There’s a debate tonight
I will be very relieved when the last debate is over.
Are you planning to watch? I am doing something different than usual—going to visit a conservative friend of mine and watching it with her. I may or may not do some blogging during it (probably will), but at least I’ll have company. And I’ll be more likely than usual to not turn off the TV, since it won’t be my TV.
UPDATE 9:22 PM
Well, I’m watching So far it’s pretty calm. Which is fine with me.
UPDATE 9:30 PM Immigration is certainly a topic that gets them going.
Clinton is trying to discredit Wikileaks, and there’s a great deal of overtalking now. Arguing about whether Russia was responsible, which is irrelevant to the issue of what they might have revealed.
UPDATE 9:50 PM The battle of experience, good and/or bad.
Aha, now Chris Wallace brings up the women Trump accusers. Trump accuses Hillary or the Hillary campaign of being behind it, and mentions also the Wikileaks revelations about stirring up trouble at Trump rallies.
UPDATE 10:06 PM Trump declines to pledge he will accept the results of the election. Pretty astounding, but not really surprising.
“I’ll keep you in suspense.”
UPDATE 10:36 PM My gut feeling is that Trump did better than usual. But there was so much overtalking, so much repetition (on both sides), so much seemingly petty squabbling, that my basic feeling was “Ugh.” I can’t imagine this debate changing much of anything, but it might have helped Trump a little—except for that failure to say he would accept the results of the debate. That’s very—if you’ll pardon the expression—un-American.
I dont see the point at this point. Donalds done. I think we all know that by now.
Be brave.
While we’re waiting, I recommend reading this post about the debate we need by Conrad Black at NRO (from Monday 10/17/2016) . If only we could have this or even something remotely like it!:
harry the extremist Says:
October 19th, 2016 at 4:20 pm
I dont see the point at this point. Donalds done. I think we all know that by now.
&&&
Wrong.
The race is tight as a drum.
The Clinton Machine is trying to portray the race as finished.
This is a technique straight out of Robert Cialdni’s book.
Pre-Suasion
ISBN 978-1-5011-0979-9
Yes, he’s on staff with the Clinton Machine.
He’s orchestrating the Big Picture for the Machine.
Read Scott Adams blog:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152024526021/i-wake-you-up-for-the-presidential-debate
The idea behind the rigged polls is demoralization.
This serves multiple purposes:
1) Stops door-to-door politicking by anti-Hillary campers.
2) Stops money support from anti-Hillary campers.
3) ‘Justifies’ wholly corrupted voting tabulations, circa 11-8-16.
For you KNOW that the tabulation is going to be hacked.
EVERY hacker sees that as a forgone conclusion.
In this hour of judgment, the dead will rise from their graves — to vote Hillary.
&&&&&
All of the hand wringing on the part of anti-Hillary campers is a designed event.
There’s nothing natural about it.
Yes, this gaming has been staffed out. A bunch of Big Brains have orchestrated this perception.
This is of a stripe with Dr. Goebbels.
Yes, he used the same techniques.
He managed to FULLY bamboozle the German nation.
Even devout anti-Nazis had no idea of how correct their impulses were. They were always led to believe that they were in the extreme minority. The opposite was the case.
Even the United Nations bought that line — all the way.
Hitler’s anti-Jewish crusade was ALWAYS a vote loser, not withstanding the revisionist video histories you keep seeing on the TV. It was his anti-Communist pitch that won him votes. Communists were constantly engaging in strikes, street combat, and were plainly taking their orders from an alien power. (Moscow)
The German voters were PRE-SUADED.
Ciardini will blow your mind.
It’s as important a text as 1984, Animal Farm, and The True Believer.
He, not Podesta, is the master mind that’s running Hillary’s psy ops.
“Wrong. The race is tight as a drum. The Clinton Machine is trying to portray the race as finished.”
Thank you Baghdad Blert, but the Clinton machine isnt responsible for the Donalds dropping poll numbers, the Donald alone is responsible for that.
But harry…
The Clinton Machine OWNS many of the pollsters.
You have to rip the cover off of the polls and dive DEEP into their methods.
Only then, after too much effort, it becomes obvious that they are wildly skewed — by over sampling Democrats — often by absurd amounts — like 9 points.
