UPDATE: Steve Schmidt says it-believing the Blue Wave will hit the House and miss the Senate is like saying an earthquake will hit Calfiornia and miss Oregon.

Great point by Maddow regarding Indivisible pushing GOP Congressmen to retire-40 retirements

I will give credit where credit is due: Nicole Wallace framed the choice on November 6-tomorrow-this way on her show-Deadline- earlier last week-how much do you believe in coincidences?

It’s a good way to frame it: the extent to which you have a favorable view of this ‘President’ is the extent to which you are always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt despite it all: despite him being a pathological liar who lies approximately 73% of the time-it’s much more likely he’s lying than telling the truth on just about anything.

To accept his legitimacy and speak reverently about ‘the President’ and ‘President Trump’ means you dismiss Watergate 2.0. To dismiss Watergate 2.0 -both Russiagate and Comeygate you have to believe in a lot of coincidences-and ignore what former Georgia AG Joyce Vance says about coincidences-in law enforcement, in criminal investigations they really don’t exist-or what Malcom Nance says-aka Nance’s Law-coincidences take a lot of planning.

To see Russiagate and Comeygate as just a bunch of awfully uncanny coincidences you have to treat each new bombshell or shocking coorelation as a one off-ignoring the previous 100 bombshells or shocking correlations. You have to assume that guys like Roger Stone and Jeff Sessions keep lying and changing their story-with more lies-isn’t because there was any underlying guilt of collusion but just because of their health.

Indeed, Roger Stone’s own best defense at this point is that he was just what his GOP  detractors had said about him for years-just a lot of hot air who hypes up his involvement in things he actually has little involvement in. I mean, if you credit what Stone was telling the Trump campaign in August-September-October of 2016 then he is clearly guilty. His defense now is that ‘Yeah, I was just spinning yarns. I wanted to look like a big shot but actually I never spoke to Assange and knew nothing that anyone else  didn’t know through public sources.

Parenthetically there is now news Stone is frantically calling friends panicked he’s about to be indicted.

The fact that Hillary’s approval numbers sunk in almost perfect correlation after the Comey letter is just another coincidence-it would have happened anyway. Indeed,

The violent  racist and sexist nature of Trump’s  targeting of Democrats like Clinton, Obama, or a donor like Soros had nothing to do with the fact that almost all the top Democrats and others who have been his political opponents and that’s he’s viciously attacked at rallies were sent pipe bombs in the biggest attempted assassination in our history.

Just another coincidence. Just like when Russia, if you’re listening was just another coincidence. That the Russians actually started hacking Democratic emails the day he uttered those words at his last press conference of the 2016 election-just a coincidence. Don’t you know President Trump was just fooling? He’s such a joker, you liberals can’t take a joke. Take him seriously don’t take him literally. 

UPDATE: Or that post the Mueller Report we know that on the same day Trump directed Michael Flynn to get her emails-which Flynn attempted to do with the late Peter Smith.

That William Bowers assassinated 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh temple based on Trump’s fomenting of the despicable racial targeting of the ‘caravan’ is just another coincidence. What Trump was ‘were just words.; Indeed, to have a positive view of Trump you have to also believe that words don’t matter. That words have absolutely no power to inspire anybody. That’s an odd thing to say about people in politics much less the ‘President’ of the United States.

You also have to take everything Trump says at his word despite it being clear that he’s a proven liar 100 times over. He takes credit for the Obama economy. And maybe it works a lot of the time-much of the media seems to credit him for the ‘great economy’ they repudiated when Obama was running it. No one ever called Obama an economic magician.

In any case tomorrow no matter what anyone says is a referendum on Donald Trump. If there was any doubt, he’s done everything to remind us by hamming the coverage so much the last few weeks. ‘A vote for GOP Senator X is a vote for me.’

Wether or not this is good thing for the GOP is another question. I mean sure he’s very popular with the GOP base but he’s very unpopular with other voters. When Trump complained that the pipe bombs sent to the Democrats and the assassinations of 11 Jews at a temple was inconvenient to GOP campaign political prospects it was rightly seen as appalling. But there is also truth in it: the coverage prior to the pipe bombs was quite pro Trump.

