Zappa.com

Steve Sack


Today's stats: (if the election were held today)

The current breakdown of the Senate is as follows (counting the two independents as Democrats):
26 Democratic seats up for reelection in 2018 and 23 seats not up, for a total of 49 seats
9 Republican seats up for reelection in 2018 and 42 seats not up, for a total of 51 seats

In a reversal from 2016, the Democrats will be playing defense, trying to hold the 10 seats in states that Donald Trump won. There is only one Republican seat, that of Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), in a state that Hillary Clinton won.

Strong Dem (40)
Likely Dem (7)
Barely Dem (2)
Exactly tied (0)
Barely GOP (2)
Likely GOP (0)
Strong GOP (49)



The saturated colors mean the candidate is leading by at least 10% and is virtually certain of carrying the state.
The lighter colors indicate a lead of 5-9%, which is outside the margin of error, but in politics a week is a long time.
The states with a white center are statistical ties.
States that are entirely white are exact ties.
States that are gray have no seats up for election.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

Adam Zyglis


The House midterms are going to be asymmetric warfare. Election guru Charlie Cook has released new ratings on House races, and nearly all the competitive districts are held by Republicans, meaning the Republicans are playing defense almost everywhere and the Democrats are playing offense almost everywhere.

For starters, no Democratic seat leans Republican or is likely Republican. In contrast, nine Republican seats lean Democratic or are likely Democratic. In a blue wave, all will be lost. In addition, 21 Republican seats are rated as toss-ups while only two Democratic seats are toss-ups. Another 25 Republican seats are rated lean Republican, which means they are competitive but the Republican has a slight edge. In a blue wave, some of these will flip. All in all, in the range lean Democratic to lean Republican (meaning the battleground districts) Cook has 53 Republican seats and only 5 Democratic seats. The result is that a tremendous number of Republican seats are in danger of flipping and only a handful of Democratic seats are in any danger.

https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings

Democrats' Chances Improving in Gubernatorial Races

Most political news outlets, us included, are following the Senate and House races closely. Surprisingly, however, the 36 gubernatorial contests this year are barely on anyone's radar, despite their enormous importance. For starters, all governors except those in New Hampshire and Vermont serve 4-year terms. That means when redistricting is done after the 2020 census, 34 of the governors elected this year will still be in office and can sign or veto (gerrymandered) congressional maps. This will affect the makeup of the House for 10 years. Second, as the federal government loosens regulations relating to the environment, labor laws, and more, states can toughen their own laws, with governors playing an important role. So let's take a look at the gubernatorial races. Here is the current map from Sabato's Crystal Ball. Governing.com has a nearly identical map.



Both sites are predicting that the Democrats will flip three states: New Mexico, Illinois, and Maine. Both also rate eight states as tossups (yellow on the map). Sabato has Alaska as a tossup; governing has it colored black but doesn't explain what that means, probably because the incumbent, Bill Walker, is an independent. Here is a quick rundown of the tossup races, from west to east.

Alaska. Gov. Bill Walker (I) is running for reelection. It won't be easy since his approval rating is deeply under water (or in the case of Alaska, under snow). The leading Democrat is former Anchorage mayor and former U.S. senator Mark Begich. He is well known and likely to win the Aug. 21 primary. The Republican race features former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, state senator Mike Dunleavy, and businessman Scott Hawkins. Ideologically, Walker and Begich aren't that far apart and Democrats fear they could split the nonconservative vote, resulting in a Republican governor.

Nevada. Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) is term limited, so this is an open seat. The Democrats have nominated Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak. The Republicans picked state Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Donald Trump has endorsed Laxalt, who is the son of former New Mexico senator Pete Domenici and of Michelle Laxalt (the daughter of former Nevada senator Paul Laxalt, who was Domenici's colleague when Adam was born). While sleeping with the daughter of a fellow Republican senator doesn't violate any of the Senate's rules, Domenici was a bit embarrassed about it and didn't go public about it until he was 80. Adam Laxalt once worked for NSA John Bolton. Polling gives Sisolak an insignificant lead, so this is a true tossup.

