So here's what I'm seeing.
1. The AP says that Ford won the morning, and the GOP was ready to give up, but then Kavanaugh was so strong that the GOP reversed course and supports him. A surprising admission for leftists. So Kavanaugh must have won.
2. Expect the polls to show Ford won, but that will be because of a +15% Democrat advantage.
3. I see no articles on the left declaring victory. I see articles talking about the electoral advantage of this becoming "the year of the woman" and articles where they whine that it was all men on the committee. Talk of how to take down the woman Trump would appoint next seems to have ended. That suggests the left has given up.
4. Rob Portman, a liberal GOP Senator, strongly supports Kavanaugh. Left-lover Lindsey Graham expressed intense outrage at the left (he won my respect on that). Jeff Flake, a crazy anti-Trumper, has said that we must admit we don't really know what happened -- the comment had the ring of leaning pro-Kavanaugh.
That leaves Susan Collins and Crazy Murkowski from Alaska as weak links. They met with conservative Democrat Manchin of West Virginia today for reasons unknown. If any Democrat will support Kavanaugh, it would be Manchin. They may be looking for cover... some semblance of a bipartisan vote.
I'm thinking... thinking that Kavanaugh gets voted through by 50-50 with Mike Pence casting the final vote. Murkowski votes No, Collins votes yes, Flake votes yes, Manchin backs out and votes No.
5. No matter what happens, the left will play this up as the next War on Woman. I don't see that working though for a number of reasons. (1) Married women support Kavanaugh, (2) the #metoo movement has lost any semblance of legitimacy, (3) all the women's marches, etc. have proven that women as a political group just don't work: (i) they seem to expect others to do it for them, (ii) they think their goal is to be handed power rather than take it, (iii) their goals are unclear and at odds with how real women live, and (iv) they aren't really a party of women, they are a leftist movement that uses women and will even support "better" male candidates and ignore the sex crimes of male supporters.
6. I think the media will lose interest. In fact, they seem to be losing interest already and are switching to other, sexier scandals. So the story dies no matter how the vote goes.
7. If the GOP votes no, look for a massacre in November.
8. If the GOP votes yes, nothing changes in November.
1. The AP says that Ford won the morning, and the GOP was ready to give up, but then Kavanaugh was so strong that the GOP reversed course and supports him. A surprising admission for leftists. So Kavanaugh must have won.
2. Expect the polls to show Ford won, but that will be because of a +15% Democrat advantage.
3. I see no articles on the left declaring victory. I see articles talking about the electoral advantage of this becoming "the year of the woman" and articles where they whine that it was all men on the committee. Talk of how to take down the woman Trump would appoint next seems to have ended. That suggests the left has given up.
4. Rob Portman, a liberal GOP Senator, strongly supports Kavanaugh. Left-lover Lindsey Graham expressed intense outrage at the left (he won my respect on that). Jeff Flake, a crazy anti-Trumper, has said that we must admit we don't really know what happened -- the comment had the ring of leaning pro-Kavanaugh.
That leaves Susan Collins and Crazy Murkowski from Alaska as weak links. They met with conservative Democrat Manchin of West Virginia today for reasons unknown. If any Democrat will support Kavanaugh, it would be Manchin. They may be looking for cover... some semblance of a bipartisan vote.
I'm thinking... thinking that Kavanaugh gets voted through by 50-50 with Mike Pence casting the final vote. Murkowski votes No, Collins votes yes, Flake votes yes, Manchin backs out and votes No.
5. No matter what happens, the left will play this up as the next War on Woman. I don't see that working though for a number of reasons. (1) Married women support Kavanaugh, (2) the #metoo movement has lost any semblance of legitimacy, (3) all the women's marches, etc. have proven that women as a political group just don't work: (i) they seem to expect others to do it for them, (ii) they think their goal is to be handed power rather than take it, (iii) their goals are unclear and at odds with how real women live, and (iv) they aren't really a party of women, they are a leftist movement that uses women and will even support "better" male candidates and ignore the sex crimes of male supporters.
6. I think the media will lose interest. In fact, they seem to be losing interest already and are switching to other, sexier scandals. So the story dies no matter how the vote goes.
7. If the GOP votes no, look for a massacre in November.
8. If the GOP votes yes, nothing changes in November.
26 comments:
Let's do this as an article instead of a comment.