When the poll showed a flip in favor of Trump, Reuters TOTALLY changed their polling — and BROKE the poll series from its roots.
If this was air combat, one would say that our radar has been jammed.
blert:
Dream on.
In the general election few get to vote for their favorite in the primary.
One must settle for the fellow least antagonistic to your goals.
Since Hillary is pedal to the metal against the American polity as it is now constituted, pick someone else.
Game dynamics is in play. The third, fourth and fifth parties are not even in a remote prospect to compete.
So such a vote is really a whine.
To stop the wholesale corruption of our society by the billionaire crony elites — one HAS to vote for Trump — even at the cost of holding ones nose.
Once a player with Stalin’s itch gets in, you’ll never have meaningful elections ever again.
Look at the farce that is election night in Iran.
http://www.investors.com/politics/trump-leads-clinton-by-one-point-going-into-debate-in-ibdtipp-tracking-poll/
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/white_house_watch_oct19
http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/
Who’s dreaming ?
Reuters and NBC//WSJ are wholly in the Machine’s camp. That’s open and on the record.
Then the RCP average advantage plunges… just like that.
And the Wikileaks bleeding just keeps on coming.
The question then becomes, who’s shedding support faster ?
Jonah Goldberg suggested a debate reform in the recent GLoP podcast. He wants to see the Joker come out on stage, break a pool cue in two, and hiss, “We’re gonna have … tryouts!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P10bC0Bxp20
I think that would be an improvement.
The GLoP podcasts are a lot of fun.
I gotta say, blert is the textbook Trump supporter!
Huxley…
I’m an anti-Hillary Camper.
And, that’s that.
blert: Yet you parrot the Trump narratives so well!
Don’t ever change.
It’s a historical fact that we Americans have survived buffoons and bawdy behavior.
No nation has survived a Hitler, Stalin, S. Hussein, …
Hillary has a TRACK RECORD of being wholly above the law.
Trump has a track record of being a braggart and a pest.
These are ten-a-penny in my world.
Dr. Carson and Mayor Giuliani see a different man than the Press is willing to exist.
Character assassination for 1,000 Alex.
As for the babes accusations. They are NOT credible.
We’ve been through this with Mr. Cain.
We should expect the same drill every four-years.
BTW by definition you really are a Trump supporter if you are voting for Trump, i.e. you are supporting Trump in the most clear and desriable way there is in our system short of sending him money.
However, those of us who do not vote for Trump or Hillary are NOT Hillary supporters, something obvious and true which otten eludes Trump supporters.
huxley Says:
October 19th, 2016 at 7:41 pm
blert: Yet you parrot the Trump narratives so well!
Don’t ever change.
%%%
Donald has a wholly different set of narratives.
My perfect candidate didn’t survive the primary.
I’m playing the hand that’s been dealt.
It is YOU who has ‘bought’ the MSM narrative.
Read Cialdini.
That’s what’s going on.
The Clinton Machine’s argument is ad hominem.
It’s where you go when you’ve got no other basis to argue.
I get that. Do you ?
Donald is not being invited to my house… though I understand that he has excellent table manners for a guy with short fingers.
Anyone and everyone who has a nice thing to say about Donald is FLUSHED from our TV screens.
Anyone and everyone who has a truthful thing to say about Hillary is cut out of broadcast — in mid-sentence.
One candidate is OWNED by the billionaire class, who control the MSM, the other is disdained by the plutocrats.
STILL no clue ?
The MSM’s mud bag plays on your emotions and your moral compass… which they don’t share at all.
At this late stage, to not vote for Trump is to be played by your ideological and political enemies.
It really is that crass.
BTW, the election of 1860 was ultra nasty, too. Lincoln was for change. The Democrats had him as Satan.
huxley Says:
October 19th, 2016 at 7:48 pm
BTW by definition you really are a Trump supporter if you are voting for Trump, i.e. you are supporting Trump in the most clear and desriable way there is in our system short of sending him money.
However, those of us who do not vote for Trump or Hillary are NOT Hillary supporters, something obvious and true which otten eludes Trump supporters.
&&
By Game Rules standing aside is a 3/4 vote for Hillary.
To defend what you deem dear — you’re going to have to get muddy in that foxhole.
It’s a dirty business, but voters have to do it.
