Hasta La Gadget!

This year’s political events aren’t helping most Americans feel confident about the election or the parties. The Libertarian Party ticket has a lot of political experience, but it probably won’t matter. And the best strategy for poll-watching over the summer and fall will be to look at the averages. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, May 31, 2016.

THE ELECTION IS CAUSING AMERICANS TO FEEL HOPELESS – Steve Peoples and Emily Swanson: “The divisive primary season has fueled an overall sense of pessimism about the political process that underscores a widening chasm between political parties and the voters they claim to represent. Just 12 percent of Republicans think the GOP is very responsive to ordinary voters, while 25 percent of Democrats say the same of their party. Among all Americans, the AP-NORC poll found that just 8 percent consider the Republican Party to be very or extremely responsive to what ordinary voters think. An additional 29 percent consider the GOP moderately responsive and 62 percent say it’s only slightly or not at all responsive. The Democratic Party fares only slightly better, with 14 percent saying the party is very or extremely responsive, 38 percent calling it moderately responsive, and 46 percent saying it’s only slightly or not at all responsive…Worse, 55 percent of Americans, including 60 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of Democrats, say they feel helpless about the 2016 election. And two-thirds of Americans under 30 report feeling helpless.” [AP]

Economic stress is adding to their pessimistic outlook– Kirby Goidel and Keith Gaddie: “[E]ven if Americans recognize that current economic conditions aren’t so bad, their economic anxieties have continued to grow. We increasingly worry about being able to cover the costs of medical bills, enjoy their current standard of living, having enough money for retirement, being able to pay rent, mortgage, or housing costs, and being able to make minimum payments on credit cards. And, we are ill-prepared to handle an economic emergency. In a recent survey, two-thirds of Americans said they would struggle to come up with a $1,000 to cover an emergency. Broadly speaking, current economic conditions have not reduced our economic anxieties. This means that positive assessments of current economic conditions are not necessarily translating into a more optimistic economic outlook.” [HuffPost]

Yet views of the parties are stable – Justin McCarthy: “Amid a contentious primary season, Americans’ favorable ratings of both the Democratic (44%) and Republican (36%) parties haven’t changed much from March of last year, before any of the presidential candidates announced their intentions to run….Republicans’ ratings of their own party remain near the 75% level seen since late 2013, while 28% of independents view the party favorably. Very few Democrats (7%) have a favorable view of the GOP…. Democrats rate their own party more positively than Republicans do — 89%… The Democratic Party also has higher favorability among independents (38%), whose ratings of the Republican Party are 10 percentage points lower. Only 9% of Republicans say they have a favorable view of the Democratic Party.” [Gallup]

FOUR BATTLEGROUND REGIONS WILL DETERMINE NOVEMBER’S OUTCOME – Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns, Trip Gabriel and Fernanda Santos: With Donald J. Trump pulling even or ahead of Hillary Clinton in a series of recent national polls, the once unthinkable has become at least plausible. But if he is to be elected the 45th president, he must compete on a political map that, for now, looks forbidding….At the outset of the general election, Mr. Trump has dominated the day-to-day political combat on national television and social media. In the general election, however, his fate will be determined not by his Twitter followers or a relatively homogeneous Republican electorate, but by a set of interlocking and increasingly diverse regions, home to some 90 million Americans, that hold many of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win…. And in the four regions likely to decide the presidency — Florida, the upper Southeast, the Rust Belt and the interior West — Mr. Trump faces daunting obstacles.” [NYT]

LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE GARY JOHNSON IS EXPERIENCED BUT FACES LONG ODDS – Kyle Kopko and Christopher Devine: “This past weekend, the Libertarian Party nominated the most politically experienced minor party presidential ticket in recent history. Its presidential nominee, Gary Johnson, served two terms as New Mexico’s governor…. Its vice presidential nominee, Bill Weld, served two terms as governor of Massachusetts….So is this the year that a minor party could win the White House? Don’t count on it….It’s true that 60 percent of the public said last fall that a ‘third party is needed‘ in U.S. politics – but a similar percentage of respondents said the same ahead of the 2008 and 2012 elections. And yet, in each of those years, minor party and independent candidates won less than 2 percent of the vote combined. Why? Political science research suggests that that gap between high theoretical support for a minor party and the relatively few votes actually cast for them can be attributed mainly to the U.S. presidential system’s structure, which makes it all but impossible for a minor party to win office.” [WashPost]

