The current (December 2, 2015) Quinnipiac poll:

December 2, 2015 - Bump For Trump As Carson Fades In Republican Race, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Clinton, Sanders Surge In Matchups With GOP Leaders
PDF format

Additional Trend Information

Eleven months before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump is the undisputed leader in the Republican field, as Dr. Ben Carson, in a virtual tie with Trump four weeks ago, drops to third place, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today.

On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton widens her lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to 60 - 30 percent, compared to 53 - 35 percent in a November 4 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has 2 percent, with 6 percent undecided.

Trump gets 27 percent of Republican voters today, with 17 percent for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, 16 percent each for Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and 5 percent for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. No other candidate tops 3 percent, with 8 percent undecided.

Last month, Trump had 24 percent, with 23 percent for Carson.

Among Republicans, 26 percent of voters say they "would definitely not support" Trump, with 21 percent who would not back Bush.

"It doesn't seem to matter what he says or who he offends, whether the facts are contested or the 'political correctness' is challenged, Donald Trump seems to be wearing Kevlar," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"Dr. Ben Carson, moving to center stage just one month ago, now needs some CPR. The Doctor sinks. The Donald soars. The GOP, 11 months from the election, has to be thinking, 'This could be the guy.'

"Secretary Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders have to be hoping Trump is the GOP's guy."

American voters shift to Clinton as the Democrat gains ground against Republicans:

47 - 41 percent over Trump, compared to 46 - 43 percent November 4;
Clinton at 45 percent to Rubio's 44 percent, compared to a 46 - 41 percent Rubio lead last month;
Clinton tops Cruz 47 - 42 percent, compared to Cruz at 46 percent to Clinton's 43 percent last month;
Clinton at 46 percent to Carson's 43 percent compared to Carson's 50 - 40 percent lead last month.

Sanders does just as well, or even better, against top Republicans:

Topping Trump 49 - 41 percent;
Getting 44 percent to Rubio's 43 percent;
Beating Cruz 49 - 39 percent;
Leading Carson 47 - 41 percent.

Clinton has a negative 44 - 51 percent favorability rating. Other favorability ratings are:

Negative 35 - 57 percent for Trump;
40 - 33 percent for Carson;
44 - 31 percent for Sanders;
37 - 28 percent for Rubio;
33 - 33 percent for Cruz.

American voters say 60 - 36 percent that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy. Trump is not honest and trustworthy, voters say 59 - 35 percent. Sanders gets the best honesty grades among top candidates, 59 - 28 percent, with Carson at 53 - 34 percent, Rubio at 49 - 33 percent and Cruz at 43 - 39 percent.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2307

More people polled as seeing Clinton as being "not honest and trustworthy" than did so for Trump.

Trump, and the Republicans, have spent diddly so far on reinforcing that message. I'd prefer taking my chances on them trying to convince Democrats to stay home, and Independents to vote for their lunatic platform, because the Democrats were running a wild eyed Socialist, rather than taking my chances on millions of people coming out and voting for someone they saw as "not honest and trustworthy".

*Seriously, when will a journalist do the research and present the list? I'd like to see the names of those winners.

I think we all agree that victory exists in opposition to failure. I'm going to argue that both Sanders and Clinton had victories. I think however that Sanders won the most meaningful one.

Secretary Clinton was victorious in looking poised, prepared, and professional. She showed that all the negative attention she's been getting hasn't diminished her likability among Democrats.

Senator Sanders for the first time was in a national debate running as a Democrat. He had to answer question going to his origins and he dealt with them admirably. He finished the debate by being viewed warmly by our party as a whole as a great spokesperson for us. He reached many Democrats who had little idea as to who he was and he's now on their radar after having made a favorable impression.

Young voters, and Independents, got to learn more about the candidate who's been doing extremely well with their demographic. They now have had confirmed his authenticity as the kind of candidate they want to see on the ballot. They represent important "stealth" votes, in key states, that normally can't be counted on for much turnout. Sanders can get these voters to show up while other candidates just don't appeal to them.

We're going to be hearing lots more about issues important to these voters, and Sanders has wisely played the long game by laying out in a deliberate fashion the parts of his platform that win them over to our side. It's also going to become more clear as to why we need the unique appeal of Senator Sanders to voters we've let slip through our fingers.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/12/the_medias_lying_to_you_about_bernie_sanders_this_is_why_a_socialist_can_win_the_fox_loving_red_states/#

The media’s lying to you about Bernie Sanders: This is why a socialist can win the Fox-loving red states
I spent days with Sanders fans across red states. They watch Fox, live in the heartland, and are voting for Bernie
Rick Perlstein, Washington Spectator

Really inspiring journalism from an on the ground reporter.

I often wonder if there's a correlation between the compensation talking heads get now versus what they got 40 years ago, or even 20 years ago, that would go to explain the rightward shift in American politics.

Politics of the very wealthy, for the very wealthy, as reported on by the very wealthy.

Click the link for the Salon article to see that there's reason for lots of hope.

http://economixcomix.com/

Clicking that link above will take you directly to the well written (and drawn) comic that goes to a great length to explain some of the pitfalls of this TPP deal. It also uses humor while doing so, and it also expounds in a readily understandable way on how trade in general can be subverted from being a good thing.