The media coverage of the ‘caravan’ had itself been very irresponsible. As covered in previous chapters (A,B, and C) it tended to be of the character of ‘President Trump is really pushing this message of security over the caravan. He is a mater persauder. Much of what he’s saying is untrue and it’s rather incendiary. But will it work? The liberals in the coasts may not like it but his base love sit and he won in 2016. Will it work again?’

FN: As to why so much of the MSM coverage is of this nature, Jay Rosen had an excellent piece

The attempted political assassinations of virtually all the nation’s top Democrats-ie, Trump’s own political opposition-followed by the vile hate crimes against Jews and then Trump’s shameful response-he resued to even call the targetd Democrats only reminded the60% of the country who does not like ‘this President’ including 48% who already thinks he should be impeached why this alleged ‘President’ is malign, indeed his a menace.

And rather than fade into the background and allow some people to forget all this-many folks are forgetful-he’s been in our faces for the last month, bellowing from the mountain tops his manifest unfitness, his racism, his xenophobia, his authoritarianism. The fact that he only thinks those who voted for him count, indeed are Americans.

There’s this absurd premise that because Trump ‘won’ in 2016-I say ‘won’ not won-that he’s a genius and everything he did was therefore inspired and worked to perfection. Indeed, many-including media folks like Stephanie Ruhle-really seem to believe that he’s political teflon.

Indeed, one thing he did do right in 2016 was keep a relatively low profile after Comey’s politcal manna from Heaven on October 28, 2016. His ‘victory’ largely came by keeping under the radar.

It’s a very risky strategy. And this morning there’s a Politico piece where GOPers behind the scene are cagey about the extent to which ‘the President’ has highjacked this election. 

‘Trump has hijacked the election’: House Republicans in panic mode

“Worries deepen that Trump’s charged immigration rhetoric will cost the GOP more seats.”

“House Speaker Paul Ryan got President Donald Trump on the phone Sunday for one final plea on behalf of anxious Republicans: Please, please talk up the booming economy in the final hours before Election Day.”

“But Trump, unsurprisingly, had another issue on his mind. He boasted to Ryan that his focus on immigration has fired up the base, according to a source familiar with the call.”

“Two days out from an expected Democratic takeover of the House, Republicans focused on the chamber are profoundly worried that Trump’s obsession with all things immigration will exacerbate their losses. Many of these same Republicans welcomed Trump’s initial talk about the migrant caravan and border security two weeks ago, hoping it would gin up the GOP base in some at-risk, Republican-held districts.”

“But they now fear Trump went overboard — and that it could cost them dearly in key suburban districts, from Illinois to Texas. Many of them have cringed at Trump’s threats to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, as well as his recent racially-tinged ad suggesting that immigrants are police killers. The president’s drumbeat, they say, is drowning out news any incumbent president would be negligent not to dwell on: that the economy added a quarter-million jobs last quarter, and unemployment is below 4 percent.”

“Trump has hijacked the election,” said one senior House Republican aide of Trump’s focus on immigration. “This is not what we expected the final weeks of the election to focus on.”

But for better or worse that’s the GOP closing argument-the caravan.

The closing argument for the Democrats is also very clear; healthcare. Medicare for all, Protect the ACA. Maybe expand to Medicare for All-at least for all who  want it. But especially protect preexisting conditions. The GOP answer to this Democrat hyperfocus on preexisting conditions is instructive: lie and claim they want to do the same thing.

We will protect Obamacare from the Democrats. Scott Walker-of all people-is vowing to protect preexisting conditions-while being one of the leaders of a lawsuit to take them away.

Whoever wins or loses tomorrow, Obamacare clearly has already won. This in itself is an amazing 180 from where we were in 2010. Hopefully tomorrow the Democrats will take the House back. When they lost it in 2010, the Dems themselves ran away from their own law.

There was nothing they wanted to discuss less than Obamacare-and nothing the GOP wanted to do more. In 2018 this has literally flipped upside down. Now the GOP doesn’t want to talk about it, If pushed they will lie and say they support it but try to pivot back to the caravan: Seriously? Don’t you want to talk about the caravan?

So that’s the closing arguments: healthcare vs. the caravan. In earlier October, the media was rather surreally claiming that the Democrats have no message. And that the GOP had a great message: isure it’s racist slander and incites to violence but it’s good politics darn it!

