Blog Archives - David Bruce Collins—the Official Site

David Bruce Collins—the Official Site

Giant Meteor

30/6/2016

What do you think? Does this question outdo PPP's question from a previous poll about whether Donald Trump or the Phillie Phanatic is more qualified to be US president?

Complete Public Policy Polling results from 29 June can be found here.

Addendum: I should give credit to MSNBC and The Rachel Maddow Show for breaking this story last night and alerting me to it today.

Quinnipiac's FOP Poll

24/6/2016

The Quinnipiackers actually call it the Swing State Poll, and it's a poll of the three most populous swing states: Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

This week's presidential numbers for a four-way race in those three states:

Florida - Clinton tops Trump 42 - 36 percent, with 7 percent for Libertarian Gary Johnson and 3 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein;
Ohio - Clinton at 38 percent, with Trump at 36 percent, Johnson at 8 percent and Stein at 3 percent;
Pennsylvania - Clinton at 39 percent to Trump's 36 percent, with 9 percent for Johnson and 4 percent for Stein.

Check out all the minute details here. Huzzah, Pennsylvania: 13% all ready to vote for minor-party candidates! Of course, about 12% of Keystoners either haven't made up their minds or prefer not to answer the question.

Green Key Values Updated

23/6/2016

I'm so psyched to have found this stuff. There is a central, publicly accessible repository for all the business conducted by the Green Party US National Committee, a group of just over 100 representatives from various states and party caucuses.

In Green circles recently, there has been no small amount of hullabaloo surrounding the Green Party National Committee's Proposal 835, amending the platform for adoption of language that opposes capitalism. Much of this hullabaloo ignores the additional language opposing state socialism. Below is the new language added to the platform's Chapter IV on Economic Justice and Sustainability.

The Green Party seeks to build an alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power, an alternative that rejects both the capitalist system that maintains private ownership over almost all production as well as the state-socialist system that assumes control over industries without democratic, local decision making. We believe the old models of capitalism (private ownership of production) and state socialism (state ownership of production) are not ecologically sound, socially just, or democratic and that both contain built-in structures that advance injustices.

Instead we will build an economy based on large-scale green public works, municipalization, and workplace and community democracy. Some call this decentralized system "ecological socialism," "communalism," or the "cooperative commonwealth," but whatever the terminology, we believe it will help end labor exploitation, environmental exploitation, and racial, gender, and wealth inequality and bring about economic and social justice due to the positive effects of democratic decision making.

Production is best for people and planet when democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by production decisions. This model of worker and community empowerment will ensure that decisions that greatly affect our lives are made in the interests of our communities, not at the whim of centralized power structures of state administrators or of capitalist CEOs and distant boards of directors. Small, democratically run enterprises, when embedded in and accountable to our communities, will make more ecologically sound decisions in materials sourcing, waste disposal, recycling, reuse, and more. Democratic, diverse ownership of production would decentralize power in the workplace, which would in turn decentralize economic power more broadly.

CNN/ORC Has Stein at 7% (but There's More to It)

21/6/2016

The big story for Jill Stein's supporters is that this week's presidential preference poll from CNN shows Stein at 7% overall, with Gary Johnson at 9%. Yes, that's an increase over Stein's poll numbers from last week and the week before. To me, the story behind the story is more worth watching.

That less obvious story lurks in the demographic breakdowns, as well as the question of preference among those who expressed a preference for Bernie Sanders. The Sanders crowd give Stein 18% support. Among respondents who count themselves "liberal," as opposed to "moderate" or "conservative," 13% would vote Stein if the election were held today.

Left for us to figure out are

why the ideological choices don't include such labels as "progressive," "socialist," "libertarian," or hell even "anarchist;" and
why CNN's article on the poll does not mention Johnson or Stein by name.

CNN's version of the big story is the two-way horse race between Trump and Clinton, with Clinton's lead and Trump's negatives growing weekly. It downplays or ignores the huge story: that an increasing percentage of voters doesn't want either of these two in the White House.

For sheer amusement value, nothing beats the 1% in certain demographic groups who answered, regardless of their own allegiances, that Jill Stein will win the election. I reckon that represents three Gen-X smartasses in the 35-49 group. However, if anyone is legitimately giving odds on Stein pulling out a victory, I'll put a fiver on it. I missed the chance to put a fiver on Leicester City, last August, and I could have turned that fiver into 25,000 bucks, pounds, or euros.

Oh look, here are the latest betting lines from the UK! Where Stein is actually listed, she is running anywhere from 100:1 (William Hill) to 500:1 (Ladbrokes). Others have her at 250:1. Maybe I'll punt twenty quid instead.

Eastern Daylight Now Available for Download

17/6/2016

They're probably not perfect, but they're available.

I have added PDF links to each chapter of Eastern Daylight. For the amazingly low price of nil, you can have your own printable copy of the entire novel. All seven chapters add up to just over 300 pages (5.5 x 8.5 inches), with double-spaces between paragraphs.

I left the body text in Arial for easier on-screen reading, but I'll probably generate some Times New Roman versions for easier reading in print.

Stein: Not Yet Official Nominee, but Who Will Catch Her?

15/6/2016

Dr. Jill Stein's campaign website announced today that Stein has secured enough delegate votes to win the Green Party's presidential nomination.

