Liveblogging the first presidential debate, 2016 (if I can take it)
Well, it’s been a long time coming hasn’t it? But here we are at last, about to be treated (?) to a spectacle many thought would be highly unlikely to happen: Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, the first debate.
I plan to watch as long as I can bear it. I have no idea how long that will be. My usual distaste for debates is compounded by my distaste for both participants, but offset at least somewhat by the hideous fascination of the thing.
A few observations. Despite their differences, Hillary and Trump share certain somewhat unusual characteristics for presidential candidates. To begin with, they’re both of a certain age, and that age is pretty old for the job. They’re both from the greater New York metropolitan area; Trump’s a native of the city and Hillary’s more of a latecomer to the region, but she’s been there a long long time now. I seem to recall that in recent decades the conventional wisdom has been that successful presidential candidates can’t come from New York, especially anywhere near the city; that heartland America just won’t tolerate it. Well, 2016 seems designed to upset conventional wisdom.
I was going to try to do a riff on the phrase “Thrilla in Manila” for the title of this post, using the location of the debate instead of “Manila” and then looking for a good rhyme. The debate’s being held at the Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex on Long Island. “Hofstra” doesn’t really lend itself to rhymes (Kafka? Cosa Nostra? No, not quite). “Long Island” isn’t easy, either. This USA Today article does pretty well with “Smackdown at the Mack.” But it’s not exactly a rhyme, either. So I offer the rather weak sauce of “Yackety-Yak and Flak at the Mack.”
Later on in this thread I’ll try to liveblog the debate.
9:10 PM: It occurs to me once again, as the two come out and shake hands, that these people know each other. Not exactly friends, certainly not ex-lovers, but they know each other better and over a longer time than most presidential opponents ordinarily do.
They both have their game faces on.
9:20 PM Trump’s refrain seems to be “you’ve been thinking about this for 30 years, why haven’t you done more about it?”
9:23 PM The male/female dynamic presents an interesting balancing act for both of them. Trump has to be careful not to be too relentlessly browbeating, while Hillary has to not seem too schoolmarmy and defensive. Of course, they’re attempting to appeal to different constituencies, but there’s always that “undecided” group in the middle where elections are often decided.
Hillary calls on the fact-checkers. Recall that that was the meme du jour of the MSM.
9:33 PM Can they both lose?
I keep having to turn the sound off for a few minutes and then I turn it on again. Sorry, I just hate debates. Just looking at the visuals, right now she looks very smug, he looks serious.
9:55 PM I keep turning the sound off and on, but my strong impression is one I often get from debates (and one of the reasons I tend not to like them)—seems to me the winner is in the eye/ear of the beholder. I don’t see anything here that would change the mind of anyone who already favored either of these candidates. My gut feeling (right or wrong) is that most people, even the “undecideds,” are quite familiar with Hillary Clinton, and less familiar with Trump in his role as politician and would-be statesman. That means the bar for him is low. If he sounds reasonably intelligent and reasonably sane, I think he gains more than Hillary does by anything she can do in this debate.
10:30 PM Since I turned off the audio about twenty minutes ago, I thought I’d check up on the comments section of various blogs to see what people think of how it’s going. I had it in mind to go to a blog where the majority of commenters don’t lean one way or the other, but of course such a blog doesn’t exist. The only real way to tell how this debate has gone is in the post-debate polls. And then, whatever has happened in the polls, subsequent events will intervene which can change things.
What a long strange trip it’s been.
10:37 PM I’m not the least bit surprised at how well Hillary has held up. In the Democratic primaries, she debated Sanders for hours in several debates without flagging, and I saw no reason it should be any different here, engaged in the fight of her lifetime.
This is all kabuki theater anyway.
The DOJ and FBI just covered up the biggest scandal in U.S. history.
The election is already rigged for Hillary to win.
End of story.
End of the Republic
I will try to make it through the debate. I had to leave the room during Brit Hume’s program on FNC in which he was previewing with a variety of guests.
