My thoughts On Last Night’s… Debate?
Let me start by saying, if Hillary had behaved and said the things Trump said and did last night this election would be over. There would be no spin. It would be done. Talk about double standards. Hats off to her. She did an amazing job. Yep, amazing. She kept her cool and played him like a fiddle. That was no easy task. Don’t believe me? Then you should try debating an unhinged liar who constantly interrupts and interjects like a three year old who missed their nap – one who has no qualms about saying anything. How do you even prepare for that? In every other Presidential debate the candidates prepared by knowing each others policy positions and then pointed out why their policies were better. Trump has no policies.
Trumps behavior was truly unhinged – and he’s continued to behave like a spoiled brat ever since walking off the stage.
“Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials, some of it said in entertainment, somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie o’donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree she deserves it, and nobody feels sorry for her. I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. It’s inappropriate. It’s not nice, but she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue.”
He seems to think he deserves credit for not saying this on stage. He acts like saying this to reporters on TV is different somehow. Buckle up, because Bill Clinton’s sexcapades are going front and center with the Trump campaign. Not sure how you blame Hillary for this, but I’m sure The Donald will do what he usually does – claim Hillary wasn’t hot enough, thin enough, etc. to satisfy her man. It is his “go to” with women. Kellyann Conway better think long and hard before letting Donald off the leash on this topic. Oops! Too late!
Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, on Tuesday morning said that Trump displayed “great temperament and restraint” by choosing not to mention Bill Clinton’s sex scandals during the debate.
During an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Conway said that Hillary Clinton sometimes looked “glib” while Trump was speaking during the debate before pivoting to Trump’s decision not to bring up Bill Clinton.
“I have to say, certainly as a woman, I appreciated the restraint at the end — I’m not sure I would have been able to exercise it myself — but restraint is a virtue, and it’s a presidential virtue,” Conway said. “To tell Hillary Clinton, after she accused him of being terrible with women, to tell Hillary Clinton, ‘I was prepared to go rough tonight and I’m not going to do it because your husband and your daughter are here,’ that is going to grow in importance over the next couple of days as the moment of great temperament and restraint.”
Notice how – dare I say it? she plays the gender card. Luckily she doesn’t play it well. She claims, essentially, that she would have lost it. It’s mind boggling how out of touch that comment is. Donald Trump calls women pigs, fat, ugly, etc., but that’s okay because Bill cheated on Hillary. See? No difference.
His next whine is classic:
“I had a problem with a microphone that didn’t work,” he said on “Fox and Friends.” “My microphone was terrible. I wonder, was it set up that way on purpose? My microphone, in the room they couldn’t hear me, you know, it was going on and off. Which isn’t exactly great. I wonder if it was set up that way, but it was terrible.”
“It was on and off, and it was much lower than hers. I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories, of course, but it was much lower than hers and it was crackling, and she didn’t have that problem,” he added. “That to me was a bad problem, you have a bum mic, it’s not exactly good.”
If only his mic was bad. That would have been the best thing that could have happened to him last night.
And then we move onto his latest comments about Miss Universe:
“She was the worst we ever had. The worst, the absolute worst. She was impossible, and she was a Miss Universe contestant and ultimately a winner who they had a tremendously difficult time with as Miss Universe,” he said on “Fox and Friends.”
“She was the winner, and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem. We had a real problem. Not only that, her attitude, and we had a real problem with her,” Trump continued. “So Hillary went back into the years and she found this girl. This was many years ago, and found the girl and talked about her like she was Mother Teresa, and it wasn’t quite that way, but that’s okay. Hillary has to do what she has to do. I see what’s happening in the polls.”
Watch the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ZM58O_gBo
Miss Piggy? Miss Housekeeping? Wow. A racist misogynist on full display. The most startling thing about Trump is the way he confirms every accusation against him.
Oh, and he deleted his tweet about climate change being a hoax started by China. And, and, and… he drew more attention to his tax returns, how paying taxes is for suckers, how the housing collapse was good for his business. There’s just soooo much.
