THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: DJT Or HRC?

It is a relatively recent American journalistic tradition to
make the initials of the U.S. president a shorthand form in
mentioning the chief executive.

Teddy Roosevelt (TR) was perhaps among the earlier examples,
followed by his cousin Franklin (FDR), Harry Truman (HST),
Dwight Eisenhower (DDE), John Kennedy (JFK), Lyndon
Johnson (LBJ), and George Bush, the son (W). Not all recent
presidents received this treatment, including Calvin Coolidge,
Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon (although RMN occasionally
appeared), Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan

(sometimes RR) , Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama. George
Bush, the father (HW), received the treatment after his
presidency to distinguish him from his son.

In 2017, with a new president, it appears that the practice will
be revived, no matter who wins. Already, Hillary Clinton (HRC)
is in common use, and I think, should he win, Donald Trump
will often be named as DJT, although a more unprecedented
(non-initialed) shorthand (“The Donald”) has been more in use
until now.

We take these shorthand devices for granted because we have
read or heard them so often, but it is curious how suddenly they
appear and come into widespread use.

This is one of the least substantive aspects of a presidential
campaign. No public policy issues are involved. No partisan
matters are at stake. But it is interesting how the initials,
serving as acronyms, often last long beyond the careers and
lifetimes of the persons they are meant to describe.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Weekend Update 23

POLLS SAY PRESIDENTIAL RACE IS TIED
Virtually every national poll is now showing dramatic gains
for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Several
show him leading Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by a
few points, others show the race is tied, and a few show Clinton
leading but by a significantly smaller margin than she held only
two weeks before. These polls reflect the anticipated popular
vote for president. Many observers, however, contend that the
liberal candidate still has an advantage in the all-important
electoral college composed of 538  electors, chosen by each state,
and who actually elect the president in a formal vote in
mid-December in Washington, DC. A new Reuters poll, however,
indicates that Mr. Trump is now tied with Mrs. Clinton in the
electoral college. Other pollsters have acknowledged the race is
notably tightening in most of the so-called battleground states,
that is, those states where the outcome remains to be uncertain.
Some observers, including The Prairie Editor, have suggested
that no matter the numbers in most polls they are
under-measuring a large (but unspecified) number of likely new
voters (LNVs) of all ages who previously have not voted, but
are motivated this cycle to cast a vote for president. These
“mutineers” or LNVs, The Prairie Editor further suggests, are
angry and frustrated with the political establishments, and
might tend to vote for Mr. Trump in November. In any case,
with less than two months to go, the contest outcome is as
unpredictable as ever. Lest conservatives become too giddy with
these poll numbers, The Prairie Editor cautions that another
swing or two in favor of one of the nominees is probably likely.

WHO WILL CONTROL THE U.S. SENATE?
With the U.S. presidential race tightening, political observers and
party leaders are asking how the presidential campaign will affect
down-ballot races, including particularly U.S. house and senate
contests. Historically, landslide elections have helped down-ballot
candidates of the winning party, but the results have seemed
more to reflect local political conditions and the relative quality
of the local candidates. Further, there has long existed a pattern
of incumbents winning re-election. Race-by-race polls in 2016
support this pattern, particularly in the U.S. house. Republicans
currently control that body by a wide margin and, although
expected to see a small net loss, are not expected to see their
majority overturned. The U.S. senate races, on the other hand,
give the Democrats a serious opportunity to take control back.
More than twice as many GOP-held than Democratic-held seats
are up for re-election in 2016. Virtually all liberal incumbents and
most conservative incumbents seem likely to return to the next
Congress, but some GOP senators are in competitive races, There
are also a number of open seats this cycle, and one of them,
Nevada, is the best opportunity for a Republican pick-up. On the
other hand, currently-held GOP seats in Illinois, Wisconsin, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Missouri, current
polls indicate, could be lost. Three races, in Ohio, Florida and
Arizona now seem clearly favor their conservative candidates.
One Democratic seat, in Colorado, was originally thought to be
vulnerable, but so far this has not materialized in poll surveys.

Something to remember, however, is that congressional races,
especially senate ones, occasionally change dramatically in the
closing weeks of a campaign. There always seems to be one or
more surprises on election night.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The Polls Are Still Wrong

Almost all published public opinion polls have shown
significant improvement for Republican nominee Donald
Trump in the past ten days or so. Does this mean that
these polls are now accurate?

