A local California candidate was trying to get his name off the ballot for months, and this week he ended up winning the race he wanted out of. Matt Taylor decided to run for the Board of Education in August, but literally the day he filed the papers he changed his mind and attempted to take his name off the ballot.
Taylor said he figured that “the other candidate will certainly run a big campaign, and I can lose and that’s fine” and abandoned the campaign altogether. However, he was pushed to keep going last month and made a last-ditch social media push that may have actually worked.
Oh, and the best part: he was voted in by the citizens of Yolo County. Yes. Yolo.
Exit polls for Israel’s elections today show a very tight race between the Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Zionist Union alliance, led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.
Here’s the latest exit poll results, according to stats compiled by The Jerusalem Post:
There are 120 total seats in the Israel Knesset, meaning for any one party to have a decisive victory, they would need to take 61 seats. Otherwise, the work to build a coalition government would begin.
The neck-and-neck nature of the race is a bit of a comeback for Netanyahu, after a recent poll showed him getting four seats less than the opposition.
Netanyahu has already declared victory:
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel's Netanyahu declares victory in tight election.
(That tweet roughly translates to, “Against all odds: a great victory for the Likud, a major victory for the national camp led by the Likud, a major victory for the people of Israel.”)
The rhetoric between GOP Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Senator Marco Rubio took another turn this week, with the latter telling NPR Monday that Trump’s campaign is, “his freak show”.
Name-calling is not new to the political landscape; Teddy Roosevelt is often attributed as the scribe behind the William McKinley description of having, “the backbone of a chocolate eclair”. It’s been tough for me to keep track of all the highbrow barbs exchanged between the candidates in this still-young campaign season; both sides of my scorecard have already been filled. But the question remains: which party has tossed more heat? I investigate.
First up, the GOP: Rubio continued telling NPR’s Steve Inskeep, “[Trump] is a very sensitive person,” and recently, “thin-skinned”; Trump has called Rubio “clown”, “lightweight”, and a “baby”.
Next, the Democrats: Bernie Sanders laid into Secretary Hillary Clinton when he let loose with this fury, “Let me confess: I like Hillary.”
The Dems: Hillary Clinton really slung it against Vice President Joe Biden with, “Vice President Biden is a friend of mine, and I have a great deal of admiration and affection for him.”
Take five, Joe. Ya burnt.
Trump calledJeb Bush an, “unhappy person”, Lindsey Graham, “an idiot”, and the Scott Walker campaign (RIP July 13 2015 – September 21 2015), “a mess”.
In a humdinger that sent shockwaves through the Beltway, Democratic candidate Martin O’Malleysaid he has “tremendous respect” for the Clintons.
And the final blow delivered from the left comes compliments of Hillary Clinton, who toldChuck Todd on Sunday’s Meet The Press regarding Bernie Sanders, “I certainly respect his views”.
Mic drop.
So there you have it; 13+ months before the Presidential election, and the nasty attacks are flying just as viciously from the left as they are the right. It’s only September; good thing I’ve got plenty of blank scorecards ready to go.
Alternate realities are largely hypothesized under the multiverse theory, or in other words, another version of our world where you’re the person who won last night’s $310 million Powerball. If you’re reading my column today, I can safely assume you did not.
In one of these strange fringe existences, nothing is the same. LeBron never left Cleveland in the first place, Brokeback Mountain won the Oscar in 2006, federal troops were expedited to aid in Katrina aftermath… you know, the stuff of fantasy.
But in this world, the same one where no one remembers the movie Crash, the Presidential race for the 2016 election looks radically different. And that’s because sitting atop every national poll sits the handsomely presidential Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland Governor who as of October 1st, 2015 seems like a shoo-in to follow President Barack Obama (yes, even in this multiverse, Obama stole Hillary Clinton’s thunder in 2008, sorry).
In this alternate world… Martin O’Malley has already dominated the show at all five Democratic debates (again, fantasy). Democrats and Republicans alike have a hard time finding bad things to say about the smooth guitar-playing rock star born in the Beltway, and BuzzFeed has already done multiple “Top Adorable Things About Martin O’Malley” viral pieces.
