Posted on 11/07/2016 1:43:11 PM PST by Kaslin
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to draw your attention to something Pat Caddell has been talking about. Pat Caddell, of course, was the pollster for Jimmy Carter working back in 1980 and we all remember what happened in 1980. In 1980, it was much like today but with one big difference that I will get to in mere moments. Pat Caddell, and actually a couple of other people, have said that this election feels a lot like 1980. What do they mean? What they mean is all the polling data leading up to the election had Jimmy Carter winning and winning handily.
And the Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, was not very well thought of by the media and by the Democrats. They thought he was "an amiable dunce," not a serious politician. He was really known for being a B-grade actor, even though he had been governor of California. He was a conservative. Many in the Republican Party didn't like Reagan. They wanted no part of Reagan because Reagan was a conservative. They associated Reagan with Goldwater, which meant landslide defeat.
And to this day, by the way, I should tell you that the Republican Party thinks of conservatism that way. The Republican Party, when they hear "conservative" they think "Goldwater, landslide defeat." They don't think Ronald Reagan, two-term landslide win. They don't. They think Goldwater, landslide loss. But back in 1980 they didn't like Reagan. The Democrats made fun of him as not being serious, not being too bright. "Dangerous! Can't have this guy's finger on the nuclear button." There are a lot of similarities in the way Trump is being treated and the way Reagan was being treated.
The difference is that Reagan did come from the political system. He was elected twice governor of California. He was Screen Actors Guild president. So he had political pedigree. Trump has zilch, zero, nada.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, back to Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen and the similarities in 1980 and today. There are many. Reagan was seen much as Trump is seen by both Republicans and Democrats. The polling data going into election in 1980, the last poll, which was like a week out, had Carter winning by nine. Now Caddell tells people that he knew going into the weekend that poll was wrong. They were, I guess, doing internal polling and he knew before the election even came that it was over. Nobody is saying that now as they were privately. Nobody said it publicly in 1980, by the way. In 1980, election night, everybody thinking Carter was going to win.
An hour into election night coverage on NBC they proclaimed Reagan a landslide winner. Basically ten minutes after 8:00 p.m., before California had even closed. So Caddell and Doug Schoen were on Fox on Friday, and they were saying, to both it feels exactly like 1980. You've got the similarities in the way Reagan and Trump are being regarded, the way they're being treated. You've got similarities in the polling data. But the one thing they said that makes this vastly different from 1980 is early voting. There wasn't any early voting in 1980. Election Day voting was it. There was no way. You had absentees, but they weren't counted.
There was no early voting. So you had no indication at all, other than exit polling, how 1980 was going to go. They say that early voting throws all of that comparison to 1980 out the window. Essentially they say that the existence of early voting and the volume of early voting eliminates the possibility of a late surge for anybody. The late surge is the early voting, they say. And the difference is early voting is known. It's a known quantity. It's known by virtue of party loyalty. We don't know how early voters are voting, but we know how many of them are Republican and Democrat.
So they concluded, Caddell, which was a change of heart, concluded, yeah, okay, when you factor that in, Hillary's probably going to win, after having believed that we were on a trajectory that made this a potential 1980 again. Which meant a surprise massive number of people coming out for Trump that weren't counted. They say early voting eliminates that possibility. They're the experts. I'm not so sure. The assumption there is that if there is this giant groundswell, if there is this late-breaking surge, that it's already shown up. And you can see who it is in the early voting.
Well, that's not exactly what the Drive-Bys have been worried about. The Drive-Bys and the Democrats have been worried about a late surge of unregistered voters all these years, people who have never voted or very rarely voted because they're so fed up they don't think the system is affected by elections. They don't think their vote matters. They think that the people that run the show are going to do what they do no matter what the people want. So they've tuned out. And there are, of the adult population, about roughly 50 percent that do not vote every election. And it's been a fear on the Democrat side that Trump is connecting with those people and that waves and waves of them could show up on Election Day. So Caddell and Schoen say, no, no, no, no. They've already shown up.
Maybe. For that to be true, this wave, this surge of voters, unregistered, that's poised to vote for Trump would have to have been so inspired they already would have shown up and registered and early voted, so that there is no late surge to happen. The late surge is what defeated Carter. There was a late surge that showed up that just rendered the nine-point Carter lead meaningless. They say early voting means that can't happen. We will see.
Despite all of that, folks, they tell us that Hillary's got this awesome ground game that Trump can't compete with. Well, that awesome ground game, early voting, Democrat turnout, is down, as I just mentioned in Florida. Early voting overall turnout is down. Rally attendance. Hillary's got a great ground game? Where is that ground game getting crowds for her rallies? There aren't any. Attendance is abysmal. She's in Pittsburgh. It doesn't compare to Trump in Sarasota. Sound bites coming up.
