If they get fooled once, they can blame other people. That doesn’t work as well when they get fooled twice or thrice.

Of course, with the American people so debased and empty of virtue, it’s not that hard to rule over them, even lacking rhetorical mastery. People who want a King, will get one, doesn’t matter from what party or what skin color.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#odds

Here’s the RCP graph averaging polls of Clinton vs Trumpo

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

Trump has touched Hillary’s numbers a few times, but basically he has been losing the whole way, often yugely.

Those who claim Trump could win base that on hunches. I get that. We all have hunches and sometimes hunches turn out right. But going by the cold hard numbers, Trump was never a good choice to beat Hillary, if that was the plan.

The whole “You-gotta-vote-for-Trump-or-it’s-the-end-of-America” argument depended on Trump being able to win and that was always a bad bet other than saying, “Who knows? It could happen.”

If the fate of America truly hangs in the balance, then the only shot I see is agitating for Trump to stand down and let Mike Pence carry the ball.

But the “You-gotta-vote-for-Trump” people won’t touch that idea, which reminds me of the the climate change folks who say climate change is the most important issue ever except … we can’t use nuclear energy to prevent it.

From what I read much of Trump’s failure was due to poor debate preparation and much of that comes down to the difficulty of getting Trump to focus on anything which goes against the grain of his enormous ego.

That’s the guy I want for President!

That would seem to answer the question of how well Trump did in the debate as far as poll respondents are concerned.

There are more debates and more weeks before the election, but this is bad for Trump. He had a good run rising from the ashes of 10% to 43% in a matter of weeks and he might have caught up with Hillary, beset as she is by continuing scandal revelations. Now Trump has lost the mighty mo’ — momentum.

Hillary is a stiff unlikeable candidate and arguably a criminal, but she looks and sounds professional. OTOH Trump without his teleprompter comes across as a nasty blowhard a couple bar stools down beating his gums on how he would run the country.

Strangely enough more Americans will chose the candidate who sounds prepared and professional to be President.

I guess this is what Richard Saunders called “glib.”

I give him no pass on his inarticulateness, although I think some of it is purposeful, to be all things to all people. But some of it is real.” – Neo

Then, going forward, let us observe how consistent he will be on this point, or if it continues to be a muddle that can be taken either way.

No doubt there will be many more opportunities for him to expound on it.

Trump is very mutable.

But actually, he hasn’t been so mutable on this score. I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think; I’m basing my interpretation on the many times he has said something similar, and a bit more clearly.

I give him no pass on his inarticulateness, although I think some of it is purposeful, to be all things to all people. But some of it is real.

http://nypost.com/2016/09/27/trumps-debate-incompetence-a-slap-in-the-face-to-his-supporters/