2016 Presidential Debate No. 1
Here it is. At last. It’s the political debate you’ve been waiting for. Or, at least, its the Presidential debate you’re going to get.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of these people will be the next President of the United States. For all intents and purposes, there is no third option, so for efficiency’s sake, please move past “bargaining” and “despair” and go directly to “acceptance.”
Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, with only Lester Holt in between them. Hempstead, New York. 9:00 p.m. Eastern (6:00 p.m. Pacific). Six fifteen minute segments on various topics within the broader categories of “America’s Direction,” “Achieving Prosperity,” and “Securing America.”
In the lead-up tot he debate this afternoon, I suggest consideration of a few facts. How many voters have already irrevocably made up their minds? 1 Are the numbers that remain in the “persuadable” column sufficient to sway the election? What does each candidate need to do to reach those still-persuadable voters out there? How much effect will the debate have on the respective campaigns’ GOTV effort as well as the reach-for-the-middle effort?
During the debate, of course, live reactions are fun and useful, and afterwards, the postmortem is when things get most interesting. I’d trust the assessments of our commentariat more than I would those of the talking heads and spinmasters on the networks.
Best of all, you can watch it live, right here, at your favorite website, thanks to some magic coding from our friends at WordPress:
And if that doesn’t work, then try here:
But don’t look for me to jump in to that discussion, at least not early on. I found that while I was preparing to go to court this morning, my cats vomited and shat all over my floor, only half an hour before I had to make my morning appearance in court, apparently in protest to the dog urinating on the floor in front of their beds. I had no choice but to abandon this smelly mess while I made my way to the courthouse and at this point I shudder to think of what my house smells like right now. Worse, neither my wife nor I will likely make it home until about the start of the debate time. So I shall be cleaning up these odiferous biological sequelae to feline and canine digestive processes rather than listening to either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump speaking live… and counting myself likely getting the better end of that trade-off.
Consider this an election-focused open thread, as if that weren’t already basically every thread these days.
Image sources: altered from images sourced at Wikimedia commons (Clinton) and (Trump).
Clinton could probably just stand there and smirk for the whole thing, saying nothing but “President Donald Trump? Seriously, President Donald Trump?” every couple of minutes.
It would be hailed as a “masterful performance”, “utterly destroyed Donald Trump”, “what happens when small hands go up against a big brain”.Report
Oh, not EVEN! Clinton wouldn’t even have to Show Up to have a masterful performance. They could send in Zombie Clinton, and she’d win! (Note: not drooling zombie clinton, that would be too obvious).Report
You live in a different media universe than I do. Everyone I’ve been reading is worried about Trump not getting fact-checked and winning by just not going rant and shallow political analysis about Trump “looking and sounding Presidential.”
The big thing that has been happening over the past few week is some segments of the media (mainly on-line and newer but not always) yelling at the older media that they misunderstand their jobs and are coward chickens for not calling Trump out. The most recent story from Sunday was that moderators really don’t want to fact check.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/23/13030400/debate-fact-checkReport
Personally, I worry that the fact-checking will be of the form “Donald Trump said that X increased by 20%! He *LIED*! It’s only 18.5%!!!! ADVANTAGE HILLARY!!!! Don’t vote for Lying Trump!”Report
Trump says crime is worse than ever. Who is really to say? Lets go to the twitter feed.Report
Trump wants to build a wall that, on net, would prevent Mexican immigrants from leaving.Report
Mexicans will pay for it because we’ll charge them toll on their way out.Report
If he gets the direction of a trend right, it seems that will be above his personal average. If he gets the order of magnitude right, that will be knocking it out of the park by Trump standards.Report
Don’t vote for somebody that puts national security on a personal computer. COMMON SENSEReport
Gary Johnson it is!Report
(Sticks tongue out at Jaybird.)Report
Broadcast the debates on a 10-minute delay like they do for live award shows lest someone drop an F-bomb. Then mute the lies. Just display a subtitle ” is making an untrue statement.”
You’d have to set some basic rules – don’t mute unverifiable statements, unworkable campaign promises, slightly misremembered numbers that are within a factor of two or three of being right. Just verifiable, outright untruths about historically established fact or the basic nature of the world.Report
“Welcome to the 2016 Presidential Debates.
Mr Trump, please begin.
[several minutes of Trump silently moving his mouth…in desperation, the networks dub “Yakkety Sax” over the video feed, to assure viewers that there is nothing wrong with the audio]
That concludes this portion of the debate.
Ms. Clinton, would you like to respond?”Report
A future. Maybe we should continue down the same road we’ve been on. Time for a change make America great again.Report
The liberal blogosphere has been giving Hillary Clinton a lot of unsolicited advice in how to defeat Donald Trump in the debate. Much of this advice is mutual contradictory but I’m kind of interested if Clinton’s staff are incorporating any of the suggestions.Report
My friend who works for Clinton is busy doing “anything but politics” right now (like, seriously, I’m betting he doesn’t watch the debate).
So no suggestions on that front.Report
I don’t usually respond to you, but this may be your new record for least credible imaginary inside information. I do not believe there is a single employee of the Clinton team that is not working on politics in the final weeks before the election.Report
*shrugs* It’s not a full time job. Besides, when the rest of the world is occupied with trying to get Clinton elected…, what more is there to do, really? [Yes, there’s nuts and bolts, sure… but you don’t need the creative types for that stuff.] Trump doesn’t want Trump to win, so why does Clinton need to pull out all the stops?Report
He’s prepping for the latest Wikileaks dump, which will finally confirm HRC had Foster killed, framed Old Yeller (he never HAD rabies), and had Tupac shot.
Also, she sold nuclear secrets to Mars, secretly has had 53 strokes, and has not actually been seen in public for 10 years — it’s all body doubles. Bill Clinton uses his giant phallus to kill anyone who finds out.Report
Cool! I’ve been waiting so long for the Michelle Obama video I was promised.Report
The one where she’s talking to Edward Ford and Dorrel Herzog?Report
My favorite was this one:
This strikes me as something that is Gore-sighing-level bad advice.
But maybe it’d work!
Keep an eye open for it!Report
I expect Clinton’s more of a “vaguely annoyed and knowing look” kind of person.Report
The articles I read have Clinton coming in as an overly prepared honors student and Trump doing a class clown routine and worrying about the class clown winning.Report
I remember how that one worked out on The Simpsons.Report
@burt-likko
I have more memories of the media gushing over Bush II because you wanted to have a beer with him. Bush won or “won” 2000 (depending on whom you ask) and won 2004.Report
Bush II because you wanted to have a beer with him
I’ll only say this once more. I promise. Last time ever.
YOU DO NOT WANT TO HAVE A BEER WITH HIM!!!!! HE’S AN ALCOHOLIC!!!!!!!Report
I’m pretty sure a mean one, too. Some guys are fun when they are drunk. Some guys get weepy. And so on. Many guys get mean. Bush strikes me as that sort. But in fairness, that might simply be how he is as a dry drunk. He might be totally different as a wet one.Report
That’s a legitimate and big fear. Lithwick’s unsolicited advice column was that Americans want Clinton to be the adult. That might be true of some Americans but I don’t think that is true of all. Trump’s unique style seems to just get the press confused and it has a lot of supporters.Report
The endorphins we get from the toxoplasmosis manipulating our brains are their own reward.
There are a bunch of weird dynamics going on with the debate tonight:
The Mark Cuban thing.
The Gennifer Flowers thing.
The Trump not preparing for the debate (?!?!?!?) thing.
There’s SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY here.
There is a very real possibility that Trump just up’n walks out halfway through the debate.
There is a very real possibility that Clinton coughs for more than a couple of seconds.
There are so very many very real possibilities that this debate feels absolutely pregnant and we have no idea what’s going to happen just thirteen or fourteen things that are very real possibilities that they could.
I’m on tenterhooks.Report
Fetterman is showing up to the debate. The mayor of braddock. Dunno why.
There is a very real possibility that Clinton coughs for more than a couple of seconds.
… nnnnnope.Report
Hillary needs to confidently and clearly drink water multiple times. Any less then three unequivocal and completely honest drinks, not sips mind you, will raise massive questions. I expect CNN to have a panel of hydration experts to discuss how much she drinks and a constant scroll tracking her consumption. But she better not gulp, that isn’t lady like.Report
Perhaps we could pre-empt some criticisms by pointing out that criticisms of Clinton are rooted in sexism and, since sexism is bad, the people who are criticizing Clinton are, by extension, bad?
I think we’d have to put all criticisms in the same bucket.
Hillary didn’t smile enough? Sexist.
Hillary voted for Iraq? Sexist.
It doesn’t matter. We just need to make people fear what will happen to them if they deign to criticize Hillary.
Perhaps we could ask them if they *WANT* Trump to win…Report
And there I was, worrying that we weren’t going to have enough straw men in this thread. Who’s the most prominent person saying that giving Clinton hell for her Iraq vote is sexist?Report
So now you’re saying that we should criticize Hillary for her Iraq vote?
Do you *WANT* Trump to win?Report
I love when Jaybird goes full-disconnected-straw-man in an attempt to derail whatever he possibly can.
People can certainly criticize her Iraq vote. I don’t see why that should help Trump, since he also supported the war.Report
“People can certainly criticize her Iraq vote.”
No they can’t, you sexist pig. I notice that nobody is saying anything about DONALD TRUMP’S Iraq vote, which is not surprising, since he’s a man.Report
With this comment years of criticism of Clinton’s Iraq war vote instantly winks out of existence. Once it has been pointed out that something that clearly does exist actually cannot, reality can only comply.Report
#foxnewsReport
Citation needed for that strawman. Not that I expect to get one.
(also, pro-tip: some random comment on the internet somewhere doesn’t count)Report
You’re doing the exact thing that I’m mocking but I can’t tell whether or not you’re joking about it.Report
I’m calling someone sexist for criticing Clinton’s Iraq vote?Report
I was actually running with the derailing that was already going on.
If you’d like me to be serious for a moment, I will:
I think that there are some serious dynamics underlying this debate that involve such things as media “objectivity” and a *LOT* of various intangibles going on.
If Hillary comes across as vaguely impersonable (e.g., her “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” moment seen below), it’ll be a Howard Dean “YEEEEAAH!” moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJgbI2Mcxuk
Now, you may tell me, that’s not fair. Howard Dean was treated unfairly. I’m out of order. This whole system is out of order. How come we have a system where things like this happen and you’re criticizing Howard Dean for giving a “keep a stiff upper lip” speech when Bush is committing war crimes?