Hillary Clinton is a distant second place on the minds of the electorate; the local Bernie Sanders gathering at the community center dims compared to the roar from O’Malley’s star-studded concert/pep rally to 85,000 strong at Cowboys Stadium.
And what’s not to love about O’Malley, whose fan base has preemptively gotten “45” tattoos in anticipation of the inevitable? He strikes to the heart of American hope, with his chiseled jawline, good-natured persona, and charismatic love of selfies. The perfect blend of Reagan‘s smile and FDR’s policies, when he speaks about his executive experience, the American people listen. After all, he has just raised the minimum wage in Maryland to $10.10, legalized same sex marriage in 2012, and his only enemy is the NRA, who knows he is one of the most progressive elected officials advocating for gun control (for the record, these O’Malley achievements exist in this reality too, the one where Brokeback lost).
The man is the ultimate establishment candidate, and has won over every major Democratic voting demo; what few doubters remain in the United States are quickly swayed when he announces Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as his Vice Presidential running mate. Pope Francis demands a private meeting with the devout Roman Catholic; thankfully, when you Google “Kim Davis” in this world nothing materializes.
Back to our reality. Watching Martin O’Malley on yesterday’s MTP Daily made me wonder if O’Malley was sitting in the greenroom, well-coiffed head of hair dangling hopelessly in his hands, dreaming of that alternate world. Instead, the actual O’Malley interview was short, and host Chuck Todd used it more to kill time while awaiting a John Kerry address to the media. You could almost see Todd staring at his off-screen monitor, ready to cut off O’Malley at a moment’s notice; O’Malley: the man who can hardly get a headline in this reality, the man who can’t even get his interview posted on the MTP Daily homepage, the man left dreaming of a world where he’s top Dem.
Let’s all consider taking one small step backwards and examining history as a determining factor over the ramble of endless cable news shouting matches.
Everyone today loves to look at, and obsess over, the Republican nomination polls as an indicator of the dire trouble that former Florida Governor and dynastic kin Jeb Bush is in. “Skittish” is the editorial word of choice used here to describe Bush supporters, who see his fifth place ranking as a sign of worry.
Real Clear Politics polling data as of today suggests that Bush falls behind Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Marco Rubio.
Stop it. None of these people will be President. Rubio, maybe, but still a stretch. Let’s look at the last two Presidential elections to see how the Bush of today is stacking up.
A Gallup Poll released October 23, 2007 gives the following description of the Republican nomination process (I’m willing to bet you don’t remember half of the names mentioned):
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has held a statistically significant lead in every Gallup national preference poll since February, averaging a 12-point lead over former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson the past three months. Arizona Sen. John McCain is third, but usually just a few points behind Thompson. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has not gained much traction in the national polls. In the most recent Gallup Poll, just 10% of Republicans chose him for the Republican presidential nomination. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has seen his support pick up a little in the past few months, but he remains in single digits. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback’s departure from the race — announced this past weekend — will almost certainly have little direct effect, as he consistently polled at only 1% or 2% of the vote.
Did you catch the part about Arizona Senator John McCain in there? You know, the guy who became the nominee in 2008? He was in third place behind Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. In fact, Rasmussen and NBC News polls from September-October that year firmly placed McCain anywhere from a distant second to fourth; President Giuliani seemed like a done deal.
On to 2012, shall we? Let me remind you of the line from NBC News’ Mark Murray on October 13, 2011 when he wrote, “Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.”
That happened.
And even in polls when eventual nominee Mitt Romney was in first, he was deemed as the dominant candidate likely to unseat President Barack Obama.
My point is simply to keep in mind that as much fun as it is for us in this business to speculate (and man do we love to, it’s like fantasy football with zero control) October the year before an election is statistically meaningless.