But here’s the silver lining. Trump put all of these topics, including the birtherism, back in the spotlight. Hillary got under his skin. She did it by keeping her cool (and let’s face it – she had to keep her cool or else that would have been the only story today), and not coming across as a “scold” or “shrill” Ugh. I hate those terms. And don’t kid yourself, her decorum was under constant scrutiny last night. I kept reading how she was – wait for it – smiling too much. Really? Let’s just agree that there is no correct number of smiles when it comes to women.
So congratulations, Hillary. If you were anyone else the entire country would be in agreement that you buried Trump last night; that you showed that he was completely unqualified to be President (I didn’t even touch on his NATO and foreign policy gibberish) and had the temperament of a toddler. Letting him ramble on and interrupt was perfect – it let Trump be Trump.
So now that you’ve read my ramblings (because, honestly, there’s just too much Trump nonsense to address) I have a question. Does Trump pull out of the next two debates? I’m beginning to think he will.
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If the Clinton mafia can sabotage the mic, why don’t they set up a barrel of pig blood to spill over his head?
I agree with you. The problem is it doesn’t matter one jot. Trump lost exactly zero votes last night. The salient bit here is that he did what his supporters wanted him to do. Analysis is a waste of time. People want a radical protest vote. What he says or how he acts is irrelevant. Actually the worse he does the better he does. He could shit in his hand and chuck it at her. Needle wouldn’t move. We’re fucked up…
I have a sincere query. Does anyone think analyzing these debates using any known rational set of guidelines means anything? I feel for the legions of “fact checkers” just toiling away to proved what people already know and don’t care about.
If Trump was going to “go rough” and attack Hillary for her husband’s infidelities, then the story is that he suffered a failure of nerve — not that he suddenly found some moral center. It is pretty amazing to me that they think that replaying a bit of history that actually resulted in congressional losses for the GOP is somehow productive.
That’s a good point. Hell, if I didn’t care about my kid, my retirement plan or social stability, I might be tempted to cast the same mindless protest vote
Mouse, there ya go again, saying you’ll support Trump 😉
So he mentions Lewinsky by name 5 minutes after the debate. What’s the difference? I guess the point is what we think is politically “productive” and what Trump supporters want are no where near the same thing. That’s why I’m wondering why we even care to consider what is or is not productive by our standard. I’m struggling to find the point of all this.
Damn, busted again
The difference is that he was too scared to say anything to her face – and you know she was ready for it. And Trump knew it too.
I’ll agree that Trump’s base is solid (so is Hillary’s), but there are votes up for grabs. Protest votes are useless, vanity exercises – and, despite all the shouting by those that do them – they help or hurt the D and R candidate. Not voting does exactly the same thing – you’re either helping or hurting.
She has found out how to beat him. Somewhere Jeb is crying in a corner.
Trump will try to come off even stronger next time, he’ll be even more belligerent, even more petulant. I think Hillary WANTS him to bring up Bills affairs. It gives her an opening to point out that Donald is also a cheating bastard…. but one who didnt atone, seek forgiveness, or bother changing his ways.
You’ve missed my point. Trump is the protest vote. He could have slugged my granny in the stomach and immolated a firehouse Dalmatian live on air. The impact would have been negligible. And with DJT as a protest vote it’s clearly not a useless exercise.
The idea that he was scared the say “Lewinsky” to her face is probably wrong. That’s the sense I get anyway, but again I fail to see the difference. You can gin-up any soap opera drama you’d like, but it doesn’t seem to matter at this point. You’re watching a game show and speaking about it like it was documentary.
Then why is this important to you? Important enough to post up multiple comments about how it is all so useless? You’d think that someone who doesn’t care, would just be involved with something he does care about.
Trump is not a protest vote at this stage of the game. He is the GOP nominee for President, largely embraced by the broader GOP infrastructure. His best trick is in running a populist campaign that relies on the usual GOP economic platform.