DISAGREEMENTS HIGHLIGHT NEED FOR POLLING AVERAGES –  Dan Balz: “In a political season marked by nonstop polling, a lively exchange took place recently about the state of public opinion research and what to believe about all of the numbers describing the state of the race. The context for the discussion was set by a series of national and state surveys showing Donald Trump gaining on or overtaking Hillary Clinton in the general-election campaign. It broadened into an examination how polls are produced and used in a competitive media environment.… Polls have played a significant role in this campaign. They’ve determined participation in the GOP debates and how the candidates were aligned on the stage, and they’ve driven a lot of coverage of the race…. So there is food for thought in this series of exchanges…. The methodology of all types of polls is under challenge. There is a serious and urgent debate underway among public opinion researchers about the way forward. For the rest of us… Don’t put too much emphasis on any single poll. Look closely at averages of groups of polls to determine whether there are real shifts in the race. And don’t expect polls to predict the future. Leave that question to the voters in November.” [WashPost]

The current state of the race isn’t confusing if you look at the averages – Paul Krugman: “What the polling experts keep telling us to do is rely on averages of polls rather than highlighting any one poll in particular. This does double duty: it prevents cherry-picking, and it also helps smooth out the random fluctuations that are an inherent part of polling, but can all too easily be mistaken for real movement….Polls can, of course, be wrong, and have been a number of times this cycle. But they’ve worked better than many people think. Most notably, Donald Trump’s rise didn’t defy the polls — on the contrary, he was solidly leading the polls by last September. Pundits who dismissed his chances were overruling what the surveys were trying to tell them….Here’s what you should know, but may not be hearing clearly in the political reporting: Mrs. Clinton is clearly ahead, both in general election polls and in Electoral College projections based on state polls.” [NYT]

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TUESDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ – Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-Christopher Hare and Robert Lupton look at the ideological divides between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. [WashPost]

-Rob Lever argues for the importance of big data in the 2016 election. [Times of Israel]

-Steven Shepard highlights the differences between two polls that show very different snapshots of the California Democratic primary. [Politico]

-Mike Dorning thinks President Obama’s approval rating is a better measure of the 2016 race than general election polls. [Chicago Tribune]

-Tobias Konitzer and David Rothschild find that Americans’ policy preferences align better with the Democratic Party. [WashPost]

-An experiment finds that progress bars are the most effective when placed at the bottom of a survey. [SurveyMonkey]  

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

I’m thinking about vacations because we’re on one right now, and what I think is that just as everyone has their own ideal marriage, everyone has their own ideal vacation. But in case you haven’t planned your vacation yet, I’ll give you some of the options.

The extremely noisy vacation: This is for those of yu who have kids and don’t want to take care of them over the vacation. My friend Tracy is thinking of taking her kids on a Disney vacation to Hawaii. Whether you go to a Disney resort or on a Disney cruise, you can guarantee lots of kids. As a parent, you get to turn the little darlings over to someone else and stagger to the pool where you can read, rest or drink but not too much because your adorable offspring will be returned to you. You should assume everyone on a Disney trip is going to be a parent so you can meet other parents and talk to them about your kids and their kids and other people’s kids who are not as well brought up as yours and theirs.

The drinking vacation: Hopefully with no kids involved, you can do this almost anywhere. A few years ago my hairdresser announced that she was going to Cancun for vacation, but she came back disappointed. What went wrong? I wanted to know. She had hoped to spend her time at the hotel pool lounging and being brought drinks. And what happened? Well, she did spend her vacation there, but what she hadn’t expected was that there were a lot of Mexicans. I tried not to laugh as I explained that situation is something you could expect to encounter in Mexico. But what really amazed me was that she had gone to Mexico at all. If what you want to do is lounge by a pool and drink, you don’t need to go to Puerto Vallarta or Cancun, Waikiki or the Bellagio. Find the nearest nice hotel and check in and call it a vacation. Sure, it’s embarrassing to admit you spent a week at the Marriott in Redlands, but in fact, you’ve had the same experience and without the expense of a plane ride.