This is the ultimate marathon, and Jeb Bush is built to win it with stability all around him. Sure, Rubio’s fundraising efforts have yielded positive results, but no one is built like the ultra-establishment Bush name. As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday: “[Bush super PAC] Right to Rise raised a record-setting $103 million in the first six months of 2015,” and that’s before Bush even announced his candidacy. He’s doing just fine, and his fundraising efforts are only expected to grow.
Jeb Bush right now reminds me of Baltimore Ravens quarterback Trent Dilfer in Super Bowl 35, who basically had such solid infrastructure around him that as long as he didn’t throw eight interceptions against my beloved Giants he was pretty much guaranteed a victory. If Bush remains gaffe-free on a monumental scale, he’s built to last the long haul, and by my suspicions, will take a stage in some capacity on the night of November 8th, 2016.
Two candidates for a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives will determine the outcome of a heated election by drawing straws.
According to the New York Times, Democratic incumbent Blaine “Bo” Eaton and Republican challenger Mark Tullos are currently tied for the spot with 4,589 votes each. As a result, the two men will meet in Jackson, the capital city, on Friday to figure out who won the election “by lot.”
As the NYT and the Clarion-Ledger point out, the practice of invoking chance to decide a tied vote is not that uncommon. In fact, many states and nations deploy statutes dictating that, in the event of an unbreakable tie, the candidates should decide the election with a coin toss, drawing straws and other luck-based methods.
Yet Eaton and Tullos’ tumultuous face off comes at the end of a contentious election, as a Republican victory would mean big gains for Mississippi’s Republican party. The NYT reports that if Tullos wins, his party “will gain a three-fifths supermajority in the State House of Representatives, the threshold required to pass revenue-related bills.”
Despite the legality, both candidates aren’t pleased with the situation. Tullos, a lawyer, says he will file a legal challenge if he doesn’t pull the right straw and win. Meanwhile, Eaton has been more outspoken in his distaste.
“It’s wrong — philosophically, morally,” he told the NYT. “It’s archaic, it’s medieval, and it’s wrong. We need a new election.”
Anyone who works in media knows that the photo selected to go along with a story can (and will) make or break the success of the post. There is considerable evidence to back that up. A marketer named Jeff Bullas found that articles with images get 94% more views than articles without. Other analyses have found similarly compelling statistics. For instance, in one study, posts with images had an average of 64.9 shares compared to the 28 shares of an article with no image. The quality of the image, too, plays a key role in the overall success of a piece. The success of a piece, in turn, plays a part in building up the general knowledge of the reader which is, you know, what we are all about.
Obviously, there is a lot of pressure to use a really good photo to set posts apart and give readers the very best understanding of the people and events covered in the story, especially in an election season that is so fast-paced and convoluted at times. Buying images from photo services can be expensive, but it is just something that must be done…
…sort of.
There is one way for us political bloggers and writers to get amazing photos quickly and inexpensively: We can pay a visit to the Flickr page of Gage Skidmore.
If you’re a regular Mediaite reader, you’ve definitely seen his name before. Hispicturesappearalloveroursite. They are plentiful on his Flickr page and free to use because Skidmore has licensed them under Creative Commons. Beyond that, they are just good; he has an eye for detail and framing that makes his photos pop. Combine his talent and seeming lack of greed with the fact that he is a college student who isn’t even majoring in photography and has no real intention to pursue it as a career and you have a very, very interesting backstory on one of the quietest yet most effective players in the political journalism game right now.
We wanted to know more, so we reached out to Skidmore, who is celebrating his 23rd birthday today. After all, his photos are a large part of the way the average consumer is seeing and understanding this election.
Skidmore takes his evolving role in the political process in stride. He really just seems to be grateful for the chance to combine his interest in politics with his hobby of photography.
Here he is in his own words:
I really enjoy providing people with an insight on the campaign trail. I really enjoy going to places like Iowa, especially early on in the cycle when the stakes are much lower, as it allows the opportunity to get a much more intimate look at the candidates, away from all the media frenzy and enormous rallies that come later in the cycle. It’s an experience like no other, and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to document a very small portion of a very important part of our country’s political history.
