what must be willful blindness that was so wrong.

Once Trump had won Florida, North Carolina and Ohio the scales (and the countenances) started dropping from their collective eyes the tune changed to "this is a complete reversal of what everyone thought, it is Trump who now has multiple paths and Hillary whose path is narrowing."

Lets look at the reality in the polling and the actual results in the "battleground states".

The aggregate of polls in Florida gave Trump an 0.2 point lead with the final poll from Trafalgar group on 11/6 giving Trump a +4 lead. The final result was Trump +1.2. Clearly a Trump win was more than probable.

North Carolina; Final aggregation Trump +1.0 actual result Trump +3.7

Ohio; Final aggregation Trump +3.5  actual result +8.1

Iowa; Final aggregation Trump +3.0 actual result Trump +9.5

It is perfectly clear that if the punditry had dwelt on the final poll aggregates at the very least the comment could have been"if the polls are correct in these battleground states the Trump only needs to break through in one or two of Clinton's "rust belt blue wall to have a strong chance." 

Most certainly the polls were massively out in Wisconsin giving Clinton a 6.5 point lead and he ended up winning by 0.7 but in Pennsylvania Clinton's lead was only 1.7 points and the final Trafalgar poll had Trump at +1 and he won it by +0.7. In Michigan Clinton's final aggregate lead was 3.4 with Trafalgar  giving Trump a +1 lead and Trump won the state by 0.3

Again, anyone not blinded by either bias, group think and probably both in most cases could see that Trump was in the margin of error in Pennsylvania and Michigan and if he won, where he led in the final polls, Florida/North Carolina/Ohio and especially if he won the latter by a large margin, which he was obviously going to do as the early returns came in, he had every chance of winning the presidency.

The battleground state polls, in the main and where it counted were not wrong, neither were the national polls which gave Clinton a popular vote win. It was the punditry that was willfully blind that was wrong and they reaped their reward on election night

Gov.Palin In Gallup's Top 10 Most Admired Women In World For 8th Straight Year

Governor Palin holds no office, has no regular media platform and yet for the eight consecutive year is listed in Gallup's "Most Admired Women In The World" list.

This speaks volumes about the high regard she is held in for her honesty  ethics and dedication to the truth no matter the personal cost in possible political advancement.

"Americans named Hillary Clinton the Most Admired Woman for the 15th consecutive year and 21st time overall. Since her initial win in 1993 as first lady, Clinton has topped the list every year but 1995 and 1996 (when she finished behind Mother Teresa) and 2001 (behind Laura Bush). Eleanor Roosevelt has the second-most No. 1 finishes among women, at 13.

First lady Michelle Obama finished second on the Most Admired Woman list this year, tied with 2012 as her best finish. The remainder of the top 10 most admired women include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former and current talk-show hosts Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, Queen Elizabeth of England, human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin."

All of this year's leading women have finished in the top 10 multiple times before, led by Queen Elizabeth's record 48. Winfrey's 29th top 10 finish this year moved her ahead of Jacqueline Kennedy for the third-most-frequent appearances behind Queen Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher (34). Clinton's 25 top 10 finishes rank fifth-best all-time. Rice has finished in the top 10 a total of 16 times, while Obama and Palin each made their ninth appearances in the top 10 this year.

Clinton was the top choice among Democrats, with 26% naming her, followed by Michelle Obama at 18%. Republicans did not have a consensus choice -- 5% named Queen Elizabeth, 4% each named Clinton and DeGeneres, and 3% each named Rice and Palin.

Rice. Sarah Palin came closest to beating Clinton in 2009, but Clinton narrowly kept her title in the bag."

Obama Biden Sanders Twist The Knife Into Hillary As "Comey/Russia" Gets No Traction

Now that the initial shock of defeat is wearing off Dem's are playing the blame game. They've run the gamut of "Comey/Russians/Koch Bros. fixed machines/Assange/biased media (yes they actually think that)/suppressed turnout (racism) and etc.

A few Bernie Bros. ripped into the actual cause of the loss, Clinton and her campaign, but most of the media and the Dem establishment kept their distance from the obvious, until now.

Now that all the ridiculous  last gasp efforts to overthrow Trump's win via "recounts' and Electoral College subterfuge have failed, the main characters have surfaced to gently, politely, but clearly twist the knife into the politically dead body of their erstwhile "it's her time" leader.

Obama's "her flaws were wildly amplified" an admission that she actually had flaws, is deliciously vicious, as is the clear admission of "[she] too cautiously played it safe" and the obvious attack on her neglect of white working class voters.

Vice-President Biden echoes this by initially stating how he praised her

and then puts her loss in: "her lack of respect' for the same "left behind people"

Bernie Sanders, as is his style, held nothing back. " Clinton was wrong to lash out at Comey, that's a minor issue. She should have won by ten points." And of course he goes on to blame the loss on  her inability to connect with White working class voters.

Sections of the more blatantly left media, where there is no such thing as subtlety or politeness, are starting to hold nothing back-expect this to be amplifed widely as Trump's agenda starts to be implemented. One  almost feels sorry for Hillary (almost).


New York Times

Obama Says He Would Have Defeated Trump for a Third Term

Mr. Obama praised the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, saying that she performed well under difficult circumstances and that there “was a double standard with her.”

“For whatever reason, there’s been a longstanding difficulty in her relationship with the press that meant her flaws were wildly amplified,” he said.