P.S. All the articles in the fake news MSM use the word "powerful" to describe Ford's testimony. This is code word for "speech given by 'strong' woman", with "strong" meaning weak and pathetic liberal.
The lack of any real description of her testimony other than "powerful" speaks to a pro forma mindset that makes me think the left was bored with her and didn't know how to praise her... which is odd since they spent the week pre-praising her.
Some thoughts. I did not find her credible. This pissed a lot of Republicans off greatly. As good as Kavenaugh and Graham were, Republicans also should paise and than a former Democrat Judiciary committee member Joseph ("joey plugs") Biden who has supplied them with some great video plus the Biden rule. Biden, who never garnered more than 1% vote in a Democrat primary, and was picked as V.P. To insure Obama would look like a star, and who apparently liked to get oiled up and swim nude in front of his female secret service agent came through big time. Look, either Brett or Chrissy is lying. I think we all know which one
My gadget butchered my sentence, but you get the gist
Jed, I don't think she's credible either. The evidence tells me that she's at best mistaken. But she's more likely lying.
Flake is apparently voting yes. I think that means Collins will too. Otherwise, Flake would have no reason to announce he would vote yet. He would instead vote to sabotage the nomination and go out in style -- he's retiring and has been looking for the biggest F-You he can give to Trump on the way out. Plus, if Kavanaugh wasn't going to win, why put a yes vote on your record?
This is all guess work, but it makes me hopeful.
I am pretty sure Collins will too. Not sure about Murkowski. Alaska may be coming more socialist. But, I believe he will be confirmed
1. My adorable normie wife pointed out something about Ford I never would’ve considered. She said that Ford looked disheveled and ridiculous, like she was trying to appear so traumatized that she couldn’t pull herself together after 35 years. She saw Ford’s testimony as a totally false performance. I’m sure she’s not the only one.
2. Apparently, the New York Times posted then yanked a Twitter poll on whether people believed Ford or Kavanaugh. They claimed it was because they decided the poll was insensitive. Uh huh.
3. I’m seeing some post-mortem on the Republicans’ strategy, all but declaring the decision to have Rachel Mitchel ask questions on their behalf an act of genius. I’m also seeing apologetic articles saying that Ford doesn’t have to be the “perfect accuser,” as if that’s what anyone asked for. How about a marginally credible accuser? And not “credible” in the fashionable new DC sense.
4. I have no idea how the vote is going to go. I won’t consider Ben Sasse a solid vote until his is actually cast. He’s cast from the same mold as Ben Nelson: withholding his position, not to fully consider it, but for the theatrics and the attention lavished upon him. Nebraskans who tend to feel overlooked like that sort of thing, but he’d better remember which side his bread is buttered on. Ben forgot.
5. I think this circus awakened a lot of normie women to the Democrats’ War on Men. I’ve come across a lot more sentiments like “this could happen to my husband, my sons, my dad” than in previous me-too episodes.
6 - 8. All early signs seem to indicate that this circus did not give Democrats the optics they were hoping for. They may still get their way, but they don’t seem confident in this moment.
One more thought: The Democrats' absurd argument in all this me-too business is that if a woman with vague, uncorroborated, unfalsifiable, and senescent claims of sexual assault can't be believed, what hope does a recent victim with proof and verification have?
The only ones trying to scare women into not coming forward are Democrats. Everyone else is saying "Act fast! Time is not on your side!"
tryanmax, Excellent observation and points.
6-8. The Democrats are struggling to find the optics on this. A most telling comment came in an AP article the other night where one of the Democrats said, "The Republican plan isn't to attack the victim anymore, but to ignore the victim..." That's not a good line of attack. Nor does it make sense with the hearing and now the calls for a one-week delay.
- The call for an FBI investigation are grandstanding. The FBI can do nothing more than the hearing did.
- The Democrats are trying to scare women because the need women to be afraid or they won't vote for the party that protects women from the big bad wolf.
- "This could happen to my husband/son" is a very smart point.
- Your wife is quite smart to notice that this was an act with the disheveled look.