Hillary's social media, it literally pales in comparison to Trump's. You talk to people in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, you can't find a Hillary sign in a yard anywhere, but Trump signs are everywhere. And primary turnout on the Democrat side was way down. Does any of that cancel out what Caddell and Schoen were saying? We don't know. We just have to wait and find out.
END TRANSCRIPT
The Constitution specifies the Electoral College, not the general election. There is no Constitutional provision for a popular vote for president at all
Federal law does specify election day, and courts have held there is no objection to early voting as long as no votes are assigned to a candidate before election day.
What I am totally against is registration on election day, during the primary or general election. If you can't register at least 3 weeks before, you'll just have to wait to vote.
hard for me to not recall all of the ‘Romney in a landslide’ posts back in the last election. Part of me wants to jump into the hype but part of me subscribes to ‘once bitten, twice shy’. Regardless of the outcome the work must continue and the solution for what ails our country is and always will be in our own hands.
Really? A Constitutional Amendment? Why not have an amendment for every law on the books? Let’s see... amendment to ban pot, murder, rape...
The polling was bad because it was basically limited to Gallup but I believe internals of both candidates showed that Reagan held a slight lead even before the debates. He of course surged over the final weekend which may be another difference with Trump.
I can’t believe that folks are not thinking about their health insurance. Obama Care is going to go through the roof.
Rush constantly uses polls when things look good. Says they can't be trusted when they look bad. Trump has largely done the same thing. In the primary when polling was going his way, he cited polls. When things look bad in the general, they're rigged.
My husband and I voted onetime absentee because we flew to Upstate New York for a Family Reunion.
You mean by someone taking a picture of you laying on the operating table or laying in the hospital bed and someone taking the picture to the election commission?
I was just going to post the very same thing! He was excellent today, but why hasn't he been this good nearly every day since the GOP convention?
What a difference today was vs. his show last Friday. It was one of those "I'm just gonna mail it in" shows. Only a few days before election day!
Thank you, Megan! Same to you and your family! And God bless you, my FRiend.
Election Day sneaks up on no one. If you want to go away on vacation, plan it around the day set aside to exercise your constitutional right...or don’t.
In VA, if you have to vote absentee for medical reasons you have to show proof. Usually if you have some medical justification, you have some documentation. It shouldn’t be onerous but just enough to keep it from rampant abuse.
So I wonder how many others on our side are thinking and doing the same thing (in those states where it applies)? Could be an election day surge if that is the case.
You had to swear out an affidavit that you would be unable to go to the polls on that day for a specific reason.
Seemed entirely reasonable to me.
= = = = = = = = = = =
Virginia used to be like that.
I was making long distance deliveries and worked by ‘phone calls’ so I had no idea where I may be the ‘1st Tuesday in Nov’ so I voted at the Registrars office for several years.
This is the first year that I have actually heard of people being encouraged to vote early in ALL the outlets....
Saw in paper today that H supposedly up by 6 in VA but she still running the anti Trump ad on daytime TV in DC area - has to be aiming at VA but also have seen ads by Van Hollen in MD (another LIB that should be a lock in the Freak State.)
Could it be that the first-time voters who are motivated by Trump are less likely to do early voting and absentee ballots?
Instead, they want the experience of “going to the polls” for the first time.
Lots of Trump followers are voting for the first time. So that factor could sway the actual poll results on election day toward Trump.
Maybe I’m grasping for straws, but...
Comments anyone? ________
I don’t know, nutmeg. I think he was convinced Trump was going to lose - he always made reference to terrible things “that were going to happen after the election” but didn’t count on things changing. I don’t know. He could have really helped the Never Trumpers but now it’s Never Been.
I still have a sign “Don’t blame me! I voted for Crane”. Not a Reagan slam. See Babylon 5, 2258.
In 2012, Gateway Pundit trumpeted the big enthusiastic crowds for Romney compared to the much smaller crowds for Obama and predicted a Romney landslide. So did Newt Gingrich, George Will, Dick Morris, and plenty of other professors with ‘models’.
Just vote.
We didn't have a family reunion. Didn't you read that we flew to Upstate New York for a family reunion?
Excuse me, I listen to Rush every day and he has never said to ignore the polls. He didn’t today - he simply went through 1980 but consistently said he didn’t know how the vote would turn out. No one has been more critical than me of Rush in this primary season but he has always been bemused by the polls as are most Americans. Even Pat Caddell has cited 1980 and he’s a Democrat although of a JFK variety - God bless them.
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