Axios seems to invent the concept of "the mathematical president-elect" as it treats Biden's plan to declare early victory as wise when just yesterday it treated the same plan from Trump as devilish and deceitful.

"If news organizations declare Joe Biden the mathematical president-elect, he plans to address the nation as its new leader, even if President Trump continues to fight in court," Axios reports in "Scoop: Biden's plan to assert control."

Biden advisers learned the lesson of 2000, when Al Gore hung back while George W. Bush declared victory in that contested election, putting the Democrat on the defensive while Bush acted like the winner. So if Biden is declared the winner, he'll begin forming his government and looking presidential — and won't yield to doubts Trump might try to sow.

I'm very interested in the tone of this report because yesterday I blogged an Axios report about Trump's supposed plan to do the same thing. Here's my post. Here's the Axios piece: "Scoop: Trump's plan to declare premature victory" (Axios). 

Axios treated Trump as though he'd be doing something wrong to declare victory early. This strategic move was portrayed as premised on "false" and "baseless" claims. But when Biden has the same strategic plan, it's presented as wise and a defense against "doubts Trump might try to sow."

Now, I assume Axios would defend itself by saying the 2 plans are different. Trump's purported plan is to say the election night count should predominate and we should be suspicious of whatever gets counted later. It's expected that more Trump supporters will vote in person on Election Day and more Biden supporters mailed in their votes. Biden's plan is based on something that "news organizations declare" — that Biden is "the mathematical president-elect."

I think we can expect news organizations to declare things that help Biden, and what exactly is this math?! Is it something like the number of uncounted ballots and an assumption about the proportion of these ballots that should go for Biden? Let's say Biden is behind by 1,000 votes in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania makes the difference in who wins the electoral college and there are 50,000 uncounted mail-in votes from Philadelphia. Joe Biden is the "mathematical president-elect," right? Is that the idea?

I'm just guessing. Axios uses the term "mathematical president-elect," but doesn't define it. I'm googling this term, and everything just gets me back to this Axios usage. I'm so skeptical. Trump will only be making "baseless" claims, but Biden will be relying on the experts and math. 

AND: Here's a good source of percentages for your expert, news-organizational mathematics:

NEW: Our first round of exit polling, taking a look at voters who've already cast their ballots.

Who are they? Women, older people and Democrats are among the most likely Americans to have voted early, per our polling. https://t.co/E4nKsTte9E pic.twitter.com/s6bOzlTzzo

— Eli Yokley (@eyokley) November 2, 2020

ALSO: The "mathematicians" are there to protect you in case you were counting on there being no math...

SNL-No-Math from Dez on Vimeo.

"Chevy Chase, one of [Donald] Glover’s co-stars [in 'Community'], often tried to disrupt his scenes and made racial cracks between takes. ('People think you’re funnier because you’re black.')"

"[Dan Harmon, the show’s creator] said, 'Chevy was the first to realize how immensely gifted Donald was, and the way he expressed his jealousy was to try to throw Donald off. I remember apologizing to Donald after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-P.C. verbiage, and Donald said, "I don’t even worry about it."' Glover told me, 'I just saw Chevy as fighting time—a true artist has to be O.K. with his reign being over. I can’t help him if he’s thrashing in the water. But I know there’s a human in there somewhere—he’s almost too human.' (Chase said, 'I am saddened to hear that Donald perceived me in that light.'*) Glover quit in the fifth season, too bored to do it anymore."

From "Donald Glover Can’t Save You/The creator of 'Atlanta' wants TV to tell hard truths. Is the audience ready?" in The New Yorker.

I zeroed in on the Chevy Chase business (because we were just talking about his road rage problem), but there's also a man-in-shorts angle:

[Glover's character on "Atlanta"]... wasn’t a great manager or a great part-time boyfriend or, for that matter, a particularly promising human being. Curiously boyish in shorts and a backpack, he wasn’t even active, the minimal standard for television characters. He didn’t seem to do or want anything. He just watched and flinched and got yelled at to grow up....

Comedy didn’t allow him to express the sadness he’d begun to feel—about race, about fame, about simply being human—so he turned to music.... [As Childish Gambino, he] offered earnest tracks about being bullied as a child and about suicidal thoughts—a counterpoint to rap’s hypermasculine mainstream. Fam Udeorji told me, “People thought Donald was a whiny dude who wasn’t into his blackness. And the shorts he wore onstage were so short they made my friends uncomfortable.” 