These people trivialize everything. The issues don’t matter. The character of the candidate doesn’t matter. All that matters to them are the optics and the sound bites. And the polls, of course.
I was very disappointed that Brit indulged this foolishness. Now O’Reilly is on, but I am not in the room.
If I make it through the debate, I will tune out immediately after, before the postmortems begin and we are told who had the “best moments”.
May God have mercy on our souls.
The mention of “Kafka” reminded me of the story where the guy wakes up to find out he is a cockroach.
Maybe there are similarities.
It’s Kafka’s world. We just live in it.
Ha, cockroach. Apt.
To Oldflyer: yep. That’s why I’ll always watch on C-Span so that I can hear it without voiceover.
He’s getting ticked off.
Well, the Moderator is letting Hillary run wild, and Trump is on a Johnny One Note refrain. Hillary left many openings for challenge, but he doesn’t do it. The economy grows at 1+ percent and she touts growth. A record number of people have left the work force and she touts job creation. Come on Trump get in the damn game.
Yes, she was dominating for a long time. He got angrier. Think this was his plan?
AaaaRRRRGGhhh! This is so bad. She is smarmy and condescending. He is his usual inarticulate self and also angry. Neither one Presidential. I cannot watch. It’s over for Trump unless something very unusual happens.
Trump talking about how the African American community has been let down by Democrats — good for him. Finally! He needs to much on this.
J.J. you nailed it. The people who called Bush inarticulate really had no idea of the depths a Presidential candidate could reach.
All else aside, it will be very interesting to see how many minutes each was allowed to talk. Of course, since he seemingly has so little to say, it probably does not matter.
Oldflyer; J.J.:
Granted, I have now had the audio turned off for about 10 minutes. Can’t take it. But till then I would have said that Trump is more substantive than usual, not less. In the Republican debates he said almost nothing of any substance. To me, this is an improvement, although certainly not good.
With nothing better to do tonight, I thought I’d try to rhyme Hofstra:
They have the debate at Hofstra
A place that’s a long ways off stra-
tegic siting for critical mass.
I’ll just give the thing a pass.
I just got in from exercise. Tried to catch up with Stephen Green’s drunkblogging which is usually good enough to bring me up to speed.
Not this time.
I walked out of the room for a glass of milk and when I returned, Clinton’s smug smile was GONE. What did I miss?
Those of you watching (sans audio) those two ‘debate’ are either brave souls or political junkie masochists or perhaps both. I am watching Death In Paradise (silly, but amusing) as I float around on my tablet reading reactions to the fiasco.
Tomorrow the last of the raspberries will be picked and there will be numerous contrails over flyover country. .
Neo: ” But till then I would have said that Trump is more substantive than usual, not less.”
I’ve been watching his campaign rallies where he has been using the teleprompter. He’s been very substantive during those. He just isn’t up to that standard in this forum. Although I agree with most of his points, he isn’t making them well, IMO. I should not be criticizing him, though. I would be less articulate by far. I van sit here and know what he “should” say, but if I were in his shoes, The right thing to say would come to me ten seconds after I had blurted out something else.
Well, I watched it all the way through. Each had their moments and Trump did better than I expected but IMO not nearly as well as he could have done. To use a boxing analogy, he’s a brawler not a counter puncher. Debates are about how well you counter punch, that’s how you win.
J.J.:
Obviously he’s going to be more substantive with a teleprompter, with remarks that are almost certainly prepared by someone else. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about a debate or other ad lib format. Apples and oranges. In the Republican debates he was almost content-free except for insults.
Kudos to GB’s iron constitution!
I tried to catch some of it. New Mexico hotel wifi may not exactly suck, but it does inhale deeply.
I think Trump lost, because he didn’t win. They more or less tied, and that’s a loss.
I completely agree with GB. Trump can’t counterpunch because he doesn’t know anything, and he’s too thin skinned. He gets defensive and can’t shut up and turn the tables.
He had multiple chances to go for the jugular – on the emails, on Iran, on Libya, etc etc. He just didn’t get the job done.