Colorado. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is term limited, so this is an open seat. The Democrats have nominated an openly gay multimillionaire, Rep. Jared Polis, one of the wealthiest members of Congress. The Republicans picked state Treasurer Walker Stapleton. Polis is not at all hesitant to use his fortune to fund his campaign: He put in over $10 million of his own money during the primary and could easily top that in the general election. He is quite liberal and would normally attract plenty of out-of-state money, except he doesn't need it. Stapleton is a strong Trump supporter, especially on taxes and immigration. In a purple state like Colorado, that might be a bridge too far, plus he is not going to have anywhere near as much money as Polis.

Minnesota. Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) is eligible to run for a third term, but declined to do so. The primary is Aug. 14. The leading Republican candidates are former governor Tim Pawlenty, who is the favorite, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson. There are five Democrats running for the DFL nomination, the strongest of whom are Attorney General Lori Swanson and Rep. Tim Walz. Minnesota is a fairly blue state, but on the other hand, Pawlenty has already shown he can be elected governor, so this one is tough to call.

Iowa. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) is running for election as governor for the first time. She got her current job when then-governor Terry Branstad became ambassador to China. Now she is on her own. The Democrats nominated wealthy businessman Fred Hubbell, who is nevertheless raising money from donors. Since the start of 2017, Hubbell has pulled in $10 million to Reynolds' $6 million. Reynolds has accused Hubbell of not believing that Iowa is the #1 state in the nation. We all know that Iowa goes first when it comes to picking presidential candidates and also has the most pigs and corn, but there aren't a lot of other metrics in which Iowa is #1. It looks like it will be a nasty race.

Michigan. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is term limited, so this is an open seat. The primary is on Aug. 7. The Democrats have a three-way primary with three unknown candidates, Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit official, Shri Thanedar, an author and entrepreneur, and Gretchen Whitmer, a former state senate minority leader. Whitmer, who has the backing of the state Democratic establishment, is probably the favorite. The Republicans have a full-blown battle on their hands, with Lt. Gov. Brian Calley facing Attorney General Bill Schuette and two unknowns. Anything could happen here.

Ohio. Gov. John Kasich (R) is term limited, so this is an open seat. Richard Cordray, who ran the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, beat former "boy wonder" mayor of Cleveland Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic primary and will face former U.S. senator and current attorney general Mike DeWine (R). Of the two, DeWine is much better known due to his stints as senator and AG. Still, polling shows it to be very close, with Cordray ahead in some polls and DeWine in others.

Florida. The monster battle for the Senate between Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is sucking all the oxygen out of the air, and will continue to do so until the Aug. 28 primary. Historically, Democrats don't do very well in gubernatorial races in Florida. The last time a Democrat was elected to Florida's top job was 1994, when Lawton Chiles won his second term. However, the large number of Puerto Ricans who have moved to the state since 2016 could change that. The Democrats have a free-for-all primary, with seven candidates running, including the mayor of Tallahassee (Andrew Gillum), a congresswoman (Gwen Graham), and the mayor of Miami Beach (Philip Levine), plus four lesser-known candidates. Polling shows that Levine is ahead and since he is wealthy, he will spend plenty of his own money to keep it that way. The Republicans also have seven candidates, including a congressman (Ron DeSantis) and the state's agricultural commissioner (Adam Putnam). Polling puts DeSantis slightly ahead.