Here's a picture of him in shorts.
_____________________

* The light was "human... almost too human." How sad is that?

"We were in the right lane and as we came up to the bridge we went to the middle lane. It was an old guy yelling – something we couldn’t hear – super pissed-off."

"We just tried to get the heck away from him. He followed us the whole length of the bridge, driving crazy.... My friend opened his window and just said, 'I apologize, we were just trying to go upstate... [He said] 'You know who the f— I am?'... Then he started cursing at me for no reason and said, 'I am going to ruin your lives!' I said, 'F— you!' Then he yanks open their car door and yells, 'I’m going to punch you in the nose' and he came after me and had his hands in my face... I said, ‘Get the f— away from me!’... I closed my car door and locked it but he was still trying to get in at me when a nurse and an off-duty cop escorted him away... I didn’t know who he was — I was just trying to defend myself. He was physically trying to harm me... I looked him up on Google and I still didn’t know who he was... He didn’t look like he looked when he made his movies."

Said Michael Landrio, who was arrested for kicking Chevy Chase. Chase, is 6' 4" and 240 pounds. Landrio is 5'11" and 155 pounds.

ADDED: I posted about this incident yesterday — exactly 24 hours ago, to the minute, by chance. So we're already in the middle of this conversation. I just wanted to add the words of the man in the truck. By the way, shouldn't Chase have been arrested too (or instead)?

Do Hollywood stars think life works like a movie?

TMZ reports:

Chevy [Chase] claims he was traveling over NY's Tappan Zee Bridge on February 9 when a black pickup cut him off. He told cops he though[t] the truck hit his car, so he flashed his high beams and followed it until the driver pulled over.

According to police docs ... Chevy realized there was no damage to either vehicle, but approached the driver to "speak to him about his reckless driving." He claims there were 3 other people in the truck, and one of 'em flipped him off....

Chevy says he fired back, "If I were a lot younger I'd bust your nose" ... then one of 'em got out and kicked him in the shoulder so hard he went to the ground.

The kicker told police that Chase actually did try to punch him, and the kick was in self-defense.

What kind of person, cut off by a truck in NYC, follows the truck and actually gets it to stop and walks up to it? Chase is a 74-year-old man, and he either didn't know who was in the truck or knew there were 3 people in it. He followed them, which is threatening, and, further threatening them, forced them to stop and approached them and (apparently) yelled at them. Did he think he'd be recognized as a celebrity and celebrated?

Perhaps he's desperate to get in the news and willing to die for it. Here he was last month going on "Good Morning Britain" to reminisce about the time — back in 1989 — when, pursuant to a "Saturday Night Live" script, he dumped popcorn on Donald Trump's head:



Oh, no, wait, Chase claims that was spontaneous ad lib slapstick: "I saw that hair and thought, 'I've got to spill some popcorn on him.'... He's just a big construction worker to me.... Unfortunately he's now running the country – a construction worker!" Well, Mr. Chase, the billionaire was able to inspire construction workers and other blue collar people to feel he cared about them. And here you are sneering at the people. And scolding and threatening truck drivers who you only imagine have damaged your fancy car.

How tone-deaf and un-self-aware can you get?

Does SNL really deserve attention for poking fun at Barack Obama?

Is it that they're doing it at all? Because they are not doing it well! Was there any new or interesting observation in this? The writing is terribly dull. I won't listen again to get the quote exactly right, but — after saying he got the Nobel Prize for not being George Bush — he says something like "I've only not been George Bush for 9 months." But he's not a 9-month-old and he's never been George Bush. Couldn't you polish that into something like "I've only been President Not George Bush for 9 months"?

And could SNL hire somebody who can actually impersonate Barack Obama? Obama has so many physical and vocal mannerisms. It could be hilarious. And it's not like when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford without any attempt at seeming like Ford, because Chevy Chase had a very appealing and funny personal style of his own and imitating without imitating was itself ridiculous. Fred Armisen isn't doing anything.

"Saturday Night Live" is boring and lame. Giving them credit for willingness to make fun of a liberal is like giving the Nobel Prize to Obama for not being Bush. Except much duller.

The Fordification of Barack Obama.

Given this, will "SNL" need an Obama impersonator who — like Chevy Chase — can do pratfalls?

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian said:

It would be funny if, after he bonked his big noggin, he said "Wait a minute... we're about to sign some bill spending a trillion dollars of unnecessary pork during a recession? What?! Not on my watch, we're not!" and promptly ran back to the White House and fired everyone.