The fact that our political opponents have selected Trump for us — is a bitter pill to swallow.
You seem to think he’s all whiskey and lemonade for me.
Get over it.
Knock off with your version of ad hominem.
Pointing out the necessity of voting for Trump — not standing aside during the critical election at hand — does not make me a bad person.
My position is driven by Game Theory and Necessity.
Your ‘Purity of Vote and Conscience’ won’t survive the Clinton Machine presidency.
For you will bitterly recriminate — against yourself — that you never knew how bad, bad could get.
That’s a plight that many a European endured. Take caution.
Huxley somehow believes he will emerge from the Hillary years unbesmirched, unstained, unwounded.
I hope he will take comfort in his failure to effectively oppose the enemy while voting for McMullin or some other irrelevant single digit candidate. Huxley’s is the moral high ground, don’t you know, which will be small comfort to some of us on Nov. 9.
Trump supporters can’t lose.
If he wins, they win
If he loses, there was a vast, vast conspiracy that made it happen and he really won, so they really won.
Dearest Neo,
You need no excuse, anytime, anyplace, to turn off Hillary or Trump.
Blert:
The polling companies are so in the tank with Stalin-in-a-pants suit that they are willing to sell their reputations and credibility ($$$). All of them. Only you know the truth (maybe not). 🙂
BTW the county survived FDR or have you forgotten that?
Are any Trumpistas backing Trump with their cash?
I’ve read a lot of posts by Trumpistas — or people who just say they are anti-Hillary — but so far I haven’t seen any who say they have bet money on Trump winning.
The odds are quite good right now, enough to pay, for instance, for a trip to Britain, where you can bet legally. (You can also bet legally at the Iowa Business school market, without leaving the United States.)
I’m not offering to bet, since betting on elections is mostly illegal here in the United States — just pointing out that Trumpistas appear to be overlooking a lucrative opportunity.
If, that is, they are correct about his chances of winning.
(Those who are curious about the current odds, might want to look at the oddschecker site. Wikipedia has an article on betting odds, if you need help interpreting the numbers, as I usually do.)
I stopped watching about halfway through. It was like watching a teenager beat up a toddler.
Clinton is full of lies. There are ways to utterly destroy her, but it requires knowledge of the subjects and ideas. Trump has neither.
So she’ll repeat some lie, and Trump responds with a canned response that may even be true, but he can’t prove it’s true. He can’t discuss why issues are important, or why they aren’t (in the case of his indiscretions compared to Clinton’s). He doesn’t take advantage of openings because he doesn’t know how to debate. That might seem irrelevant to supporters, but his positions are advocated through words. If he doesn’t have the words, he has nothing.
It’s just like Boehner, actually.
This clown should never have been nominated because the willingness to fight is immaterial without the ability to fight.
@ blert:
12 polls over the last week, and the best Trump does (in ONE of them) is a tie. Every other one has Hillary ahead, by an average of 6.5%.
The election result will only be a surprise to Trumpkins.
Oops, the link to RCP:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
Frog somehow believes he can nominate a clown and persuade the rest of the country he’s a serious contender.
He cannot.
Matt SE,
I agree that Trump’s canned responses are lame. He has memorized a few lines but shows no deeper understanding of issues. I don’t think anyone’s opinions will be changed. Hillary comes across as more polished and Trump will hold on to is supporters.
ALOT more fun watching the Cubbies at Dodger Stadium, Neo!! From the comfort of our Great Smoky vacation palace.
Let’s see…Donny’s gonna be boasting everywhere about how he brought great injury to the Republican Party. Putz.
Matt_SE,
There is the thought that from the beginning it was a charade, a Kabuki game of high drama that ends in maskes, smoke, mirrors, and tragedy. But that is just my tinfoil hat whispering conspiracy theories.
@ expat:
Agreed, Trump didn’t move the needle. But just for a bonus, what is the proper response when Hillary mentions Citizens United?
Every single person on this forum knows it is :” Citizens United? Isn’t that the group that made a film critical of you? No wonder you want them shut down!”
See how easy that is? But apparently, it was too hard for Trump.
OM Says:
October 19th, 2016 at 8:38 pm
Blert:
The polling companies are so in the tank with Stalin-in-a-pants suit that they are willing to sell their reputations and credibility ($$$). All of them. Only you know the truth (maybe not). 🙂
BTW the county survived FDR or have you forgotten that?