And Hillary seemed more presidential.
If anything changes after this, I’d think it’s a slight uptick in Clinton support. Trump didn’t win anyone over, whereas Clinton certainly did.
The whole thing is a tragedy. Blech.
Agree with you, Neo. I had hoped he would absorb more from all those teleprompter presentations.
Way to go, Geoffrey. You are made of stern stuff. 🙂
Hillary must have some amazing drugs for these do-or-die events.
Watched most of it. I think team Trump raising expectations that Hillary would collapse or have a siezure or cough uncontrollably was a mistake. She held up fine and scoreD more points than he did. Not sure it will matter
Early reax online were that he won the first 30 minutes and she won the rest, especially the foreign policy sections.
His worst moments: suggesting that Hannity could be a character reference that he was against the Iraq war, asserting that his temperament is his best quality, and whining about the fact that Hillary’s ads about him were not nice.
I’m confused by those of you who turned the sound down and just watched. What good did that do? I listened more than watched.
kolnai:
Ever since maybe December or January I’ve felt this election to be a tragedy. I’ve gotten used to it by this time, that’s all. At least, sort of used to it; the shock has worn off, I guess.
But I think all Trump had to do to hold his own was not to seem like a deranged lunatic. I think he passed that particular test. I don’t see much change as a result of this, although it’s the “undecideds” and LIVs who always end up being the people on whose opinion a close election turns, and I always have trouble predicting how that particular crowd reacts to any given situation.
Which is a fancy way of saying I haven’t a clue.
I watched the whole debate (with sound).
How about using orchestra to rhyme with Hofstra?
Bill:
The only thing that turning the sound down does good for is my peace of mind.
Basically, I cannot stand listening to debates. It’s always been that way for me. My reaction is a very strange combination of intense anxiety and intense boredom.
I tried to explain the phenomenon somewhat here.
It was a disaster for Trump.
Slight Hillary advantage, but she didn’t win so much as Trump lost. He let about 3 or 4 easy opportunities slide by to question Hillary’s history. Emails and national security, etc.
He was way more defensive than he should’ve been, and let Hillary off the hook. Just like Romney.
I watched the entire thing. Trump held his own, and his performance won’t hurt his chances, but here is the thing:
He missed the golden opportunity to put it away. If there were going to be a clear winner here tonight, it would be the candidate who brought the most positive attitude towards changing the direction of the country. Of the two candidates, this is far easier for the challenger against the incumbent party, but Trump failed to do that for the most part, letting himself be put on the defensive.
Hillary probably took the only path she could tonight- attack relentlessly, but it didn’t knock Trump out, and became less effective every time she seemed to look to Holt for help. Also, everyone already knows that she has policy chops- that isn’t what holds her back, and tonight won’t solve her real problem.
Kolnai, unfortunately I believe you are correct. It simply boggled my mind how a man in his position could be so ignorant; or so slow in his thinking that he could not bring information to bear. I don’t know which.
Actually, I think someone in the Clinton campaign analyzed him perfectly and she put his ego on the defensive. He is so ego driven, that he cannot let anything pass. He squandered so many opportunities because he was defending himself instead of making points.
Lester the Jester did his part to squelch Trump, and for some reason he let that happen. “Gee Lester I will be happy to debate you at a future time; but, right now I am debating Hillary, and I won’t debate you both at once”. Not so hard
Sadly, I doubt that there will be anywhere near the audiences for future debates. However, others have come back from disastrous first debates and gone on to run credible campaigns. Hope. My wife reminded me that I never liked Trump; but, well you know…
As of right now, Hillary Clinton is up more than 5 points in the betting market. She went from a 63.1 percent chance of winning this afternoon to a 68.7 percemt chance.
There’s a link to the market at my site. The numbers may be different by the time you look, since they update every 15 minutes.
I listened to baseball on the radio, did a little woodworking, had a bourbon (or two) and a cigar, and read a few first takes on the event. The best synopsis was the apocalypse couldn’t come soon enough.
