The horses are loading into the gate

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Fred Stiening

Looking at today’s polls, nothing has suddenly changed in the last day. Don’t expect to know the winner Tuesday night, even if Dan Rather and Michael Bloomberg are sure. Hillary is definitely the favorite, but the track is muddy. May the best horse win!

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22 Responses to The horses are loading into the gate

  1. CC1s121LrBGT says:
    November 7, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    Break a leg, Hillary!

    Break a leg!

    • Fred Stiening says:
      November 7, 2016 at 10:27 pm

      It is worth pondering Hillary and the 25th amendment if she nominally wins but has a health event early on. The 25th amendment was passed in 1967 when people realized the constitution had a few holes. A President lingering in a disabled condition for a long period of time was not anticipated.

      The 25th has several sections, but the relevant one is the provision for declaring a President unable to carry out their duties. Let’s assume a stroke or a major seizure happens around February 1st. Hillary has been sworn in and fully President, but now she has lost some more of her neurological functions.

      There are four possibilities:
      1) Do nothing and just wait. Without her able to sign bills, the veto power goes away and bills will pass in 10 days without being signed. Who is telling the military what to do is unknown. I feel sure Bill Clinton has an opinion
      2) Hillary Clinton resigns. Tim Kaine becomes President and nominates a replacement for VP
      3) Hillary does not resign but realizes she can’t do the job, at least temporarily. She declares herself temporarily disabled. Tim Kaine becomes acting President. As soon as Hillary declares she is OK, she is President again
      4) Hillary does nothing and the Cabinet declares her unfit. If the VP and a majority of the cabinet agree, they can force Tim Kaine in as acting President, and potentially a tug of war starts – if 2/3 of congress agree, Kaine stays acting President

      There is a big hole there – by February 1st, there may be no Cabinet in place to vote. The 25th delegates to Congress how to handle that situation.

      • TheChairman says:
        November 8, 2016 at 12:00 pm

        One big issue (as I alluded to in another post) is the unlawful Autopen. I don’t care what the SCOTUS says, the Constitution clearly states “the president -shall- sign”, not an agent or proxy. All they need is to get Hillary across the line and sworn-in. Her signature will immediately be captured for the Auopen. Then it won’t matter if she’s comatose –the media will hide the fact as they’ve done for years– and ‘executive actions’ (orders) will fly.

        It reminds me of an original Star Trek episode where a colony had gone rogue and utilized the Nazi model for ruling a planet. The ‘leader’ was drugged and used as a figurehead by others.

        There are other holes… not the least of which is the dubious notion of ‘running mates’ and how they are listed on the ballot. The original intent was for the winner to be President, and the candidate with next greatest number of votes became V.P. (this being handled by the electoral college). Yes, I know about the 12th ammendment, but it implies voters should vote separately for VP, as do the electors. We do not get that choice, and get a VP for whom nobody cast a distinct vote in a general election.

        In Michigan, the ballot states you are voting for ‘elector’ for president, and then lists both the candidate and running mate. In Arizona, it states -you- are voting for president (listing both).

        The ‘electoral compact’ between 10 states is also very disturbing.

        • Fred Stiening says:
          November 8, 2016 at 12:32 pm

          The magic is that the rules for electors are different in every state. All the Constitution says is the legislatures of each state decide the method. If you go back far enough, some state legislatures chose their own electors without regard to a vote by the people. That was true until 1860 in South Carolina

          http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_choosing.php

          Each state also has a process for what to do if the meeting convenes on December 19th and one or more of the electors fails to show up. It’s also possible where electors were listed on the ballot and they die before December 19th that a replacement must be named. By the state party? By the Governor? By the electors who do show up? Can an elector show up but vote “Present” but not vote for a candidate?

          The fact the Presidential votes and VP votes are tallied and reported separately could become extremely important. If the President vote gets deadlocked, but the Kaine vs Pence vote proceeds without controversy, they could become Acting President. If that happens, there may be no motivation for the House to ever choose a President and we have an acting President for four years with no standby Vice President.

