Will Kamala be America’s Second Woman President?
Weekly News Roundup – 27 Sept 2024
This Week’s News
Ok, I fibbed. If she wins, she’ll be the third. The first was Edith Wilson, wife of President Woodrow Wilson. Following President Wilson’s stroke in October 1919, his wife and inner circle hid the extent of his illness and disability from the public and the First Lady took on “a number of routine duties and details of the executive branch of the government” until the end of his presidency. These “routine” duties included deciding what the president did and did not see and successfully having the Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, removed for conducting Cabinet meetings without the President or herself present. While Edith referred to this period as a “stewardship,” historians have argued that “she was, essentially, the nation’s chief executive until her husband’s second term concluded in March of 1921.”
If the situation surrounding the Wilson presidency sounds familiar you shouldn’t be surprised as it bears an uncanny resemblance to the current Biden administration. Biden has been almost invisible since the decision was made to force him out after the end of his first term. In fact, he hasn’t led a cabinet meeting since October 2023. If President Biden is unfit to run for a second term, how is he fit to be the President? The likely answer is that he isn’t, and that Jill Biden is America’s second woman president.
Don’t feel bad Kamala, third is still pretty good and while we may not love you, the press still does (for some unexplainable reason).
Outside of a Liberal fund raiser where can Trudeau go and not get booed? That’s right, on a US late night television show. Knowing he’d be preaching to the choir, Trudeau appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday in an interview that I did not watch and don’t intend to. If you like him, you will think Trudeau is gregarious and warm, if you don’t, he comes across as smug and cringy. If you’re me, you think he’s smarmy, divisive, lying, worm who’s set the country back a decade or more and whose primary political tools are corruption, apologizing for historical wrongs, and villainizing people who don’t agree with him. The sooner he’s gone the better.
In case you thought with Trudeau out of the country politics would be normal you’d be wrong. We still have the NDP after all.
It’s for your own good. Disagreeing should be against the law. NDP MP Leah Gazan has tabled a bill seeking to criminalize residential school 'denialism.' I’ve written about free speech before, and anyone who values it is already familiar with why this is a bad idea. Historians are constantly interpreting and reinterpreting history, presenting arguments and counterarguments. How do we differentiate between lies and differences of opinion? Who determines what “the truth” is? When a new party comes to power do, they then get to change “the truth?”
Speech laws invariably become tools of governments to suppress any idea they don’t like. Supporters will say it protects people from “hate” or “misinformation,” but the only thing it really does is reveal who lacks confidence in their argument and who are the authoritarians.
Earlier this month Tucker Carlson hosted an “historian” on his podcast who claimed Churchill not Hitler was the main villain of World War II and downplayed the Holocaust. Was he right? Of course not. Should he be fined or go to jail for what he said. No! There are many quotes that make clear the importance of free speech, but I’ll highlight this one:
“With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards. It is unfortunate that it remains necessary to stress these simple truths.”
-- Noam Chomsky
Election Tracking
The bettors/investors seem to think Trump had a good week, so they’ve rewarded him with a 3 cent bump. Unfortunately for him they still think Harris will win. Current PredictIt leader board:
Harris -1 cents
Trump +3 cents
The gap in the odds to win also narrowed by 4% with Harris dropping by 2.2% and Trump rising by 1.8%:
Harris – 50.7 (-2.2%)
Trump – 47.7 (+1.8%)
National aggregated polling, which only really matters if you want to complain that you lost the Electoral College vote but won the popular vote, saw Harris’ lead drop by 0.5%. Harris rose by 0.1% while Trump jumped by 0.5%.
Last week we saw the first change in this chart in recent memory as New Hampshire (4) and Virginia (13) moved into the “Leans Harris” column putting her ahead by 6 votes. For the second week in a row, we are seeing a state move. This week Minnesota (10) has moved from “Leans Harris” to “Toss Up” resulting in an Electoral College projection of Harris 215, Trump 219.
Of course, this isn’t the only site trying to predict the Electoral College outcome. AllSides.com currently has the race as Harris 251, Trump 234 and give Harris a 60% chance of winning.