Does a debate move a needle? Sometimes it does. In this era though, the bigger goal is a media narrative. And right now, the media is freely calling Trump a liar and calling HRC a winner. And this was after weeks of handwringing that she may not be able to handle the onslaught. She was ready, he was not and instead of showing up to denigrate the process, how about giving her some credit for a change?
I had a little gathering last evening. It broke up around 8:30. Almost no political conversation, except….
One friend of mine who is a registered (R), but more or less independent said he is voting for Trump. He happens to be gay, which is only relevant because social issues aren’t really on his radar.
Anyway, I explained that I was voting for a Commander In Chief because I don’t think we can afford to have anyone except the most sober and serious person with the finger on the button. His response was that there was a whole process that prevented a President from going rogue.
I explained that I have worked in national security most of my adult life and the President has but minutes to respond to a threat that required nuclear weapons. So no, there is no long and involved process. The order is given, SecDef verifies the order, identify of the President is verified, launch order is executed.
I know there are a host of issues facing this nation, but I can’t think of anything more important that making sure we have someone who would never entertain the thought of using those weapons.
Did I get through to my friend? I have no idea. I gave him information he did not have before and of course this is Delaware, so it probably doesn’t make a difference. But in the rest of America, I hope there are sober individuals thinking about such things.
She deserves a ton of credit. She did what no other person ever on the stage with Trump could do. She won. She reduced him to a gibberish mess. 30 minutes in and Trump lost the ability to form complete sentences. He fell into every trap she set – and I’ll point out that she set those traps without giving the media the “shrill” narrative. That. Was. Impressive. It. Was. Inspiring.
It’s like that you take personal offense to comments. I don’t why you would, but I like it. I know you’re mad because you live for this shit. I know you want to be able to sort out who scored what points. Goes back to my original question. Never answered. What you think is a strong political move may not be. Measuring by the wrong standard.
And of course Trump is a protest vote. What else could possibly explain that fucking mess last night. It certainly was not the performance of a legitimate candidate.
I know Cassandra Axelrod and Pandora Plouffe have it all broken down and strategized. I think your playing the wrong game. I do like your use of “media narrative” though. Great jargon. Maybe you can do a round up of tweets…
Who will get the ‘post debate bounce.’
Who will ‘dominate the news cycle.’
See, I can’t play the boring game too. I thought you may be interested in something a little more challenging. I honestly don’t know why I thought that.
By normal standards she won the debate. No question. To what end? Trump didn’t really lose…. that’s the bit you seem to be ignoring.
The problem is that rube class class admires a guy like him so his character or intellect have no negative impact
And maybe you should pay attention to the story re: Dave’s mate. Trump voter who just disregards a POTUS nuclear strike decision for made-up reasons to cast what can only be described as a protest vote.
The stuff you think is pertaining is being ignored & the stuff you’re ignoring is salient.
You want this to fit your notions so badly it’s affecting your judgment.
He’s not a protest vote – his base isn’t solely voting against Clinton. They are voting for racism, sexism/misogyny and xenophobia. They agree that Making America Great Again means white power.
Not sure why you don’t see this, or why you (a person that stated quite clearly months ago that DL wrote too much about Trump and we shouldn’t take him seriously) are so testy about different opinions. I think there are things to discuss. You disagree, and yet… here you are. 🙂
@DG: I agree, Trump voters are Trump voters. A few might see reason after the curtain closes and before they push the R button, but not many.
But you miss the real point. There are people who are “undecided,” which really translates to “haven’t thought about if for more than 10 seconds at a time yet.” I know some of these people, and am even related to a few. These debates are the only time some of them will focus on the election before it happens.
Clinton’s task in the debates is to minimize the number of those people who migrate to Trump — to make real the supposed ceiling on his support. Trump didn’t lose voters last night, but he likely gained very few. Hillary did not lose any voters last night, and made sure he gained very few.
Mission accomplished. Two more to go.
I know you’re mad because you live for this shit. I know you want to be able to sort out who scored what points.