&&
But.
But.
Trump IS FDR.
Hillary is Stalin.
Thanks for making my point.
Trump is not MY man. He’s all that’s left between the now and perdition.
AFTER Hillary ascends her throne, you will have ‘elections’ the same way we do in Hawaii and California.
SIMULACRUM.
Essentially FAKE.
IRRELEVANT.
Demographics and the flood of ethnic voters will take your vote ENTIRELY away from you.
Believe me, I know what that’s like.
My, personal vote, is wholly irrelevant. California is going to vote for Stalin.
It will take ONLY four years of the Clinton Machine to make GOP prospects a nullity.
We will truly be living in a one party state.
This is COMMON in the world. It is common through history.
It’s functionally no different than the Roman Empire or the selection of Popes within the Catholic Church.
Yet, you actually think that — by magic — you can still have a political voice after this nation is flooded by hostiles ?
Now, who is dreaming ?
Europe shows us the future. In less than a generation we will HAVE to institute a police state … just to keep the lid on.
This is EXACTLY what’s going on in Sweden, Britain, France, et. al.
It’s all TOP DOWN “Democracy.” Which is anti-Democratic to its core.
After eight-years of 0bama, our demographics have been THAT much warped.
Four more means eight more … means forever more.
America will have passed its Classical Dynasty.
And how about, “Your reset with Putin didn’t work, did it?”
Oh, then there was the abortion response.
“It would throw it back to the states.”
That is a factually true statement, but doesn’t tell the audience WHY that is proper. Here’s the correct response:
“Abortion is a deeply personal decision which there is no consensus on. It should never have been decided by a group of 9 un-elected justices, and forced on the rest of the country. I would overturn Roe v Wade and return the decision to the individual states, which are the only places it should be decided.
New York will come to a different decision than Texas, but that’s okay because this is the only solution the country can live with.
It’s been 50 years since Roe v Wade and we’re still fighting over it. The decision solved nothing.”
That is the sort of response a good candidate would make. Instead, we have Trump.
I could have gone to my pantry and picked up the cans we were served tonight.
Blert had a point? Hillary is Satan, not just some mortal genocidal psychopath who killed more than Der Furher, get with the program man (or whatever)! 😉
Here’s a fun story:
Betting website pays out $1 million because it’s certain Clinton beats Trump
A major betting website is so certain Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump that it has made a huge gamble — already paying out $1.1 million to those who bet on Clinton.
The United States’ election day is still three weeks away. But Irish betting site PaddyPower says Trump’s campaign is dead already.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/18/news/paddypower-pays-hillary-clinton-bettors/index.html
I’m sure that’s Hillary disinformation and the race really is “tight as drum” as blert tells us.
I followed some of the debate via the web. Bottom line for me is relief this election will soon be over.
I wonder how many October Suprises are left in store.
I also wonder if the current lull in Islamic terrorism compared to last summer is intended to support Hillary’s election. Assuming radical Muslims have enough centralized comamand and control to do so.
My impression is Trump’s big run-up in the polls last summer was substantially fueled by that run of terrorism. World events matched Trump’s worldview.
Trump rode that wave pretty well until he nuked his polls by attacking the Muslim gold star couple.
I think Trump is as terrified of winning this election as he is of losing.
UPDATE 10:06 PM Trump declines to pledge he will accept the results of the election. Pretty astounding, but not really surprising.
“I’ll keep you in suspense.”
———————————-
I seem to recall that Al Gore required a supreme court decision before he agreed to accept the results of the Bush-Gore election.
Watching the pennant races. The Indians are in, Dodgers and Cubs will play at least 6.
I seem to recall that Al Gore required a supreme court decision before he agreed to accept the results of the Bush-Gore election.
However, Gore only did so in the wake of extremely close election in which he did in fact win the popular vote by 0.5%, while losing the electoral college.
Not the same at all as Trump’s going on about rigged elections and withholding acceptance of the results three weeks before the voting closed.
huxley – But there are still many other places the Trumpistas can place bets, though they may have to visit the UK. (Or set u an account in Iowa.)
According to oddschecker,
if you put 2 pounds on Donald Trump, some UK bookies will put up 9.