- Yahoo had a fascinating bit of analysis which suggests they think they lost. They were wondering if "being angry" isn't the way to win these hearings. Darn it, Kavanaugh fooled us! We went in all weepy, he was angry and angry seems to have worked. Maybe we need to be more angry from now on? (Total misread, but ok.)
Just as interesting, after this article came out, they switched the photos. Before the article, they ran side-by-side photos of a bumbling Ford and a pissed off Kavanaugh on the assumption anger would hurt him. After this article came out, Yahoo has switched that. Now Kavanaugh looks weepy and she's projecting anger.
- Have you noticed the utter lack of polls? The left always floods you with polls after these things. This time, radio silence.
I think a lot less people cared than they hoped and those that did favored Kavanaugh to some degree.
Andrew, when I specifically look for polling news, this is the top hit, and it repeats down the page via other outlets:
POLL: 60 percent of California finds Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford's story believable
It's pretty sad when you have to do your polling only in California to get the outcome you like. And 60% isn't exactly a blowout margin on something like this.
And Forbes has an article claiming the Ford/Kavanaugh Testimony didn't change minds. Their source? College Pulse, a polling app for college students. Talk about constructing a narrative! And FWIW, the percentage saying "should confirm" went up 5 points after the hearing while "should not confirm" only moved up 1 point. Incidentally, the post-hearing results total 101%, so that's a little confusing.
That's'cause in college, they specialize in fuzzy math, tryanmax.
Tryanmax, I viewed Ford exactly the same way your wife did. Nothing else I've seen from the years between made her look anything less than competent and pulled together. My only thought was that if it wasn't meant to play on sympathy, she was scared witless about lying to Congress.
Did anyone see that she mentioned a crowd sourcing page and now has a half million dollars because of it? Still think she doesn't have a motive?
tryanmax, They're being super selective in their use of polls, as you note -- to the point of being openly ridiculous. "Four of us in the newsroom thought..."
That said, everything I see says they lost. There is no energy on the left, no bevy of articles about how America had decided, no declaration of victory. Even the "this will cause the Year of the Woman" articles feel half-assed.
What's more, there was an article about how great Jeff Flake is (enjoy it now, Jeff, next week you're Satan again). In it, they say that the Democrats had given up hope until Flake gave them hope again. That's pretty strong evidence that they lost when even the MSM can't even frame the story as "Flake gives in to wave of American support for Ford."
On Flake, he's cagey, but I'm thinking that he's really just taking away a criticism here. I think that by doing this and the FBI reporting nothing new, he and the other holdouts will vote for Kavanaugh after declaring that "The FBI has done their jobs and there just isn't anything here to stop this nomination." The left will spend the week slinging mud, but unless the FBI finds something definitive, I think this is decided.
I think.
Stacy, Good point! LOL! Ultimately though, I think that this was her lawyer telling her to look shaken up to garner sympathy.
Fascinating article you wouldn't normally get from the MSM about the women supporting Kavanaugh. Well worth the read, especially the ending comment where the last woman says that she thinks this has galvanized conservative women more than liberal women.
LINK
I am still not seeing much in the way of the left putting up a fight anymore. There seems to be no energy on the left over this.
As an aside, I'm on a democratic fundraiser list just to see what they send. I've gotten about 5 emails total about this issue and they are all "Republicans hate women!" but offer nothing specific.
Andrew, have you noticed that since the day of dueling testimonies, the media has shifted it's narrative away from Kavanaugh being a sex predator and onto him having drinking problems and anger issues?
Not only that, but I've heard at least three interviews with former FBI people assuring the hosts that the FBI can easily wrap up a background check in a week. In addition, they're dropping other little bombs, like how this isn't a clean investigation because of the media, how this latest check goes back twice as far as normal, how they can't hardly investigate anything without a time and a place.
Honestly, the more I think of it, Jeff Flake did something cagey. Before the dueling testimonies, most people said confirm Kavanaugh. Immediately after, more people took Ford's side, because weepy women are more sympathetic than men in any state. But as time passes and people are more aware that Ford's testimony cannot be corroborated, they go back to Kavanaugh.
Time is actually Republicans' best friend. Democrats rely on knee-jerk emotional responses. Republicans are actually quite good at dismantling frivolous and phony claims. Look at any recent major election. The question is always whether Republicans can get above 50% by election day. People tire of Democrats.