Connecticut. Connecticut does not have term limits, but unpopular Gov. Dan Malloy (D) decided not to press his luck and try for a third term, meaning this is an open-seat election. The Democrats effectively picked wealthy businessman Ned Lamont over Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim as their nominee at the state convention in May. Lamont challenged and beat then-senator Joe Lieberman in the 2006 senatorial primary, but lost to Lieberman (who ran as an independent) in the general election. The Republicans will pick their candidate in a primary on Aug. 14. The favorite is Mark Boughton, the nine-term mayor of Danbury, who wants to eliminate the state income tax. Still, he is facing a bunch of wealthy businessmen. If it ends up with Lamont vs. Boughton, the Democrats will be running a plutocrat against the Republicans' working stiff. But Connecticut is a very blue state, so even under those conditions, Lamont will be the favorite, especially since the national Republicans are not likely to drop a lot of money in a gubernatorial race in such a blue state.

In short, while the Democrats face a tough Senate map, they face an easy gubernatorial map. They are very likely to flip New Mexico, Illinois, and Maine, and could pick up as many as eight more states in even a modest blue wave. In a serious blue wave, Arizona, Kansas, Wisconsin, Maryland, and New Hampshire could also be in play.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2018/Senate/Maps/Jul24.html

Sabato Says Democrats Are Now Favorites to Take the House

Larry Sabato has released the latest update to his House ratings. Specifically:

5 seats (IA-04, IN-02, IN-09, PA-16, TX-31) moved from "Safe Republican" to "Likely Republican"
3 seats (AR-02, FL-16, NM-02) moved from "Likely Republican" to "Leans Republican"
8 seats (IA-03, IL-06, KY-06, MI-08, OH-01, OH-12, TX-07, WV-03) moved from "Leans Republican" to "Toss Up"
1 seat (FL-13) moved from "Likely Democratic" to "Safe Democratic"
That's 17 seats moving in the direction of the blue team. None were moved in the direction of the red team.

Sabato says that the Democrats are now "a little better than 50-50 to win the House." That's the first time he's swung the balance in their direction. Overall, he now has 41 GOP-held seats in play, compared to just 16 Democratic-held seats.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/

...oops, sorry, wrong country...

_________________

Tom Toles


Biden Leads in 2020 Presidential Polls

The midterms aren't even over - in fact, are still more than three months away - and people are already looking ahead to the 2020 presidential contest. Maybe that's just where we are in the world of politics these days, or maybe people are particularly eager to think about a change in leadership. In any event, pretty much all polls of the Democratic field have former VP Joe Biden leading the pack.

Pundits and Washington insiders are skeptical about this, and for good reason. Biden will be 78 by Inauguration Day 2020, which is a little long in the tooth to take on a grueling, potentially 8-year commitment. Further, the idea of Biden may be appealing, but the two times he's been subjected to the intense glare of an actual presidential campaign, his gaffes and his past errors (plagiarism) have caught up with him and he's come up way short. Further, he cast a "yes" vote on war with Iraq, which means he's on the wrong side of what might be the most unpopular decision Congress has made in the last 30 years. There is little question that Biden's lead in the polls is primarily a product of reflected glow from Barack Obama, as well as being a guy that people have actually heard of. At this point in the process, there are undoubtedly huge swathes of the Democratic base who do not know, or who barely know, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) or Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), or Rep. Sam Rayburn (D-TX). If they did, then they would know that not only is Rayburn not running this year, he's been dead for half a century.

A more useful crystal ball when it comes to foreseeing the Democratic field (albeit only slightly more useful) is betting odds. There, people have some idea of what they are talking about, and are backing their picks with actual cold, hard, cash (or not-so-cold, not-so-hard bitcoin). The betting sites have Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as the favorite at roughly 5/1 odds (17% chance of winning), followed by Harris and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) at 6/1 (14%), and Biden and Bernie Sanders at 7/1 (12%). Nobody else is currently given a double-digit percentage chance of winning. Of course, a week is a lifetime in politics. That means that there are roughly 115 lifetimes for all of this to change.

There Was a Small Blue Wave in Tennessee Last Week

Last week's election in Tennessee was not too interesting, at least at the state level. Generally speaking, the favorites won comfortably. And while there will likely be drama centered on the governor's mansion and the open U.S. Senate seat in November, there wasn't much in the primary.