All of these are very good points.
But they are immaterial to the whole thing resulting in Howard Dean cratering.
Which brings me back to Hillary *AVOIDING* having a “YEEEEAAAH!” moment. She should avoid that.
Trump could be knocked off of his cool and have a Captain Queeg moment which will result in him cratering.
If you are a Hillary fan, which I assume the majority on this board actually are, it is in our best interest that the media not overplay its hand with criticisms of Trump tomorrow by framing fact-checks in such a way that come across as the picking of nits *AND*, at the same time, Hillary needs to not have a “YEEEEEEEAAAAH!” moment.
There is an expectations game going on and it’s a much weirder tightrope for Hillary than for Trump.
Trump just has to come across as affable and not lie too much.
Hillary has to look good and, at the same time, *NOT* look like the media is trying to help her.
And that’s a hell of a thing.Report
Now this is a good comment, and helpful to see in print. Thank you.Report
Hmmm….You seem pretty invested in maintaining plenty of derailing and strawmaning. YMMV.Report
I’m probably just a little dehydrated.Report
So never criticize shallow news coverage? Well unless you do it i guess. Nobody is allowed to criticize Clinton?? Except for all the people that do it and nobody is saying don’t criticize her. Sexism is what? You lost me.
I get that you have your stock response lines but i’m not sure how that match up with what i wrote.Report
So never criticize shallow news coverage?
I think your big worry is “liberal media”, personally.Report
Isn’t that what sank Rubio, though?Report
Absolutely completely different. Rubio had a “Drinking Problem”. His drinking was out of control.
Hillary doesn’t drink because for the secret IV’s she hides for her Alzheimers/Parkinsons treatments. She needs to drink to show she is an actual human and her bodily functions work.Report
Or she’s a robot that’s powered by hydrogen fusion.Report
But will she smile enough while doing it?Report
It still blows my mind that I live in a country with enough stupid people that bragging about NOT BEING INTERESTED IN PREPARING FOR A DEBATE is a viable campaigning tactic.
I mean, seriously, this is the guy at least 40% of voters want in the white house? Say what you want about Mitt Romney (and I did), there was never any question he’d do the work.Report
They’re trying to lower expectations to the point where “Didn’t defecate himself on stage” is considered a “win”.
“He didn’t even prepare! He has, in fact, been drinking heavily to try to kill off as many brain cells as possible. He’s been memorizing false facts to further confuse himself, and has had gene therapy to give himself Tourettes! Frankly, the sheer willpower and ability of this man will be showcased by going 90 minutes without biting the head of a live bat! VERY Presidential! Obama would have eaten several bats if he’d undergone that debate regime, although he’d probably have thrown up the bats. Very weak stomach.”Report
One thing that I think might happen:
They both do fairly well. Clinton talks about policy, Trump makes grand sweeping statements, they both criticize each other with shots that are not below the belt but legit criticisms and they both walk away in a position where their spin team isn’t preparing a Kevorkian Cocktail for themselves in the green room.
So then what?
I think that that would be, effectively, a win for Hillary insofar as it doesn’t change the status quo.
Right?
Because maintaining the status quo is good for Hillary, right?
So the thing to watch out for is anything worse than the scenario I described. If it’s worse than that, for Hillary, we’re going to have a bad time.
If it’s worse than that for Trump, his Trumpmentum is stopped in its tracks.Report
Oh I get that, but usually it’s about how the candidate “isn’t a natural debator” or “is having trouble condensing their firm detailed grasp of America’s needs into a soundbite.”
As far as I know “couldn’t be bothered to prep” is a new and deeply troubling step. Prepping is kind of the President’s job.Report
Let’s be honest here — Trump’s most ardent core of supporters think debate prep is for wusses. Real men wing it.
And I’m sure he’s prepping as he best he can, but lying and claiming he isn’t both lowers expectations, plays to his base, and when he comes across as semi-functioning, show’s he totally comfortable and commanding winging it!
Where’s the down side here again?
I mean sure, Clinton could soldier through an 11 hour witchhunt on a topic so clearly a waste of time as to make actual saint’s eyeroll, without batting an eyelash or missing an answer, but she’s one of those geeks that did debate in High School.
Not like Trump, who was out getting laid, amiright?Report
Don’t deny that at all. But a President needs to be informed and able to digest lots of information, which is what (a lot of) debate prep is. That’s why I called those people stupid.Report
I thought Hilary was in getting laid. What else was the “Were you alone all night?” question about?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of87imxFYe4Report
It still blows my mind that I live in a country with enough stupid people that bragging about NOT BEING INTERESTED IN PREPARING FOR A DEBATE is a viable campaigning tactic.
But you do.
Now what?
This is a serious question.
If you don’t have an answer for it, you could well have to prepare yourself for a situation where you have to deal with the fact that you live in a country with enough stupid people to result in a President Trump.Report
Oh I agree with that.
The problem with “Now what?” is that for me there are only three possible options. One is vote Hillary, which I’m doing. Two is donate to Hillary, which I’m doing. Three is help Hillary campaign, which I’m not doing because I don’t have time.
None of those change the disturbing number of stupid people out there. Things that would are outside my control and unlikely.
So for now my consolation is that I don’t appear to live in a country with (quite) enough stupid people to get it done (which is not to say that all Trump voters are stupid, as I’m sure this stuff isn’t appealing to all of them), and to place my hope that the continued decline of white male boomers as a share of the voting population will help prevent Trump 2 in 2020.Report
It appears that his solution is to hate white males even harder, because he’s been hating them quite hard and they still refuse to just go away and die.Report
#notallwhitemales
Just the ones who respond to Trump with a “hell yeah!” not because he’s making sense but because he’s ending each thought with an attack on liberals.Report
Since when are you so bad at this?Report
Do you have any wines to recommend?Report
I like the zinfandels.
Plungerhead has a lovely one that has a great nose, tastes like swill, and vomits easy.Report
Way to sell it, dude.Report
“I live in a country with enough stupid people that bragging about NOT BEING INTERESTED IN PREPARING FOR A DEBATE is a viable campaigning tactic.”
Welp. What preparation would you have suggested for hijacked airplanes hitting the World Trade Center and knocking down a bunch of buildings?
Because I don’t recall people giving George W. Bush any slack for not having had time to prepare when he heard the news.Report
Oh, I don’t know, how about listen to security briefings with titles like “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” and not decided that some cave-dweller wasn’t a real risk to America.
So the prep he could have done was to continue focusing on the issue, as Clinton had done and as Clarke was imploring the Bush administration to do. Instead, he did this:
Fortunately, though, Rice was “rethinking” the Clinton policies until it was too late.
Could a third-term of Clinton have stopped 9/11? We’ll never know. But his administration was doing the prep and planning (which, perhaps, was too little too late). Bush simply stopped. Do you think Trump would even know that there was prep TO stop? I’m not confident.Report
I think most voters have made up their minds. The WSJ had an article about how up to a third of voters said the debates would influence their votes but Kevin Drum is not buying it either. His view is that this is humans trying to make themselves more important than they really are (“If you could remember Woodstock than you weren’t there..”)
I admit to being in a glum and despondent mood right now but my college nickname was Eeyore. I remember when North was making comments that Donald Trump could not be the nominee because the Democratic Party was not that lucky. But there seems to be a good chunk of the American population that likes his ethnonationalism. A good chunk whose persona seems to be a combination of Eric “Respect my Authoritah” Cartman and Heath Ledger’s Joker (I also wrote this on LGM.) I worry that we are at the start of a full-on reactionary backlash over new gains in civil rights for minorities. A lot of people simply just dislike BLM, they probably dislike the new pushes for LBGT rights, and they don’t really understand civil liberties. There understanding of America is not the Bill of Rights but mom, flag, and apple pie. It seems like there is a good chunk of the population that thinks the merest criticism of the United States and policy or law in the United States is tantamount to a hatred of the United States and it is back to “Get the hell out if you don’t like it.” I just saw a facebook trending story about Mike Ditka screaming get the hell out at Collin Kirpatrick about this issue.
Now I think of the Washington Post article about Jim Cooley who managed to be threatening (as anyone with a semi-automatic rifle in public) and also pathetic (he had a massive heart attack, can’t work, and needs an electric scooter to get around.) I admit to having an image of a bunch of old guys on Segways slowly moving in formation with guns on their backs manages to be threatening (semi-automatic rifles) and risible (old guys on Segways because they can’t walk.)
The mood at the more lefty LGM is all over the map. You have people in doom and gloom and you have people who are still very confident that HRC is going to win bigger than the polls predict. The optimists are getting a bit too close to “unskewing” for my tastes.
538 is the polling site that has been the most Trump favorable. The Upshot and PEC are still strong on HRC but have lowered her chances to 69 percent which is still pretty high. Nate Silver came out with an essay today that said the polls are really volatile and the pollsters are probably going to be more wrong than they were in 2008 and 2012. He also said that 538 is the most optimistic for Trump but also the site that thinks HRC has the highest chance of a landslide.
Trump’s unfavorables are still 10-15 points worse than HRC’s. Recent data shows most people see Trump for what he is but maybe a good chunk of Americans like Trump for what he is:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/voters-see-trump-as-a-racist-madman-he-may-win-anyway.html
Report
So, Does Mr.Glum think it will be Germany first, or Italy?
Sincerely hope you don’t keep your money in the banks (see link I posted over on the money thread)Report
FTR I’m not hiding or anything, just absolutely crushed at work, putting in 55 hour weeks and thus have virtually no time to hang out. Which sucks.
And yes the Dems were lucky. Can you imagine if Rubio or Walker were the nominee right now? Or Even Cruz?
I remain convinced Jeb would be in the toilet though.Report
Jeb needed to be explained to that he was losing. More than once.
Walker would be in prison if he was that much of an idiot…Report
@north
That is probably a fair point. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see how toxic the Bush name still is though. I do suspect Kaisch could give HRC a run for her money. Not sure about Rubio (who seems to be a lightweight). Walker maybe. Cruz absolutely not.Report
Just because everyone who met Cruz despised him doesn’t mean a lot. 99.9999% of the voters will never meet the man and he gets on well enough with the voters. I have no doubt the establishment would be falling into line behind Cruz a la Romney if not even more eagerly.
Yeah Jeb put in the performance in the primary I hoped he’d put in.. I just wanted him to deliver it in the god(ess?) damned general!! Consarn it! Disappointed by a Bush, yet again.Report
@north
I don’t see Cruz being able to play the ethnonationalist card as well which is both a strength and weakness for Trump. He is also clearly too tied to old-school GOP talking points which are now in the dustbin of history.