Not at all. I have argued that most, if not all, public polls
are flawed this cycle not only because of technical
deficiencies and some pollster pollster bias, but also because
there is a “mutiny of the masses” this particular year which
is aimed at, among other targets, polling. I think there is quite
a bit of evidence that during the primary/caucus campaign
many voters who favored Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump
decided that they were not going to be successfully polled.

With a potentially significant number of disaffected voters
on both the left and the right, there is some probability that
most public polls are still not giving us a true picture of voter
sentiment.

This could change. Most polls become much more accurate
just before election day (when there are much fewer
“undecided” voters --- and when pollsters take extra steps
not to be embarrassed a few days later when the votes are
counted).

But the basic problem remains. If some pollsters get it right
this cycle while many others get it wrong, we will want to
know what it was they did to reach the mutineers and measure
what they were going to do.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Grover Cleveland Has Disappeared.....

President Grover Cleveland has been mostly forgotten by
history, but he did do a few things as president that had not
been done before.

His major footnote in U.S. history is that he is the only person
who was elected president, lost re-election, and came back to
be re-elected four years later.

He was a Democrat during a half century era when most U.S.
presidents were Republican. In fact, between 1860 and 1912 he
was the only Democrat to be elected to the Oval Office.

But there was at least one other noteworthy distinction about
Grover Cleveland when he was president.

Soon after he took office for the second time in 1893, Mr.
Cleveland noticed a bump on the roof of his mouth that was
getting larger and larger. He was, as is well-known, a heavy
cigar smoker. Seeking medical advice, he was informed that he
had a tumor that had to be removed as soon as possible.
Worrying that news of his diagnosis would shock the nation
and the stock market, he arranged to take a “fishing trip” on
the private yacht “Oneida” for four days, with an itinerary of
New York City to Cape Cod.

The yacht, with six of the top surgeons of the day, actually
anchored off Long Island, and using anaesthetic, the surgeons
performed risky and, for that time, fairly unprecedented
techniques for removal of the tumor. Mr. Cleveland had a
trademark bushy moustache, and the surgeons were able to
preserve it during the operation. Afterwards, the moustache
successfully hid any visible evidence of the cancer surgery.

It turned out to be the first presidential medical cover-up in
modern history. The Cleveland White House denied all rumors
and even countered a published story about the cancer by
smearing the reputation of the enterprising reporter who had
uncovered it. That reporter’s reputation was only restored
almost 20 years later, after Mr. Cleveland had died, when one
of the surgeons came forward with the true story.

A quarter of a century later, President Woodrow Wilson
suffered a stroke that permanently incapacitated him, but it was
kept a secret while Mrs.Wilson, in effect, ran the government.
Twenty years later, White House physicians kept the news that
President Franklin Roosevelt was dying from the public, and
only the timing of his death just after his fourth inauguration
kept the previous vice president, Henry Wallace, an admirer of
Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, from taking power.

Fifteen years later, John Kennedy became president although
he knew he had Addison’s Disease, a then-fatal condition that
would soon take his life. Like so many matters in the Kennedy
administration, it was kept a secret. Twenty-five years later,
President Reagan had an operation for cancer while in office,
but the condition was not named.

These stories of secrecy about presidential medical conditions
are especially relevant this year when the two major party
nominees are about 70 years old, and one of them is showing
chronic signs of physical distress.

As the son of a physician, however, I think the current news
preoccupation with Hillary Clinton’s health is more sensational
than disqualifying. Her doctors now concede that she has
“walking” pneumonia, a serious but not life-threatening
condition. Her fainting at a New York City event recently is
most disturbing for the fact that her attending physicians
allowed her in public when she should have been resting. In the
case of any senior citizen over 60, even mild pneumonia can
become much more serious if not properly cared for --- and that
means lots of rest in addition to medication.

To be fair to Mrs. Clinton, she is a major party nominee for
president of the United States, and it is understandable that she
wants to appear in public, especially since her opponents are
making her health an issue. Her physicians and her staff,
however, have an obligation to protect her just as much as the
Secret Service does. No reasonable person could object to her
taking several days off to recuperate.

Her opponents are not to be blamed for raising the issue. They
have been encouraged to do so by that long-standing political
temptation for secrecy being indulged by the Clinton campaign,
something that goes back to that “fishing trip” on a yacht in 1893
(anchored, ironically, not that far from Mrs. Clinton’s current
home in Chappaqua, NY).