It sounds like “I’m not her” didn’t carry the day. Thanks to all of you who watched and listened for your thoughts. No sarcasm.
The worst moments were when the Trump tax forms came up. He’s hiding something, or he’s an idiot to hand her a non issue. He hammered her repeatedly for having done little while in office and said to her face that her and Obama’s policies are a disaster, something I doubt anyone has ever said to her in public before. He hammered her on the trade deal that she was for until she was against it and Nafta (her husband’s). I think all Trump had to do was not fart or drool, because of expectations, and he didn’t. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that his polling heads upward, but what do I know?
It’s strange to hear that people prefer to shut off the sound during an unpleasant debate. Why watch at all? While I chose not to watch or listen tonight, from the comments here and elsewhere it appears that Trump blew it. Don’t be so sure!
During the 1980 election I was living in a mountain cabin without electricity or even running water. My only connection to the outside world was a battery operated radio. I remember tuning in to the Reagan/Carter debate out of boredom. Just listening it was obvious to me that Carter won the debate. He was knowledgeable, quick with a response, and seemed to have complete command. Reagan came across as ill prepared and out of his depth. Every time he was caught or couldn’t answer a question he would deflect it with his folksy “well” followed with a joke or two. His famous line “there you go again” was used. He resorted to stock passages from his campaign speeches which were long on conservative theory and philosophy but short on specifics relating to the issues being discussed. Most of all, there was a certain quiver in his voice that telegraphed fear. While I would have probably voted for him anyway (my isolation didn’t permit it) I was stunned to hear from relatives that he knocked Carter out in the debate and was a shoo in. And of course he won the election.
It was only later that the Debate-Gate scandal came up after it was learned that Reagan had acquired Carter’s debate prep documents. Believe me, from what I remember it didn’t help him one bit. Nevertheless by all accounts now, he “won” the debate.
You can summarize NAFTA’s history as follows: Reagan proposed it, Bush negotiated it, and Clinton got it ratified. All three presidents played significant parts in the treaty.
The Other Chuck:
I have trouble listening to debates or political speeches, or actually speeches of any kind. I’m interested in the debates so I always start thinking I’ll try to listen. But after a little while I usually get so annoyed, anxious, bored, disgusted—some combination of all of the above—that I decide to turn the audio off just to give myself a break. Just for a little while. Then I turn it on again. Back and forth. Sometimes I end up watching most of it. Sometimes it goes back and forth the whole time. And sometimes I end up just turning it off for good. I never know at the outset how much I’ll be listening to.
La touche alt droite est mort ce soir. C’est le seul point positif. Fools, idiots, and the deranged brought us to this sad place.
Yancey Ward,
I am not knocking you on a personnal level, but you are not living on the planet where I live. “He missed the golden opportunity…”
Of course he did, that was the mission.
Darn it!!!
Watched Netflix to avoid, but PBS ran it late. Caught the last hour.
No strong picture from either of them on the big picture, positive image for the country.
trump seemed to ramble and repeat, lacked details, speaking in generalities (400 lb hacker in bed???). Plus, he interrupted frequently, and over spent his allotment of time (strong? obnoxious? cheating? temperament?). clinton seemed to have details, and a better defined and succinct argument.
Bottom Line: Doubtful trump appealed to those beyond the “base” (i.e. those who already bought into trump), and was very much on defense.
Still, clinton didn’t become any more “likeable”.
Slight edge: clinton
Very surprised, as expected trump to be his usual and come up with some pithy one liners to define clinton that would have been “entertaining” and yet, devastating on clinton’s image. trump didn’t produce and seemed defensive.
Yes, I am a tinfoil hat info wars, glenn beck, etc nutjob; but we are being played. Djt was set uo to lose to hrc. Yes, I am a nutjob i flyover country. idiot. I confess.. See you 11/9/9.
Also, using hannity as a character reference for his position on GWB’s Iraq invasion is a losing proposition for winning new voters.