But this is all useless thought experimentation. Trump won the nomination, Cruz/Walker/Rubio/Bush II did not.
Of course the worst grass is greener thought experimenters are the ones claiming Sanders would be clearing the floor with Trump. If a quarter to half the country freaks out about a quarterback knelling during the National Anthem, I don’t see how a self-described Jewish (but closer to atheist) socialist wins the election.Report
I still don’t quite get how the guy who admires Putin and has Russophiles in his campaign is also going to be the one who will start a nuclear war.Report
Who said he would use it against Russia?Report
What better way to get out of all that money he owes them?Report
One thing all americans between the ages of 18 -35 needs to consider is if Trump is elected and starts a war. Trump, his 10 yr old son and over 35 yr old sons are not going to go fight it!!!Report
Sounds like a good reason to vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.Report
For all intents and purposes
But what if we just stick to the intensive purposes exclusively? Does that change the analysis?Report
You’d figure the shark tank guy would cause some intense porpoises.Report
My theory on Nate Silver/538 (which might be me fooling myself) is that Silver/538 got caught with their pants down on Trump being the nominee and are now over-correcting. I remember Harry Enten doing an interview (I think with Trumpcast or NPR) where he basically admitted that 538 did not believe Trump could win and they got caught with their pants down.
The Upshots state-by-state analysis is interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html
The Upshot and PW have Clinton’s chances of winning Florida at 57 percent and 59 percent respectively and this is pretty good! I like it! 538 and Daily Kos have Florida being equally strong probabilities for GOP wins. Princeton, Sabato, Cook, and Roth have it as a toss-up. So should I be an optimist or a pessimist?
For every swing state, there are polls with contradictory results. Almost everyone thinks North Carolina is going Republican but Princeton/Sam Wang has NC at 59 percent Democratic and three pollsters have it as a toss-up.Report
… and yet you keep listening to the pollster who keeps on polling Ebola’s popularity…
I’m betting on Deutschbank, short (and short-term, which is the clincher) — which is like trying to catch a knife that the powers that be are juggling desperately. But if they couldn’t even get brexit right, despite rampant cheating…Report
The funny thing about the nominee race was that 538’s algorithms and polls and methodology was right. But Nate and Co, when they were analyzing it, were like “yes yes Trump shows ahead but we all know he’d going to immolate so when that does etc etc…” only the expected immolation never showed up.
I think 538 is probably the most accurate. That’s reason for bleakness in how much HRC’s lead has shrunk though also reason for grim hope in that her lead has not vanished and she has a massive GOTV apparatus whereas Trump has a drunken Jersey parolee with some names on a napkin.Report
@north
Sam Wang pointed out that 538 is part of the ESPN empire and they have an incentive to get as many cliques as possible. I’ve seen them do some very dramatic swings in the matter of minutes.
Sam Wang and the Upshot seem less resistant to those kind of microtrends leading to big results.Report
There is no comfort to be found in that though. All of them show HRC losing ground and losing a lot of it.Report
I suppose what is happening is that overall demographic trends are in the favor of the Democratic Party but they are happening at a slower rate than changes than changes that favor the Republican Party.
Iowa went red because it is getting older, whiter, and more Evangelical as a state than the nation overall. But I think it will be a while before these demographic trends start to help the Democratic Party. The GOP still has a problem that their core supporters are literally dying but this can happen over the course of decades.Report
Deutschbank is in favor of the Republican Party.
NEXT!
Translation for the dimwitted or terminally “not following the news”: Demographics ain’t destiny when everything’s fallin’ apart.Report
@north
See below. Sam Wang came out with some great results for HRC fans including solid predictions of her winning North Carolina and Florida. The Upshot also went up for HRC.Report
I’m still quite optimistic. But (and you knew there would be a but) I am also convinced that the next time the Democrats lose, unless it’s bloody obvious Wang will be optimistic going into mid-November.
That the other compilers are giving us good news is encouraging.
Hillary pulling out of Ohio and that we’re even talking about some of these states (like Colorado) less so.
Which I believe still leads us in a place that HRC is a few steps ahead, just not where we want her to be. If the polls read this way in 2-3 weeks, I’ll start getting concerned.Report
*shrugs* Horserace might get eaten by H-bomb. Keep an eye on the H-bomb. If it’s still a horserace by November, Hillary probably wins.Report
And the Upshot is gone as soon as the NYTimes decides that they’re not attracting eyeballs. Give me the straight academics, whose only gains come from being right.Report
“whose only gains come from being right”
…
Was this sarcasm?
I hope it was sarcasm.
If not it strikes me as rather naive.
(I’d take “who have more to gain from being right.” Maybe. On a non-cynical day.)Report
I think a few people are misunderestimating (I’m going to make that a real word.) the structural disadvantage that Republicans have in the electoral college.
Basically, the polls now say ‘Trump might win some swing states’, when it was previously looking like he wouldn’t.
The problem is, to win, Trump (Hell, Republicans in general) essentially needs to win *all* swing states. Yes, the disadvantage really is that large.
A lot of people somehow seem to have to think presidential elections work by the candidates starting out tied and whoever gets the most swing states win. IIRC, that wasn’t even true in 2000, and has gotten less and less true since then,Report
The EC may buy you a point or two, if that. If Trump wins 51%of the two party vote, it’s his.
Plus, there are indications that it’s actually more favorable to Trump than it was Romney. The less educated whites live in the right states.Report
….I don’t know how to respond to that, it’s so far outside of what I understand the current situation to be.
That’s not even *currently* true. If we were to assuming that the current polls were the vote, Trump is currently only a few points behind Clinton…and loses the EC by a massive 231 to 307! Or worse!
I’m not even sure how the popular vote is *relevant* to this at all.
The only way anyone can pretend there’s the slightest risk of Trump winning is by claiming New Hampshire, Virginia, and Pennsylvania are competitive, when in fact none of them actually are.
The closest thing to actually competitive that would push him over is Colorado…which is polling at 75% Dem.
And he *additionally* win in all of Florida and Ohio and Iowa and North Carolina and Nevada….you know, the actual swing states.Report
The Electoral College typically acts as an amplifier. It turns small margins into large ones. Historically, it very rarely changes an outcome. Instead, what happens is that as the national vote improves, states start flipping. Often all at once.
To take FiveThirtyEight’s current forecast* as an example, their “Poll Plus” model has him down by 1.2% nationally. From an Electoral College standpoint, he only needs one more state to win, Colorado, which he is down by 1.4%. If he had a national swing of three points, he’d take the popular vote by 1.8%, Colorado by 1.4%… and he would take New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Putting him well over 300 electoral votes despite winning by less than 2%.
Not all swings are uniform, but it’s hard to win states here without winning them over there. That’s why the tipping state margin typically hews pretty close to the national popular vote. There’s rarely a difference of more than a point or two. And between 2008 and 2012, uniform swing had better predictive value than actual polling.
So anyway, point being, you may look at the states and see that Trump has only a 40% chance of winning one state, a 35% chance of winning another state, and a 30% chance of winning a third and think “What are the odds?” and you might calculate them at 4%. But if he wins that last state, he probably wins the first two.
Anyway, if you don’t believe me, maybe Josh Marshall who just says it bluntly:
* My point of using 538 isn’t “It’s close!” but rather to show the relationship between the electoral college, the tipping states, and the cluster of states that can flip all at once. For both Clinton and Trump, a 2% victory can look pretty significant in terms of the Electoral College.Report
Yesterday morning 538 had Trump’s chance of winning at 54.5% (screenshot here), but by the afternoon positions had reversed. I couldn’t tell in the A.M. what state had moved; Colorado was bisected on the snake chart, but still showed Clinton as 55% likely to win Colorado.Report
PA is competitive(was last time too). Virginia too.
It’s not a fucking black swan if it happens twice in a row, is it?Report
Trump, the abiding lover of the Second Amendment, apparently wants to use the police to take away Americans’ guns. Or something.
Don’t worry though, it’s just black gun owners.Report
Yeah, that was a bit amazing of a comment. So much so, I trolled the local town Facebook group (The one that is an endless list of people posting conservative memes.) with:
So, *should* the police search anyone acting suspiciously to see if they’re carrying a gun, and, if so, make the person produce evidence they own it legally?
Which…worked exactly like I was intending it to work. A lot of them, unaware it was Trumps proposal, reflexively blamed liberals.
And then, when the discussion finally got on track, some people wandered off into ‘Well, it’s okay in high crime areas…’ and I had to point out that, as the police are *local*, ‘high crime areas’ would mean the highest *local* areas in any particular police area…for example, our town center. (Which is really only the ‘highest crime’ level because, duh, that’s where the money and population is.) Should *our* police be doing stop-and-frisk in *our* town center?
Others were like ‘Well, the courts found it unconstitutional, so it doesn’t matter what Trump said’, which is a hell of a response politically(!), but I pointed out that actually the courts found the *current implementation* was *racially biased* and unconstitutional for *that* reason…the courts theoretically have no problem with the police stopping and frisking people *nonprejudicially*.
And surely Trump was proposing some sort of *non-racist* stop-and-frisk, as some sort of nation-wide proposal, instead of it mysteriously being limited to only minority neighborhoods in inner cities. Which, to get back to my previous point, would be need to done even in majority white areas like our county, so it actually *could* pass legal muster.
This sorta left them sputtering incoherently. What is the comeback there? ‘No, Trump’s proposal will be just as racist at the one in the New York, so not constitutional!’ ‘No, the police are inherently racist so the courts will always strike it down?’
(Before anyone gets pissy at me trolling somewhere, this is a group that, right now, has a picture of Michelle Obama leaning next to George W. Bush (From some photoshoot the Obamas and Bushes just did.), and a quarter the comments on that post are how she’s a man in a dress, and another quarter are vaguely racist. I do not feel guilty in the slightest.)Report
I didn’t see anything about being able to keep guns just because you own and carry them legally. It was just, stop, frisk, take away guns.Report
My largely uninformed hunch…
Trump’s range of outcomes has a floor of, “HOLY CRAP THAT WAS LITERALLY A DUMPSTER FULL OF DIRTY DIAPERS CATCHING FIRE!” and a ceiling of, “He looked like he belonged, he seemed Presidential, he was more likable than Clinton.”
I think Hilary’s range of outcomes has a floor of, “Good god… she is excruciating to listen to, totally unlikable, why couldn’t she get a single bout of applause while he was racking them up,” to a ceiling of, “Wow… just wow… These people are vying for the same position? This isn’t even a competition.”
