Did the Oz/Fetterman debate change any minds?
That question interests me as part of my general interest in the phenomenon of political mind-changing.
Commenter “Brian E” agreed with the following Althouse quote:
Will anyone switch their vote from Fetterman to Oz because Fetterman struggled to speak in the debate last night?
I think not. What’s overwhelmingly important is which party gets the majority in the Senate, and every single Senate race could be the one that shifts the power one way or the other. All Fetterman needed to do was not seem dangerously incompetent, and he crossed that low bar. The rest is chitter-chatter. Good night!
Well, my chitter-chatter consists of disagreeing with what Althouse wrote – although I’m not sure she literally meant that no one would change his or her vote as a result of the debate. Of course some people will switch their votes. There are plenty of Independents who aren’t really affiliated with one party or other, and/or are low information voters who simply didn’t realize how handicapped Fetterman is but who saw it during the debate.
No loyal Democrat will switch, of course. They realize that a Fetterman victory could help the Democrats retain the Senate. The real question is whether there are enough Independents who will switch, enough to make a difference in the outcome. That is unknown, and it really depends on how close the race is at the moment.
The other huge question is, of course, whether the Democrats will be able to pull a significant enough amount of fraud to overcome any margin Oz might gain. It is highly important for them to win this race and I believe they will pull out all the stops to do so.
Here’s a post I just noticed on reactions to the debate. It quotes one vote-changer who fits the profile of the sort of Independent I’m referring to:
Independent Pennsylvania voter: Before the debate “I was definitely leaning towards Fetterman, and I think I have totally changed to the Oz side.” pic.twitter.com/rgkMJSlyzP
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 26, 2022
Where there’s one, there are more. But how many more?
And, as Jeff Goldstein writes:
In fact, Fetterman, like Biden before him, is useful precisely because he’s a mere vessel for an agenda, something that those with the capacity for independent and coherent thought — along with what remains of free will — can often problematize.
The problem is, most people aren’t voting for Fetterman or for Oz, they are voting to ‘save puppies” or “cheap gas.” That is, the candidates are really proxies for ‘issues’ to vote on.
Some votes may change. I can’t imagine too many straight line changes. And, I am not sure if this helps or hurts Shapiro (the (D) Gov candidate). It may help, because if Fetterman WINS the new Gov may very well get to choose a replacement (I think if Shapiro wins, it is very likely, and possibly to Fetterman’s wife? Unless Biden is really that out of it … which is hard to assess, tbh).
Or it may help Mastriano if it drive (R) turnout? As in, “Holy, Carp! We can’t let this person win! Get out! Vote! Vote! Vote!!!!!”
I don’t think this is analysis that the (D) wanted to have today, esp. Shapiro (or Mastriano for that matter, though he has been a bit behind, so he maybe looking to Oz’s coattails? Hmm.)
Did the Oz/Fetterman debate change any minds?
Few if any I’d say. I believe it was Art Deco who made the point a few posts back that voting/politics has become more of an expression of identity than anything else. Impossible to prove, but that certainly feels right to me.
I could go off on a rant about how this is the inevitable consequence of the dumbing down of education for the last 50 years, and is likely intentional, but then I’d sound like a crank.
“he’s a mere vessel for an agenda”
“The only thing that matters is whether he’s able to say “yeah” or “nay” as the party dictates.”
Absolutely true for both Biden & Fetterman and a host of the Congressional Black Caucus who routinely say abjectly ridiculous things but will never lose their seats save death or a “bitch set me up” scenario. Party-line votes among the D-side of the aisle is mostly assured so set up ol’ Bernie the corpse in his seat & move his finger to the proper button…& Bob’s your uncle.
The real problem for the rest of us is that when these folks are elected (and I still figure it’s a coin toss for Fetterman despite the polling…or odd changer here & there…I’m thinking mega-fraud) the Useless Wing of the UniParty will shrug tut-tut their way through the “loss” & welcome the fraudulent, incompetent & criminal with open arms. It’s Romney, Graham, McConnell, Collins, Murkowski et al that need to be swept away should there be some sort of red tsunami & a re-taking of the White House.
Mike Plaiss:
It’s an expression of identity for those who identify as a member of a party. In Pennsylvania, I’ve found various figures for the breakdown of party affiliation for voters. But the gist of it as that there are something like 6% more people registered as Democrats, but there are at least 10% people unaffiliated.