He had to win more women and college educated men, and doubtful that happened.
Take this all with a grain of salt, as I am admittedly biased, though I am trying to take somewhat objective look at this.
Ok, I am mentally ill; because from the beginning I thought djt was on a mission to destroy the gop and then destroy his campaign to elect hrc, Please tell me where I am wrong. I need intervination.
I too cannot bear listening to political speeches and have a hard time watching the current ormat of “debates.” I know I saw the Candy Crowley intervention and was shocked, and I also remember being greatly offended by Joe Biden.
I just couldn’t bring myself to watch tonight, though it made me nervous when I didn’t.
“Djt was set uo to lose to hrc” – parker
One wonders sometimes.
parker, I’m worse than you. There are times when I think that DJT was set up to win against Hillary as part of a master scheme to destroy the right once and for all. I strongly suspect we are headed for some kind of economic disaster in the not too distant future. Is Trump being set up as the fall guy?
(Pass the tinfoil hat, please.)
Neo, I get what you’re doing. Reminds me of going to horror movies as a kid and closing my eyes and sticking fingers in my ears during the most gruesome scenes.
TOC,
No, IMO, djt was set up to make hrc seem reasonable, solid, and aware.
I do agree a big collapse of the international banking system approaches, 2008 will be 5 year girl’s pretend tea party compared to the 1930s. It is going too be back to the 30’s.
I am cynical by nature, Parker, but I haven’t yet reached that level of insanity. Also, not a personal dig at you- I kind of understand the paranoia- at times.
Neo: I avoided the whole thing. Watched the Mets-Miami game with its very special post Jose Fernandez truly tragic death game with my Baseball Girl wife until 9:00. Then while Nena kept on that and our Rays in Chicago and her Cubbies in Pittsburgh, I got in bed with my nearly finished David Baldacci mystery in his “Camel Club” series. AAaaahhhh… Highly recommended for Rage Avoidance. Slept soundly. I’ll grit my neoconservative teeth and vote for T, but without any pleasure. Nena will vote for neither, but will–like me–vote for Marco for Senate and some other Florida stuff.
The Other Chuck, well, it sure would have been interesting to have listened rather than watched that debate. Watching Trump so defensive, that was a powerful negative for me. And I support him. So I wonder how it would have sounded without having to watch the poor guy grabbing his water and flaking out.
Parker, During the primaries I had that thought, that he was in the race to help HRC. Bah, I had forgotten that.
Thought question, picture Carly Fiorina on that stage opposite HRC.
Does anyone here think that Cruz, or even Rubio, wouldn’t have walked all over Clinton last night? I don’t like political debates either, which generally boil down to two hacks shouting their talking points past each other, but I would have loved to watch a national champion debater with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues and an eidetic memory for the spoken word take on a master liar.
Geokatr,
Yes, that would have been nice. But the GOP decided instead to throw a drunken temper tantrum this year and just break things rather than putting up a candidate that would almost surely beat HRC (I still think Trump will win, but he didn’t help himself last night).
She scored the most points on foreign policy, because that’s the area Trump poses the most risk for. His protection racket talk and wild talk about “the nuclear” is not reassuring.
His moments talking about “the cyber” were the unintentionally funniest (his ten year old, the four hundred pound hacker, etc). His knee jerk defense of Russian hackers was a bad move (what is it with Trump and his admiration of dictators?)
No matter what happens, this will not end well.
I thought Hillary was the clear winner of the first debate. I say this as someone who will be ENTHUSIASTICALLY voting a straight a straight Republican ticket.
She was prepared and didn’t interrupt.
I had a task to do early in the evening and didn’t tune in until Teh Donald was saying he would release his taxes when Hillary released her 33,000 deleted emails. Which may be why I feel she won.
I’m with Big Maq on this. I don’t think this will move the needle that much. DJT won’t lose any supporters and neither will HRC.
With any luck the undecideds will feel that DJT can be trusted as Commander-in-Chief and HIS numbers will improve.