I look at that and I see Clinton with the higher ceiling and Trump with the lower floor.
“How many voters have already irrevocably made up their minds?1 Are the numbers that remain in the “persuadable” column sufficient to sway the election? What does each candidate need to do to reach those still-persuadable voters out there? How much effect will the debate have on the respective campaigns’ GOTV effort as well as the reach-for-the-middle effort?”
Taking these questions en masse, I think there is a group of people who haven’t so much as not made up their minds about TrumpVClinton but are deciding VoteVStayinghome.
I think if things go poorly for Trump — if he hits that floor and ESPECIALLY if Clinton hits that ceiling — many of those people will say, “Ugh… this election sucks… but I just can’t let that doofus into the White House. I guess I’ll hold my nose and vote for Clinton.”
I think if things go poorly for Trump, it will rally the committed Trump voters, discourage the committed Hilary voters, but not move the needle on that middle group so much. If you are considering staying home because you think both candidates suck and the debate ends with the trailing candidate proving to be equally sucky to the leading candidate, I don’t think that motivates you to not stay home.
I feel like there is a way to squeeze this into @jaybird ‘s “Three Types” but I can’t quite make it fit. I’d be curious to hear his perspective on my (largely uninformed) perspective.Report
“If you are considering staying home because you think both candidates suck and the debate ends with the trailing candidate proving to be equally sucky to the leading candidate, I don’t think that motivates you to not stay home.”
I agree. People seem to have this idea that “better than Trump” and “actually good” are of course the same thing, and they really are not.Report
This seems about right to me.
If I’d say anything, I’d say that Trump has a big ol’ squishy middle that he can swim in (“beats expectations!”) but Hillary has a far bigger problem when it comes to potential failure insofar as failure past a certain point is catastrophic.
That is, imagine two coffee cups. One made of tin. One made of ceramic.
The tin one can fall and suffer a small dent but still be usable. (That’s Trump.)
The ceramic one can fall and, if it doesn’t break, it’s just as usable as it was before it fell. If, however, it fails? We’re talking a catastrophic failure. Get the broom.
That said: if there are no failures, catastrophic or otherwise, it’s Hillary’s win.
Which means that it’s Hillary’s debate to lose.
As for the “Three Types”, I think that this is going to be the first time that a lot of people will be sitting down, seriously, to see what this Trump thing is all about. They know Hillary Clinton and they know she’s fit enough for the job. They’re familiar with her. Trump? They don’t know anything about Trump.
So if Trump comes across as a grownup, capable of dealing with problems, can handle a little light jostling, that’ll help with these people.
If he comes across as an arrogant bully? He’ll turn 80% of these people off entirely and it’s Clinton’s.
You did a good job hammering out the ceilings and the floors. I like that.Report
I agree about the middle and the durability of the respective cups. Hey! AGREEMENT! WAHOOO!!!OO!O!O!O!O!O!!!!Report
“That said: if there are no failures, catastrophic or otherwise, it’s Hillary’s win. Which means that it’s Hillary’s debate to lose.”
Which, see my earlier post. Not only could she get away with zipping her lip and letting Trump be his own bad self, she should do exactly that.Report
I’m curious… What does a good Trump performance look like? Pivot middle, act Presidential, leave the primary madness at home? Or does it look like FullTrump? I really don’t know. @jaybird What do you think each of those (or something in the middle?) does to the three groups?
CW says he takes the former tack. CW has proven useless this cycle. Now what?Report
@kazzy
I suspect that Trump’s floor is so low that he can “win” the debate by simply not falling into any traps or doing the things that alienated people like his performances/antics after the DNC.
Trump’s big issue is that this is just a one on one debate. I suspect his antics did well during the Republican primary debates because he was only on screen for so much of the time and lots of people needed to speak. The big question is whether he can sustain a 90 minute debate against one other person.
I think a lot of people on the Democratic side are worried about the media being in the bag for the “She’s so painful and shrill” post debate spin/pundit talks.Report
“What does a good Trump performance look like?”
Well, from the looks of things here he’s expected to actually shit himself and then start drawing pictures with the shit, so if he can manage to not do that then he’s performing above baseline.Report
BLITZER: And now we’re going live to the floor to get the mood inside the hall with CNN’s own Don Lemon. Don?
LEMON: Wolf, I’m standing here in the press pit, and the consensus here is that Trump’s maverick, show-stopping use of his own feces was nothing short of Presidential.Report
A good Trump performance: He comes across as affable but tough. He radiates “charismatic leadership” which is as close as we’re going to get to “Presidential” and manages to jab Clinton in such a way that is technically fair but inspires the moderator to yell “THAT’S NOT FAIR!” and make it look to the home viewing audience that it’s Trump vs. Hillary/Moderator and not merely Trump vs. Hillary. Also, Trump has at least one line that gets a belly laugh out of people. (To the point where the audience has a sustained laugh of 1-2 seconds and Trump has to stop talking.)
He has to do three things:
1) Get his people to say “HELL YEAH!!! THIS IS WHY I’M SUPPORTING MISTER TRUMP!!!!”
2) Get Clinton’s people to say “Man… we had an opportunity to replace Clinton back when she passed out… why didn’t we? Why didn’t Biden run?”
3) Get people on the fence to say “Man, the media has been tearing Mr. Trump a new one for the last year and… man. I used to not believe the liberal media story but they’re totally in the bag for Clinton! Mr. Trump is pretty impressive.”
If you leave the debate thinking one of these three things, or seeing how one of those stupid people out there might be saying one of these three things, even as you know the smart people are still voting for Hillary, then I’d say that that is a Trump Victory.
There might be other Trump victories? Like if he says something and Hillary says “NOW WAIT A MIN… *COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH*” and that goes on for a while? That’s probably a victory too. Though a much more underhanded one.Report
@jaybird
I have a sense that 1&3 have a narrow overlap on a Vemm diagram… Unless Hilary does poor herself.
What makes Trumpers go ra-ra is what makes the undecideds remain that way, no?Report
“What makes Trumpers go ra-ra is what makes the undecideds remain that way, no?”
I think that was the CW about a year ago, not so sure now.Report
Might very well be the case.
But I think @jaybird is right: if Trump cam play the charm card, eep. Doubly so if Clinton gets caught in any of her personality potholes (fair ones or not).
Can Trump keep it together for a full 1on1 adversarial debate? Especially if the moderators skew Hilary’s way? That’s a bih question. What does he do if he feels cornered and low on ammo?Report
If the Number Threes were turned on by what turned on the Number Ones, they’d be Number Ones already.
I’m talking about what would be a victory that everybody would agree upon.
Now, if there was an *OVERWHELMING* victory, it’d have all of the above. Trump being affable, funny, deliver the right kind of attacks, deftly defend himself, radiate charismatic leadership, and then give an attack line that results in Hillary starting to cough for a few seconds, then Trump saying “we should probably go to commercial”, then Hillary coughing for a few more seconds, then going to commercial?
AND THEN YOU’RE SITTING AT HOME WATCHING THE LONGEST 45-SECOND BURGER KING COMMERCIAL EVER… A MOMENT OF BLACK… THEN THE LONGEST 45-SECOND FORD TRUCK COMMERCIAL EVER… A MOMENT OF BLACK… THEN A VICKS 44 COMMERCIAL.
At that point, turn off the television and go to bed and think about how, tomorrow, you’ll practice saying “Mister Trump”.Report
Clinton’s people are already asking why they didn’t replace Clinton.Report
Do you believe literally every wild claim someone posts on reddit’s politics page?Report
That’s a pretty spectacularly ridiculous claim. I’d ask for a citation, but if you had one I’d suspect it would be of notme quality.Report
While I agree on the subject of this particular claim, it’s pretty rich for you to pretend that evidence is something that actually matters to you.Report
The big wild card in this is that Trump has never done this kind of debate. It was always more than 2 people in a wacky apprentice like format. If he gets out of his depth he can’t fade into the woodwork and let Rubio, Cruz and Jeb fight in the foreground.
All indications and math says this should be a slaughter. But the devil whispers from behind the leaves “Is she likable? Does she come across shrill? Does he beat expectations?”Report
“All indications and math says this should be a slaughter.”
Yeah, and all the predictions that HRC would be slaughtering Trump have been so acurate…
Right now we have some polls putting them at a tie, and RCP has HRC with a falling 2.3 lead, certainly not 50 points. I think it wa 538 who said last week that if the polls are like this in a week, start panicing…Report
There have also been predictions looking at the various fundamentals suggesting a generic R would be leading by 2-3 %.Report
Sure the idea of a republican would be winning, but the reality of any republican actually getting through the media gauntlet is not so good. I am becoming increasingly sure of the fact that the paradigm shift of Trump – the calling out the media, his brashness, etc. – in short his media savvy and ability to get them to do his bidding, are what is driving this whole bus And is a primary reason why he is in fact doing so well. Media trust is at an all time low, the left is calling for the media to destroy Trump left and right. In other words, the dem machines no. 1 weapon is kaput. They aren’t able to carry HRC over the finish line.
I know, I know, the media doesn’t have a left bias. Do you buy bridges, by any chance?Report
She may have to actually do some of that work herself. Tonight. I hope. I pray. Well, I would pray if I were a praying-type person. Fortunately she’s Tracey Flick, so she’s going to have put in the work to do well, even if she is personally disagreeable.Report
Well, counsellor Likko, as I said bellow, if she goes full Flick, she is toast. It won’t move the needle, and she is the one who needs to move the needle as he has the momentum right now.
Never go full Flick.Report
So I googled Flick. Strategy aside, what does it say about our country if we choose Full Trump over Full Flick?Report
I am going to go ahead and quote what I wrote over at Will joint a week ago, as I think it still stands:
At this point, I don’t think the expectations are high anymore, not because of Trump, but rather that she is sliding in the polls, which are now even-steven in many. He has the momentum.
That said, I would rather stick chop sticks in my eyes than watch this.Report
An approximate quote from the show NewsRadio – “These ratings indicate that people are abandoning their vehicles and walking home rather than risking accidentally turning on their car radios and hearing your show.”Report
I made my decision over two years ago and I see no reason to change it. Everything else has just been enjoying the ride. And I don’t plan on wasting my time watching the debates. I’m sure NPR will pull out a few juicy tidbits I can hear about tomorrow on the way to work.Report
So this happened:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/09/26/apparent_nazi_obsessive_shoots_nine_people_in_houston.htmlReport
Impact: Minimal to nill. The various durka-derpas-nutbags attacking people here and there haven’t moved the needle much, this won’t either.Report
Deutschbank, on the other hand…Report
@north
I don’t think it will. I am just marveling at the guy wearing Nazi regalia. There was another story from the weekend about a guy selling Hitler Youth flags and Trump flags at a rural fair in PA.