Of course, the “very important part of our country’s political history” bit might be an understatement considering what a wild ride this campaign season is. He recognizes that and put his feelings about the current race for the presidency like this:
My hope for this election is that we can return to a sense of seriousness that is involved with holding the highest office in the world, instead of treating it simply as something that is entertainment. I describe myself politically as a libertarian, so I don’t really have a horse in this race, but the path we are on currently with massive debt and growing government influence needs to be reversed; unfortunately I don’t see that happening any time soon.
Luckily, photography is a hobby that has done wonders for him beyond this particular election. After previous profiles of him came out, Skidmore faced a barrage of negative comments from people who felt that he was not only selling himself short by making all of his images free for commercial use, but he was also undercutting the value of career photographers who do charge for their services. The negativity has not stopped him from pursuing his passion, nor has his free labor prevented him from getting paying gigs.
He told me, “Creative Commons has been a vehicle for me to get my name out there and allow my work to become known, [and] as a result I’ve been able to have dozens upon dozens of opportunities present themselves in the form of paid gigs, such as event photography, conferences and conventions, personal photo shoots, and other freelance work that mostly all came from people knowing my work and having the level of quality that they were looking for.”
In the end, he knows what a unique role he plays within the system, but he appreciates the obstacles he had to overcome to get there. He spoke of the “innate distrust” held by most politicians’ campaigns and the challenges he faced in proving that he was fair, unbiased, and more than capable of shooting every politician well, even if he didn’t agree with what they were saying at the time. As someone who has used his photos of Democratic and Republican pols alike, I can back him up on that one.
This election is certainly a whirlwind and every day when I come into the office, I brace myself for whatever bombshell comes my way. In the age of Donald Trump — whose official website uses Skidmore’s photos — there is no way to predict what sort of quote or event will get coverage from day to day, but it is a small comfort to know that finding a great picture to accompany the write-up will be easy.
If you’ve been watching MSNBC lately, you might have noticed a call to submit your “election confessions” to electionconfessions.com. Then again, you might not have, since it is usually just a tiny blip on the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen.
Thanks to my job at Mediaite, there are a lot of standard cable-newsisms that have become very routine to me. I can recite every commercial that plays throughout the day word-for-word as they play and usually mouth along to them while I’m working, but if you came up to me on the street and asked me to quote one, or worse, tell you what it advertises, I’d draw a blank. (In related news, please never come up to me on the street.) Similarly, I know I’ve seen the words “Election Confessions” hundreds of times, but only today did I snap my head up out of the fog of my laptop to squint at the TV and really take in what the scrolling words were telling me.
In a zombie-like trance, I typed www.electionconfessions.com into my browser and boom! Up popped a barebones site powered by Tumblr. The NBC logo stood stoically at the top in black and white. A header in 42-point font told me to “Call or text [my] election confession to 424-353-2016,” and below that, I was informed that the confessions were part of “an NBC News experiment.”
Here is just a sampling of what I found from other people who went to the site:
Go to the site and check it out. There are quite a few to take in. Some are sad, some are simple declarations of voting intentions, and some are clearly from an older generation of people who are still figuring out how to submit anonymous confessions to a blog.
All in all, worth the click. Whatever “experiment” NBC is going for, it’s already turning out to be interesting, just like this election season.
[image via screengrab]
For more from Lindsey, please do not go to the Tumblr account she had to make for this. Please go to her Twitter or Facebook.
Have you ever wondered what the press pen is like at a big campaign event? Maybe you’ve been to a rally or speech as a member of the public, and maybe you’ve even been to a protest, or something more unconventional, but being in the press area is an entirely different beast altogether.
What’s so special about it? Well, as the media that covers the media, we wanted to show you and tell you, so we headed out to the Donald Trump speech at Trump Soho Wednesday morning. Here’s how the whole process works.
First of all, a reporter can’t just get up and go to an event like this. Remember how Trump revoked the privileges of the Washington Post? What he took away was their opportunity to have correspondents credentialed. No matter the event or how many times a person has gone to speeches or rallies as a member of the press before, we have to submit our information to the campaign each time, and wait to be credentialed.