Romney, Graham, McConnell, Collins, Murkowski
1. Susan Collins is the person in the tail of the bell curve. The bell curve’s a tad flatter for Republicans than for Democrats, so you have a larger range of opinion. Her actual voting record is about equidistant between the medians of the two party caucuses. There have been three Republicans who have represented Maine in the U.S. Senate since 1972. She isn’t appreciably worse than Olympia Snowe and arguably more accommodating to the main body of the Republican caucus than was William Cohen. The annoying thing about her is that she’s been on the payroll of the United States Congress for 37 years and on other public payrolls during the years she was neither a member of Congress or legislative aide. (She had a brief tour as an administrator at a private college, but has otherwise worked for the government since age 23).
2. Graham is a minor irritant, bad on certain issues.
3. Murkowski is a legacy pol, off the reservation more than anyone in the caucus other than Collins, and willing to sink other Republicans.
4. Romney’s whole tour in Congress makes no sense except as an exercise in spite.
5. McConnell’s tenure has coincided with the decay of the Republican Senate caucus into a donations collecting machine.
Three of these characters are not like the other two.
News reports out today are saying that 50% of all the votes in PA have already been cast via early voting.
According to reports Fetterman was deliberately not making many appearances–he was hiding out–and what if you got your news from and believed the MSM, which was deliberately covering up Fetterman’s profound disability, and his obvious inability to do the job of being a U.S. Senator, telling you that Fetterman was really OK?
So. you voted for him in early balloting, and, then, you where aghast when you saw his performance last night, and you realized that you had been deliberately duped, been sold a load of horse shit.
Moreover, there could also be other reasons you should not to be able to vote except on election day.
Say, perhaps the candidate you voted for in early elections dies before election day, or they made a statement before election day that was so outrageous as to cause you to decide not to vote for him, or that some other heretofore unknown disqualifying factor comes to light just before the actual day of election?
All these provide fantastic arguments against such early voting.
I think another reason to believe that Fetterman’s debate performance was damaging are the efforts the media are making to convince people otherwise.
there are something like 6% more people registered as Democrats, but there are at least 10% people unaffiliated.
So you’re telling me there’s a chance…
I can get behind that.
I watched a small focus group (8) of undecided Pennsylvania voters this morning on Fox. They wert typical Low Info Voters. LIVs) Six of the eight had decided to vote for OZ as opposed to Fetterman. One was still unsure, and one was going to vote for Fetterman. So, it did change a few minds. Assuming these people weren’t lying.
as night follows day
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-acting-pa-secretary-of-state-warns-of-delays-in-counting-midterm-votes
Neo said:
“The other huge question is, of course, whether the Democrats will be able to pull a significant enough amount of fraud to overcome any margin Oz might gain. It is highly important for them to win this race and I believe they will pull out all the stops to do so.”
_______________________________________________________________
This question isn’t the one that Neo asked in her post’s title, but it’s the question that most interests me. I’m afraid that this election is going to be a train wreck of blatant fraud, and I can’t look away. Much of the fraud, such as truck loads of ballot harvesting, has probably already taken place. More trucks probably stand at the ready, to be used as the vote counting proceeds.
If the Democrats can elect someone with such obvious cognitive problems as this sad stroke victim, what can’t they do? How can Republicans even respond? Elections have become a farce. Will protests turn violent?
The January 6th debacle demonstrated that Democrats desperately want a violent protest. That will give them an excuse to impose widespread authoritarian measures. Anyway, I understand that this is close to tinfoil hat territory, but there’s a part of me that’s fascinated with this unfolding disaster. I feel like I’m watching a premortem for the republic.
Snow on Pine: “All these provide fantastic arguments against such early voting.”
Agreed.
And I’d go primitive: No absentee ballots except for military and diplomats serving overseas. Otherwise, all voting is at the polls on election day. If you’re going to be on the road, tough. If you’re disabled or in a nursing home, tough.
The mania to have as many people as possible voting is just that: a mania. Accordingly, we shouldn’t bend over backwards to make the process so trivial that even the most uninformed, uninvolved mopes stir themselves to vote. For example, registration should cut off at least a month before election day, instead of the fraud-friendly opportunity of registering even **on** election day.