I find the rise of openly bigoted white-ethnonationalism deeply disturbing. Will showed me this tweet from August here: “This election is like having dinner with friends, three friends pick pizza and two friends pick ‘kill you and eat you.’ Even if pizza wins, there is still a big problem.”
Even if Trump loses (especially if it is a narrow or margin of error loss, there is still a big problem. We are seeing surges of open racism, sexism, and ethnonationalism like I have never seen before. So I do think Jaybird is not completely wrong in noticing what is going on in GamerGate, Breitbart/MY, and Palmey Luckey* and noticing something in the air.
At the very least, I suspect the left is going to be distrustful of the major media players from now on for normalizing Trump.
*I still have no idea what “meme magic is real means” except “Fuck you, we will create our own reality.”Report
I’d rather it be out in the open then tucked under the flaps of the GOP’s tent.Report
@north
I am going to do a variant of Jaybird’s question.
“Okay. Open racism and white ethno-nationalism is out in the open and not tucked under the flaps of the GOP’s tent.”
My question is “Now what?”
As the Daily Intel article I posted seems to show, most Americans have no trouble seeing Trump for what he is but the problem is that they have an irrational hatred of HRC (which might or might not be similar to Kim’s delusions) and/or they like the racist war-mongering authoritarian stuff.
What’s your solution now that all this stuff is out of the bag? I’ve lived in a super blue bubble all my life but I have a lot of friends going after their GOP relatives day in and day out to go against Trump. Many of these people have a minority status which would make life really unpleasant for them under a Trumpian ethno-nationalist regime or they have loved ones who would not do well under such regimes. Yet having an LBGT child does not seem to be enough to get people to turn off the R psyche and Trump gets “normalized.”Report
“What’s your solution now that all this stuff is out of the bag?”
Maybe you should say “fuck you racists” some more. Like, a *LOT* more. That seems to work, right?Report
Well the natural state of the race seems to be a modest HRC lead with a huge and unopposed campaign GOTV standing by in the wings. If she doesn’t blow the debate or something else then HRC will likely win and if/when she does then things are in a pretty good place.
You ask now what? Well Trumpism is out in the open now and has to run on its own merits not hide behind the elegant Buckleyian skirt dance flashing its nose out just long enough to reassure the true believers and set the louder liberals to screeching only to vanish indignantly when confronted. The small government and Neocon elite are sitting in the utter ruin of their entire world. The majority of their party gives not a fish about their issues. If Trump loses there’s a lot of figuring out to do but at least the old conservative regime is maimed so that change and evolution can perhaps begin to happen.Report
I’m expecting, assuming a Hillary win, a pretty quick rally round the “we must oppose her” caucus. Lots of pretty talk and papering over differences. I think there will be less of a falling apart of the R’s then people expect. Of course some weird or wild election results could change that, but for now, thats my bet.Report
North,
The natural state of this election is trump winning in a walk.
As the powers that be would find this… inconvenient, many plates are being spun just a liiiiitle longer to make certain Hillary wins.
2007-2008 all over again. It ain’t a black swan if it happens twice in a row, kids.Report
The guy behind this shooting isn’t even white.Report
I’d just like to point out he was wearing a Nazi uniform.Report
That’s not mutually exclusive with Indian. I can’t find the Linky I wrote about it, but here’s some potential context.Report
He had a bunch of weird war memorabilia, from what I’ve read. I only mentioned the Nazi uniform as a reason people who haven’t seen a picture might jump to “White”.Report
The past 8 years have seen plenty of black-nationalist racism and anti-male sexism. I was proudly a member of the party that opposed it. Unfortunately, this time around they’ve decided to pitch the same product to a different market, and now we’re seeing both parties wanting bloodshed in the streets. I can put up with a divergence from Republican orthodoxy in a GOP candidate, but Trump embraces the whole Democratic agenda, and does it using the Democratic playbook of race/class/color/sex/gender.Report
Next he’s going to give a speech in a town famous for the murder of ciliv rights workers and accuse young black men of buying liquor with food stamps. What a filthy Democrat.Report
Never happened.Report
The text of the speech is available online. He says this about welfare and its recipients:
“Today, and I know from our own experience in California when we reformed welfare, I know that one of the great tragedies of welfare in America today, and I don’t believe stereotype after what we did, of people in need who are there simply because they prefer to be there. We found the overwhelming majority would like nothing better than to be out, with jobs for the future, and out here in the society with the rest of us. The trouble is, again, that bureaucracy has them so economically trapped that there is no way they can get away. And they’re trapped because that bureaucracy needs them as a clientele to preserve the jobs of the bureaucrats themselves.”Report
True, the “young buck” speech, and the Philadelphia speech were two separate incidents.Report
Why disturbing? Liberals have been preaching identity politics to their side, minorites, women, etc. for 20 plus years. When whites start taking identity politics it’s suddenly racist. How is that possible?Report
Saul,
“meme magic is real” means Bad Advice Dog got someone to carry his sign.Report
This got a gigglesnort.Report
Sigh.
Racists shooting minorities.
Cops shooting black people.
Wanna be Islamic terrorists shooting up public places.
Remind me why we’ve decided to make the phrase “a well-regulated militia” meaningless again?Report
Lone wolf/crazy/let’s talk about mental health in America.Report
No but he was a lawyer.
http://m.wgal.com/national/houston-shooting-police-say-theyve-shot-suspect/41828510Report
Enough said.Report
Oy. Genuine sympathy on your floor situation here, Br. Burt.Report
Much appreciated — but hey, at least I won’t be listening to Donald Trump!Report
By the way, @burt-likko how many critters do you have? We are up to 3 cats and one small dog, and it sounds like yours have the same recreational habits as mine.Report
Two dogs, two cats.
I have to put the blame now a bit on the humans. You see, we cut some holes in the drywall between one office and the back of a built-in cabinet. The litter box goes in there, and it makes it easy to access the litter box to change it, and the cats get in and out through about eight inches of PVC pipe that stands in the drywall. That gives the cats a doggie-proof way of accessing the litter box, You’ve got a dog and cats, so you know that the dog would lurve to get into that litter box and enjoy some of those kitty canapés. So anyway, someone knocked that PVC pipe out from its usual place, and the cats couldn’t access their litter box. The vomit is probably the product of “normal” feline digestion.
So, it’s 6:35 and I turn on the debate and holy crud. Something about the tax returns. And he’s interrupting her all the time and she’s smiling at him. The interruptions are not good, that much is for sure. Not sure how her “oh that’s cute” smiles at his whoppers (“fighting ISIS all her adult life”?) will play.
So… Did I miss anything else informative while I was wiping up animal vomit?Report
Conor F has a great article on Trump:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trumps-cruel-streak/501554/
Sadly I am learning that a lot of people really like Trump’s cruelty and no Republican, not even Ted Cruz could pick principals and conscious over endorsing Trump. Let us be reminded:
But Cruz was a lackey and got up there to support Trump this week. I fear for what happens next even if HRC wins the election, even if she wins by a landslide. The genie is out of the bottle.Report
I never liked Ted Cruz better than the moment he said, “Attack me all you want, Donald, but leave my wife out of it.” There, at least, was something I could really respect.
Man says those sorts of things about my wife and my dad… I’m not endorsing him. Ever. Maybe I stay silent and don’t endorse anyone. I’m more than a little bit disappointed to see Cruz do that, not that I’d ever have likely voted for the guy in the first place.Report
grrrgh
principles
conscience
“I fear for what happens next even if HRC wins the election, even if she wins by a landslide. ”
no shit.
Drone strikes? “Trump woulda been worse!”
Domestic surveillance? “Trump woulda been worse!”
Partisan gridlock? “Trump woulda been worse!”
Governance by regulatory fiat? “Trump woulda been worse!”
Mass deportation in the name of public safety? “Trump woulda been worse!”
Even if Donald Trump doesn’t get elected, he’ll still be the worst President ever!Report
No, george bush will still be the worst president ever and everything will still be his fault even if hillary wins.Report
Princeton has me sighing in relief:
http://election.princeton.edu/Report
We still don’t have the Senate. This makes for four years of attrition and no appointments.Report
@leeesq
Now that would be truly unprecedented….Report
It would be. Would you really put it past them?Report
A preview of the debate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVoKVxRlzcYReport
Already feel good about my decision to forgo the debate for Monday Night FootballReport
At the end of the third quarter, I’m ready to declare myself and the Atlanta Falcons the clear winners. Saints still scrapping, but even if they score again their defense has no answers.Report
Even though he’s still being as evasive, Trump is actually building his energy under repeated pressure from Holt, and it makes Trump look better than he did in his openning.Report
Semi-exact is progress for Trump!Report
That sly smile is exactly what Clinton needs, esp when Trump is interrupting her.Report
Trump hectoring Clinton is not working for Trump, is working for Clinton.Report
This is starting to look like the slaughter I said all the math suggested it should be. I can feel the tension draining out of my shoulders.Report
Hillary’s Twitter is on fire right now.Report
Somebody call the fire department.Report
I’m listening to the debate. Trump’s strategy from the bits I’ve heard seem to be a combination of typical Republican talking points about regulations and taxes with a tone down version of his usual attack dog style. Hillary is pointing out her plans, trying not to be too wonky.Report
Both Clinton and Trump are loosing their cool, Trump more so. They are at each other’s throats.Report
There is a limited constituency for which sarcastically agreeing with what your opponent is saying about you will be viewed positively and Hillary is already getting all those votes. She should stop doing that.Report
She needs to go for the “Comedy has been all downhill since Ozzie and Harriet” vote. Real Americans don’t do sarcasm.Report
Good point. Now that I think about it, every time Trump said something stupid, Hillary should have responded with, “I can’t even.” That would have really slayed.Report
Can Hillary make this face?Report
Maybe?Report
In perhaps the first time this has ever been said about Hillary, there is perhaps just a bit too much whimsy there.Report
Hold on, you’re sarcastically agreeing with me. I just won this argument in every red state.Report
Ugh, asking about tax returns? Though it did give Trump a chance to brag on how much he makes, and they’re not going to be really call him out on his BS about auditsReport
Hillary Clinton got under Trump’s skin with her response though and hit him where it hurts the most.Report
It’s a push to me. Paying as little in taxes as possible is indeed smart. But if no one pays any taxes, all the roads and bridges are crap.