You are here, on a decidedly political blog, run by a bunch of self-avowed political junkies, and this is what you’ve got? If you don’t like the blog topics or obsessions then get the fuck out. Seriously. Coming here to scold us for the thing that we are here for strikes me that you’ve been watching way too much Trump, because this is one of his tricks.
Do you have something to add? Then get to it. If the only thing you can comment on is that political junkies are doing their political junkie thing, I’m gonna suggest you need another venue.
And this:
I thought you may be interested in something a little more challenging.
When you actually get to something more challenging, we’ll definitely let you know. But just criticizing us for doing what we tell you we are going to do is not challenging — it is just plain stupidity on your part.
I take the point and I hope you’re right. But other than the anecdotal I have no good reason to be overly sanguine. What you’re describing is a dangerous game.
“Talk about double standards.”
Yes, let’s. There’s never enough talk of double standards on this site. 😎
“[Trump’s mic] was on and off, and it was much lower than hers.”
I’m not a sound expert, but I don’t have to be to know that you set the mic volume lower for a person who yells and bellows. It’s not a “conspiracy,” unless you consider people having perfectly reasonable explanations for things outside your areas of knowledge to be a “conspiracy.” And I guess to a narcissist, it is a conspiracy when others talk about things that make you feel stupid.
“Miss Piggy?”
To her credit (or Frank Oz’s), Miss Piggy would beat the shit out of Trump if he called her fat. (Frank Oz, by the way, is the greatest unheralded actor in history. He created both Miss Piggy AND Yoda.)
“he was too scared to say anything to her face ”
This has been the case over and over again. Whenever he has the chance for a direct confrontation, he runs away. It would be very much in her (our) interest if she can direct an insult to him eye-to-eye to draw a personal response. He’ll either attack back (doubtful), which will make him look like he’s battering a woman, or he’ll back down, which will make even his supporters see that he’s a blustering wimp, a girly-man in their eyes. Since all his thinking takes place in him limbic system, he won’t be able to resist the bait.
@pandora: I think the turnout models on most polls are vastly underestimating minority turnout, especially Hispanic.
The question this country must face up to in the mirror is that a majority of white Americans will vote for Trump.
I’ve added plenty. Being a “political junkie” doesn’t mean being a complete bore. I could have written your reaction for you last night.
It’s like reading Jonathan Chait. Same thing every day. Queens of the Huff Post click bait analysis.
You just don’t like the criticism. Go back to your Trump fact checking or something similar. That ought to help the cause.
I’m thinking that this must be Dorian’s weed hangover.
Don’t criticize it
Hey, I only know what I’m reading. I snuck a peek for about five minutes, just before the race relations segment. When he interjected “wrong” as she spoke, I reached for a shoe to throw at the screen. Luckily, I was barefoot. Lesson learned, I went back to the Mets game.
LG, you need to get a better “friend” if your weed gives you hangovers.
D is making sense. The idea that anything can “hurt” Trump has been proven wrong about 8 times a week for the past year. No one is gonna lose any cred acknowledging that. however
DG, just from the anecdotal evidence of my FB page, many people who were leaning protest vote and now realizing there is too much at stake in this election. I don’t think this will be a landslide, but I think one more performance like we saw (And i have every reason to think Clinton will do better and Trump will do worse) and you can cancel those plane tickets to Holland.
Dorian is just saying the new standard “hot take” that Mika was spouting on Morning Joe: that nothing matters, and that when Trump is at his worst he gains votes. Two things in response to that. One, what worked in the primary won’t in the general. Two, I think this hot take is a reaction to being burned in the primary, more on Mika’s part than on Dorian’s part. Mika and others were wrong predicted Trump’s downfall in the primary, so that necessarily means Trump will never be brought down ever, no matter what he does.
That is also wrong.
…and yet. There is little doubt that (approx) half the country has a “post-factual”, “post-rational” world view. The old shit [being right, having command of facts, knowing how things are connected] doesn’t matter. What matters is how you feel. What matters is identifying with your tribes goals, not matter how whacked. We’ve been inching toward this world view for a while, but Bush accelerated the trend, and now it has arrived.
