RUTHFULLY YOURS

Short of diving head-first from atop his eponymous tower, Donald J. Trump seems unable to satisfy the Never Trump crowd.

Perhaps the most aggravating thing about Trump’s mortal enemies on the right — many of whom I have known and admired for decades — is that they refuse to take “yes” for an answer.

Mitt Romney, Senator Ted Cruz, columnist George Will, and others complain that Trump is a non-conservative, crypto-Democrat — Hillary Clinton with orange hair.

No doubt, Trump’s trade policies violate conservative doctrine on the free exchange of goods and services across borders. Still, it was good to hear Trump say on Monday, “Trade has big benefits, and I am in favor of trade. But I want great trade deals for our country that create more jobs and higher wages for American workers. Isolation is not an option, only great and well-crafted trade deals are.”

Also, Trump’s frequent inability to mute his internal monologue maddens even his most avid supporters.

However, on policy issues and political judgments, Trump has done the Right thing — only to hear catcalls from the very conservatives who should welcome his major strides in their direction.

Start with Trump’s most important choice: his pick for vice president.

As the person who would serve a breath from the presidency, Trump could have tapped a blowhard governor who barely has improved the Garden State. Thankfully, Chris Christie remains trapped in Trenton. Trump could have recruited Senator Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), a milquetoast moderate whose convoluted legislative strategy against President Obama’s dreadful nuclear deal with Iran made it virtually unstoppable.

Instead, Trump selected Governor Mike Pence. The Indiana Republican was the Right’s True North in Congress. He earned a 99 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. This darling of the pro-market Club for Growth repeatedly cut taxes as governor and resuscitated the Hoosier State’s economy. This socially conservative economic libertarian unites the GOP’s twin wings.

Recognizing that the Supreme Court has devolved into America’s election-free über-legislature, Trump unveiled eleven prospective justices. The conservative Heritage Foundation recommended several of these stalwart constitutionalists. They all are affiliated with the Federalist Society, the Vatican of rightist jurisprudence. Confirming his originalist intent, Trump said Tuesday on Hannity that he wants nominees “as close to Justice Scalia as we can get.”

Trump’s foes moaned that he had raised too few donations to battle the magnificently funded Duchess of Chappaqua. And then, in July, Trump collected a competitive $80 million, averaging $69 per contribution, versus Clinton’s $90 million, averaging $44.

Trump on Monday calmly delivered a serious, focused speech to the Detroit Economic Club. With the very significant exception of its trade-policy language, Trump’s address could have been written by Bill Kristol, Charles Murray, or any other conservative thinker now sticking red-hot needles into his Donald Trump voodoo doll. Declaring “We will Make America Grow Again,” Trump passionately tied Clinton’s left-wing faith to Detroit’s (and America’s) economic disease and then prescribed nearly every major conservative economic reform.

Yes, Donald Trump has muddied the issue of possible voter fraud in the November election with his comment that the only way Hillary Clinton can win Pennsylvania is by way of stolen votes. There doesn’t seem to be an issue that Trump can’t handle without hyperbole and exaggeration.

But the media pile-on that Trump has experienced over his call for election observers to monitor the polls in Pennsylvania is unfair. The Los Angeles Times claimed that his remarks calling for poll monitors in Pennsylvania had “strong racial overtones,” even though he never mentioned race. “The comments raised the specter of confrontations on Election Day in precincts with many minority voters,” the Times reported. Other commentators rebutted Trump by repeating spurious claims that voter fraud is extremely rare.

Savvy Pennsylvania politicos have begged to differ. Chris Matthews, the liberal MSNBC host who comes from Pennsylvania, vehemently opposes requiring ID at polling places. But he agrees that voter fraud is a Philadelphia tradition. In 2011, on his show Hardball, he explained a common scheme:

People call up, see if you voted or you’re not going to vote. Then all of a sudden somebody does come and vote for you. This is an old strategy in big-city politics. . . . I know all about it in North Philly — it’s what went on, and I believe it still goes on.