President Cleveland got away with avoiding transparency, as did
several presidents who succeeded him, because there was no
internet, social media and search engines. Those days are over.

If the Clinton campaign decides now to be transparent, the
voters can turn to the most pressing issues of the presidential
contest. Otherwise, she will give her opponents an irretrievable
gift, and perhaps, as well, the election.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The End Of Polling As We Know It?

It is a very human habit to try to measure as much as we
can. Until relatively very recently, we have assumed that our
measurements were true and useful. Measuring, after all, is
practical.

Then along came the physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg, and his
now legendary “uncertainty principle” that demonstrated that
our measurements, especially of very small matters, were not
at all certain and true.

Nevertheless, even if they were not exact or certain, our
measurements remained presumably useful. After all, we used
them to construct buildings, highways, and machines; farm fields
and sell goods and services. We also devised a very special
measurement, conceded to be inexact, but which we nevertheless
assumed to be useful or accurate. That special measurement,
employed particularly in democratic capitalist societies, was
polling. Most specifically, we have seen polling as an adjunct of
the election process rise to almost an obsession.

Like a narcotic drug, political polls now addict most political
journalists, campaign operatives and heavy observers.

In its infancy, U.S. political polling made some historic errors.
There was the primitive Liberty Magazine poll in 1936 which was
subsequently promoted as an accurate prediction of incumbent
President Franklin Roosevelt’s imminent landslide defeat by
Kansas Governor Alf Landon in 1936. Roosevelt subsequently
won one of the largest landslide vistories in history. Twelve years
later, the two major national U.S. polls predicted a decisive victory
for New York Governor Thomas Dewey over President Harry
Truman. Truman then won by a huge margin in 1948.

Since that time, of course, we have been told that political polling
has become a science. There is always a conceded margin of error,
but properly done polls, we are also told, are scientifically accurate,
with the caveat that they are accurate only at the moment time they
are taken.

For several decades, these assumptions seemed to be true, with
very occasional exceptions. But then, in the past few decades, as
myriads of polls, “respectable” or not were created and conducted,
the rare “wrong” poll became more and more commonplace.
Even as the polls were more and more in error, the political class,
including the media, became more and more dependent on them ---
to the point of the present addiction.

In 2016, with a grass roots uprising I have named the “mutiny of
the masses,” I think we are approaching a critical mass of political
poll credibility. The reasons for this are both technological and
psychological. Door-to-door polling has become too expensive, and
landline telephone polling no longer reaches a meaningful group of
voters, as as well as seems too intimidating. Robo-calling and online
polling, on the other hand, are not personal enough. Heisenberg
lives again! The measurer unintentionally (or sometimes, intentionally)
alters what (or who) is being measured.

With two months to go, I contend that most polls do not accurately
or usefully measure the presidential race (especially by the
standards of past cycles). I do agree that, as we get very close to
election day, the polls will become more and more accurate, but if
the presidential contest is very close, the polls might not predict the
winner.

Ask former President Alf Landon and former President Thomas
Dewey, and their supporters, how that will feel.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Suddenly, "Minnewisowa"" Is Back In Play

The electoral college superstate of “Minnewisowa” (first named
by me in 2004) is suddenly in play in the 2016 presidential contest.

This superstate, composed of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa,
has a tradition of voting as a bloc, consists of 26 electoral votes,
and shares (in addition to adjoining location) many demographic
characteristics.

In 2008 and 2012, Minnewisowa voted all its electoral votes for
Barack Obama, supported by strong popular vote margins for the
Democratic ticket.

Initially, it appeared that would be repeated in 2016, but recent
indications are that Iowa is leaning to Republican nominee
Donald Trump, Wisconsin has become very competitive, and only
Minnesota seems now secure for Democratic nominee Hillary
Clinton.

In spite of the controversies surrounding Mr. Trump, his success
in Iowa can be attributed to the united effort by the Iowa GOP
around his candidacy, Long-time and popular Governor Terry
Branstad, and both GOP U.S. senators, Chuck Grassley (running
for re-election) and Joni Ernst are strongly supporting the top of
the GOP ticket, something which has not yet happened in some
other battleground states across the country.

In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker (previously a competitor to
Mr. Trump in the presidential nominating contest) and Speaker of
the House Paul Ryan (and Wisconsin congressman) have endorsed
the GOP ticket much more cautiously, but are working very hard
to re-elect Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and several other GOP
congressional incumbents in 2016. The governor’s political
organization and the speaker’s popularity, combined with Mr.
Trump’s frequent campaign stops in the state, are making the
Badger State probably more competitive than it has been in many
presidential campaign cycles.