For this event, I submitted my form yesterday morning, and found out I was approved last night. Sometimes, there is a much shorter turn-around time between learning you’re in and the actual event. One reporter at the event today, who declined to be named, claimed that she only found out she was going this morning. Another was observed calling her editor from the check-in desk because her name wasn’t on the list, even though she had gotten the credentialing email.
Provided the credentialing goes smoothly, next comes an email containing a schedule and instructions. Everything camera operators need to know is included, as are specific times that the doors will be opened and closed. We just show up at the prescribed time, check in with the attendants, and then go through security. After that, it comes time to sit in a big room surrounded by other people who do the exact same thing. Sometimes, this can feel competitive. After all, everyone is there to tell the story of what’s happening at the front of the room. What will set a journalist apart from everyone else around them is how much better their writing is, and how fast they can get it to their respective editors.
At Trump events, though, the atmosphere is a little different. There is still competition, but there is also solidarity born of Trump’s animosity toward journalists, plus a unifying interest in simply seeing what is about to happen. At today’s event, there were teleprompters, so there was less of a chance of an off-script rant, but there was still an anxious ambiance as we waited to see if one would come anyway.
One reporter who usually covers Hillary Clinton for the Guardian, Lauren Gambino, explained that another way Trump events differ from standard political speeches is that he actually answers questions, whereas a number of his contemporaries will not. “You get a genuine response and a feeling he maybe hasn’t prepared the answer,” she said.
Conversely, that can also be what makes Trump’s events uncomfortable at times. She went on, “There’s obviously a more combative relationship with the press and at some times, his speech can take on the feeling of a show and you’re getting no details.”
You can tell a lot from what people are wearing, and at this event, it’s a mixed bag. You see women in suits and heels next to people in jeans, and men with fresh cuts next to women in second-day ponytails. I saw a woman in a denim skirt and sneakers today. It’s always hard to discern whether someone is dressed down due to inexperience, or due to so much experience that they’re now jaded about the whole thing. It’s safest to pick a plain dress and pack a cardigan, or wear some black pants and a nice shirt.
The jadedness doesn’t just come out in clothing choices, of course. Plenty of the press have personal opinions on the Trump phenomenon that don’t make it into their impartial reports, though there are occasionally audible groans as the reports are being written in real time.
When asked what the best part of a Trump event is, one NBC reporter hesitated before saying, “I don’t know that I have a favorite thing…” He looked around before adding, “I would probably say that it’s a spectacle.”
It was easier to identify a least favorite thing. He answered immediately that the worst part is not having any control or access at an event like this because the first ten rows are sectioned off and not for the correspondents. Add to that the very specific list of rules for the media and you start chipping away at the freedom of the press, in his opinion.
“The types of events that have more access are when candidates interact with the public. At a diner or a small business. Then you can see how real people interact. Rather than being in a convention hall or office.”
There is still a level of interaction at something this structured, however. It happens after a candidate — especially Trump — says something interesting or shocking. These are not rallies, so there is little clapping or commotion, but the response to a particularly sound-bitey sentence is met with the immediate tap-tap-tapping of fingers on keyboards and the click-click-clicking of camera shutters. Beyond that, the press stays quiet and impartial, but the special guests at the front of the room cheer loudly. They can be ticket-holders, friends, family, and even plants, depending on who is speaking.
Today, the fans who joined the press in the relatively small conference room at the Trump Soho were vocal and eager to cheer, especially when the mogul disparaged Clinton, as he hinted he would be doing after she slammed him yesterday. They stood up out of their seats when he said he wanted to repeal Obamacare. Meanwhile, when Trump awkwardly said the word “Americans” four times in a row for no reason, a smattering of reporters laughed out loud.
Moreover, the interaction between the members of the press is its own phenomenon. After attending election events repeatedly for months, there is a sense of familiarity and friendship among those who are still competing to churn out the best story on the topic at hand. There are handshakes and hugs that vary in their levels of frenemy-esque fakeness, and compliments yelled across the room ahead of the action that are as authentic as any you’d hear in an office.