          The point is if the victory this week is only by a few electoral votes, you can’t relax until after December 19th – which in a normal election is nothing but a perfunctory ceremony

  2. Fred Stiening says:
    November 7, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    The wild card in all of this could be electors who refuse to vote for the candidate who won their state. At least one Hillary elector has said they will vote for Bernie Sanders. Even in states where it is a legal requirement, the penalty for voting incorrectly is something like a $100 civil infraction. I think Trump is more at risk of this than Hillary. If both candidates have significant numbers of defections, the House will decide on January 6th. When the totals arrive in the House, there is a process to challenge the official votes. By now, you should know who we vote for doesn’t matter

  3. CC1s121LrBGT says:
    November 7, 2016 at 7:38 pm

    > By now, you should know who we vote for doesn’t matter

    That is the victory in this election – exposing that to people who did not know.

    What is astonishing to me is all the mainstream media shows this week, including Fox New and Fox Business News that keep asking with a straight face “how did we get to having two such bad candidates?” the obvious answer is that they ignored the three other candidates that are on the ballots… and doubled down on that strategy once the bi-partisan (rather than non-partisan) eliminated the competition from the debates.

    Most voters are two young to remember that the two parties sharing power banded together in 1988 and formed this commission because the non-partisan “League of Women Voters” had intended to included any candidate that had ballot access (normally just the Libertarian Party back at that time)

  4. Fred Stiening says:
    November 8, 2016 at 5:59 am

    And they’re off!

    North Carolina is already in the back stretch as 45% have voted early

  5. briand75 says:
    November 8, 2016 at 12:16 pm

    Bad candidates? Surely, you jest. This is kismet. When a civilization or society crumbles, there are certain signs that point to the cracks in the veneer. One is that the normal routing constitutional voting must – by virtue of decay – produce candidates that reflect the state of that civilization or society. Hillary represents continued decline into that Soviet Russia where corruption and crime is the rule along with the Gulag. Trump represents the broken two-party system and is the only possible candidate in the current state of affairs.

    If the outcome is a farce – our votes don’t count – then we have surpassed the point of no return. The Constitution is irrelevant as are we – now fodder for the “Political Prisoner” tag.

    • briand75 says:
      November 8, 2016 at 12:18 pm

      First – routine – not routing 🙂
      Second – if you don’t see that these are the only candidates possible, take a glimpse of the future: Who would you see running for President in 2020 for either party?

    • TheChairman says:
      November 8, 2016 at 1:19 pm

      Indeed. Up until ~1990, Soviet dissidents defected to America to escape persecution (prosecution). Now, American dissidents flee to Russia, etc.

      The fact that 50% of Americans do not see the irony speaks volumes…

  7. Fred Stiening says:
    November 8, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    Faithless electors explained

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

    The guy mentioned in the NY Magazine story is currently in North Dakota at the pipeline protest

  8. Parrott says:
    November 8, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    Well, Trump lost Dixville Notch, NH Big-Hill 4 Trump 2 Mittens 1 and Libertarian 1

    The other midnight vote in Millsfield, NH: Trump beats Clinton 16 to 4. With one Bernie write in vote. Chris plante mentioned this , I saw the report on a message board.
    So precursor?
    Parrott won in Fantasy football this week’again’ that is two in a row. Coincidence ?
    4-5 now and in 6th place. (out of ten)
    Overwhelming voter turnout in Virginia. I hope the numb-nuts in Virginia realize that their precious Gov. McAweful ( Clinton boot -licker) who was hired to deliver VA to ‘chairman clinton’ run the state into the ground. We will end up a $1.5 billion dollar deficit this year, jack ass.
    parrott

  9. Fred Stiening says:
    November 8, 2016 at 3:22 pm

    We’re nearing the final turn – the jockeys have their whips out. Trump’s jockey notices 50 pounds of weights under the saddle

    http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-08/your-hour-by-hour-guide-to-following-obsessively-on-election-day

    • Fred Stiening says:
      November 8, 2016 at 5:43 pm

      Bloomberg got tripped up by DST in Indiana!

      Actually that is not true – DST ended on Sunday, not “began”. The issue is that the polls close at 6 PM – but that is 6 PM CST in those counties that use CST

  10. Fred Stiening says:
    November 8, 2016 at 7:04 pm

    I lasted 3 minutes before turning off CBSN in disgust

  11. Parrott says:
    November 8, 2016 at 7:45 pm

    Really? Gov. McCrory and cooper race is close ?

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