Only in Minnesota, which has no statewide Republican
officeholders, and a weak GOP state party organization, does
Mr. Trump trail Mrs. Clinton significantly. Nonetheless, the
Republican ticket appears strong in outstate Minnesota,
particularly in congressional districts 6, 7 and 8. In MN-8,
a blue collar area in northeastern Minnesota, Mrs. Clinton,
according to private polls, is reportedly trailing Mr. Trump
and endangering the re-election of the incumbent DFL
(Democratic) congressman (who had previously endorsed
Bernie Sanders in the state caucus). In In MN-7, the incumbent
DFL congressman is so conservative that Trump’s popularity
there does not endanger his re-election.

Since both Iowa and Wisconsin both voted Democratic in 2008
and 2012, a Trump victory in one or both of them would notably
enhance his path to victory in November, especially if they
were added to victories in Michigan, Ohio and/or Pennsylvania
where Mr. Trump’s campaign currently appears to be unusually
strong (and where Mr. Obama won all their electoral votes in
2008 and 2012).

With 60 days to go until election day, however, Mrs. Clinton
still leads in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as well as
in several other national battleground states. The race remains
hers, unless as happened in 2008, she throws it away.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Weekly Update 22

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL CHANGES
MULTIPLY DRAMATICALLY
Within three months in the second half of 2016, a notable
number of abrupt international political changes will take place.
Some of these have already happened.

A few days ago, the left-wing president of Brazil was removed
from office for corruption following her earlier impeachment.
She has been replaced by a conservative. Also in South America,
growing demonstrations are occurring in Venezuela, most of them
demanding the removal from office of controversial President
Nicolas Maduro, the far left successor to Hugo Chavez the
authoritarian anti-American Venezuelan leader who died in office.
The socialist  regime has been on the verge of collapse as shortages
of food, electricity and consumer goods have risen dramatically.

In Europe, Spain faces its third national election within a year, as
its parliament gave a vote of no-confidence to Prime Minister Mariano
Rajoy who, for the third time failed to form a coalition government.
Two populist parties, one on the left and the other on the right, have
recently won significant numbers of seats in the parliament, and
are stalemating Spanish politics. On October 2, Austria will hold a
supreme court-mandated re-run of the final round of its presidential
election (following the original vote in June that was thrown out for
irregularities}. The far right candidate is now favored to win, and
would be the first far right chief of state elected in 21st century
Europe. On the same day, Hungary will hold a referendum on the
country’s hardline anti-immigration policies favored by its
conservative government. The vote is widely expected to support
the ruling party’s stand. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel
and her party suffered a crushing defeat in a state election, coming
in third behind the socialists and a new populist anti-immigration
party. Mrs. Merkel’s liberal pro-immigration policies have caused
her personal popularity to fall precipitously, and have sparked
protests throughout Germany. National elections in The Netherlands
are not scheduled until March, 2017, and in France until April, 2017,
but nationalist, conservative and anti-immigration parties are very
strong in polls in both countries now ruled by liberal-socialist parties.
Great Britain has a new conservative prime minister to coordinate
the withdrawal of the U.K. from the European Union following the
Brexit vote in a recent national referendum. Economic woes continue
to plague Italy, Greece and Portugal, and an aborted coup in Turkey
has provoked an authoritarian response from controversial President
Erdogan against the press, the military and his civilian opponents.

In Asia, the Uzbekistani dictator Islam Karimov has died, and he left
no successor. North Korea, Philippines, and the South China Sea area
continue to be volatile hot spots.

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL POLLS TIGHTEN
Although Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton held large and growing
leads in published polls only days ago, the presidential contest has
tightened one more time as Republican nominee Donald Trump has
pulled ahead in two major polls, and to a virtual tie or significantly
closer in most other polls. This development followed a shake-up in
the Trump campaign that led to a successful short trip to Mexico to
meet with the Mexican president, a restatement of the candidate’s
immigration policies, and unexpected appeals to black, Hispanic
and blue collar voters in the critical rust belt states. This unorthodox
GOP strategy has caused most media analysts and establishment
political consultants to denounce the strategy even as Mr. Trump’s
poll numbers to continue to rise, and the upset GOP winner continues
to dominate the news cycles.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.