While I still think Republicans should've never let it get to the point where Ford was testifying, since it happened, giving it time to cool is a good move. Putting a week deadline on it keeps people paying attention. I think it plays to fatigue without dropping off the radar.
FWIW, playing to people's fatigue is what got the GOP the elephant mascot in the first place. And the Democrats' braying donkey still fits after all these years.
tryanmax, I concur. I think Flake was rather clever. My first thought was that Flake was basically wiping out the argument that the GOP doesn't care about women. The GOP was smart not to beat Ford up... hence, hiring the female prosecutor, saying she was "credible" and "believable" but still saying she was mistaken, and aiming their attacks at the Democrats for abusing the process. None of this was "white guys beating up a defenseless woman" (Not sure what "white" has to do with this, by the way... oh yeah, racism!)
This wiped out the argument that the GOP hated women, so much so that the Democrats had to shift to "they don't attack women, I guess, but they ignore women." Flake wiped that out by accepting the Democrats' fake demand that the FBI investigate. The Dems hoped the GOP would refuse and then they could say that the Republicans refused to let the pros investigate because they were afraid of what they would find. Flake killed that whole line and the Dems have had to feebly switch to "they aren't letting them investigate enough!" That's a loser.
So Flake cleverly neutered all of that -- with the risk of course that the FBI goes wild suddenly, which they shouldn't.
Now they'll have a vote and the Democrats have nothing at all visceral to complain about -- and if they do, they are attacking the FBI as much as the GOP. So they're screwed.
Beyond that, I've noticed the same thing that they've tried to switch to "he drank!!!!!!" This is because the sex stuff fell flat. Ford wasn't enough, Kavanaugh's outrage made people sympathetic to her failings. The others have turned into a circus -- one woman is awash in debt problems restraining orders and an exhusband who says she's a nut, another is bizarrely claiming gang rapes, and a third is clearly a desperate Hail Mary to get in on the action. So they try to pretend the issue is alcohol... which it never was.
They are also stupidly playing up the idea that this guy Judge is "cooperating." They are selling the idea at places like Huffpo that he must be telling the FBI "the truth", that he and Kavanaugh are rapists, because he refused to speak before but is now. Whew! Got him!!
That's not going to happen. He's denied everything continuously and I doubt he will change his mind. I'm not sure what the Huffers are planning when he doesn't say what they want, but I'm sure it will fall into the "The FBI didn't really investigate!" argument they are making -- like how they note that the FBI hasn't contacted everyone they want them to contact.
Not the left as a whole, but definitely the part that HuffPo and any outlet downstream of that has convinced themselves and each other that rape is as common as the flu. The fact that there exist men who cannot be credibly accused of rape destroys their worldview. And on the notion of credibility, I've noticed that "credible" is the new "literal."
Andrew, tryanmax, I was wondering if either of you had heard the alcohol angle and what your thoughts were. I hadn't seen that played up much (aside from one pants-wetting liberal troll who's convinced the FBI's going to find him drinking on the job or other nonsense) but a lot of the liberals I've seen are definitely attacking the temper part and spinning his response as that of a man too temperamental for the job. The narrative for that line goes that the hearing was a job interview and if anyone had gone off like that in an interview they'd get turned down and rightly so. Never mind the sheer strain dealing with these smears, the fact that accusations of criminal behavior were brought into play, and also that no company conducting their interviews in that abusive a manner would last for more than a day. Along with typical accusations of GOP misogyny of course. I swear, just when I think this whole mess couldn't get more disgusting the liberals and Democrats always find a way to up the ante...
tryanmax, They really do seem to have convinced themselves that Judge is going to say what they want him to say. It's weird.
Daniel, I saw that. The only response they would have accepted would be an admission. It really bothers them that his being angry worked when it didn't work for Anita Hill and other angry liberals. They were sure that weepy was the thing... and it failed.
Indeed, Andrew. Whenever smug, angry liberals brought up his reaction in the threads I saw conservative and libertarian commenters always shot back with how if he had remained calm and cool during the questioning the very same liberals would be calling him a cold-blooded sociopath because he kept calm. I'm not sure if you've heard the term Kafkatrap but it's a pretty accurate description of how they work their smears and it also applies to your observations about sports commenters who attack the NFL and how no response to their accusations is ever good enough for them.
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