The gambling vacation: I’m going to recommend Vegas. Everyone talks about how sickening the new Vegas is, and I have to agree, it is a nauseating mess of overstuffed hotels, but, it’s very American. They have all the gambling you can wish for in the dim cool rooms, and if you’re like me, and don’t care about gambling, it’s still fun. In summer, there is nothing like checking into the Bellagio and walking by the chocolate fountain on your way over to the French restaurant at Paris, Paris where you can see the Bellagio fountains and imagine you’re in Oceans Eleven. You could join George and Brad and plan the heist of a lifetime. And the pools in Vegas are the cotton candy of swimming pools, sheer over the top sugar fun. Of course, it’s not exactly relaxing because there are millions of people in the pool, but other than that, it’s just lovely.

Visiting family: Some people plan their whole vacation driving, flying or taking a bus to visit various relatives in different parts of the country. Given how limited vacation time is for most of us, this just seems plain silly, but I have gone for a weekend to Vegas or Colorado to see my Colorado relatives and we always had a good time. The key is to stay somewhere fun or do something different. We visited a zoo in Kansas with adopted family, and we always remember one lonely golden monkey stretching out his paws through the bars. In Colorado, we stayed at The Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for The Shining where the movie was on loop 24/7 in our room. If there’s one weird relative, and let’s face it, we all have one, remember, the other family members may think you are the strange relative.

Extreme sports: If you are a sports enthusiast, plan your vacation around that. My friend Gina has travelled with her husband to races in one continent after another. They go on vacation when he’s completed his race. So far Antarctica has been omitted, but who knows? I believe Australia is next. There’s spelunking, cliff diving, rock climbing, swimming the English channel, running marathons. Whatever your sport, you can plan a vacation around that.

Cruises: Those who don’t like cruises refer to them as for the overfed and nearly dead. But that’s not really fair. Sure, cruises do feed you far more than a normal human being needs, but you don’t have to eat it all. Specifically, cruises are good for people who want to write one check, step aboard and then not have to make any further decisions. Also, cruises enable you to see the world at a safe distance. Sure, you get off the boat, but not for long. On the island where we’re currently vacationing, you can always pick the cruise people out. They look cleaner than the rest of us; better dressed than they need to be; they travel in groups and tend to have fanny packs and talk to each other loudly. They all visit the same sites and go to the same shops. We are staying on a small Greek island for three weeks; they are leaving the boat for three hours. We are deciding on what to eat, where to swim, all those decisions are being made for them. They are herded around the island to the main sites and then taken back to the boat in water taxis. It has a certain restful quality if you think about it.

Fancy vacations: Whether you actually are the one in the neighborhood wearing fancy pants or whether you like to travel fancy when you get the chance, almost anyone can travel nicely if they want. It depends where you go. You might not be able to stay in a five star hotel in New York or San Francisco, but you might be able to in Bali. If what you really want is to feel like James Bond, travel somewhere that nice hotels are in your budget. That’s probably not going to be Europe. Our friends Mike and Karen love travelling to Asia and staying at high class hotels they could never afford in the U.S.

Staying local or seeing the world? Of course, a lot of that depends on how much money you have. During the years we were raising our kids, we took them camping because we couldn’t afford anything else. The decision of whether or not to travel often depends on who you are taking, finances and time.

Other choices to make on vacations: How to travel. The big question is do you want to take a tour bus or travel on your own? We never take tour buses because we don’t want someone talking to us all the time. To us, being on vacation means not having to be lectured. We take trains or ferries, rent cars, motorbikes or we walk. Do you want to eat out or eat in out? In our early years of vacations with our four kids, we got used to cooking to save money. We liked it. We don’t want to dress up and drag ourselves to some place for dinner every night.

Which brings me to our kind of vacation. The first day we were walking down the road here on Patmos to rent our motorbike it occurred to us that we didn’t know anyone else who would like our vacation besides our friend Adrianne. It’s too quiet for one thing. We arrived in Patmos by ferry, and about four in the morning, we got to the little house. We bought groceries at the small market and every night we make ourselves a little dinner. We ride the bike to beaches where I go for a swim, we take a walk at some point in the day, but most of the time, we listen to music, read and write. The first day here I read Yoko Ogawa’s book The Housekeeper and the Professor which is a quiet book about a quiet life in Japan, a life where all the best parts are behind you, and then maybe they aren’t.