Clinton can easily lose this election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I
I don’t smoke the stuff, but Dorian gets in these funks every few weeks where he likes to sit in his tower and cast aspersions on people that want to discuss things he isn’t interested in talking about. He thinks that it’s everyone else that sounds like an asshole.
I’m just looking for ways that we could explain these periods of emo-Dorian.
Anyone can lose in a two person race – it’s why I’ve been pointing out how irresponsible the press was this election cycle. They built Trump up – by covering every second on his rallies, etc. while deliberately ignoring every other candidate. On both sides the press ignored substantive policy discussions. They simply weren’t interested – they had their new Palin.
Last night everyone saw that Trump has no policies or plans. He’s got nothing. He points out problems without offering one solution. Even on trade (supposedly his strength) he offers nothing.
The debate was important because it displayed, not only who Trump is, but that he has no policies and he has no basic understanding of any of the issues. That matters – maybe not to his base, but there are voters that are winnable.
It accomplished another thing – many people “on the fence” got to see exactly what their “protest” vote could result in electing. I’m seeing a lot of people getting off that fence. If a person, after watching last night, is still voting 3rd party or staying home then they are essentially voting for Trump. Fine, but I’m not indulging that behavior. I’m calling it for what it is. Hint: It’s not a “principled” vote. Ugh. Sorry, but I’m so over this. People like this shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions in their everyday life – “Hmmm… should I be a vegetarian or should I save the baby drowning in the pool. It’s a tough call.” Not kidding, that’s how it sounds to me.
DD, is that why Clinton keeps opening bigger and bigger leads?
See, I WANT to believe you. I WANT to be convinced…. but you have yet to be right this cycle when it comes to the big orange Menace.
“@pandora: I think the turnout models on most polls are vastly underestimating minority turnout, especially Hispanic.”
I agree, anonymous, and I think it’s done to feed into the horse race narrative.
Pandora’s post here makes no claims as to whether or not some electoral needle has shifted. Still, anonymous is right that there are still undecided out there and some weak leans. These debates are the first time anyone gets to see these candidates side by side (and for some, it might be the first they’ve seen them at all). These debates largely play to them. And for this debate, it should have played to the Ds who have been shitting their pants over Clinton being on the same stage as Trump.
No one here thinks that Trump’s base will be swayed by any of this. I think that it is very noteworthy that most of the GOP talking heads I saw and heard over the last hours have been clear that Donald lost this one AND even more telling is how quiet my usual GOP talking point friends have been. They know all right. But the GOP base will vote for him. Trump’s problem always has been whether this will be enough.
Nice explanation, LG. I guess by definition that if you are casting aspersions you aren’t in the conversation. One gets tired of the rather lame trolling.
I highly recommend smoking weed
Damn, glad I switched to Clinton then
@ Pandora “He’s not a protest vote – his base isn’t solely voting against Clinton. They are voting for racism, sexism/misogyny and xenophobia. They agree that Making America Great Again means white power.”
WOW, now that is a racist comment!!
I know people who are voting for Trump and are not any of the above that you mention. They are sick of the:
“Democratic Way”
Same old career politicians.
The lying from them.
The miss use of funds
The Nanny State, that has been created.
The lost jobs……………
Last night Hillary spoke about Solar Energy, Does anyone remember Obama’s plan and how Solyndra lied to get $535 million for solar panels??
They can’t object to the lying from pols since Trump lies to them every damn day.
Solyndra was one failure out of a massive DOE loan and loan guarantee program for renewable energy and energy technology. That program was earning at 4 or 5 mil for taxpayers — in spite of Solyndra. And how come you don’t know anything about the other energy companies that the DOE supports?
And I’m thinking that you need to stop commenting here if you don’t know the meaning of the word racism.
The “Democratic Way” Let’s take a look, and by the way, thanks for using “Democratic” correctly.
Same old career politicians:
“Democrats in Congress average 59.6 years old — older than Republicans, who are 55.8. Democrats have been older in each congressional term since the 104th Congress” so this one is true. Dem politicians are older.
