Month: December 2015

Clinton Deplores Trump’s Campaign Tactics

Buck Banks

I really deplore the tone of his campaign, the inflammatory rhetoric that he is using to divide people, and his going after groups of people with hateful, incendiary rhetoric. Nothing really surprises me anymore. I don’t know that he has any boundaries at all. His bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign. And he has to keep sort of upping the stakes and going even further.

— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the Des Moines Register, on Donald Trump.

For Trump, Media Coverage Equals Poll Points, Not Favorability

Buck Banks

70%

Share of all December Republican race media coverage Donald Trump has garnered — even higher than his long-term average of 54 percent, Reports FiveThirtyEight‘s Nate Silver. “According to the regression, that extra media coverage is worth about 8 percentage points in the polls: almost exactly how much Trump has gained in national polls since the month began and enough to put him in the mid-30s in the polling average instead of the high 20s.” Silver notes: “The interesting thing, as we’ve pointed out before, is that a candidate can potentially gain in the polls in the short term by increasing his media coverage, even if he potentially hurts his favorability rating. Trump seems to realize this.”

Looks Like the Trump Effect Is Permanent

Buck Banks

The Trump effect is now probably long-term, meaning that even if he falls by the wayside in the nomination contest, he will continue to be a factor. Maybe he will run as an independent. Maybe he will make life difficult for the eventual GOP nominee from his permanent headquarters on Twitter. Or maybe it’s simply the accumulation of his offensive statements on videotape that will be used by Democrats to taint the fall Republican ticket.

— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics

Why Do So Many People Believe Donald Trump?

Buck Banks

BS DetectorGOP primary candidate Carly Fiorina offered the Washington Post the most succinct analysis of Donald Trump’s campaign behavior: “This is the pattern, isn’t it? The pattern is — he says something insulting, offensive and outrageous; the media pays attention; then he claims we all misunderstood him.”

By “we” Fiorina probably meant members of the press and other smart, analytical people who listen closely, pay attention and maintain a healthy skepticism. That is as opposed to less educated, non-analytical, more emotional people who believe in angels and American exceptionalism who don’t misunderstand Trump, but instead take his every outrageous declaration as true, sincerely delivered and above argument.

A recent study titled “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit,” published in Judgment and Decision Making 2015 by Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr, Derek J. Koehler, & Jonathan A. Fugelsang, may offer some insight into why people believe what Trump says. The study focused on “pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.”

Before delving into the study itself and its results, let’s consider what Donald Trump has said during the current campaign. Here’s a sampling:

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Bush Super PAC Spending But Not Receiving Money

Buck Banks

$50 million

“The super PAC supporting Jeb Bush is racing through its massive war chest much faster than money is coming in, spending close to $50 million in a record blitz that has so far failed to lift the former Florida governor’s sputtering presidential candidacy,” the Washington Post reports. “The group, Right to Rise, has already gone through nearly half of the $103 million it brought in during the first half of the year, records show. It raised only about $13 million in the five months that followed, according to a person familiar with the figure.”