Ultimately, the lion’s share of the most interesting things happen prior to the campaigning. Networking, friend-making, calculated ignoring, general joking, and communal coping are a part of what makes being in a press section so much fun. Well, all of that and the fact that everyone in the room has a deep interest in current events, and while some people might find spending a few hours sitting in a chair and using agonizingly slow Wi-Fi just to watch a 35-minute speech boring, journalists choose to do it.
As Gambino put it, “You sort of have a front-row seat to history and that sounds lame and cheesy but it’s true. You are watching the craziest election in modern history.”
Here are larger versions of the photos in this story, plus a few bonus shots:
The new New York Timesprofile on Tom Colicchio reads like one long, bad-ass resume of all the charities and causes he’s supported in his 20-plus year career. Colicchio here to save your food!
The New York Times focuses on his power to get. shit. done while building a storied career in New York City. Says just about everyone about Colicchio, the man knows what he’s doing:
Though the field is crowded with colleagues and competitors — Mario Batali, for one, has taken on fracking as an issue — Mr. Colicchio’s advocacy work is arguably unmatched in both stridency and scope. “There are a lot of chefs who understand that food has been good to them and, because of that, believe that everyone should have access to good food,” said Margarette Purvis, president of the Food Bank for New York City, the largest local anti-hunger group. “But Tom has stepped it up to the next level. He’s not only knowledgeable, he’s incredibly committed. And he’s really down there fighting in the trenches.”
And he recognizes that his work in fighting for food stems from his celebrity status. But among the profile (the whole thing is worth a read), Colicchio really advocates for putting our money where our mouths are — in votes. From the profile:
“As soon as one legislator loses their job over how they vote on food issues, we’re going to send a clear message to Congress that we’re organized and we’re viable and strong,” he said. “We’re going to make clear that, yes, we do have a food movement — and that it’s coming for you.”
Oh, and the quote that solidifies our love for him:
“There are two things you don’t want to see made — sausages and laws,” he said. “And having seen both, I can tell you, I’ll take the sausage.”
5 Rabbit Cervecceria, a Latino-owned brewery outside Chicago, will no longer produce beer for Trump Tower‘s Rebar, following the Republican presidential candidate’s racist remarks about Mexicans, but it did find a way to expand on its relationship with The Donald that won’t be lost in translation.
Wow. Just wow. Leave it to Glenn Beck to make Donald Trump look pretty good. On his radio program this week, he made fun of Trump’s skin tone, saying that he looks like an “orange raccoon.” He hypothesized that if you cover your face in Cheeto dust, your coloring will match Trump’s. He and three other people thought it would be a good idea to test the theory with three different flavors of Cheetos, including the “flaming hot” flavor. And today, on his broadcast, exactly that happened.
Yep, four human beings actually did this, right here on planet Earth, and it was on the radio for everyone to hear, and it’s now on YouTube for all of us to watch:
When you’re on the campaign trail, everything you do is scrutinized, even what you eat and how you eat it. It’s never been more true than in this election. The whole world watched as John Kasich aggressively ate his way through New York and chided Donald Trump when he used a Cinco de Mayo taco bowl to show how much he loves Hispanic people. But Kasich’s eating couldn’t have possibly cost him the election, right? If that were possible, Ted Cruz would have gotten the nomination- he crushed the pizza primary.
Dan Pashman explored the topic of eating on the campaign trail on this week’s episode of his podcast The Sporkful, and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee isn’t sure that food can’t play a huge role in politics. He believes it changed the 1976 election. Gerald Ford was running against Jimmy Carter, and on a stop in Texas, Ford had to eat a tamale. He took a bite, but he didn’t take the shuck off. Huckabee recalls, “every newscast in Texas all weekend long, all they did was show Gerald Ford not knowing how to eat a tamale. To this day, I am convinced that it was that gaffe with the tamale that cost him the state of Texas. Carter won Texas, and Carter won the presidency, and it may have been a tamale that did it.”