As for the sacrament that “everyone’s vote is important” (aside from the obvious numerical consequences), Kevin Williamson provided some perspective in 2014:
“As a procedure for sorting out complex policy issues, voting is of distinctly limited value: If you wanted to know whether the compressive strength of a particular material were sufficient to support a bridge over Interstate 20, you would not go about solving that problem by bundling that question with 10,000 other equally precise and complex but largely unrelated questions, presenting the bundle of questions to the least-informed few million people you could identify, and then proceeding with whatever solution 50 percent +1 of them preferred. That would be a bad way to build a bridge — a homicidal way, in fact — and though it is a necessary instrument of accountability in a democratic republic, voting properly plays a very limited role. For instance, we have a Bill of Rights, which could with equal accuracy be called the List of Stuff You Idiots Can’t Be Trusted To Vote On.”
Churchill didn’t actually say it, but it’s Churchill-like wisdom: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter.”
If every independent voter casts their vote for Oz, it’s not going to matter. The dems simply cannot afford to lose and so, the amount of votes needed for Fetterman’s ‘victory’ will be found.
When all the money is on the table, cheaters don’t suddenly stop cheating.
According to the polls Oz has tightened the race, most noticeably in recent weeks, against Fetterman. RCP has Oz within 1.3 points of Fetterman which I would assume is within the margin of error:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/pa/pennsylvania_senate_oz_vs_fetterman-7695.html
According to Powerline the betting odds immediately flipped strongly for Oz and against Fetterman after the debate.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/10/debate-follies.php
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1585075291143442432
Fetterman’s lead has been steadily eroding. Whether it will be enough to beat him plus fraud, I don’t know, but it is clear moderates and independents can change their minds in large enough numbers to move the needle.
I can’t imagine the debate nets to favor Fetterman.
So, Althouse’s question and answer strike me as near-stupid unless the contest is to be More-Cynical-Than-Thou.
“Three of these characters are not like the other two.”
Distinction without much difference.
These devils we know…and they ought to go.
Most of these arguments imply that Democrat voters are machine voters – that is, they pull the lever for Democrats without first considering issues.
And yet, this election is being promulgated as a referendum on the Woke Agenda, with polling evidence suggesting that there is unrest across the political spectrum, with the Democratic Party Platform being badly out of touch on crime, on secure borders, on the economy, on the Ukraine war, on children being cut up for gender re-assignment.
Well? Is it, or isn’t it? Doesn’t it seem logical that a Democrat voter that is upset with gas prices, with Woke studies, with inflation, with diesel and heating oil shortages, with felons being released and no-cash bail and Drag Queen story hour being shoved down their throat – is this the voter that’s going to pull the lever for Fetterman?
Or is this voter more likely to question how this hulk, with Fester’s good looks and Lurch’s personality, who can’t string words into a sentence, is going to be anything more than more of what is wrong, with even less accountability? Or, do they want someone that is tuned into what they want, instead?
Hard to say, I guess. But the polls are predicting the electorate is upset with the status quo, and the Democratic Party is on the wrong side on almost every key swing issue. I don’t see that helping Fetterman’s cause. And he was a rotten candidate to begin with.
Was Sam Harris the tip of the iceberg when he said told us that idiots who listen to the experts are okay because they listen to the experts? So sad… to see so many Dems willing to reward a party lurching into fism.
I disagree with Althouse. Debates rarely change votes from one candidate to another, but they can push undecideds who were leaning one way to lean the other way, as the clip from the RNC showed. I think Fetterman’s disastrous performance will push a good amount of undecideds to Oz.
I agree wholeheartedly with Goldstein. Fetterman’s limited capacity is a feature not a bug for progressive activists and bureaucrats. Like Biden, he is an empty vessel, who will do what he is told but present as moderate and blue collar friendly.
Fraud will be abundant in Philadelphia especially in two weeks, I’m sure. Will it be enough to drag Fetterman across the finish line? Perhaps. But one thing is for certain: if Oz wins clearly, but narrowly, there will be a cacophony of demands for recount and cries of racist suppression of black votes. If Fetterman wins, even by one vote, it will be declared the freest and fairest election ever and anyone who hints otherwise will be deemed an Ultra MAGA racist purveyor of misinformation.