However, that overlooks what happened at the municipal level, where the results thrilled Tennessee Democrats. There were 26 countywide offices up for election, and the Democrats claimed 21 of them, flipping over a dozen. Of the 10 most significant offices up (sheriffs and mayors, primarily), Republicans held 9 prior to last week's contests. Now, they hold zero. And broadly speaking, the results weren't even close, with members of the blue team wresting away GOP-held offices by 5 and 10 and 15 points.

What does it all mean? Well, it's hard to draw national generalizations from municipal-level results in one state. However, it is clear that Tennessee Democrats are organized and are energized. That, in turn, suggests that the blue team is in excellent position to claim the governor's mansion and/or Bob Corker's Senate seat. And if they are able to pull off the latter, that gives them a little extra margin of error when it comes to the possibility of retaking the Senate.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/6/1786209/-Blue-wave-alert-Tennessee-Democrats-swept-county-elections-including-a-historic-victory

Mike Luckovich

We all be praying...

Many more Democrats voted in the michigan primaries over Republican's, so that could be a good early sign. The centrist and Bernie wings of the Democratic party in this state are pretty much united against Trump.


Of course, Michigan is so grossly gerrymandered, that we'll need to win by a few hundred thousand votes more than the Republicans to make up any gains. Also, Russia is still meddling, so the margin will likely need to be higher.

Brazil’s ex-president Lula imprisoned to keep him out of the election

Prof David Treece and others protest at the imprisonment of the former Brazilian president

Letters

Fri 8 Jun 2018

Thursday marked two months since the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was sent to prison. There is overwhelming evidence of his innocence and that he has been tried unfairly and imprisoned so as to deny his legitimate right to stand in October’s presidential elections, where he is currently leading in the polls. Legal experts in Brazil and around the world have pointed to the irregularities of his trial and the questionable circumstances of his imprisonment. The UN human rights committee has accepted the petition from Lula’s lawyers to investigate whether Lula’s human rights have been violated - the first time Brazil has been called to account. Lula is a political prisoner and a victim of “lawfare” – the misuse of law for political purposes. He must be released and allowed to run for election so that Brazilian citizens can exercise their full democratic rights.
Prof David Treece King’s College London, Prof Alfredo Saad Soas London, Dr Fiona Macaulay Bradford University Dr Francisco Dominguez Middlesex University, London, Dr Yara Evans King’s College London, Sayuri Carbonnier Biofuels consultant, United Nations

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/08/brazils-ex-president-lula-imprisoned-to-keep-him-out-of-the-election-letters

_________________

We Are Going Live Today

We are going live today, with real data. The map now reflects the actual state of the Senate election in states where at least one reliable poll exists. For DE, HI, IN, MA, MD, MT, NE, RI, VT, and WY, we will use the 2012 election results until a reliable public poll exists. Of those, only IN and MT are competitive.

On the subject of reliable polls, things are complicated. Most pollsters are really campaign consultants. Their business model is getting hired by candidates to help them win elections. Usually, they are not at all shy about announcing this. If the pollster's Website has a page that says: "We have helped elect 28 Democrats to federal and state office," you can guess which team they are on. We don't trust any of these partisan pollsters and don't include their results in our database. Their polling may well be pretty good (after all, candidates want to know how well they are doing), but the results provided to the public may consist of the polling results seasoned with a heaping tablespoon of fairy dust. There are also pollsters with a miserable track record (Rasmussen comes to mind). Fortunately, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has compared previous polls from many pollsters taken just before elections and graded them. We won't use any with a grade below C+ (goodbye SurveyMonkey, which gets a D-).