He didn’t have to eat a tamale though, did he? Wrong. Candidates have staff that plans every detail of every public meal that happens on the campaign trail. Where are you going? Who works there? What are you supposed to order? All of it matters. How you talk about food matters, too. When Mitt Romney went to Mississippi, he accidentally called cheese grits “cheesy grits.” Of course, this makes it look like he’s not down to earth, something he was fighting anyway. One of Pashman’s guests, Josh King, a former white house aide said “they generally are damaging when they play into preconceived notions people already have about the candidate.”
The right thing to eat changes wherever you are. Sometimes, you’re expected to eat the local specialty. Other times, you have to eat a little bit of everything, which actually sounds fun. The one food everyone agrees you should never eat? A corn dog. We understand why.
Interestingly, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both don’t eat much in front of the press. Maybe they’re onto something.
When was the last time you saw an ad for Donald Trump on television? What about Jill Stein? They’re both running for President, you know. Here at Mediaite, we watch a lot of TV. There are monitors all over the office. A quick poll revealed that none of us have seen a Stein commercial. Another quick poll revealed none of us have seen a Trump commercial, though LawNewz‘s Ronn Blitzer did observe that “all of TV is a Donald Trump commercial.”
Anyway, Stein, the nominee of the Green party, is spending more than Republican nominee Trump on those commercials that don’t exist. (That’s especially silly when you remember how Trump was being overcharged for commercials in some states in March.)
She’s spent $189,000 more than Trump…because he’s spent $0 on television commercials, says the Washington Post. They went on to say that Trump’s decision not to place television ads is perplexing:
[W]aiting only makes the problem worse. The longer the Trump campaign waits to reserve ad time, the less ad time exists to buy and the more ads cost. During a presidential general-election year, candidates are competing with each other for ad space, but also with people running for the Senate, the House and local office. If you want to buy ads on local news in Pennsylvania, for example, you’re competing with a lot of other campaigns for those 30 seconds. To the glee of station owners, that helps drive up prices.
Some super PACs supporting Trump have spent about $8 million on television ad buys, but that’s nothing compared to what Hillary Clinton‘s super PACs are spending. Again, that’s nothing compared to what Stein is spending, either.
What do you think Trump is waiting for here?
(WaPo says that’s a “question that defies a logical answer,” so there’s that.)
Donald Trump is still all in on his “the election is rigged” talk. The Sunday shows this morning were full of discussions about whether this is responsible talk and anchors confronting Trump surrogates about this lashing-out.
Some, like Mike Pence, have said they’ll accept the results of the election. Others, like Rudy Giuliani, have insisted voter fraud is a serious issue.
Trump was clearly monitoring the media coverage (and maybe saw the part where Pence said they would “respect the outcome of this election”) and tweeted this out this afternoon:
The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD
With GOP presidential nominee Donald Trumpramming home the message that November’s election will be rigged against him by both the media and political establishments, cable news reporters and pundits have been discussing how dangerous this level of rhetoric is.
During a discussion with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell and Kristin Welker earlier today, Katy Tur said that regardless of what running mate Mike Penceis saying about the electoral process being fair and the Trump campaign accepting the results, Trump himself is sending a very different message.
“Governor Pence may say that the campaign will absolutely accept the outcome of the election,” Tur told Mitchell. “But that’s a lot different than saying every day on Twitter that the election is rigged, and saying it at campaign rallies which is what Donald Trump is doing.”
“He’s making it very clear that nothing — no outcome other than him winning is going to be acceptable to him,” Tur added.
Meanwhile, Trump changed his tune a little bit when a favorable round of polls in Ohio showed him up in the Buckeye State today.
Wow, new polls just came out from @CNN Great numbers, especially after total media hit job. Leading Ohio 48 – 44.
