'Boom!' Charlie Cook predicts a Biden win

Charlie Cook

Folks, the 2016 pollsters weren't all that off-key, said Charlie Cook on Sunday at a Zoom gathering of the Adult Forum at St. John's Episcopal Church-Lafayette Square. (Yes, the same church where Trump thumped or thumbed or trummed or trumped the Bible or whatever he did to it upside down on June 1.) 

What the pollsters missed in 2016 was the Electoral College count, but there's no mistaking that Joe Biden is a lot more likeable than Hillary Clinton was, and voters this year are weary of Donald Trump, evidenced by his falling poll numbers which match his falling fundraising numbers, covid and the first debate and "boom!"  

Trump is done and fried.  

All his lies before the first debate and his performance that night turned off the few remaining undecided voters, said Mr. Cook.

After the first debate, the fence sitters "turned down the volume" and "boom! I don't think they are hearing a word he's saying now," Mr. Cook said. 

It's a "totally different dynamic" this year compared to 2016.  What we have now is "an up or down vote on the incumbent," absent in 2016 which saw a late breaking vote for Trump. His unfavorable ratings then were matched by Hillary's, both candidates' ratings, "way upside down."  

Many voters didn't much like either person.

This year Joe Biden has positive ratings which exceed his negatives, while the opposite has always plagued Trump who has a 20% chance of winning the Electoral College.

Mr. Cook quoted a portion of the "unknowns" statement by Donald Rumsfeld (the second most remembered thing about him):

As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

Biden has a 40% percent chance of a "skinny win" and a 40% chance of a "big win" if he wins five or six of the "big 6" (Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina) and a big get if he wins Ohio, Georgia, Iowa, or Texas.

Trump must win Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia to stay in office.

This year's turnout is "huge;" it's not "a close race," but whether the early voters are new voters or ones who would have voted anyway is not known...yet.

2020 may become a "wave" election, like those in 1964 and 1980, Mr. Cook said.

The 2016 pollsters may have leaned too heavily on the college-educated without adequate attention to the non-college-educated, Mr. Cook said, skewing the numbers, but pollsters have pretty well learned their lesson, and that is not happening this year.

One of Hillary's errors in 2016 was using the word "deplorables" which "cost her a half million to a million votes." 

Another "big mistake" she made was going to Arizona at the expense of Michigan and Wisconsin which she did not visit between Labor Day and Election Day.  (Hillary "has accumulated a lot of baggage over the years.")

She lost those states and, in case anyone has been napping four years, the election.

Mr. Cook quoted the Gallup Poll: Trump's first year in office earned him the lowest post-World War II job approval rating ever recorded for any president (by 10+ points! 38%) and his second year (40%), was the second lowest post-World War II rating.  (Jimmy Carter's third year in office takes that prize.) 

Trump's job current job approval average is 43% with an average over his term of 41%. He has hit as high as 49%, but his solid base of favorability by 40-42% of Americans will support him no matter what.  

History shows his present job approval rating is not enough to win a second term.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Photo by Patricia Leslie

From St. John's:

 "Charlie Cook, Editor and Publisher of The Cook Political Report, political analyst for the National Journal Group, and a political analyst for NBC News. Founded in 1984, New York Times once described The Cook Political Report as, 'a newsletter that both parties regard as authoritative' while CBS News’ Bob Schieffer called it, 'the bible of the political community.' Mr. Cook has appeared on numerous news shows and has served over the years as an Election Night analyst; since 1996, he has been part of the NBC News Election Night Decision Desk."

St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Photo by Patricia Leslie 

Charlie Cook is one benefit of belonging to St. John's. Another one is a nice respite from the election this coming Sunday when CNN "royal commentator," Victoria Arbiter, will speak on The Windsors: A Chat about the British Royal Family.