After chucking partisan and incompetent pollsters, we still have 204 pollsters in our list, most of them unrated because they haven't published any polls just before an election. Some of our 204 are established companies like Mason-Dixon and SurveyUSA, which run polls for media outlets. Others are universities like Quinnipiac and Marist College, which have established track records and know what they are doing. Still, there are a lot of small colleges that are new to polling and which are starting to publish polls. Our view is "innocent until proven guilty"—that is, we assume they know what they are doing until it is clear they don't.

Polling is hard for a variety of reasons. First, response rates are under 10%. Most people just hang up. Call a mother of 5 children at 7 p.m. and get a response? You have achieved a miracle! Call a lonely elderly widow at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon? Be prepared to stay on the line for an hour to hear what her grandchildren are up to. Differential response rates like this can introduce massive selection bias.

Second, it is not legal for pollsters to use computers to call cell phones. Leaving out cell phones removes many young people from the sample, but having a human call them is expensive.

Third, midterms have notoriously low turnouts. In 2016, 58% of eligible voters cast a ballot. In 2014, it was 36%. Pollsters are not interested in talking to people who aren't going to vote. However, it turns out asking them if they plan to vote or not isn't a good way to tell. The better pollsters have a good "likely voter" screen, which is generally their secret sauce (e.g., "Do you know where your polling place is?")

Fourth, sample sizes are typically 500-1000 valid interviews (= 5000 to 10,000 calls). With such a small sample, the pollster might get too many poor, older, working-class Republican Asian women and not enough young, rich, Democratic black men with college degrees. Statistical techniques can correct for bad luck in the sample, but that requires a good model of what the final electorate looks like. If the pollster assumes the electorate will have, say, 37% Republicans and it ends up having 33%, the poll will be way off. The newer entrants into polling may not have very good models.

This being the case, averaging multiple polls is likely to give a better result than a single poll. But should one average today's poll with one taken 2 weeks ago? How about a month ago? Our algorithm is to use the most recent poll and any others taken within a week of it. Older ones aren't averaged in because a week is a long time in politics. So, hopefully you now see we have been forced to make some choices (which polls to use, how to average them, etc.). Other Websites tracking the Senate may make different choices and thus get different results. All we can say is that at least we have been fully transparent about which polls we use and how we compute our daily number for each race.

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2018/Senate/Maps/Sep05.html#item-1

The current breakdown of the Senate is as follows (counting the two independents as Democrats):
26 Democratic seats up for reelection in 2018 and 23 seats not up, for a total of 49 seats
9 Republican seats up for reelection in 2018 and 42 seats not up, for a total of 51 seats

In a reversal from 2016, the Democrats will be playing defense, trying to hold the 10 seats in states that Donald Trump won. There is only one Republican seat, that of Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), in a state that Hillary Clinton won.

Today's stats: (if the election were held today)

Senate
Dem - 51 seats
GOP - 49 seats

Strong Dem (39) (-1 since 2012)
Likely Dem (8) (+1 since 2012)
Barely Dem (4) (+2 since 2012)
Exactly tied (0)
Barely GOP (2)
Likely GOP (0)
Strong GOP (47) (-2 since 2012)

Dem pickups vs. 2012 - Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee
GOP pickups vs. 2012 - North Dakota



The saturated colors mean the candidate is leading by at least 10% and is virtually certain of carrying the state.
The lighter colors indicate a lead of 5-9%, which is outside the margin of error, but in politics a week is a long time.
The states with a white center are statistical ties.
States that are entirely white are exact ties.
States that are gray have no seats up for election.

_________________
that's what happens when you don't read you loose your link to higher thinking

Today's stats: (if the election were held today)

Senate
Dem - 50 seats (down 1 since yesterday)
GOP - 49 seats
Ties - 1 seat (up 1 since yesterday) (Florida)

Strong Dem (39)
Likely Dem (7) (-1 since yesterday)
Barely Dem (4)
Exactly tied (1) (+1 since yesterday)
Barely GOP (2)
Likely GOP (0)
Strong GOP (47)

Dem pickups vs. 2012 - Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee
GOP pickups vs. 2012 - North Dakota



The saturated colors mean the candidate is leading by at least 10% and is virtually certain of carrying the state.
The lighter colors indicate a lead of 5-9%, which is outside the margin of error, but in politics a week is a long time.
The states with a white center are statistical ties.
States that are entirely white are exact ties.
States that are gray have no seats up for election.