The lying from them:
Unless you have some specifics, you’ll have to admit that the bulk of the lying is coming from the GOP and the bulk of their lying has to do with tax cuts working, Obamacare not working, and climate change not being real.
The misuse of funds:
Again unless you have some specifics, the misuse of funds appears to be all on the GOP side, and most of that can be chalked up to the Iraq war.
The Nanny State, that has been created:
You have to be talking about the billions in corporate welfare that both parties support, not the peanuts and crumbs we give to widows and orphans.
The lost jobs:
I actually think that Trump has a point when it comes to NAFTA, but he has so little substance behind his claims that he is a terrible messenger.
And yet, Hillary still has not won the war of ideas. If Trump weren’t such an asshole, he would win, and bring all his trickle-down, loose-cannon policies back to America.
So let’s review what Trump (and his supporters) talk about:
– Stop and frisk is awesome
– Mexican rapists
– Refugee terrorists
– Muslim bans
– Calling women vile names
– BLM (insert any scary insult here)
– All black people are poor and thugs and live off the government
– White supremacists are great people to retweet and accept endorsements from
– Women should be punished for having an abortion
– Saying to the Republican Jewish Coalition, calling himself “a negotiator like you folks.”
– To Time magazine: “Who the f knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?”
– A poll of 16,000 Americans conducted by Reuters in June found that 40% of Trump supporters believed that blacks were more “lazy” than whites and nearly 50% believed blacks were more “violent” than whites.
– Birtherism!
I can go on…
@ Cassandra:
Abound Solar….bankrupt
Beacon Power Bankrupt
Ener1 went Bankrupt and is now owned by a russian investor
Fisker $529 million
Nevada Geothermal $98 million in net losses and in significant debt!
There you go!
And yet, Hillary still has not won the war of ideas.
Actually, I think she has, at least among the people who are interested in the ideas. Trump supporters and the people who think she needs to smile more are clearly not in reach.
@OA: The cherry-picking industry is one Republicans support heartily.
If you’re going to criticize the solar-power loans, it would help if you knew what you were talking about. Solyndra went under mainly because of price-fixing by China, whose government took a loss on every panel produced to ensure American companies would flee the field.
It’s true that many of the solar-energy companies involved had ties to powerful Democrats — the Republicans are in the pockets of the oil companies, which wants to quash solar. Oil companies get $4 billion in tax breaks to — I’m not kidding — incentivize them to pump crude.
Stay out of the deep end.
Beacon Power filed for bankruptcy and sold a plant to pay back its DOE loan. It looked like a PE firm would buy them at one point. So no DOE losses there.
Ener1 got a grant from the DOE, a grant that looks like it survived the restructuring.
Fisker’s loan draw down was suspended at about 200M. And plenty of private investors (probably more than 1B) took a hit too. If you think big, you will lose big. Still, it was worth the try to build efficient (and very cool cars) here.
Nevada Geothermal owned the Blue Mountain project which was acquired by another energy firm with geothermal interests and that firm assumed all of the debt. Blue Mountain is still operating.
And to my original point (which I noticed you never addressed):
U.S. Expects $5 Billion From Program That Funded Solyndra
@a “Solyndra went under mainly because of price-fixing by China.”
Nope. Not accurate.
Many solar companies went bankrupt because the price of solar cells dropped by about 90% in a rather short period of time. This wasn’t price fixing, this was simply progress. Notice that the prices never went back up. With price fixing, prices go back up…
Whenever you have a technological breakthrough, there are going to be winners and losers. This does not mean that money that had been invested in the losers was badly invested.
The Federal government did the right thing in supporting Solyndra and many other energy companies. Maybe next time we’ll fund the breakthrough… The alternative is to walk away and let the Chinese and the Germans have all the fun and profit.