In spite of Donald Trump‘s claims he doesn’t know Vladimir Putin and Russia’s claims that they’ve had nothing to do with recent hacks of emails to and from leading Democrats, many pundits, politicians, journalists, and everyday observers have become more and more convinced of Russia’s involvement in the current American presidential election. (This could be because Trump himself once publicly invited Russian hackers to try to locate Hillary Clinton‘s deleted emails.)
Now, Eric Tucker of the AP has tweeted this:
(AP) — Oklahoma and 2 other states say they’ve denied a request by Russian officials to be present at polling stations during the election.
Trump has called for his supporters to vigilantly monitor polling places on November 8 to be sure that no voter fraud takes place. What he has called for is largely considered to be voter intimidation, which is illegal.
If what Tucker is reporting is true, then Russian officials are trying to heed the call and provide a presence at the polling places. For the most part, this has Twitter users shaken up.
Further details on the offers from these officials and rejections from states are forthcoming.
UPDATE — 12:30 p.m. EST:
Citing the AP, CBS News has revealed that the other two states who were approached with the offer and subsequently denied it were Texas and Louisiana. From that report:
An official with Russia’s consulate general in Houston sent a letter to Oklahoma Secretary of State Chris Benge last month seeking to have one of its officers present to study the “US experience in organization of voting process.”
But Benge denied the request, noting Oklahoma law prohibits anyone except election officials and voters from being present while voting is taking place.
Here is the report from our sister site, LawNewz, too.
Per the article, a former FBI official said that the intelligence statement from earlier this month claiming Russian was meddling in the election didn’t have the FBI’s name on it due to Comey’s concerns.
FBI Director James Comey argued privately that it was too close to Election Day for the United States government to name Russia as meddling in the U.S. election and ultimately ensured that the FBI’s name was not on the document that the U.S. government put out, a former FBI official tells CNBC.
The official said some government insiders are perplexed as to why Comey would have election timing concerns with the Russian disclosure but not with the Huma Abedin email discovery disclosure he made Friday.
In the end, the Department of Homeland Security and The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued the statement on Oct. 7, saying “The U.S. intelligence community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations…These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”
Per CNBC, a spokesperson for the FBi declined to comment on the story.
Have you not voted yet? Are you sort of kicking around the idea that maybe you’re too tired or too busy or too far from your polling place? Do you have a pretty solid idea of what color your state will turn tonight and believe your vote is irrelevant so you might just sit this one out?
Meet Sosha Adelstein. She was giving birth on Friday night when she stopped at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s Office to drop off her ballot, according to Colorado ABC affiliate KTRK.
In the video above, which shows Adelstein bonding with her new baby Bella Rose, the first-time mom says, “We ran over there and kind of made it just in time!”
Listen up: If she can do it, you can do it. Go vote.
A local California candidate was trying to get his name off the ballot for months, and this week he ended up winning the race he wanted out of. Matt Taylor decided to run for the Board of Education in August, but literally the day he filed the papers he changed his mind and attempted to take his name off the ballot.
The rhetoric between GOP Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Senator Marco Rubio took another turn this week, with the latter telling NPR Monday that Trump’s campaign is, “his freak show”.
Two candidates for a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives will determine the outcome of a heated election by drawing straws.
If you’ve been watching MSNBC lately, you might have noticed a call to submit your “election confessions” to 
Have you ever wondered what the press pen is like at a big campaign event? Maybe you’ve been to a rally or speech as a member of the public, and maybe you’ve even been to a protest, or something more unconventional, but being in the press area is an entirely different beast altogether.
The new New York Times 
When was the last time you saw an ad for Donald Trump on television? What about Jill Stein? They’re both running for President, you know. Here at Mediaite, we watch a lot of TV. There are monitors all over the office. A quick poll revealed that none of us have seen a Stein commercial. Another quick poll revealed none of us have seen a Trump commercial, though LawNewz‘s Ronn Blitzer did observe that “all of TV is a Donald Trump commercial.”
With GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump 
In spite of Donald Trump‘s claims he doesn’t know Vladimir Putin and Russia’s 
Well, in light of recent developments, this seems a bit ironic.