“In debate, Clinton gets no follow-up questions, Trump gets 6”
“Holt Interrupted Trump WAY More Than Clinton In Debate”
“Holt interrupted Trump a record 41 times, either to “fact-check” the Republican nominee, or to ask a follow-up question. Clinton was only interrupted seven times during the course of the 90-minute debate.”
On another note:
“Pat Caddell, the Democratic pollster and Fox News Insider, told Breitbart News that poll respondents said Clinton performed better at the debate; 48 percent said Clinton did a better job, compared to 43 percent, who said Trump did the better job.
“However, 95 percent of the people we contacted told us they were not going to change their vote based on the debate,” Caddell said.
Two percent of voters, previously undecided, switched to Trump after the debate. No undecideds went to Clinton. One percent switched from Trump to Clinton, and one percent switched from Clinton to Trump.
“Trump won on the most critical factor, on whether Clinton or Trump was more ‘plausible’ as president, 46 percent to her 42 percent,” he said.”
These stories indicate that this isn’t over yet;
“Presidential debate surprise: Clinton loses ground among some voters in North Carolina”
“How Trump won over a bar full of undecideds and Democrats”
“UPI/CVoter state polls: Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in Electoral College”
parker:
“from the beginning I thought djt was on a mission to destroy the gop and then destroy his campaign to elect hrc, Please tell me where I am wrong.”
Trump’s position on OIF supports your point because, otherwise, it would be simple to show Clinton ‘evolved’ about her 2002 Senate vote by blatantly misrepresenting the AUMF instruction and the legal-factual basis of Bush’s decision.
The key premise switch for discrediting Obama’s foreign policy, which is premised on false narrative of OIF, and Clinton’s record tacking to the disinformative Left is re-laying the foundation with that the US case versus Saddam is in fact substantiated and the justification for the Iraq intervention.
Instead, Trump adopted the Russian/alt-Right/Democrats/Left disinformation that essentially discredits the GOP on national security and accords with Clinton’s mendacity on the Iraq intervention.
Of course, the GOP validated the tool of its own destruction due to its congenital aversion to activism, in this case, opting pathetically to try skirting the pervasive disinformation undermining the defining manifestation of American leadership of the post-Cold War instead of vigorously countering the false narrative throughout the arena.
geokstr:
I’ve spent the last couple of months trying not to think What Might Have Been.
It’s hard.
I HATE political debates as all that they do is show the ‘most verbally nimble” on a given night. Period.
After sleeping on it, my reaction is as follows:
Trump did not do well. He didn’t explode, which is a plus, but he did not do as well as I had hoped.
Hillary, OTOH, showed energy and focus (as someone said previously, she’s got an impressive pharmacopeia) and I think she did better than expected.
But what did each have to do, and did they succeed?
Trump had to win over women. I don’t think he did so.
Hillary had to attract men. I think she came across as the first wife many men have experienced, so I don’t think she did so. She looked smug. That’s a real loser.
Debates illustrate who can think on their feet. Is that the hallmark of a good president? I don’t believe so. I think a good president has to surround the office with very smart people. In my experience, Republicans have done better at this than Democrats, with the exception of Kennedy. I expect that experience to be continued.
No matter which of the two candidates comes through in the election, I don’t expect the nation to be well served.
I also liked how Trump compared America to a third world country based on the shape of the airports he’s been through.
To GB’s point above, I don’t think anything the guy does will hurt him. I saw what I expected, an igorant and dangerous narcissist who should never be trusted with his own military, executive enforcement branch, state police and nuclear arsenal. But I’ve been never Trump from the beginning. If his performance made people think he’d be a good president, we’re beyond help.
The one argument against the premise that Trump is actually a stalking horse for Clinton is his ego. I just cannot see a man with such a large ego going before a national audience and deliberately playing the ignorant buffoon. No, i think he is just what he appeared to be.
I believe that he must have been incredibly lucky to hire competent people to do his analysis and negotiating. Maybe the several bankruptcies were the deals he tried to do himself.