Philadelphia has a long reputation of fixing elections as a means of controlling patronage and municipal contracts. Voter intimidation also has occurred. In the 1960s, cops would routinely hassle black voters trying to vote. But intimidation can take many forms. In 2012, two members of the radical New Black Panther Party used nightsticks and racial epithets in an effort to scare white voters away from a Philadelphia polling place. The Obama administration ended up dropping almost all of the charges in the case against the Panthers.

The election is still weeks away but you wouldn’t know it from the various and sundry MSM toadies out-mugging each other on TV crowing that Hillary Clinton has already been elected queen of the universe. After all, the polls prove it. Science, baby, science!

Clumsy moves on the chessboard? Wishful thinking pushed to delusional levels? Smoke-and-mirrors? All of the above?

Suppose for the sake of argument that Hillary Clinton loses the election. Where does she go from there? Frankly, nowhere. She will not run for office again for the simple reason that the party will only be too happy to forget all about the Clintons and would refuse to support Hillary for any elected office, not even town clerk in Yonkers.

No matter what MSM clowns tell you, Clinton is a lipstick-on-a-pig candidate. Any other Democrat (never mind Republican) with such a pathetic resume would never even be considered as the party’s standard bearer. Any other Democrat would have been slapped silly by FBI Director Comey and offed to jail in an orange pants suit.

So, were she to lose the election, Hillary Clinton would have to “settle” for hard cash. The tons of it flowing into the slush fund known as the Clinton Foundation would then be used to support a life style of the rich and famous for the would-be-queen of the universe and her elderly consort nearing decrepitude.

On second thought, maybe not. Who, after all, would be foolish enough to continue kicking in big bucks so Queen Hillary can gallivant around the world, Bubba in tow to sample more nubile “assistants”? The pay-for-play option, including Bill’s hefty speaking fees, would vanish five minutes after Trump is declared president.

Throughout this campaign season, Democrats have feigned confusion about why disaffected Republicans have not embraced Hillary Clinton, given Donald Trump’s character defects. But the K-12 education plank in the Democratic Party platform does a lot to explain the hesitance. The party’s promises seem designed to satisfy teachers unions rather than to appeal to ordinary Democrats, much less opposition moderates.

Democrats say that they will “recognize and honor all the professionals who work in public schools,” including “teachers, education support professionals, and specialized staff,” suggesting that every teacher does a terrific job. The party also promises that it will “end the test-and-punish version of accountability.” Only charter schools seem to need more scrutiny: The platform includes a full paragraph of ideas to regulate them.

Democrats nationwide seem to have a different view. Like Republicans, Democrats have a positive view of most teachers, but their confidence does not extend to all of them. Democrats and Republicans both think that nearly 60% of teachers in their local schools are either excellent or good, and another quarter at least satisfactory. But Democrats find up to 15% of teachers unsatisfactory. It doesn’t seem like rank-and-file Democrats are ready to honor all teachers and simply trust them.

These are some of the data Education Next reveals in a survey to be published next week. Over the course of May and June our publication surveyed 700 teachers and 3,500 other Americans. The results demonstrate how out of touch the Democratic Party has become on education.

In contrast with platform-committee Democrats, 80% of rank-and-file adherents who took a position on the issue said they backed the federal requirement that “all students be tested in math and reading each year,” with only 20% disagreeing. Republicans had similar responses: 74% and 26%, respectively.

As for punishing and rewarding teachers, 57% of Democrats nationwide said they supported “basing part of the salaries of teachers on how much their students learn.” Fifty-nine percent said teacher tenure should be eliminated.

For their platform, party insiders voted to “support enabling parents to opt their children out of standardized tests.” But Democrats nationwide do not share this view. When asked whether they favored “letting parents decide whether to have their children take state math and reading tests,” 71% of Democrats said they did not. So did 69% of Republicans.