Those should be very attractive odds — if you think Trump will win, or even if you think he has a 50 percent chance of winning.
(You may want to consult a lawyer before actually going there to make a bet.)
I don’t have a problem with de-legitimizing the election results, because I believe Hillary actually cheated. It’s ALSO true that Trump is horrible and we should’ve been losing to Bernie Sanders instead.
The 3rd ‘debate’ is a choice between cancer or polio, aka Hillary or the Donald.
Trump just doesn’t come across as very smart to me. Hillary is evil, but I don’t expect she’ll accidentally launch a nuke. I’ll never vote for her, but I can understand why she’s less disgusting to many people.
Once again, thanks to all those who nominated Trump. Really good job, guys.
trump may have “held his own” in that this was his best of the three de”baits”, but with what? Hardly any substance.
As Matt said, trump just couldn’t really explain anything, but just strike out with personal attacks.
He pretty much argued “not hillary clinton” throughout the debate. Undecideds need more than that.
clinton seemed stiff and wonky, and provided many opportunities for some body blows if she had a prepared and skilled opponent. But she still seemed more knowledgeable, calm, collected, and disciplined.
.
This was trump’s last big chance to reach out to the remaining undecideds and to get them to see his positive vision.
His closing remarks came close to that, but still wasted the opportunity with the personal attacks. And, he didn’t reinforce any of that positive with his responses during the debate.
He just looked unprepared, relying on red meat for his “base”.
.
That he didn’t commit to supporting the eventual winner just echos his position at the start of the primaries.
If he had some factual argument behind that position, he might get taken seriously, but, without that, and coyly say he will leave us all “in suspense”, he just looks unserious and rather like a poor sport.
This alone may well be a huge road block in moving any .
voters his way.
.
Oh, yes, gore took it to the courts in 2000, but he had a case to do so. If trump remains around 5% down, he is far from having any case whatsoever.
Each state controls the voting process – that’s just overwhelmingly complex to control to the degree to make that argument plausible.
What clinton would really like to say to trump about his claims of a rigged election and of “debunked” alleged groping charges …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofddwtPBPw
The 3rd ‘debate’ is a choice between cancer or polio, aka Hillary or the Donald.
parker: Are you quoting the old Rolling Stones song, “Salt of the Earth”?
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio
–Mick Jagger/Keith Richards
I happened to be listening to the Joan Baez cover today.
Trump gained a bit of ground. Though clumsily, he got to the heart of the issues. I’d give him a C to B-. Many lost opportunities to skewer Hillary that went unanswered.
Such as gun control. Trump failed to respond persuasively to Hillary’s claim to support the 2nd amendment. She framed it as her supporting keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics. Trump could have agreed that no one wants guns in the hands of lunatics. But that Hillary isn’t being honest about what she really wants. As she purposely didn’t mention her support for suing gun and ammunition manufacturers, which would put them out of business and effectively gut the 2nd amendment. And that, that’s why people don’t trust her because she’s willing to deny law abiding people the means to defend themselves in order to impose a solution that doesn’t work. Proven by Chicago’s onerous gun restrictions not preventing an obscene level of gun violence. And that the reason why gun violence is so high is our modern society’s abandonment of traditional cultural values.
But Trump did warn America and if the majority ignore that warning, they have no one to blame but themselves. Anyone who votes for Hillary simply doesn’t want to know the truth.
In the larger scheme of things, I think Trump did America a favor by refusing to agree to accept at face value that should he lose, it was all fair and square. The truth is that the democrat party has become a criminal organization that continually breaks the law. We have to stop pretending otherwise. It’s no longer a case of an idealistic disconnect from reality. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to impose their beliefs upon everyone.
The rule of law has been replaced with the rule of men, which Hillary supports, demonstrated by her expressed ‘vision’ of a future SCOTUS. Trump lacks the ability to articulate that implication but that doesn’t change it being the path that the Left is driving us down…
In the larger scheme of things, I think Trump did America a favor by refusing to agree to accept at face value that should he lose,
GB: I’m from California and I know there’s wacky stuff with the voting rolls.
The problem with Trump though is that he built his media base on wacko conspiracy platforms like Alex Jones, Michael Savage, and the National Enquirer, and making conspiracy charges involving the Obama birth certificate and the JFK and Scalia assassinations.