_________________
that's what happens when you don't read you loose your link to higher thinking

Brazil politician Jair Bolsonaro stabbed in street

A far-right politician in Brazil has been stabbed in the abdomen while campaigning on the street, police say.



Jair Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate, was attacked in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais.

He was injured in the liver and is being operated on, local media say.

The controversial politician, who has outraged many in Brazil with racist and homophobic comments, has performed strongly in recent polls for next month's presidential elections.

Polls suggest he would get the most votes, if former president Lula da Silva fails in his attempt to overturn a ban on him standing.

Footage of the incident shows Mr Bolsonaro at a rally in Juiz de Fora, elevated, making a thumbs up gesture and surrounded by supporters, before he appears to be stabbed with a knife.

He then doubles over with pain, while his supporters lower him to the ground.

After the attack, his son Flavio wrote on Twitter that the wound was "only superficial" and he was doing fine.

However, local media are now reporting that the stabbing wounded his liver.

Police say a suspect has been arrested.

Mr Bolsonaro's backers see him as a strong leader who would crack down on crime.

The 63-year-old, who is representing the Social Liberal Party (PSL), is followed by millions of Brazilians on social media, and many refer to him as the "Brazilian Trump".

He also supports loosening gun control laws, and is backed by millions of evangelical Christians for his uncompromising anti-abortion stand.

However, he is seen as a divisive candidate, which means he may struggle to win if the vote goes to a run-off.

In 2011, he told Playboy magazine that he would be "incapable of loving a gay son" and that he would rather see such a son of his "die in an accident".

In 2015, he was fined for saying in a newspaper interview that Congresswoman Maria do Rosario was "not worth raping; she is very ugly".

He is currently being investigated for alleged racism over derogatory remarks he made about Afro-Brazilians.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45441447

_________________

Let's take a look at Mr Schismatic Guy's map from 2016. The day before the presidential election. Let's look at it to remind ourselves of the worthlessness of these numbers. Mr Schismatic obviously knows the map is bullshit, but he posts it anyway. He clearly has contempt for Zappa fans.





_______
do not ignore list: the chief judge

Today's stats: (if the election were held today)

Senate
Dem - 50 seats
GOP - 49 seats
Ties - 1 seat (Florida)

Strong Dem (38) (-1 since yesterday)
Likely Dem (7)
Barely Dem (5) (+1 since yesterday)
Exactly tied (1)
Barely GOP (2)
Likely GOP (0)
Strong GOP (47)

Dem pickups vs. 2012 - Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee
GOP pickups vs. 2012 - North Dakota



The saturated colors mean the candidate is leading by at least 10% and is virtually certain of carrying the state.
The lighter colors indicate a lead of 5-9%, which is outside the margin of error, but in politics a week is a long time.
The states with a white center are statistical ties.
States that are entirely white are exact ties.
States that are gray have no seats up for election.

_________________

Never argue with stupid people; they will drag you
down to their level and then beat you with experience.

Ignore List: downer mydnyte (sanctimonious troll)

It's now being reported that he lost 40% of his blood. That sounds like a lot, but it's not necessarily fatal. Twelve years ago I came down with a condition that went untreated for a week. By the time I checked into the hospital, I could barely walk more than 10 feet without having to sit down to rest for a few minutes. My skin was chalk white. I was given two units, upon admission, and another two units the following day.