What is Economix?
Economix is a graphic novel by Michael Goodwin, illustrated by Dan E. Burr, that explains the economy. More than a cartoon version of a textbook, Economix gives the whole story of the economy, from the rise of capitalism to Occupy Wall Street. Economix is published by Abrams Comic Arts.

Praise for Economix

“I just cannot stress enough how amazing this book is.”
–James Floyd Kelly, Wired.com

“It’s simply phenomenal.”
– David Bach, author of Debt Free for Life and The Automatic Millionaire

“Goodwin has done the seemingly impossible–he has made economics comprehensible and funny.”
– Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

“An amazing lesson in true-world economics! Delightfully presented, powerful, insightful, and important information. What a fun way to fathom a deep and often dark subject”
– John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked and the New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

“Economix is a lively, cheerfully opinionated romp through the historical and intellectual foundations of our current economy and our current economic problems. Goodwin has a knack for distilling complex ideas and events in ways that invite the reader to follow the big picture without losing track of what actually happened. Any reader wondering how our economy got to where it is today will find this a refreshing overview.”
– Timothy W. Guinnane, Philip Golden Bartlett Professor of Economic History, Yale University

Here's the link to the home page for that. http://economixcomix.com/

The link in the thread title is to an excellent "comic" that I found to provide an amazing focus on the TPP treaty. http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/

Please share this if you found it useful! Reposting here at DU, as appropriate, would be great.

Edit: Woops! I forgot mention that I scored this link at the "news for nerds" website, slashdot. /. link to the TPP thread I got it from: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/15/10/09/2242252/eff-the-final-leaked-tpp-text-is-all-that-we-feared

Edit 2: I placed another link to the comic at the very top of this post.

It surpasses even Muslim Communist, and Anarchist Fascist, and those are two of my favorite internet signposts signalling a turn into The Twilight Zone.

I'm not saying it won't break down, I'm just saying that Clinton staffers mapped out a firm plan to take Secretary Clinton to the White House. DWS is playing along, it's just that the circumstances of reality aren't. Many, many, Democrats are aroused and participating at a very early stage of the primary season. They're demanding a lot more than the Clinton campaign has so far seen fit to offer. That's a problem for the Clinton campaign as they apparently have a pretty rigid schedule for how they'll unfold their platform and engage with voters about it. They seem averse and unable to adapt to these changing circumstances and that's compounding the impression of being out of touch with this groundswell of Democrats who are asking for more.

Another month of this and the bar is going to be set extremely high for how extensively the Clinton campaign will have to deal with this perception. This bar will apply to the debates, and to engaging with real, unscripted, moments of having a dialogue with crowds of primary voters.

It's come to pass that the Democratic primary is going to be a real contest. Candidates will have to persuade the voters by dint of their articulated ideas, and the projection of their value as a politician.

O'Blivion was not the name I was born with. That's my television name. Soon all of us will have special names, names designed to cause the cathode ray tube to resonate.

And here we all are, visible to others on the LCD successor to the CRT, and mostly posting behind "special names", Babel-17 for example.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Videodrome

"... been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

http://www.planetclaire.org/quotes/hitchhikers/

In defense of the pollsters I'll say that their models aren't designed to account for the specific type of phenomenon that the Sanders campaign represents. Their models are based mostly around the depressing predictability of how voters react in the Skinner box environment of large, extremely well funded, elections.

It would be dishonest for pollsters to use a new methodology. Though I'll be interested to see if Nate Silver is open about this if asked. I understand his livelihood is based on the uncannily good models he uses, but he is a scientist and should be honest about the limitations of prediction.

There are some importantly unusual features to the Sanders campaign. The degree of how important they are, and the number of them, is what is going to show the limits to the utility of the models Silver uses.

Ask Silver if his models could have predicted the surge of Ross Perot in 92. And Perot was seriously lacking in several attributes that Sanders has in spades. Sanders has the record for championing people that the Perot campaign merely gave a nod to. Sanders has decades of experience with the legislative process. Sanders has decades of support for important civil rights causes under his belt. Sanders has decades of campaigning and politicking in unpleasant circumstances and environments behind him.

Though the main point of superiority is that Sanders is running on the most evolved version of the Democratic Party platform I've yet to see. Because Sanders has chosen not to take big donations from monied interests, he and his campaign could craft a platform that would have the utmost appeal to members of the Democratic party (and the nation as a whole).

Silver should consider the Perot phenomenon, look at how the Sanders campaign is greatly superior to it, and conclude he needs to come up with something more specific to this campaign. He might make just such an announcement if Sanders does a notch better than even the already revised upwards forecasts for the earliest contests and/or later very significant polling.

P.S. Only now did I really think about how Perot was up against a Clinton and a Bush. The huge difference her obviously is that Senator Sanders is competing in the Democratic primary, and not against Bush and Clinton at the same time. He doesn't get the spoiler vote though he does appeal to those who aren't happy with our system.

Btw, he prefers "Chip Delaney". And first off, his wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany

Now, the article.

http://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html

"Racism and Science Fiction"
by Samuel R. Delany

From NYRSF Issue 120, August 1998. "Racism in SF" first appeared in volume form
in Darkmatter, edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Warner Books: New York, 2000.
Posted by Permission of Samuel R. Delany. Copyright © 1998 by Samuel R. Delany.

Given how important language is to Mr. Delaney, and the great care and labor he put into this piece, I don't dare to post an excerpt. Read it all, and be all the richer for it.