I’m not a person who shrinks from conspiracy theory but most of them really are lame. Trump’s conspiracy theory background taints most people’s openness to whatever he might say in those areas.
Maybe I’m biased, but I think most people can tell that Trump doesn’t really know what he’s talking about when he makes such charges, even if they are reasonable. Trump uses conspiracy theories as a tool for garnering attention.
huxley…
MOST voters don’t vote based on logical points.
FAR from it.
Trump is aiming at those who decide based on feelings.
This does not connect with you at all.
&&&
I take it for granted that OM has never lived in a one-party state.
He’s in for the shock of a lifetime — strike that — the shock of forever — when he discovers that his vote is now wholly irrelevant — for the rest of his life.
The Clinton Machine is NOT going to permit OM a second shot at crippling it.
Plane loads of Muslim immigrants will be brought to his burg.
You doubt this ?
Idaho was a wholly Red State. So Barry is bringing in hundreds of Muslims — right into the heart of Idaho.
What HAD been a zero crime society will soon come to know jihad.
1,400 years of jihad says so.
No-one in 2008 ever imagined that Barry Soetoro would drop our skirts and let ANYONE in.
Now, we know that to be true.
GB
Anytime Trump loses he says it was “rigged”.
It’s really dangerous for him to call into question the election results. Undermines confidence in our system, inspires violence in his more unstable and fanatical followers, etc. He needs to produce some hard evidence
What we need is for him to lose. Then he can take his followers over to Trump TV and I can (finally) tune him out by changing the freakin channel.
The idea that the polling is fixed somehow is based on deep misunderstandings about how they work. The D+9 numbers are a *result* of Hillary winning–not the *cause* of it.
There are a lot of registered Republicans who are answering “Which party do you identify with in this election” questions (where the D/R results come from) as “Democrat” this time around. My family is full of them (and these are Florida Hispanics).
Since we’ve had rigged elections before, what’s the issue with Trump saying so?
Remember, Al Franken was losing until somebody found a few hundred ballots in a car trunk. Of the voters, 1100 were felons, which was illegal.
Some precincts turn out 110% of registered voters.
Dem operatives have been busted registering dead people.
There are other examples. What’s wrong with saying so–other than that they always benefit dems and thus are….hey!….look!…a squirrel!
There are shenanigans and then there is rigging an election.
A five point deficit is NOT rigging.
There are certainly problems that need to be addressed – e.g. would like to see voters present identification as to who they are.
But trump is doing NOBODY any favors by declaring ahead of time he won’t agree with the election results at face value.
He always has the right to dispute a given state’s results if it is close.
But missing the stake by 100 yards in horseshoes is no basis to launch a dispute from.
A lot of folks here are whining that Trump is terrible debater, has no grasp of the issues, can’t articulate the ideas embodied in the Constitution, his handle on the facts is non-existent, and more.
So? Blame that on the GOP and their lousy candidates.
After all, it’s not like we had among our choices an honorable, ethical, rock-solid conservative who memorized the Constitution in high school, who has fought the left his entire life, has a great understanding of all the issues, argued many cases at SCOTUS, was anti-amnesty, anti-media, anti-PC, and a national debate champion, right?
Right?
Oh…wait…
“The rule of law has been replaced with the rule of men”
And trump is the fix for that “all is lost” ill?
As to the question about accepting the results of the election what Trump should have said is – ‘of course I will accept the results of a free and fair election’.
Since the subject seems to be gripping wide attention this morning [aside: I did not watch the performances live, so work off decontextualized video clips] Wallace’s question, as near verbatim as I can transcribe it:
First a minor note of mere reaction on my part: The “Sir” interjection by Wallace had the tone, to me, of an adult instructing a child whose attention the adult instructor suspected of wandering, and was purposed to snap that wandering attention back to Wallace, in effect, “Listen to me now!”. So much for that.
Second, Wallace’s question seems to me absurd on its face. Sure, anyone who believes the election free and fair would have no difficulty accepting the result of the election, but as Andrew McCarthy is at pains to point out this morning (on twitter), both the DNC and the RNC have thousands of election lawyers standing by for the immediate aftermath of the coming election on the sober premise that much may be necessary to challenge.