It took Rachel Maddow-who else?-to point out that actually healthcare was at the top of the issue voters care about-much higher than immigration. To show this, she focused on a Fox News poll. 

Indeed, whatever you want to say about the Dems’ 2018 general election message, you can’t accuse them of not having one. Quite the contrary they have been laser focused, have shown actually, remarkable message discipline.

Honestly to the point of boredom. I say this as a Democrat who fully agrees with this position on healthcare-that Obamacare must be protected and expanded on. I support Medicare for All-though I tend to prefer the public option rather than single payer.

I’ve had arguments with purist progressives on this issue: public option and single payer are not nearly as different as they seem to assume. It’s basically the same policy: in both cases you add a new government payer-or expand the Medicaid payer. The issue of single payer vs. public option is this: single payer calls for not just anew government healthcare payer but getting rid of all other payers.

That I think is a big mistake for a host of reasons-at least at the outset. Those who decry incrementalism miss the reality that all change is incremental that its’ always incremental that Social Security was incremental-it initially covered only 5% of Americans. Obamacare covers far more than that.

But this will be debated among the new large Democratic House caucus over the next few years-that’s my assumption and if it’s wrong we will soon know.

Indeed, despite the Dems amazing message discipline was the way they totally defused the whole Hillary vs. Bernie thing. While single payer vs. the public option could easily have devolved into an inter Dem civil war it hasn’t. Some candidates are for single payer some are for public option-and indeed many candidates in swing districts don’t talk about this at all just focusing on preexistening conditions and a future Dem House will figure it out over time.

Indeed, sometimes their focus has been to the point of boredom. Trump declared he could talk about the ‘great economy’Obama’s economy-but ‘it gets boring’ fomenting hate and inviting to violence over ‘the caravan’ is more exciting.

I have to admit the Dems message hasn’t been very exciting. As you might noticed in the course of this book, I like talking about Russia and Comeygate sometimes.

Indeed, if this election is a referendum on Trump-off year elections are always a referendum on the sitting President but especially this time on this fake ‘President’-no one told the Dems that. They mostly pretend to have never heard of the illegitimate guy.

Whether this has been smart of not is another interesting question. One idea the Dems seem to have is that Trump is somehow ‘all priced in’ with the electorate-those who love him love him, those who hate him, hate him, I’m not sure I buy that. It’s rather amazing: the Democrats have attacked Trump less than the out of power party has attacked the President in offer year elections in recent memory-while he’s more unpopular than any other President ever.

Trump’s unpopularity is a real asset-one the Dems at least during the general election have chosen to exploit very little. What does it mean to say ‘it’s all priced in?’ I worry this amounts to ‘Trump is teflon.’ That’s certainly not what Nate Silver assumes-he’s shown that Trump is certainly not teflon.

FN: This and the meaning of the eventual Dem Blue Wave remains very much contested in 2019. As we see in Chapter A it’s certainly not true that Trump is teflon not are his numbers immovable which was certainly shown during his fake national emergency he used to shutdown the government or more recently in the wake of El Paso and his continuing racist rants-‘send her back’ -Any Jew voting for the Democrats is disloyal’ etc.

It’s true that in the short term we’ve hit something of an equilibrium in terms of Trump’s support-low 40s. Still what’s more instructive is to divide Trump’s support and opposition in terms of the relative strength of these positions.

When you move from ‘approve’ vs ‘disapprove’ to ‘strongly approve’ and ‘strongly disapprove’ of Trump you end up with strong approval in the low 20s and strong disapproval in the low 40s. This morning his latest average approval is about 43.8%-MSNBC has been claiming it’s 46% based on just yesterday’s WSJ poll. With all the talk about learning the lessons of 2016 they haven’t learned a thing. They’ve learned the wrong lessons-‘don’t trust the polls’ when the real lesson was ‘don’t misread the polls.’One way to misread them is to cherrypick an outlier and treat it like an average.

Obama’s approval was 46% in 2010 and he lost 61 seats. But, in any case, Trump’s approval is under 44% not 46%/ But in truth he’s a lot less popular than even 44% sounds. His strong support-his real base-is in the low 20s. Which is where his approval rating will likely be in the next few years if the Dems don’t mess it up.

It’s Trump’s soft support that needs to be dislodged. But the Democrats seemed unwilling to speak a single negative word about ‘President Trump’ during the election. Is this due to the false premise that Trump is teflon?