I gave my opinion over at Althouse earlier. I don’t think the debate really changed minds but watching Fetterman was likely demotivational. That could be enough to cause Democrats not to get out and vote for him. The other aspect is his campaign hid this at the primary. Imagine you voted for someone else during the primary, and now you are faced with voting for Fetterman. Doubtful that’s a lot of votes, but with a race now within the margin of error, the debate won’t help Fetterman. There are though many people who ignore politics until they feel compelled to do so at election time. They may tune in to that debate and make up their mind. We don’t think about them, because most of us that read a blog like this follow politics daily. Not everyone cares about politics, but they do care about voting. Whatever the outcome, I’m not counting on PA for a Republican majority.
Leland:
Strange.
Your conclusion is the debate really didn’t change minds, then you list several ways the debate likely changed minds.
“Did the Oz-Fetterman debate change any minds” is a classic “Motte-and-Bailey” fallacy:
__________________________
The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the “motte”) and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the “bailey”).[1] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
__________________________
Althouse argues the controversial position — “the debate didn’t change any minds” — but conflates it with the easy position — “the debate doesn’t guarantee Fetterman will lose.”
These days much political discussion works this way.
“That could be enough to cause Democrats not to get out and vote for him.”—
Or precisely the opposite.
+ (Related) bonus!
“Democrat blows whistle on alleged ballot harvesting scheme, Florida opens criminal probe;
“Former candidate for Orange County commissioner describes widespread vote trafficking operation in Orlando area, authorities see enough evidence to warrant criminal probe.”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/florida-opens-criminal-probe-democrat-whistleblowers-evidence-ballot
File under: Hmmm.
Meanwhile (in the “Hey! Let’s Irritate Merrick Garland Just a Bit More—It’ll Surely Work This Time” sweepstakes):
Grassley, Johnson share Hunter Biden’s China-linked bank records with US attorney leading criminal probe
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson are probing Hunter Biden’s ties to Chinese businesses
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-grassley-johnson-give-us-attorney-hundreds-of-bank-records-belonging-to-presidents-son
Aggie I agree with you, only proof will be Fetterman wins its the Democrat machine voters or fraud wins out
Few of us know all we need to know, or should know, about every candidate we’ll see on the ballot.
But a person running as, say, a democrat can be presumed to be okay with the democrats’ world view, objectives, and tactics. If the voter likes those, he may well vote for the candidate as having been, in a sense, vetted. He’s okay. He believes all the stuff the voter believes, by virtue of being a democrat.
A republican may choose to vote against based on the same argument; the guy likes the democrats’ …..stuff. Can’t hardly vote for that.
May we presume any politician has to hold his nose about some things, which ever party he’s in? Just that it would be worse with the other.
Is that a proper way to choose one’s vote in the absence of anything else?
Huxley, it likely didn’t flip votes. +1 to -1, but it likely moved votes like +1 to 0 or 0 to -1. I think many people are focused on flipping, which I agree isn’t that many. But decided or moved votes, I think there is many more. I see the error in the previous post was putting some of the +1 to 0 in the not as many. +1 being for Fetterman, since it the discussion is mostly about him.
It is sort of like the rainy Election Day discussions, which party’s voters will stay home because of weather. Weather doesn’t flip votes, but it will affect outcome.
I think loyal Democrats will pull the lever for Fetterman because it is a win/win situation for them. If he wins, Fetterman will vote exactly as his wife tells him (like Biden is controlled by Dr. Jill) and if he can no longer function he can resign and the Democratic Governor will appoint another Democrat.
Distinction without much difference.
Lindsay Graham has a starboard voting record, has no interest in participating in the Democratic Party’s ludicrous and vicious publicity stunts, but is wrong on certain issues. Susan Collins disagrees on a lot of policy questions, but disagrees with the opposition as well; she isn’t vain or exhibitionistic, isn’t trying to sabotage other Republicans, and generally does not give succor to the Democrats’ worst instincts (her vote on the 2d shampeachment excepted).
Lisa Murkowski is almost as much a problem for party whips as Collins, but adds some unsightly frills, such as her recent efforts to promote the election of a Democrat to the House and her hostility to Judge Kavanaugh. Unlike Susan Collins, there are ready alternatives to this woman in Alaska.
There are ready alternatives to Romney and McConnell as well. Romney does as much damage as he can manage. McConnell is a distillation of all that is wrong with the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.
There is no point in attacking Graham or Collins. Unloading Romney and Murkowski will be beneficial. Unloading McConnell tres beneficial.
Will any of Pennsylvania’s dead (including the honored ones) switch their votes?
Not a chance!
Half of PA’s ballots were already cast prior to the debate.
Early voting.
Its an abomination.