The article reminds us that the Green nomination will not be official until and unless the delegates confirm it in Houston on 6 August.

While your humble blogmeister is an un-shut-up-able supporter and promoter of Stein's candidacy, the introvert in him wishes that the campaign had waited longer to make the announcement. This is mainly because there are four other recognized candidates vying for the nomination, all of whom are good folks, and one of whom is not shy about her displeasure at how Stein has operated as the presumptive nominee all along.

Despite any grumbling that might come from other Green candidates and their supporters, none can deny that Stein has run a well organized race thus far. She has also greatly improved not only her overall message since 2012 (and even since 2015), as well as how she delivers that message. She has taken that message on numerous media appearances in various platforms just since January, including today's life Facebook interview with Huffington Post (not yet posted on the site).

Also, in a sense, the timing of the announcement is excellent, given Stein's recent 5% showing in national polls.

This Week's Monkey: Johnson at 9%, Stein 5%

14/6/2016

All the staff at dbcgreentx.net hope that your Flag Day has not sucked too awfully, considering the horrible news from Orlando that keeps revealing new wrinkles and the related revival of gun debates on Facebook.

Here are NBC/SurveyMonkey poll results released today. They are showing Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson polling at 9%, Green candidate Jill Stein at 5%, That 5% is a magical number for third-party campaigns, since 5% nationwide in the presidential race qualifies a party for federal funds in the next cycle.

The Libertarians have been drooling loudly over the prospect of reaching 15%, as Rachel Maddow has reported. That level in five reputable polls (whichever those are) gets your candidate past the gate-keepers at the Commission on Presidential Debates.

There is only the one question about preferences in a four-way race. But given only Clinton and Trump as voting choices, 20% choose "somebody else."

The figure for Stein represents an increase from the 4% showing last week. All the percentages are rounded, or course, so it may be a matter of jumping from 4.4% to 4.6%, with the usual margins of error thrown in.

New, Improved GPUS! Now with More Anti-Capitalism!

14/6/2016

David Cobb, Green nominee for president in 2004, shared the post above on Facebook.

This is incredibly exciting news in more ways than one. Personally, I cheer the Platform Committee for taking this risk.

The new language will appear in copies of the Green Party's 2016 platform that will be distributed to delegates and others when they convene in H-Town this August.

The decision to reject was not without controversy: Many established Greens objected to it for various reasons. The risk, from the beginning, was not only that mainstream America would accuse the Greens of pining for the good old days of Joe Stalin, but that GPUS might lose a fair number of its long-standing members over its new stance.

Among Millennials in particular, but by no means exclusively, "socialism" is no longer a dirty word. It is a rational alternative to an economic system that thrives on exploitation and puts millions in debt peonage.

I hope that you read and re-read the quote pictured above with an open mind. The platform also rejects state socialism, while embracing eco-socialism explicitly.

I also hope that you will read Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything, which illustrates how capitalism is incompatible with protecting the natural environment on which all life—human life included—depends. While the book is thoroughly researched and sourced, it is not such a scholarly work that readers will drown in polysyllables. But even environmentalists who think they've heard it all before may find their heads spinning at the depth and breadth of the climate crisis and the solutions that should have been imposed years ago.

Klein is not especially comfortable with state socialism either, but it may be the only way to rescue our world from climate catastrophe. The state won't budge, however, until the people get off their collective arse and make budging politically imperative.

Revolt Against Plutocracy: Sign the Pledge

13/6/2016

This quickie post is for my friends who voted for Senator Bernard Sanders in the Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses, and who do not believe former Senator Hillary Clinton is an acceptable choice in the general election.

Revolt Against Plutocracy (RAP) has called upon Sanders supporters to exercise a bit of leverage at the convention by showing the superdelegates not just the numbers, but the loyalty of those supporters. The group has set of a goal of one million names of voters who will vote for Jill Stein or a Sanders write-in campaign before they will vote for Clinton.

This is electoral politics at its most delicious in this most interesting election year. Major kudos to this group.

If superdelegates cannot see that Sanders is the better option for defeating Donald Trump and the Republicans, the party will lose what tenuous grip it has on progressives. I'm banking on the superdelegates responding with a show of fealty to Clinton, either as a direct rebuff or just ignoring RAP's petition. Why? Because they know on which side their proverbial bread is buttered and will "dance with her what brought them," as Saint Molly Ivins would put it.

Public Policy Polling Adds Johnson & Stein

9/6/2016

Here's the goods. This time, in Pennsylvania, Gary Johnson gets 6% and Jill Stein 3%.

I don't expect a huge amount of consistency among polls in different states, even neighboring states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But the polls we have seen thus far show a great degree of consistency on several questions:

Who does better against Trump: Clinton or Sanders?
How do the number in a two-way contest compare with a four-way?
How bell-shaped is the ideological curve of the respondents? (The bulk of respondents self-identify as Moderate, with fewer as Somewhat Liberal or Conservative, and even fewer as Very Liberal or Conservative. This is hard for a Libertarian to answer if those are all the choices.)

Stein's 3% is reduced to 1% in a four-way race with Sanders, Trump, and Johnson.

Here is the question on which all the media coverage should focus, however: