now that I am home and largely housebound for the next week or so (meet with primary care physician Wed, vascular surgeon Friday, who MAY then clear me to drive, and followup CT scan on Dec 7), let me return to the issue of elections.
No, I never fully disconnected. I was disconnected from around 5:30-2:00 yesterday, and I have refrained from watching political shows on tv. But I have read material online — I had a lot of time on my hands.
In the comments on my diary that I have survived a lot of people thanked me for keeping them sane. So I am going to write in that vein.
First, there is some evidence of some Republicans reluctantly turning to Trump before the Comey fiasco Friday.
Second, while that fiasco and some of the other atrocities from the FBI have had some impact, it has not by and large discouraged Clinton voters, only perhaps motivated some weaker Trump supporters to not stay home. Even so, what polling there is seems to demonstrate that the effects of the original Comey outrage were wearing off by Sunday.
The other FBI atrocities, and I think rather than blaming Comey the blame should be directly on the New York Field office, which had not even informed Comey of what they had found on the Weiner computer, and Comey only found out last Thursday when a senior staffer asked a question. And yet people around Trump were already hinting about this. Remember that the loathsome Giuliani still has good contacts in the field office, and a former Asst. Director in charge of the NY Office, James Kallstrom, is virulently anti-Clinton, and also close to Trump — he was living in a Trump building.
In fact all you might need to know is that the source of the investigations about the Clintons, including leading to Kallstrom’s calling the Clintons a crime family, were based on “news reports” and the Steve Bannon promoted horror book, Clinton Cash.
But none of this makes a difference presidentially, probably not in control of the Senate, although as Markos has pointed it, it may have killed any slight chance (he had it at 25%) of our recapturing the House.
And I know much of the media coverage has been atrocious, but that is in part because they want a story of a competitive race to draw vieweres/eyeballs/readers. And yes, there is a lot of sexism towards Hillary.
But I am not particularly worried right now.
Let me explain my reasoning, but I am not going to do a great deal of detail, just broad strokes, because I do need to rest.