The longer I’m in our friend’s house, which I call, “the house with the blue plates,” the more I can feel myself unraveling, in a good way. It’s the house with blue plates because it actually has blue plates but also because it holds blue sky on its happy plate. The tight knot that keeps me rolling at home, gradually comes undone and I can feel my neck and head relaxing. On the boat ride over, Mark kept rubbing the knots in my neck, trying to get me to relax and sleep. Here I sleep in the dry island air. One casement window holds the moon’s face each night. The same one eyed cat comes to visit each time we come to the island. We call her Godwin the Pirate. We were here when she was caring for a litter of kittens, and one of them, Baby Godwin, stays in the yard while we’re here enjoying the food and water.

You’re thinking all this sounds like we’re reaching some critical juncture. We may be too far in the zone. Can we come back out? Get revved up? Work like animals again when we get home? I’m sure we will. Our schedule when we return involves some heavy lifting. The fall schedule of books, the summer Annenberg events, trips to San Francisco,Portland, Seattle, Omaha, New York, DC, London, Brighton, Frankfurt. And that’s through October. But here, we’re in the zone. My eye has stopped twitching. The one eyed pirate cat stares at me with her one liquid eye.

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As parents, we all know they’re going to happen.

Meltdowns.

The red-faced, snot-covered, tear-smeared emotional overloads that happen to our children, causing them to temporarily malfunction and drive parents to want to hide in the closet with a bottle of anything alcoholic.

These tantrum/meltdown events occur every so often – and usually you’ll get a slight reprieve of days or even weeks in between episodes so that your sanity can return from hiatus.

But sometimes the meltdowns never seem to end. Sometimes your kid is just going through a phase where literally everything makes them scream, cry, whine, hit, throw, and hyperventilate. And I’m talking all day with maybe a half hour intermission between showtimes.

I just want to say that I know there are other parents out there experiencing this and I’d like to vent with you and for you.

When your normally sweet, functional child goes through this “phase” it honestly feels like it’s never going to end. You feel like you’re stuck in freak-out purgatory. At first you think to yourself – is this because I gave her too much sugar? Maybe she didn’t get enough sleep? Maybe she’s having a growth spurt or getting sick? Is this normal?

Then, as the “challenging” behavior continues on – even excellerating – you start thinking – is this because I was horrible to my parents? Is this because I used the handicap bathroom the other day not realizing there was an actual handicapped person waiting to use it? Is this because I said someone else’s child is a brat and now this is payback?

Nope, it’s none of those things. Those are just a bunch of other unfortunate and unrelated issues.

For whatever reason, as kids are growing, they go through times where losing a My Little Pony, a shoe falling off, or you not realizing they wanted to sit in the top part of the shopping cart not the basket part can send our little darlings into World War 3 preparations. And all a parent can do is think – why is this happening to me? Why does it have to be in public at this moment?

It all seems irrational but by now we know that young children are constantly experiencing sudden rushes of emotion that are hard to understand and control. Many adults suffer from this as well. It’s not like we’re perfect. It’s just that most of us have learned by getting older that screaming in the middle of the grocery store is usually considered rude and is ultimately counter-productive.

I know the lucky people who read this are going to have some amazing horror stories about kid meltdowns of their own to share. And you know what? Misery loves company – especially in the parenting world.

I can read and share any number of positive parenting quotes and even try and live up to those mantras on some days. But then, there are days when it all goes to hell. And we need people to commiserate with. I touched on this in my blog To the Mom in the Bathroom Stall Next to me: Thank you. It’s essential for parents to relate to one another so that they can know they’re not alone in their struggles.

I think my child is now emerging from this last week of trials. She’s back to her normal, mostly rational self. Whatever it was that had her so cranky and disagreeable has subsided.

The effects of growing pains in our children can be mysterious and maddening. It’s important to remember we were all that raging child once.

Meltdowns come and go – sometimes they visit us more often than not. They drain parents of patience, energy, and humor. Sometimes it feels like they’re going to last forever. But they won’t. Keep reminding yourself of that.

More from Michelle – The Art of Letting Your Children Make Mistakes

Originally a Vancouver Island native, Michelle now resides in California where she is an ex-corporate slave, writer, artist, mother, stepmother, & wife.

Join Michelle as she explores & stumbles through society, parenting, step-parenting, health, beauty, relationships & much more.

Catch more at The Pondering Nook and The Pondering Nook’s Facebook page.

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