Democrats in Philadelphia also suggested that they “will end the school-to-prison pipeline by opposing discipline policies which disproportionately affect African-Americans and Latinos.” But 61% of Democrats around the country oppose federal policies that “prevent schools from expelling and suspending black and Hispanic students at higher rates than other students.” So do 86% of Republicans, and a majority of both African-American and Hispanic respondents who take a side.

Democratic honchos qualify their support for charter schools by asserting that they “should not replace or destabilize traditional public schools”—not a good sign since it is impossible for charters to enroll more students without contraction elsewhere. But when Democrats nationwide were asked whether they supported “the formation of charter schools,” 58% of those with a position said yes, as did 74% of Republicans. CONTINUE AT SITE

This column appeared before the conventions but cogently explains the fault lines of polling….rsk

Gabriel Sanchez is Professor of Political Science and Executive Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico. He is also a Principal at the research and polling firm Latino Decisions.

Alan Abramowitz is the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University

In 2012, national polls in October suggested the presidential race was a virtual tie. The Real Clear Politics polling average gave Barack Obama a slight 0.7 point lead over Mitt Romney, but he actually won by almost 4 points. Of the final 11 national polls released in 2012, as reported on Real Clear Politics, 7 were a tie or had Romney ahead, while only 4 had Obama ahead.

Why were so many of the polls wrong? In part, because they failed to capture how minorities would vote. Unfortunately, some pollsters may be making the same mistakes in 2016 — and thereby underestimating Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls.

In 2012, many polls underestimated how many minorities would vote and how many would vote for Obama. For example, a Politico poll released the morning of Election Day said the race was tied at 47 percent each for Obama and Romney. The poll said that 62 percent of Latinos supported Obama, while the exit polls reported 71 percent, and Latino Decisions reported 75 percent. Among the “another race” category, which is mostly comprised of Asian Americans, Politico reported that 47 percent supported Obama, while the exit polls reported 73 percent, and an Asian American Decisions exit poll reported 72 percent.

And Politico was not alone. A Monmouth/Survey USA poll, which had Romney leading by 3 points, suggested that Obama would barely win Latinos, 48 percent to 42 percent.

This problem was known before election day. In the fall of 2012, Mark Blumenthal asked “Is The Gallup Poll Favoring Mitt Romney By Undersampling Minority Voters?” which came after a series of blog posts by Alan Abramowitz, one of which asked “Is Gallup Heading for Another Big Miss?” As Nate Cohn has recently pointed out, it is difficult to know the “correct” percent of voters that are white vs. non-white. Nevertheless, many 2012 polls underestimated Obama’s share of the vote by under-representing minorities’ share of the electorate and underestimating their support for Obama.

Now, in 2016, it looks like many pollsters didn’t learn much from 2012.

Several polls suffer from flaws in how they sample Latinos. While large bilingual polls of Latino voters from outlets such as Latino Decisions and Univision/Washington Post have reported very little support for Donald Trump, other national polls that interview Latinos only in English show that 29 percent to 37 percent of Latinos will support Trump — better even than Romney fared. These polls also show Trump doing as well or better among Asian-Americans, compared to Romney. Some polls even estimate that 20 percent to 25 percent of blacks support Trump.

Here is one example from a Survey USA poll conducted on behalf of The Guardian, which gave Clinton a 3-point lead over Trump (39 percent vs. 36 percent). The sample of the poll was 74 percent white. However, a comprehensive analysis of census data and growth rates by Ruy Teixeira and William Frey estimates that less than 70 percentgof voters in the 2016 cycle will be white. If we adjust the racial composition of this poll to reflect the Teixeira and Frey’s estimates, Clinton’s margin grows to almost 5 points (see here).

The Survey USA poll is also arguably underestimating support for Hillary Clinton among three different groups of minority voters:
•Asian-Americans. In this poll, Clinton leads 48-29 among Asian-Americans. However, a recent national survey of Asian American registered voters conducted in six different languages found that just 10 percent planned to vote for Donald Trump.