Election 2016

nov 16

Today's stats: (if the election were held today)

Senate
Dem - 47 seats
GOP - 51 seats
Ties - 2 seats (Arizona, Florida)

Strong Dem (40) (+2 since Sept 7)
Likely Dem (4) (-3 since Sept 7)
Barely Dem (3) (-2 since Sept 7)
Exactly tied (2) (+1 since Sept 7)
Barely GOP (4) (+2 since Sept 7)
Likely GOP (0)
Strong GOP (47)

Dem pickups vs. 2012 - Nevada
GOP pickups vs. 2012 - Indiana, North Dakota



The saturated colors mean the candidate is leading by at least 10% and is virtually certain of carrying the state.
The lighter colors indicate a lead of 5-9%, which is outside the margin of error, but in politics a week is a long time.
The states with a white center are statistical ties.
States that are entirely white are exact ties.
States that are gray have no seats up for election.

_________________

Never argue with stupid people; they will drag you
down to their level and then beat you with experience.

Ignore List: downer mydnyte (sanctimonious troll)

Brazil’s presidential election

Jair Bolsonaro, Latin America’s latest menace

He would make a disastrous president



“GOD is Brazilian,” goes a saying that became the title of a popular film. Brazil’s beauty, natural wealth and music often make it seem uniquely blessed. But these days Brazilians must wonder whether, like the deity in the film, God has gone on holiday. The economy is a disaster, the public finances are under strain and politics are thoroughly rotten. Street crime is rising, too. Seven Brazilian cities feature in the world’s 20 most violent.

The national elections next month give Brazil the chance to start afresh. Yet if, as seems all too possible, victory goes to Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, they risk making everything worse. Mr Bolsonaro, whose middle name is Messias, or “Messiah”, promises salvation; in fact, he is a menace to Brazil and to Latin America.

Mr Bolsonaro is the latest in a parade of populists—from Donald Trump in America, to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and a left-right coalition featuring Matteo Salvini in Italy. In Latin America, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-wing firebrand, will take office in Mexico in December. Mr Bolsonaro would be a particularly nasty addition to the club (see Briefing). Were he to win, it might put the very survival of democracy in Latin America’s largest country at risk.

Brazilian bitterness

Populists draw on similar grievances. A failing economy is one—and in Brazil the failure has been catastrophic. In the worst recession in its history, GDP per person shrank by 10% in 2014-16 and has yet to recover. The unemployment rate is 12%. The whiff of elite self-dealing and corruption is another grievance—and in Brazil it is a stench. The interlocking investigations known as Lava Jato (Car Wash) have discredited the entire political class. Scores of politicians are under investigation. Michel Temer, who became Brazil’s president in 2016 after his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached on unrelated charges, has avoided trial by the supreme court only because congress voted to spare him. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, another former president, was jailed for corruption and disqualified from running in the election. Brazilians tell pollsters that the words which best sum up their country are “corruption”, “shame” and “disappointment”.

Mr Bolsonaro has exploited their fury brilliantly. Until the Lava Jato scandals, he was an undistinguished seven-term congressman from the state of Rio de Janeiro. He has a long history of being grossly offensive. He said he would not rape a congresswoman because she was “very ugly”; he said he would prefer a dead son to a gay one; and he suggested that people who live in settlements founded by escaped slaves are fat and lazy. Suddenly that willingness to break taboos is being taken as evidence that he is different from the political hacks in the capital city, Brasília.

To Brazilians desperate to rid themselves of corrupt politicians and murderous drug dealers, Mr Bolsonaro presents himself as a no-nonsense sheriff. An evangelical Christian, he mixes social conservatism with economic liberalism, to which he has recently converted. His main economic adviser is Paulo Guedes, who was educated at the University of Chicago, a bastion of free-market ideas. He favours the privatisation of all Brazil’s state-owned companies and “brutal” simplification of taxes. Mr Bolsonaro proposes to slash the number of ministries from 29 to 15, and to put generals in charge of some of them.