“(Frank) Luntz (GOP pollster) hosted a group of undecided voters from the swing state of Pennsylvania. Sixteen said that Clinton won, while the remaining five declared the GOP nominee the debate champ … among those who said the debate swayed their opinion and helped them solidify their decision, 10 said Clinton. Only two said Trump had helped them move the needle his way” – “‘Clear winner’: Luntz focus group hands Clinton debate victory”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clear-winner-luntz-focus-group-hands-clinton-debate-victory/article/2602937
.
@GB – Not sure about Caddell’s poll, and who was targeted, but that is very different from undecideds in PA in Luntz’s focus group measured directly.
Also, a “bar poll” doesn’t measure up to either of those in having any validity. It is rather weak evidence, and serves more as entertainment / filler / spin in the NYPost.
And, referencing a poll from BEFORE the debate doesn’t really give much of a measure of the impact of that debate.
In fact, RCP Average is showing a significant uptick for BOTH clinton and trump, with clinton slowly extending her lead from the 0.9% just nine days ago – this is all before the debate.
Also want to add that, seeing only the latter part of the debate, it sure looked like trump did the majority of interrupting and talking over the other ones.
Of the obvious interruptions on Holt’s part, they seem more to brink trump back to the point of the question, or to give some semblance of a time limit in trump’s response.
It sure seemed that Holt gave trump two to three whacks at a question to clinton’s one, largely because trump’s sometimes wandering or tangential response did not nominally address the question.
Politicians normally avoid a question by reframing it more favorably, and answering that (this was clinton in spades), but trump wasn’t even doing that at times.
Sure came across as “unprepared”, at minimum.
That said, neither candidate seemed to “seal the deal” with their performances in this debate.
No question that Hillary is the better debater. As NeoConScum said, the debate shows who is more “verbally nimble.”
The white suburban women that everybody thinks Trump must win will think that important. Will others? I think there are voters who will resonate to Trump’s line, “You’ve been in politics for 30 years, why haven’t you accomplished any of that?” (not verbatim), but I suspect they’re already Trump voters.
As to what the few remaining undecided will do ,I have no clue.
” I think there are voters who will resonate to Trump’s line, “You’ve been in politics for 30 years, why haven’t you accomplished any of that?” (not verbatim), but I suspect they’re already Trump voters.” – R.S.
Perhaps true.
But, this was a prime opportunity for trump (and clinton) to swing the independents their way.
Those already on board with trump don’t need any more convincing.
Unlike trump’s “base”, the independents are not looking for “red meat”, but some reassurance that trump has a plan that stands up to a bit of scrutiny and that he has the wherewithal / temperament / commitment to stand by it and implement it.
‘I plan to watch as long as I can bear it.’
I managed almost 10 seconds and that was enough.
I seem to recall that in recent decades the conventional wisdom has been that successful presidential candidates can’t come from New York, especially anywhere near the city; that heartland America just won’t tolerate it. Well, 2016 seems designed to upset conventional wisdom.
Ted Cruz made a remark about that, New York values.
Of course, with the power of the Internet Propaganda, anything can be inverted.
The current circumstance doesn’t invalidate the Trum as stalking horse theory yet.
After all, Clinton would have helped put Trum in the Republican primary because Clinton had a lot of Democrat cross over votes that could rig the Republican open primaries. Which allows her to select her opponent more carefully for the general, assuming she could get rid of Sanders.
As for Trum, he wouldn’t have accepted any Presidential run without the freedom to go for the throne if he actually takes the general ticket in the RNC. He wouldn’t run just to lose, even as a personal favor to the Clintons.
Generally speaking, Trum could have run in either primary, but as a favor to Clinton and as a warning from Clinton as well, they chose not to fight each other on this, except perhaps at the general. Of course Clinton would not have expected Trum to win the primary. Now that Trum has, Clinton can have a good match with him. No matter who wins, there’ll be free pardons thrown around and favors called in.
That New York value system, about as corrupt as Chicago or DC system.