And I can’t believe Trump didn’t bring up the Foundation when refuting/deflecting the attack on hidden bought interests.Report
Clinton’s response about Trump’s taxes showing he isn’t as wealthy as he claims strikes me as something that really hurts him personally and on a gut level.Report
But it didn’t throw him off his game.Report
My impression is that he is way off his game. The man seems to be losing it. Look at that little rant about air ports.Report
That’s…his normal mode. The only time it really isn’t working (and it’s *really* not working) is when he’s split screen sighing and ‘noping’ when Clinton is talking.Report
Judging by my wife (both anecdotal and liberal, so…grain of salt), the constant interruptions are not doing him any favors.
I heard three variants of “He reminds me of X” at work. Whom she hates. Because he can’t let any woman finish a sentence, apparently.
Which is apparently a not uncommon problem with women in the workplace. But…grain of salt.
As for normal mode: The problem with normal mode for Trump is it doesn’t tend to play as well with the mushy middle. With the rally crowd? Sure. But it scares the straights, and that’s why his latest campaign manager has been trying hard to prevent him from acting that way.Report
Every time he interrupts her and cuts her off he loses more woman voters. Does he gain anyone by doing so?Report
I don’t think so. But in the primaries I greatly underestimated the number of ‘male chauvinists that think women should be “protected”‘ vs the number of ‘male chauvinists that believe it’s ok to be a jerk to women’Report
I think they’re already mostly voting for him, though.
Way too many images of Donald scoffing and interrupting while Clinton was talking. He needs to fix that before the next debate.
It’s the kind of thing that’s likely to fly under the male radar, but not the female one.
Holy crap — Frank Luntz’s group went 16-6 in favor of Clinton. Luntz. Who hasn’t met a focus group yet that he hasn’t stacked rightward.Report
Yeah I think you’re about right.Report
He was going to, but the Mule wouldn’t let him.Report
Now Trump has gone on a big rant about his taxes and the email non-scandal.Report
Clinton’s response to the e-mail was, in my opinion, remarkable and smart because it was brief and honest. “I admit I made a mistake by using a private e-mail server.” (Or words to that effect.)
It’s remarkable because so many politicians — Clinton herself, so often — simply refuse to admit having made mistakes at all.
It’s smart because framing it as a “mistake” obliges the listener of goodwill to respond to it with a measure of forgiveness.
It’s smarter because it drew Trump out to attack her (“That wasn’t just a ‘mistake,’ it was intentional,”) after she had made herself vulnerable and that looked just plain mean. Unhinged even.
At least, that’s how I see it playing with the Normals. Who aren’t all that experienced with what it is to hold a security clearance.Report
Yeah; now she can say “well I admitted I made a mistake”, “I already said I made a mistake”, “look it was just a mistake and I’ve admitted it”, “why are you still talking about something that I’ve already admitted was a mistake”.
The fact that this “mistake” would have anyone else in jail is just something we’re not supposed to talk about because SHE ALREADY SAID THAT IT WAS A MISTAKE WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING ABOUT ITReport
…not true.
For example, Colin Powell is not in jail. Nor is any of the Bush admin people who conducted official business through their RNC addresses to avoid recordkeeping.
None of it is admirable, but none of it would ever have resulted in jail time.Report
It’s also pretty clear that her private server was for unclassified mail (otherwise you’d have found a lot more than the few not marked or classified later examples there), which doesn’t stop people from acting like she set it up to get all her top-secret mail.
And of course she clearly did it to get around FOIA, except she turned over 30,000 emails — and Powell turned over zero, and the Bush administration deleted 21 million….
But Clinton, because she actually responded to FOIA requests, gets pilloried.Report
“Colin Powell is not in jail.”
Colin Powell did not do things for which he’d signed a form saying he’d go to jail if he did them.
Although hey, if you want to limit it to FOIA stuff, sure, keep telling me about how it’s cool for Clinton to skate around FOIA requirements. I mean, that’s the argument you’re making, here, right? That it’s OK that she did this and we shouldn’t be upset?Report
Reading comprehension fail?
Be as upset as you want, but it’s simply false that anyone else would go to jail for any of this. Outside of the GOP convention, there’s a line between “we are upset about someone” and “someone should be in jail”Report
Yes… it’s the airports, Donald.Report
I’m ALMOST wishing for the cat vomit back.Report
I don’t think he’s ahead of schedule or under budget on the old post office. They did a soft opening this month, but the bulk I don’t think will be open until 2017. And his cash flow is all jacked up due the fight over the restaurants.Report
“How do we address race relations?”
“Law and order.”
Wow. Fucking wow.Report
Trump’s answers in this “law and order” section are horrible but probably sell better than people think.Report
How is he mangling the gun issue? Isn’t his play “We can’t trust Secretary Clinton to figure out who the good people and the bad people are with her bureaucrats and her lawyers. That’s who’s going to take your guns from you because they think you’re a bad person?”
I’m not even a trump supporter and I know that play.Report
Can I ask a question: Chicago’s violence issues (which are really) often get thrown at Obama’s feet because of his time in Illinois. Is that reasonable? I mean, it seems silly to blame a President for what is happening in a particular city, even if he has a historical connection there. But maybe I’m off…?Report
It’s also ridiculous to think the President can solve it, but that’s the premise thrown at both Trump and Clinton and both are running with it.Report
Maybe he should be stopping-and-frisking folks.Report
“You decided to stay home… WITH YOUR BONBONS!”Report
Well that’s a coup de grace from Clinton.
And another one.Report
“But Hillary was a birther too! Therefore I’m better for race relations because I got the birth certificate released.” WTF?Report
“Meuzelims”?
By the way, every settlement everywhere in every context is done with the defendant not admitting guilt or culpability. The meat is found in the nature of the concessions the defendant makes in order to later proclaim “no admission of fault.” I do not know what the terms of the 1983 settlement were.Report
Opinions on Holt? Is he in control, not in control, allowing them to express themselves, is he showing bias?Report
He let it go out of control early, but reined it in some since then.Report
My facebook feed of liberal-college educated coastal weenies such as myself says no.
I generally get the impression that HRC is doing great at getting under Trump’s skin and making them feel good and excited. FWIW, this is what Josh Marshall thought needed to happen.
We shall see how Trump’s performance does in the polls over the next few days but it doesn’t sound like he is doing well.Report
Yes, I am pretty sure that Hillary’s performance will go over quite well with people who are already Clinton supporters.
Not so sure about everyone else though.Report
I can’t see Trump’s going over too well with the undecided either.
He really needs some inroads with women and minorities, and I’m not seeing it.Report
I think that you are overestimating the number of people outside of a certain demographic that care about that sort of culture war thing. And those lines are, for the most part, already drawn.
For the most part, this whole ‘Hillary isn’t being treated fairly’ isn’t a winning strategy. If she can’t hold her own on a debate stage, why would anyone who is undecided want her as president?
Overall, Trump came out of the gate very on-message and Hillary was all over the place. As the debate settled down, Clinton started to come off more and more like the adult in the room. Wish that it would have gotten to that sooner.Report
You should ask around about common female experiences in the workplace. That sort of interruption, talking over, and basic badgering?
You’ll find few women who haven’t had that experience at work, and found it incredibly irritating. Like 10 years later, they can still think of that guy and get mad.
That interruptions and split-screen stuff? Did not help with undecided women.
In a more meta-sense — the fact that he’s still lying about the Iraq war and the birther thing? That’s the sort of thing the media tends to focus on, because it’s simple (you can show a tweet or a 10 second clip), concrete (it’s not all fuzzy and dealing with assumptions ontop of models ontop of assumptions like budgets) and because it violates their norms. You can lie to them, and they’ll take it, but when caught in an obvious contradiction you’re supposed to abase yourself before the media.Report
That sounds like the exact sort of analysis that had Trump falling out of the running for the nomination by the end of 2015 and had Hillary pulling away for good in the polls following the DNC.
Maybe that analysis is faulty.Report
Really? How so?
Because, you know, I’ve actually heard women complain about men doing that to them at work my whole life. They don’t like it. Will it affect their vote? I don’t know, except that Trumps’ numbers with women aren’t so great to begin with.
But it certainly won’t help.Report
@morat20
Don’t worry. I think @j-r is constitutionally incapable of giving any victory to the Democratic PartyReport
Unnecessary.Report
No need, Kazzy,
I’ve been around here long enough to know that Saul has a hard tome parsing the difference between the way the world is and the way he wants the world to be.Report
Sorry to step on toes. Just trying to avoid unnecessary personal ugliness.Report
More liberal takes:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/cnn-launches-manhunt-after-lester-holt-vanishes-from-debate?mbid=social_facebookReport
General vibe on Twitter is that early on #NeverTrump conservatives thought he was doing well and Democrats thought he was doing poorly. Later on, more of the first group thinks he kind of lost it. But there are a number of warnings about having been here before.Report
I thought she started well but he started better (well, after the first minute which was weirdly “low energy”). It was almost all downhill from there for him and mostly uphill for her.Report
Yeah, she took a long time to get going. Kind reminds me of Obama’s first 2012 debate. OTOH, I’m not sure anyone was sure how Trump was going to perform.
Trump had a few too many snapshot bad moments. His camp has a harder post-debate spin. (The climate change thing? Right on twitter, it’s refuted with a screenshot. The birther stuff is just bad optics and the sort of thing the press fixates on.)
I’m interested in how the “stiffing your employees” stuff plays out. I know it’s not a new line, but it’s one he hasn’t really faced a lot of coverage on.
Anecdotally, the interruptions and thin skinned nature didn’t look well.Report
Trump fans I follow are falling into three categories:
1) It was a draw
2) It doesn’t matter
3) Holt was unfair
That’s encouraging.Report
Without knowing anything else about the game, how can you tell who lost?
Find out which side is complaining about the refs.Report
Do we think Trump prepared for the debate? Yes or no? Liberal pundit blogosphere thinks the answer is no.Report
Sorta? He didn’t practice debating, but he clearly memorized some specific points.
As I stated before, I think real debate prep would have prevented the constant interruption (which is not going to play well with women, from what I’m hearing from across the room) of Clinton and he’d have had some better answers — and better attacks.