To put this another way, Wallace’s premise is akin to the premise of the old saw question “Have you stopped beating your wife — Sir — yes? or no?”
Unfortunately for onlookers, all this deft sophism falls amidst Trump’s desperate attempts to pre-excuse his own failures by braying “fixed” at every opportunity, which . . . well, maybe Trump is served right by affording the devious Wallace the occasion to play his little game.
sdferr — The issue isn’t that there couldn’t be a challenge. The issue is the (ridiculous) idea that the entire electoral system is rigged. The latter is what Trump has been telling his audiences.
The former–that there could be a challenge–is standard operating procedure. Trump has made this an issue by taking the unheard-of step of telling his followers that the election *will* be rigged.
That, in your analogy, is him beating his wife.
Right TheOmnivore, I think. The “nice” play Wallace makes — sweeping the leg — is present in his use of “absolute” or “absolutely”. No?
sdferr – yeah: if Trump had hit him on the use of “absolute” he’d have had a *much* better answer. If he’s talked up the American electoral system in general but said “we will have lawyers to make sure everything goes smoothly,” I’d have been happy with that.
But he’s telling his followers to go to “certain neighborhoods” to look out for illegal voting (however that works–but I think we know how that works). That’s, like, way, way out of bounds.
Wallace was right to call him on it.
“It’s really dangerous for him to call into question the election results. Undermines confidence in our system, . . .” [Bill @ 8:26]
Are you kidding me?
The list goes on and you think that the possibility of Trump calling into question the 2016 election results “undermines the confidence in our system”? There is a job at the NBC anchor desk just waiting for you.
T – this is reaching.
1. Gore had a photo-finish. Recounts were reasonable and expected. He didn’t claim the process was rigged.
2. WikiLeaks doesn’t confirm collusion.
3. Which dems brag about manipulating Roberts?
4. She looked pretty spry for the 11 hour Benghazi hearing.
5. How many conservative-for-a-hundred years newspapers have endorsed Trump? (answer: one, the one his son in law owns)
6. 32 cases of voter fraud out of a billion votes or something like that?
7. Veritas tapes would do better if he hadn’t got caught faking the ACORN stuff. Self inflicted wounds.
T:
You raise valid points, but, Trump didn’t raise them, he just continued to whine about how unfair and rigged everything is, and unfortunately gave Hillary all she needed to ridicule his whine. Some could speculate that Trump is part of the rigged system, a feature of Hillary’s plan. How better to destroy and burn it all down?
And I remember how much I loathed the whole Bush vs Gore (2000 FL fiasco) so I am certainly not looking forward to Trump challenging the election results if and when he looses by 0.5% in the popular vote.
IMO Trump is doing the divert and disrupt game once again and deflect from his incompetency. It is, after all, all about him.
As to the question about accepting the results of the election what Trump should have said is — ‘of course I will accept the results of a free and fair election’.
MikeNC: Perfect!
The problem with Trump is that he has established himeslf as a wacko who will say almost any wacko thing: Ted Cruz’s father involved in the JFK assassination, Megyn Kelly’s menstrual blood and much more.
So when he talks about rigged elections, the majority of people hear: wacko guy says wacko thing and wacko people in the wacko party agree. He doesn’t do anyone any favors except Hillary.
I think most of the voters who could help Trump have been looking for him to show his ability to be halfway normal, i.e. not a wacko, for a sustained period of time. Either Trump can’t or he won’t.
I was going to write a long comment on my take regarding the debate, when I remembered this quote:
“Everything has been said already, but not yet by everyone.”
In any event:
Chris Wallace was the best, by far, of all the Hillary-Trump presidential debate moderators this year.
AND
HILLARY DELENDA EST!
Ira:
Yes, Wallace was excellent and as fair as humanly possible under difficult circumstances.
He should do all the debates from now on, like Bob Hope used to do the Oscars year after year.
T:
“Are you kidding me?”
No.
If Trump has a 2000 Florida like situation, he’s more than welcome to challenge the results.
The problem I have (this is a prediction – I could be wrong but this is my expectation) If he loses by 70 electoral votes/several million popular votes he’s still going to say it was “rigged”.
One thing that I have really been disappointed in this election cycle is that a lot of conservatives have really shown their whiny/victim side. It’s depressing.