Updating what I did last week, here is a list of who is leading in the undecided states and the change since last week:
Arizona (11) – Trump 2.0% (+0.2%)
Georgia (16) – Trump 1.5% (+0.8%)
Michigan (15) – Harris 1.8% (+0.2%)
Minnesota (10) – Harris 5.5% (N/A)
Nebraska District 2 (1) – Harris 11% (+3%) (note: only one poll)
Nevada (6) – Harris 1.4% (+0.9%)
North Carolina (16) – Trump 1.2% (+0.8%)
Pennsylvania (19) – Harris 0.9% (+0.3%)
Wisconsin (10) – Harris 0.9% (-0.2%)
The narrowing of Wisconsin presents us with some interesting math. Should all states go to the leader the final tally would be Harris 276, Trump 262. Should Trump manage to flip Wisconsin it would be Trump 272, Harris 266. A real nail biter!
Canadian Election Tracking
Do I see an election on the horizon?
A few weeks ago when Jagmeet Singh tore up the “supply and confidence” agreement, many were buoyed by the possibility that Canada would not have to wait until 2025 before the next election. that had his NDP supporting the Liberal minority government, leading many to wonder if an election might take place this fall instead of in late 2025. Well in the words of the Dread Pirate Roberts, Canadians need to “get used to disappointment” as the Conservatives’ non-confidence motion was defeated 211-120 on Wednesday. This is not the end though as the Conservatives have tabled a second motion which will be voted on next Tuesday.
Seeing an opportunity, the Bloc Quebecois has given the Liberals until Oct 29th to pass legislation increasing old-age security and bolstering Canada’s supply management system or it will begin talking to other parties about “toppling the government.”
Before we move onto the polls, Davide Coletto, CEO of abacus data, took a look of the “unrestricted funds available for each party at the end of 2023 and it does not look good for the NDP.
Time has passed, and it may be that their balance sheet has improved but given their precipitous decline in the polls (-3%; that’s a lot when you started at 19%), it appears that they have about 6 cents per eligible Canadian voter. That’s not a lot of advertising. The Liberals are doing a little better but not much better at 7 cents per voter. It’s almost as if leading Canada into the worst economic performance in decades, while keeping taxes high, means voters don’t want to donate to your regime. Who would have thought it?
Polls
The popular vote projections were flat this week but that didn’t stop the Conservatives from gaining seats in those projections:
Conservatives +1
Liberals – 4
Bloc +2
NDP +1
Green – N/C
PPC – N/C
Source: https://338canada.com/federal.htm
The Nanos preferred Prime Minister poll has been updated and shows some changes since it was last reported on August 9th:
Poilievre -0.5%
Trudeau +2.0%
Singh +3.9%
Unsure -0.3%
Others -3.4%
What I’m Reading
Over at Patterns in Humanity,
makes the case for prisons, laying out their purpose and the evidence for their efficacy. Given the progressive approaches to crime we’ve seen in the blue states in the US and over the last 10 years in Canada under the Liberal/NDP regime, it’s important to be remember that there are bad people out there and locking them up for long periods of time is an effective way to reduce crime and keep society safe.Non-Political Item(s) of the Week
If it’s not AI, its…UFOs! Yay! – Well, maybe not. While the NY Post does its best to convince us that it’s a UFO (I really really want it to be a UFO!), it just seems weak. The Post highlights the description of the object “as a ‘small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload’” and points out that it was “spotted amid three other cases in which North America dealt with unidentified objects in the sky,” which were “smaller than the suspected Chinese spy balloon.” Given the timing I don’t buy the UFO tale and am (sadly) inclined to think it’s just another Chinese spy balloon. Disappointing, I know, but as they say, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
Another tough week, not because I didn’t find anything interesting, but nothing that really stood out. That said, I did find one that touched on history so I’m going with it.
Dwarkesh Podcast - Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century
To crib from the website “Unless you understand the history of oil, you cannot understand the rise of America, WW1, WW2, secular stagnation, the Middle East, Ukraine, how Xi and Putin think, and basically anything else that's happened since 1860.”