What’s missing in this discussion is an understanding that Trump did something to himself last night that he has not done before. He lost standing with his own base. I read their stuff (a delicate admission, I know) and they are all over him for missed opportunities and backing down. They’re criticizing him for not going after Clinton more on the emails, not mentioning Benghazi, not attacking her when (in their minds) she called all White Americans racists … and there’s a much longer laundry list than Lewinsky there.
Why this is important: no, nobody who came into the debates supporting Trump is going to shift their vote to Clinton for a poor attack-dog performance. But Trump’s only road to victory with the demographic he has centered on (disaffected Whites, predominantly male) is enthusiasm and the expansion of that voting base. He cannot even hope to win if his base is not constantly enthused, and last night he poured water on them.
If you watch Trump rallies he always says something like, “And have I been a good messenger for you?” to their thunderous cheers. Last night he wasn’t. Where Clinton got him out of his game was to get him defending himself and not attacking, which is why he spent today promising more aggressive attacks next time.
(His base really believes that the only reason they aren’t winning is that the media doesn’t tell the truth. When their guy gets 80-100 million viewers and doesn’t “tell the truth,” then he’s hurt himself with them.)
“His base really believes that the only reason they aren’t winning is that the media doesn’t tell the truth.”
They believe their clutch of alt-right lies is “the real truth” that the liberal media is keeping from us. They think that stuff has real voter appeal. Good; I hope Trump’s plan for the next debate is to be even more unhinged.
But if Trump is somehow able to restrain himself and speak in a calm rational manner, the story will be about Trump being Presidential.
“But if Trump is somehow able to restrain himself and speak in a calm rational manner, the story will be about Trump being Presidential.”
I worry about that, but then I think the focus will shift to the actual words coming out of his mouth. NPR did an easy to read fact check of the debate. I’m not sure Trump and the GOP would be happy if everyone just focused on the nonsense and lies he’s spewing. He’s a blowhard and bully now, if he dropped the dramatics then he’d be called stupid.
Psst… Trump ain’t changing his behavior.
@ Cassandra “Still, it was worth the try to build efficient (and very cool cars) here.”
Apparently YOU know nothing about cars. They were JUNK, they had a bit of a smoking problem, it would smoke AFTER, you put out the fire!! Right now you could buy one at 40% below the original cost……………no one touches them. When they were made locally, they were crap. Not because of the workers, it was the owners, trying to cut cost and go cheap.
Back in 2012, many of the top car magazines, including Consumer Reports said to stay away and gave them a low grade.
Now, they are starting to come around again and have supposedly, found out their problems. They are clearing out their Finland plant and moving NOT DELAWARE. But, to a new 550,000 plant in CA.
Hopefully, they’ll do something here!
I didn’t think that they ever built any locally. Am I wrong about that?
“This wasn’t price fixing, this was simply progress. Notice that the prices never went back up. With price fixing, prices go back up…”
YOu’re the one who is wrong. China paid fines for it. They were dumping them for less than the production cost.
@Steve N: That was the point I was making when I noted he backed down in a direct confrontation, and not for the first time. He does it every time.
He went to Mexico and backed down about the wall. Carly Fiorina challenged him on the debate stage and he backed down. He always backs down. He’s a coward. So are his supporters, and he’s representing them perfectly.
As for everyone (including me) who thought the debate wouldn’t change anybody’s mind, here’s evidence to the contrary: this morning my wife was eating breakfast at the counter of a local restaurant, where one of the elderly white regulars said:
“After that debate I have changed my vote from Trump to Hillary. I didn’t care if he was an asshole as long as he could get things done. But he’s a nutcase. And I may not like her, but I’m not voting to put a nutcase in charge of our country.”
1) Please “elderly white” person, be America.
2) This Supports Rudy Guliani’s view that Trump shouldn’t do any more debates.
“Please “elderly white” person, be America.”
He is. America is very lucky Trump is an asshole. The next time Republicans find a superficially genial candidate, he or she will win. Trickle-down economics, racism, and loose-cannon diplomacy are alive and well in America and will not be slain by eight years of Hillary.
It may be slain electorally by 8 years of the aging and reproductive processes.