His formula is winning support. Polls give him 28% of the vote and he is the clear front-runner in a crowded field for the first round of the elections on October 7th. This month he was stabbed in the stomach at a rally, which put him in hospital. That only made him more popular—and shielded him from closer scrutiny by the media and his opponents. If he faces Fernando Haddad, the nominee of Lula’s left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) in the second round at the end of the month, many middle- and upper-class voters, who blame Lula and the PT above all for Brazil’s troubles, could be driven into his arms.

The Pinochet temptation

They should not be fooled. In addition to his illiberal social views, Mr Bolsonaro has a worrying admiration for dictatorship. He dedicated his vote to impeach Ms Rousseff to the commander of a unit responsible for 500 cases of torture and 40 murders under the military regime, which governed Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Mr Bolsonaro’s running-mate is Hamilton Mourão, a retired general, who last year, while in uniform, mused that the army might intervene to solve Brazil’s problems. Mr Bolsonaro’s answer to crime is, in effect, to kill more criminals—though, in 2016, police killed over 4,000 people.

Latin America has experimented before with mixing authoritarian politics and liberal economics. Augusto Pinochet, a brutal ruler of Chile between 1973 and 1990, was advised by the free-marketeer “Chicago boys”. They helped lay the ground for today’s relative prosperity in Chile, but at terrible human and social cost. Brazilians have a fatalism about corruption, summed up in the phrase “rouba, mas faz” (“he steals, but he acts”). They should not fall for Mr Bolsonaro—whose dictum might be “they tortured, but they acted”. Latin America has known all sorts of strongmen, most of them awful. For recent proof, look only to the disasters in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Mr Bolsonaro might not be able to convert his populism into Pinochet-style dictatorship even if he wanted to. But Brazil’s democracy is still young. Even a flirtation with authoritarianism is worrying. All Brazilian presidents need a coalition in congress to pass legislation. Mr Bolsonaro has few political friends. To govern, he could be driven to degrade politics still further, potentially paving the way for someone still worse.

Instead of falling for the vain promises of a dangerous politician in the hope that he can solve all their problems, Brazilians should realise that the task of healing their democracy and reforming their economy will be neither easy nor quick. Some progress has been made—such as a ban on corporate donations to parties and a freeze on federal spending. A lot more reform is needed. Mr Bolsonaro is not the man to provide it.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/09/20/jair-bolsonaro-latin-americas-latest-menace

^^Note: Even though we can all relate and agree with its main message, this article has many flaws and omissions, such as failing to say that, in fact, the wide margin voter's preference was Mr. Lula, who is arrested under a, at least, questionable process (said to be lawfare, by some) and that the freeze on spending they praise is killing the population w/o health care and etc.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iU_8wSvSW4

1 minute, 22 seconds



Inasmuch as the midterms are in full swing, the campaign commercials are coming fast and furious, with some of them getting a particularly large amount of attention. In the category of "really clever ads," for example, is a spot for Dean Phillips, who is running in MN-03 against Rep. Erik Paulsen (R). The basic notion is that Bigfoot is looking for the only guy harder to find than he is—Paulsen, who never seems to show up for work, is never available for constituent services, etc. He does find the Congressman, but you'll have to watch the ad to find out where.

excellent

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hey punk, what are you doing with that bone saw in your bag?

Brazil election: Polls open in highly polarised presidential fight

Brazilians are going to the polls to vote in the most polarised presidential election for many years.

Nearly 150 million people are eligible to vote. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the valid ballots, there will be a second round in three weeks.

Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro is the frontrunner. He has vowed to tackle crime and record-high murder rates.

His main rival is the left-wing candidate for the Workers' Party, Fernando Haddad.

A former mayor of São Paulo, Mr Haddad is backed by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was disqualified from standing in the election after he was jailed for corruption.


Jair Bolsonaro (left) and Fernando Haddad (right) are expected to contest a run-off

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45776142 <short embedded video inside>

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