Writer's note to the Cook Political Report:  You are wrong labeling Virginia as "likely Democrat" in the "2020 Electoral College Ratings." We are SOLID Democrat as evidenced by the 44 point spread Biden has over Trump in Fairfax County. Whither goest, thou, Fairfax County, there follows the Commonwealth of Virginia.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Justice Clarence Thomas has his own movie

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in Created Equal:  Clarence Thomas in His Own Words/Manifold Productions


Comments by the filmmaker, producer, and director after the screening of his new film about Clarence Thomas were almost as interesting as the film itself.

An adoring, practically fawning crowd welcomed the first public showing of Created Equal:  Clarence Thomas in His Own Words last week at the Cato Institute. At the show's end, filmmaker Michael Pack and Cato's Roger Pilon, who served as moderator, answered questions from the audience until there were no more.

Most of the questioners preceded their remarks with "brilliant!" and "excellent!" 

In the film, set for airing by PBS next May, Clarence Thomas sits and faces the camera and talks about his life, beginning with his early childhood.  He and his wife, Ginny, sat for 30 hours of interviewing, Mr. Pack said, and it was difficult to reduce that length to two hours, which left no room in the film for contributions and viewpoints from others.

Mr. Pack hopes law schools and other colleges will pick it up. 

Michael Pack at the Cato Institute Nov. 13, 2019 for the screening of his new film, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words/Photo by Patricia Leslie


Archival videos and photographs made excellent visuals, supplemented with the few Thomas family pictures available.


Several times Mr. Pack said that Justice Thomas's life is a classic American story, a much harder upbringing he had than, say, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (whose RBG has earned nearly $14.5 million since its release in 2018. Mr. Pack sighed).
  
In Pin Point, Georgia, close to Savannah, Clarence Thomas's father abandoned his family when the future justice was a toddler. His mother struggled to earn a living wage and take care of her children who roamed the streets when the boys were six and seven years old.

In desperation, she took Clarence and his younger brother to her parents to live, and the two boys delighted to find indoor plumbing and food on the table every night at their grandparents' home. (Nothing was said about what happened to Mr. Thomas's mother or his sister.)

His grandfather was a disciplinarian who instilled hard work in his grandsons, respect for others, and a keen sense of the value of education. Mr. Thomas says he  "really regretted," not visiting his grandfather before he died to tell him "how much I loved and respected him."

The future justice attended Catholic high school and at age 16, considered becoming a priest. That possibility led him to seminary school until a racial epithet after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. caused Mr. Thomas to leave. That was about the time a door opened at the College of the Holy Cross and from there, it was on to Yale law school.

Justice Thomas describes his career and work for Sen. John Danforth (R-MO). After climbing the legal ladder, Mr. Thomas was nominated to the U.S.Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.

Presiding over the Thomas Senate confirmation hearing was Sen. Joe Biden, who, of course, is included at one of his worst moments, to the delight of the laughing audience. 

Mr. Thomas says he had no idea what Sen. Biden was talking about in the hearing when the senator talked about "natural laws," but Mr. Biden announced to everyone present that he and Mr. Thomas knew what he was talking about. (You have to see it.) 

The clash with the testimony of Anita Hill consumed  more in the film than expected. (At least four in the audience were not Thomas fans, including me who believed and still believes Anita Hill.)

When Mr. Thomas learned his nomination had been approved, his response was a sarcastic "whoop-dee-doo." 

Mr. Pack said unequivocally that the justice had not seen the film but Mr. Thomas's wife, Ginny (quoted extensively in it), had.

More than once Mr. Pack said the justice wanted to get his words out.  Clearly, Mr. Thomas still carries a chip on his shoulder which he probably has borne throughout life.

The documentary is an unbalanced portrayal but an autobiography, a hagiography someone suggested today, nonetheless. Mr. Thomas, 71, is now the most senior associate justice on the Supreme Court.

Mr. Pack's company, Manifold Productions, produced the film, with the help of his wife, Gina, a Manifold vice-president, who was also present.  

She urged her husband to shorten Words which is good advice! With redundant scenes of an unmanned boat gliding through Georgian marshes, I say, "cut!"

The banjo and piano made excellent accompaniment in the film as did the guest reception which preceded the showing.

patricialesli@gmail.com