To kill trickle-down, now we have to defeat younger Democrats like Jack Markell.
Well we’ve cured the “price-fixing” and “dumping” for less than cost situation. DuPont has very recently built and opened a brand new ($200M-construction costs) manufacturing facility in China to build “Solar Panels” that provide more than 2000 manufacturing jobs (in China). Viola! No trade agreements necessary, no tariffs allowed, no livable wages required, no tax revenues to the U.S. and no American workers need apply for the jobs. This activity, combined with “Johnson Controls” newly built factory (over $100M construction costs) in China to manufacture batteries (that may be sold here) signals a newer and more palpable threat to the American economy and the American working class. Mix a dollop of the above into a bowl of corporate flight for “tax inversion” benefits and we’ll soon have reached the pearly, albeit tarnished gates of the “third world” country-club. Francis Scott might have written–” Oh say can you see the corporations as they flee”
Representative John Kowalko
Out of curiosity puck, did the debate change your son’s mind?
Emo-Dorian… that’s funny.
Actually I simply object to the predictable and the superficial and the boring. That’s all. I didn’t mean to interrupt your talking points analysis or offend you political geek sensibilities. God knows how dear to your heart this all is.
And who gets a hangover from smoking weed? Never heard of such a thing. Oh, and the final number, to get though the debate was 5 1/2 grams. One gram per spliff, but I left half of the sixth one for the next day… also ate 1/2 pint of homemade ice cream. My buddy makes it. Dark chocolate. Fantastic.
Somewhere in an alternate universe Delaware Liberal didn’t write a post on the presidential debate (the most watched in US history). People complain in the open thread.
The alternate universe sucks just as bad as this one and maybe more.
No my son didn’t change his mind but he did admit Hillary won the debate. I think he is still processing that… I am not arguing the campaign with him but am letting him figure it out for himself.
Apparently YOU know nothing about cars.
Apparently, LG and I know more than the other anonymous does. Fiskar’s only production run was out of Finland. Fiskar is now owned by a Chinese company who at one time thought they would have upgraded Fiskar models on the street by mid this year.
So with or without a government loan guarantee, building cars is a tough risk.
A Trump supporter friend just asked what the democrats have done to stop outsourcing of jobs. Can someone please help?
What makes you think either Democrats or Republicans are trying to stop outsourcing of jobs?
It’s now called Karma. It Is producing cars in CA. The 10th car rolled off the line in August 2016. Union Park was a Fisker dealer.
The company is called Karma Automotive. The car was always called Karma. But it is still true that Fiskar had no US production run.
Democrats have not stopped the outsourcing of jobs. Some have tried for better retraining opportunities for those displaced. But they haven’t stopped it and I doubt that they could have.
If the rednecks had wanted to keep their jobs, they shouldn’t have shopped at WalMart in the first place.
@a ” They were dumping them for less than the production cost.”
A gross mischaracterization.
These things are dirt cheap to make. The Chinese chose an aggressive price point, and stuck with it. The ARE earning money at that price point.
Sure China paid a price for political reasons (as you point out) due to pissed off investors, but the price hasn’t gone back up. Instead, the US has reluctantly backed off claims of dumping, and has reduced the penalties, accepting the new price reality.
I don’t think anyone can soundly use the standard that because Trump’s obnoxious behaviors cost him nothing during the primary debates, it will similarly cost him nothing during the general election debates. The difference is that in the general election debates he’s talking to a larger and saner audience. Republicans jumped at Trump because he explicitly voiced their hatreds instead of implicitly voicing them like more cautious Republican candidates in the past. So as was said by Anonymous above, the debates are paramount for undecideds and the wafer thin margin of Republicans who find Trump awful.
What I thought was spectacular about Hillary’s performance is that she exceeded the high expectations that had been set for her prior to the debate. She’s a marvelous debater and she showed she can’t be intimidated, a trait that goes to her credentials to be commander and chief–one I think the Democrats should be pointing out.
@LE: You’re more up on this than I. Thanks for the lesson.