But Mr. Obama also said she campaigned too cautiously.

“If you think you’re winning, then you have a tendency, just like in sports, maybe to play it safer,” Mr. Obama said.

“Look, the Affordable Care Act benefits a huge number of Trump voters,” Mr. Obama said. “There are a lot of folks in places like West Virginia or Kentucky who didn’t vote for Hillary, didn’t vote for me, but are being helped by this.”

The problem, Mr. Obama said, was that Democratic politicians were not communicating to these people “that we understand why they’re frustrated.”

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Joe Biden: Democrats 'Paid Price' For Clinton's Failed Message;

Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that Democrats "paid the price" for Hillary Clinton not making the problems of struggling working-class voters a "central part" of her presidential campaign.

"I said at the convention, when I introduced Hillary and praised her, I said we don't show enough respect to that group that, in fact, has been left behind," he said. 
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Clinton blames Comey's email probe for her defeat

Bernie Sanders on Monday refused to blame James Comey for Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat — just moments after a top New York Democrat said the FBI director should be fired.

Sanders, who lost a hotly contested race for the Democratic nod, said Clinton was wrong to lash out at Comey, who dropped a bombshell 11 days before the election saying his probe of the former secretary of state’s email scandal might not be done.

“That’s a minor look [issue],” Sanders said on CBS, insisting Clinton didn’t lose because of Comey’s revelation.

“It’s not a question of what happens in the last week. The question is that she should have won this election by 10 percentage points.”e.

Sanders downplayed Comey’s impact and instead pinned Clinton’s loss on the Democratic Party’s failure to connect with white working-class, non-college-educated voters.

“I will tell you I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite,” said Sanders, the Brooklyn-raised son of Polish immigrants.

“I come from the white working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people from where I came from.”

When host Charlie Rose asked Sanders if he would have beaten Trump, the Vermont senator declined to play Monday morning quarterback.

“Hindsight is great, Charlie. I don’t know the answer to that — maybe, maybe not,” Sanders said. “But this is what I do know: I know that the Democratic Party has got to stand with the working people of this country — feel their pain and take on the billionaire class, take on Wall Street, take on the drug companies.”
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And the media turns on her

Clinton Political Malpractice Lost—Sanders Campaign for Change Would Have Won

She ran a lousy campaign under rotten advice from inept consultants, while he embodied authenticity

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Even the  Washington Post now sees the light

"- Donald Trump's stunning victory is less surprising when we remember a simple fact:Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician"

Would President Obama have Won A "Third Term"? Absolutely Not

"Obama Says He Would Have Defeated Trump for a Third Term"

From The New York Times;

President Obama expressed confidence that, if he had run for a third term, he would have defeated Donald J. Trump, according to an interview released Monday with David Axelrod, his friend and former adviser.

“I’m confident that if I — if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it,” Mr. Obama said on Mr. Axelrod’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” referring to his message of inclusion and helping middle-class Americans.

“I know that in conversations that I’ve had with people around the country, even some people who disagreed with me, they would say the vision, the direction that you point towards is the right one,” he said.

Several hours after the interview was posted, Mr. Trump responded on Twitter. “President Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me,” Mr. Trump said. “He should say that but I say NO WAY! — jobs leaving, ISIS, OCare, etc.”

If in President Obama's fantasy the 22nd amendment to the Constitution had not been ratified in 1951 and he could have run for a third term This is what an Obama Vs Trump Electoral College map would have looked like;

Trump won Michigan by 0.22 and 10,077 votes. It is more than reasonable to surmise that President Obama would have easily gained more than eleven thousand votes over Clinton's total. 

The simple fact is that Michiganders just didn't like Hillary as was shown in the Democratic primary where she lose an "unloseable" battle with Bernie Sanders in the state.

Similarly in Pennsylvania won by Trump by only 0.72 points, 44,292 votes. 

Although the Democratic vote was massive in Philadelphia and probably maxed out, it is reasonable to have expected that Obama would have picked up enough votes in the suburbs and even in the rural areas to have taken what is normally a safe state for the Dem's.

But Wisconsin was such a massive win for Trump that it is hard to envisage even Obama could have recovered the situation. 

It's not the Republican vote that is at issue, Trump only won by 0.76 points, 22,748 votes.

Clinton received 1,382,536 (46.55%) to Trump's 1,405,284 (47.22%) 

In 2012 Obama received  1,620,985 (52.83%) to Romney's 1,407,966 (45.89%).

While Trump received slightly less, about 2,000, votes than Romney

Clinton received a massive 238,449 less votes than Obama a huge 6.28 point decline 

The simple, unmistakable facts are that Wisconsin wanted change. 

As obviously disenchanted with both candidates as the turnout was lower than 2012, the concept that the state would have voted for the person, Obama, whose administration was clearly seen as being responsible for their disenchantment with the status quo beggars belief.

As third term candidate President Obama would not even have had Clinton's (somewhat faded) "fresh face" and his campaign would have been entirely one of "more of the same' when the voters, at least in the rust belt states wanted exactly the opposite.

For President Obama running on his economic record to have won
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, especially when a "third term" i.e. a governing party winning three presidential  elections in a row is extremely rare, is a fantasy and, frankly, an insult to Hillary Clinton which speaks volumes about the state of the Democratic Party and President Obama.