There is a theory that the Democrats focused on  Trump too much in 2016 and didn’t say enough what they stand for. I don’t know-I guess my issue is I already know what they stand for. Which is why I’m a Democrat. So constantly restating it seems a bit boring to me-I like attacks on Trump and I know I’m not alone among the Democratic base.

But even some who think they DID focus too much on Trump during 2016 wonder if they over learned the lesson in 2018. This is something which I do think is an important area of debate going forward-presuming as I do that the Dems will win tomorrow-we’ll know soon.

UPDATE: Certainly the polling analysis of Rachel Bitecofer seems to suggest there is great value in attacking Trump-she argues that negative partisanship will decide 2020-which means it’s more important to mobilize the base then attempt to persuade the mythic white guys from the Midwest who gave Trump his 2016 ‘win.’

Regarding 2016 Trump’s ‘win’ has been misinterpreted-he’s seen by many pundits to basically being an indestructible political genius-when in truth he just got extremely lucky-he hit an inside straight at the perfect moment-the Comey letter was the winning shot.

End of UPDATE

My real worry is not that they lose tomorrow-I’m pretty confident they will win. It’s what they do with subpoena power once they have it-more on this in the next chapter.

UPDATE 2.0: This turned out to be an apt concern as it still remains to be seen if the Dems are up to the challenge they face. On balance they were not nearly aggressive enough in the first eight months-personified by Richard Neal’s apparent failure to secure Trump’ s tax returns before the 2020 election. They were also very slow in terms of public hearings-yes Trump put up maximum obstruction instructing his flacks not to testify-not that they had to listen. But there were a number of witnesses they could have had testify-like Felix Sater.

Hopefully they are starting to get serious now-136 Democrats now publicly support impeachment; Nadler says they already have opened an inquiry-and Corey Lewandowski will testify next month.

It’s very important now that they have a lot of public hearings. Ideally they should have them every day if possible. This is the issue of our time-a Constitutional crisis. Pelosi agrees there’s a crisis-it’s time to act like it.

End of UPDATE 2.0.

But you have to give the Dems credit for very impressive message discipline. Indeed, the media complained about the Dems’ not responding adequately to Trump’s spectacular and offensive lies about the caravan. But the Dems were very good about never taking Trump’s bait-which therefore lets him set their message. They just put their hands down and talked about healthcare regardless of what Trump said or did.

Not very exciting but quite likely very effective-healthcare again, is the top issue for actual voters.

It seems that Trump and the GOP have largely conceded the House. Trump’s plan seems to be to take the credit if the GOP holds onto the Senate-as it expected to do though i argued in the last chapter the Dems will win the Senate.

Kellyan Conway was spinning like a top on the Sunday shows-about how if the GOP picks up a few Senate seats this would be ‘historic.’ Technically if they do-as they’re favored to do-it would be historic she says..

This just gives body to the saying There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Remember a year ago the consensus was the GOP could pick up eight seats and win a filibuster proof majority. When these predictions were being made everyone knew the history of off year elections and it didn’t trouble such rosy predictions. Now it’s used as a crutch. The GOP had the most advantageous map in 40 years and maybe will limp in and hold onto control.

In truth even if they do end up winning a couple of seats it’s little to brag about. Trump has been campaigning scorched earth in the reddest Senate races which tells you what exactly? That he was back in Tennessee again-what does that suggest? That despite it all Marsha Blackburn has far from closed the deal just yet. And perhaps that the Dems still have a shot in the Senate. To win the Senate they need Phil Bredesen to win.

Clearly Trump and the GOP still see a real shot for him. As I argued in the previous chapter I think it’s quite likely Bredesen and Beto O’Rourke win their races. Indeed as I’m going out on a limb and saying the Dems will win the Senate-just to make it more fun, logically Bredesen and Beto must win. Heidi Heitkamp is presumed to be dead-and the polls seem to confirm it. But then there is the record fundraising she’s seen since she said no on Kavanaugh-which was presumed to have been her digging her own grave.

UPDATE: I predicted 50 House seats and a Senate upset; they won 40 seats and lost two Senate seats-which considering how tough the map was actually was a respectable showing. Bresden who ran as much as against his own party as anything came up short.