And for once I agree with the guys at Slate on something — that back and forth on Obama’s birth certificate with the moderator is…not the best optically for Trump. “No, man, seriously Clinton’s the real racist! I’m the least racist, because I made him show it and put the issue to bed! Which I admitted grudgingly years later after a hotel commercial”.Report
I got from my wife, “Well, yes, but women interrupt each other a lot too.”Report
Did you let her finish the sentence?Report
Yes, but then he explained to his wife how women actually interrupt each other a lot, also.Report
Appealing to Sean Hannity?Report
I think we actually heard Bill laugh when Trump talked about temperament.Report
It was either Bill or me from Minnesota.Report
Nobody seems to point out that before Clinton was warning about ‘baited by a tweet’ she was wildly applauded for tweeting ‘Delete your account’ – as one does when baited by a tweet.Report
Are we in overtime now?Report
Why did he keep touching her back?Report
@kazzy My best, least knee-jerk bet is that either consciously or subconsciously, he’s attempting to claim dominance in the situation. It’s hard to google these days without finding either pickup artist advice or frustrated discussions of how to make men quit doing it, but as a measurable counter for behavior, it’s been around in psychology literature since at least the 60s.
Here’s a relatively academic take on it: https://books.google.com/books?id=jZF5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=men+touching+dominance&source=bl&ots=uYV0FdQKuI&sig=waz2K6HADcwmG7JrYHS1mO3IYiM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf8qfO867PAhVp5YMKHT-AAWc4ChDoAQg5MAg#v=onepage&q=men%20touching%20dominance&f=falseReport
@maribou
It was weird. They shook hands and began walking towards Holt/the front of the stage. He put her hand on the small of her back (I guess technically it is possible he never made contact as the angle was from directly behind, so maybe there was a gap). Clinton *seemed* to give a subtle move to communicate discomfort or for him to move. He moved it and placed it back a second time.
What was strange was that the rest of his body language seemed full of self-doubt. Like a teenage boy on a first day who can’t figure out if he should put his arm around the girl or not and ends up doing some weird move where he punches her in the shoulder like he would a dude friend.
Maybe I’m reading too much into a non-event but it stood out to me. And, regardless of his intention, seemed wholly inappropriate. Layer that on top of him starting off calling her Hillary before making an explicit shift to “Secretary Clinton” with the “I want you to be happy” line only to shift back to Hillary. It’s like he didn’t know if he wanted to play the gentleman, poor-little-lady card or if he wanted to play the “Woman, know your place!” role. And, strangely, those can often emanate from the same place of seeing women as inherently inferior.Report
Is it possible that it’s just a reflex reaction for Trump as that’s one of his default poses at event pictures?
E.g. 1
e.g.2 Report
@kolohe I’d say that 2nd picture is also him asserting dominance with the back touch.
But I spent a lot of time studying non-human primates…Report
@kolohe
Possible but it didn’t look like either. It was after they shook hands and began approaching the front of the stage. Like he was guiding or escorting her?
I think it was more weird than evil. I don’t think it was intentional insofar as, “I’ll show her!” It seemed more, “Umm… what am I supposed to do with my hands now?”Report
Clinton clearly won. Trump interrupting in the split screen was his worst look, and some of answers were too meandering to really land, but he didn’t completely self immolate. He could actually ‘win’ with some coaching, but who knows if he will take advice, esp since he did ‘good enough’. (And maybe he did get some coaching and this is really his best)Report
Trump seemed to have ADHD up there: he can’t focus on any particular subject.
Alsotoo, the crowd gave up on the “no cheering, no clapping” thing and partisans of both sides got to loudly rooting towards the end. Which is kind of a knock on Holt as moderator, because it means that tempers and emotions got strong enough that he couldn’t keep the crowd in check.Report
Spin rooms are really the dumbest things in this day and age.
Edit- except when the candidate themselves go into the room? Does that ever happen (before Trump doing it just now?)Report
Trump just said on CNN that he’s proud of himself for holding back on Bill’s indiscretions because of his respect for Chelsea.
But maybe he’ll bring it up next time.Report
For the hip hop/pop culture fans out there, has anyone else just realized how much Trump is like DJ Khaled?Report
Aw, man, that’s kinda harsh on DJ Khaled. 😀 (But you have a point.)Report
Looks like HRC won on points.
She needed to knock him out.Report
Yeah you’re right, if HRC doesn’t gain momentum she won’t be able to overtake Trump before election day. Wait a minute…
On the plus side; if you’re saying she came out ahead then she definitely did.Report
Yeah, those sliding polls… greased, ya think?Report
Yup, this is the equivalent of a Correct the Record Killary shill like me admitting Clinton had a bad week. 🙂Report
Like I said, she won on points, but no one expected him to win.Report
Is that the new version of “It’s good news for John McCain”?Report
No, both of them cleared the (rather low) bar. He didn’t throw anything, she didn’t cough up any blood.
No one expected him to win and she didn’t knock him out. So we are back to where we were yesterday.Report
The purpose of this debate was to convince the partisans of both sides that they’d made the right choice by picking the candidate they did.
And, I guess, it pretty much did. The people who wanted Trump got Trump, the people who wanted Clinton got Clinton (…finally.)Report
I hope you’re wrong. I hope the purpose of the debate was for people with a general GOP affinity who are trying to decide if they can vote for the GOP candidate to determine whether he could function as a President.
The 41% of the country that likes Trump is going to vote for him. But a lot of the 59% who don’t are Republicans. And most of them also don’t like Hillary, so they’re having to make a choice that (I hope) will depend upon whether it’s worth having an unhinged reality TV star in the white house to increase the odds of a large tax cut for the wealthy. Hopefully answers like his cavalier desire to attack Iran because they taunted us, and the contrast with Hillary feeling the need to reassure our allies we won’t break our treaties, resonate with that group.
If I’m right, we should see a larger-than-normal swing to Hillary. Because hoo-boy was Donald nothing at all like a president.Report
Nothing like an American president. He was a lot like a tinpot dictator who styles himself “president”. A lot of people seem to want that.Report
Consensus of the engaged is definitely that she won. A few (good faith) dissents, but most.
We’ll have to see what the normals think. No one hear knows, because none of us are normal.Report
I dunno. Do Luntz’s dial groups or the CNN Florida undecided panels count?
Plus, let’s be honest — the normals think what the media tells them to think. Gore won that debate according to the first snapshots and viewer polls, but 48 hours of media coverage turned his performance into a joke.
Looking at the spin from both sides — Clinton’s spinning it as a win, and Trump’s side is spinning it as…”he was energetic”, I believe Ryan said. Too many on the R side of the lever are thinking “loss”.
Assuming a truly neutral media, the “One side says Clinton wins, the other side is mixed with a lot saying “Lose”” and you end up with media coverage with implicit “Clinton won” baked in. Because one side says so, and the other isn’t disagreeing so much as internally arguing over whether he lost or not.Report
Luntz’s focus groups of Republicans had low predictive value throughout the primaries. Normals, when being observed, seem to behave differently than those who are not. While it may be different now, there is no reason to assume it is so. So I’m not putting a whole lot of stock in that. The same goes for media framing, which didn’t seem to correlate with subsequent polling.Report
I’ve never much trusted Luntz’s groups that much either, but they (and stuff like the CNN undecided group) are about all we’ve got.
However, I DO know the media can and does color response by the way they report — more Americans read/watch media coverage about the debate than watched it.
Like I said, if Team Blue is pushing “HRC won” and Team Red is splintered on “Win/Lost/Tied”, the media coverage will be more favorable to HRC even before you let viewers trust their own lying eyes by watching clips or reading transcripts. (of course it’s Clinton, so…no telling)
However, what I’m seeing is Luntz’s group saying “bad night for Trump”, the CNN panel saying “bad night for Trump”, the spin from both sides saying “bad news from Trump”, and even Trump surrogates and conservative pundits not finding much good to say. (Ryan managed “energetic” , etc).
So I don’t know what the normals are gonna say, but the few normals asked seem to agree with the elites — whom we know can influence coverage and literally define conventional wisdom.
(On the other hand, let’s face it — this means the middle debate HAS to be Trump’s comeback story. Regardless of actual performance).Report
They are indeed all we’ve got. Which is why I say we simply don’t know.
Media can inform perceptions, but if there was a day that the media could shape perceptions through consensus, I think that day has past. It’s really hit and miss these days. That’s a bigger topic than the debate, though.Report
OTOH, this is encouraging:
(Not that 2-4 points is enough. Never enough, never enough…) (But I’ll take it!)Report
A lot of us are at 90 degrees to reality.Report
Okay. I was planning on listening/watching the debate tonight but it was wrestling night and my bud didn’t want to listen to the debate but, instead, watch wrestling.
Fair enough.
What I *DID* do, however, was listen to the first 20ish minutes of the debate and then, when I dropped off the car for Maribou at her work, talked with her a little bit about the debate.
Kevin Drum or somebody said that the first half hour was the only part of the debate that matters and, as such, I figure I’m mostly good anyway.
So I’m writing this in notepad first without logging on to the site and without reading any of the post-debate comments on here and, immediately after posting this, I’m going to scroll up and see how I did.
Main observations:
That poor moderator! No wonder he was acceptable to both parties!
Hillary was good at this, she had facts and figures at her command and was able to take Donald in stride. Hey, politics ain’t beanbag and she communicated that she can take it as well as shovel it out.
Donald, by comparison, wasn’t *BAD*, but he didn’t shine. He didn’t veer off into “he’s a bully” territory, which would have been awful for him, but he teetered on the whole “is he going to veer off into ‘he’s a bully’ territory?” which was merely not good for him.
Hillary had to not lose this debate and, indeed, she didn’t lose it. But if those were the expectations, she didn’t merely meet them, she exceeded them.
Given that Trump didn’t poop himself and smear feces on the podium, he exceeded expectations and, yeah, that’s good for him, but Hillary exceeded expectations too and, all things considered, that’s better for her than it is for him.
If it were a football game, I’d say that the score was 28-17. Clinton demonstrated that her offense *AND* defense were better than Trump’s. It didn’t come down to a field goal and it didn’t come down to clock management.
Though, if I may switch metaphors, neither was it a knockout punch.
The main thing I thought about as I was listening was “who’s happy listening to this debate and who’s pissed off listening to this debate” and I thought that Hillary voters would be very happy and Trump voters would be pissed off.
When I talked to Maribou, she told me that Breitbart’s poll had a 80-20 win for Trump and Drudge’s poll had a 90-10 win for Trump.
And that tells me that Trump’s fans are very, very invested in getting online and creating a narrative that Trump won.
Hillary’s fans don’t have to. They saw Hillary win the debate. They can go to bed without doing damage control. Perhaps even sleep easy tonight.
(Now I’m going to scroll up and see how close I was!)Report
I’d be really interested in your wife’s take on the….acrimonious nature of things. The interruptions, the shouting, and the general tone.
In fact, I’m really hoping whoever’s polling this debate has enough responses to do decent crosstabs.
I remember a lot of the internal football over the Biden/Palin debate, the list of things various pundits agreed Biden “had” to do to debate Palin without seeming condescending, bullying, or badgering. As best I can remember, Trump violated every single one of those tonight.
Then again, it’s always different for the Clintons.Report
Well, today, Brother Jason Kuznicki tweeted:
and
My thought on that was some variant of “that *MIGHT* pick up a handful of male voters but I can’t imagine anything that would alienate female voters quicker than showing weakness at this stage in the game… oh my god, they’d turn on her like you wouldn’t believe…”
Anyway, in the part of the debate, they were bigfooting each other pretty good (I imagine that the transcript has a lot of (crosstalk)) and I think that that would do the best job of not winning a single female vote over to Trump. “He irritates me”, is the last thing you want the people you’re trying to win over to be thinking and I can easily see female voters thinking that.
He didn’t move the ball with them and he needed to.Report
He might have irritated the media too. As I’ve said, he’s committing a cardinal sin — he’s gotten caught in a simple, easy to prove lie (two actually — Iraq and Birtherism) and he’s not doing what he’s supposed to, and that offends the founding mythologies of the media.
I did read a few people (I think someone wrote into Andrew Sullivan’s lifeblog of it) that one issue Trump had was that he was seeking audience feedback, and they were trying very hard not to give it (per the rules). Trump’s style is pretty heavy around connecting with an audience and riding the approval, so that had to throw him. He kept turning to common lines (although he did avoid a few, like Crooked Hillary — I suspect he was heavily coached out of those) to try to get it.
That’s not going to get better, because no debate is gonna be a rally. He’s not going to get that feedback.
And funnily, the drip-drip-drip of his taxes and charity keep coming. It’s going to be really ironic if the October surprise isn’t Clinton finally (after so many decades) actually breaking the law….but her opponent.Report
@morat20
Far be it from the feminist genderfluid bisexual to claim some kind of “typical woman” status (or for the immigrant socialist to claim “normal” status, either), but I’ll have a go at answering your request anyway.
Honestly, I am unlikely to watch it because reading the transcripts (I’m at work) made me think I’d probably get abuse flashbacks (large men yelling is … something I’m not very good with even when there’s actually nothing wrong and everyone’s happy). Just based on the transcripts and a few gifs shared by my Hillary loving friends (my Trump loving friend didn’t watch it, my Hillary hating friends had little to say – which I thought was interesting in its own right), I think she, er, hm, crushed it.
He seemed to be getting less and less coherent while she seemed to be confident she was coming out on top and he was being an idiot… who thought she’d have a big laugh line with “Okay.”??? Showing that she can have fun and be amused, not flustered, by his idiocy, is one of those sexist shouldn’t-be-a-requirement requirements that she finally seems to have met tonight.
But I’m also remembering this essay: http://jengaoneweekatatime.tumblr.com/post/91743154369/do-men-interrupt-more-than-women-yes-they-do
And thinking about how if women talk 30 percent of the time both men and women think they talked more than 50 percent of the time (sorry, no cite, at work, but I’ve seen plenty of cites)… and its converse that if men hog 70 percent of the conversation, it doesn’t even seem like they’re over 50…
And I’m assuming we’re not going to be seeing nearly as much effect from the interpersonal FAIL of the trump and WIN of the hillary (by my lights) as I think we should.
*******
The most interesting thing for me was reading the comments on the Breitbart site, where they were talking about how the commenter was in a room with 3 women and they were all cheering Trump on, how Trump crushed that lying liarpants Hillary AND the mass media factcheckers who are all evil liberal lackies AND her “pet” Holt (*raises eyebrow*), etc. I bought that the comments were sincere, they were just so far off from this site (hardly a haven for Hillary fanatics) that I felt like I was in Mirrorworld.
It really is football.
*sighs*Report
@maribou
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I’ve been turning over a question in my head since reading/listening to many of the analyses of the debate and I’m curious to hear your perspective. Every time I’ve tried to write it, I’ve gotten flummoxed because I feel like I end up pussyfooting around because it is a sensitive topic. So, if you will oblige and/or forgive me my bluntness…
Was it wrong for Trump to interrupt, speak over, and/or talk down to Hillary because she is a woman in a way that it would not have been wrong* to do the same to a man? Do male politicians need to engage with female politicians differently because of issues like the one you cite here? If so, how do we make that argument while also pushing back against the myriad other ways Hillary and other female politicians are treated unfairly because of their gender? I think I can sort of figure that out in my head but I feel all sorts of privilege tripping points I’m hitting. The extent to which I found Trump’s behavior problematic was more from an “optics” perspective (“This looks bad!”) rather than from something more real (“This is bad!”)… and that feels like a poor place from which to make a determination.
Of course, if you’d rather not delve into this, I have no expectation that you do. Thanks!
* Leaving aside the question of whether this behavior is acceptable in general. There simply seem to be different rules of etiquette in politics than in the real world, for better or for worse.Report
@kazzy Basically I think Trump’s willingness to be an asshole, etiquette-wise, far exceeds even the average politician’s, and I’m unsure whether that will help or harm him, optics-wise, to be frank. (Some people find that appealing.) He’s such a terrible-acting person, in terms of basic civility, that I have difficulty parsing his behavior into worse and worser. I would note, though, that if you think it extra-problematic that he act that way with Hillary, it was also problematic for him to act that way with, for example Rubio (because people of color also get ignored, talked over, etc). So if the one doesn’t bother you the other one probably shouldn’t. From reading the transcripts I do think he was more aggressive with Hillary than he would’ve been with a man, but I also think that might be because a man would’ve shut him down harder, faster, whereas she’s constrained by the problem that if SHE shut him down hard and fast, showing equal aggression, it would’ve hurt her more than him.
If you’re asking a larger societal question, I think it’s case by case. Or really room by room. Do the people who aren’t used to being dominant in the room nonetheless seem to feel free speaking, interrupting, etc? Are their ideas being credited to them? Leave it be. Do the people who aren’t used to being dominant in the room seem overwhelmed, flustered, unable to get a word in edgewise, etc? Try to hold space for them and make it easier for them to be heard. This will, of course, have the unavoidable consequence of giving you more power in the group because telling people to behave one way instead of another way, or redirecting conversations no matter how politely (eg, “Susan, I was really interested in what you just said, could you explain a bit more?”) is interpreted as a show of dominance / self-assertion since you’re taking charge.
It’s damn tricky.
(And sometimes it’s extra difficult because not everyone in a meeting is going to react the same way … it’s maybe not so good if you interrupt a woman to point out that she interrupted another woman, for example. Although in my case I’ve already made a beforehand agreement with my boss that there is one person on our team that never gets listened to in large groups, and he should fight for her to finish her thoughts whether it means calling me out, or not. Because I deal with interruption-culture by being interrupty, just like the senior women in the post I linked to…)Report
Thanks for the insight.
I think that Trump’s constant interruptions would have been seen as bad form versus anyone, but judging from my wife’s reactions (she does dislike Trump intensely, but isn’t a huge HRC fan either), it was more so in this case.
It was just like…three weeks ago, I think?..when she was complaining about the FNG at work, and how he (not just the ‘new guy’ but literally in his first post-college job) decided his introductory move was to take over to ‘quiet the room’ so ‘the lady could speak’ in a conference.
Mind you, the “lady” is a department head with decades of experience, and the room was like 80% female to begin with.
I’d chalk it up to a young guy trying to hard to be a good in his first teaching slot, but it’s not the first variant I’ve heard of that.Report
I hope his ass got ripped up one side and down the other for that. It’s important that you come down hard on rotten jerks like that, really rub their nose in their disgusting behavior, make sure they know exactly how awful they were so that they’ll never act that way again.Report
It is getting really hard to interact with folks who say something other than what they really think.Report
Welp
“I’d chalk it up to a young guy trying to hard to be a good in his first teaching slot, but it’s not the first variant I’ve heard of that.”
Sounds like Morat20 does think that. So.Report
You seem strangely upset given nobody said anything to him over it. Nor does my post imply anyone did anything but complain privately about it, later.Report
Giving the guy the benefit of the doubt and discussing him on the internet = oppression.Report
“Given that Trump didn’t poop himself and smear feces on the podium, he exceeded expectations and, yeah, that’s good for him, but Hillary exceeded expectations too and, all things considered, that’s better for her than it is for him.”
Yes; what Clinton needed to do was show people that she could actually be President, rather than just being Not Donald Trump.
What will wreck a Clinton presidency is if, on January 21st, everyone says “wait a minute, we actually hate Hillary Clinton and we always have, and we only picked her because she wasn’t Donald Trump. She isn’t not qualified for the job and we won’t support anything she wants”, and we end up with eight years of nothing very much.
“Though, if I may switch metaphors, neither was it a knockout punch.”
If we can bullseye that jackpot, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.Report
I’m used to waking up on January 21st and thinking “wait a minute, I actually hate this guy!”
What’s once more?Report
This was a great comment, from top to bottom.Report
I don’t think we’re going to get anything done that requires congress under either president, because neither party will have 60 senate votes, and I don’t think whoever leads the senate will actually have the guts to end the fillibuster (though they should!).
As to the other part, people tend to broadly love Hillary when she’s working. They just hate her during campaigns.Report
“She isn’t not qualified for the job and we won’t support anything she wants”, and we end up with eight years of nothing very much.”
I find the fact you qualify all of this how America will wake up on 1/21 and realize they’ve always hated her, but somehow, she’ll still get two terms kind of hilarious. It’s either a hell of a Fruedian slip about who you mean when you say “we” or some sort of total lack of confidence in the GOP.Report
No, I meant what I said and I said what I meant.Report
@will-truman @morat20
According to Kevin Drum (biased I know), CNN has HRC as the clear winner:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/09/cnn-says-hillary-clinton-won-debate-62-27-percent
The big story today is that Trump is doubling down on his sexist comments against Alicia Marchado and her weight. We saw what happened when Trump doubled down on his comments against the Khan family.
I think HRC knows how to get under Trump’s thin skin and did it well last night. Now lets see if this changes any swing states to HRC in the polls.
Do we think Trump has the capacity to get his act together for the second and third debates?Report
Is she related to Pablo Sandoval?Report