Chris Wallace was only comparatively good. Nobody elected him to decide which questions should be asked, and to shush the candidates whenever it was time, in his sole judgment, to “move on.”
Again, Gore didn’t pre-emptively accuse the system of being rigged.
Nor did Gore accuse the system of being rigged after the election. He demanded a recount — a legitimate request in a razor-thin election. All that business about hanging chads…
Gore and his people did get pissy about the Supreme Court’s intervention in the process, but again this is very different from what Trump did last night.
As is often the case, I find the Trump defenders to be offering apples-and-oranges comparisons to justify Trump.
Wherever one stands on rigged elections, I still say it is stupid of Trump to bring it up in the closing weeks of this campaign.
It doesn’t help him, it doesn’t help the GOP and it doesn’t help the country.
Trump has behaved like a whiny, angry, vengeful teenager throughout this campaign when things didn’t go his way. People are looking for him to act like an adult, the sort of man who could be a credible president. Either Trump won’t or can’t do it.
This is why he is losing.
OM,
I don’t disagree with you point about Trump’s response. I was just responding to Bill’s quote about this being a constitutional crisis.
As to Omnivore:
You are kidding, too? No?
1) Gore, no he didn’t, but he conceded and then un-conceded and one heard no furor about that. Are concessions final or not? If not why bother conceding? Concessions also carry with them the understanding that the results would not be challenged; Gore challenged the results. Furor? No.
2) WikiLeaks provides the circumstancial evidence. E-mails between players who are nto supposed to be coordinated as per election law.
3) WikiLeaks reveals, if I remember correctly.
4) she looked pretty spry at the debates too, but could not negotiate stairs without help.
5) Conservative newspaper endorsements? Is there a point here? who cares?
6) A-these are only the ones under prosecution. B- don’t forget about the Wisconsin (?) ballots that suddenly appeared fromt he trunk o fthe care. C) Project Veritas tape of Dems bragging about voter fraud for 50 years D0 Kennedy family own admission that the 1960 election was bought in =Illinois. But OH! Never mind, this is a non-existing problem created by conspiracy theorists.
7) Veritas tapes did not fake the “ACORN stuff”. Those were leftist accusations which were provably false.
Bill,
My point is that regardless of how good or bad we think Trump’s answer is, it is not the constitutional crisis that the media (including Fox News) is playing it up to be.
Many people are comparing it to his initial refusal to support the Republican nominee last year. He eventually did agree, but several others who readily agreed to do that (Kasich stands out) have reneged on that pledge. Have they been called to account by conservatives?
As to his refusal now to agree to results not yet in, he didn’t say he “wouldn’t.” He said he’ll think about it and wait to make that judgement. The media thinks such an appor
OM,
I don’t disagree with you point about Trump’s response. I was just responding to Bill’s quote about this being a constitutional crisis.
As to Omnivore:
You are kidding, too? No?
1) Gore, no he didn’t, but he conceded and then un-conceded and one heard no furor about that. Are concessions final or not? If not why bother conceding? Concessions also carry with them the understanding that the results would not be challenged; Gore challenged the results. Furor? No.
2) WikiLeaks provides the circumstancial evidence. E-mails between players who are nto supposed to be coordinated as per election law.
3) WikiLeaks reveals, if I remember correctly.
4) she looked pretty spry at the debates too, but could not negotiate stairs without help.
5) Conservative newspaper endorsements? Is there a point here? who cares?
6) A-these are only the ones under prosecution. B- don’t forget about the Wisconsin (?) ballots that suddenly appeared fromt he trunk o fthe care. C) Project Veritas tape of Dems bragging about voter fraud for 50 years D0 Kennedy family own admission that the 1960 election was bought in =Illinois. But OH! Never mind, this is a non-existing problem created by conspiracy theorists.
7) Veritas tapes did not fake the “ACORN stuff”. Those were leftist accusations which were provably false.
Bill,
My point is that regardless of how good or bad we think Trump’s answer is, it is not the constitutional crisis that the media (including Fox News) is playing it up to be.
Many people are comparing it to his initial refusal to support the Republican nominee last year. He eventually did agree, but several others who readily agreed to do that (Kasich stands out) have reneged on that pledge. Have they been called to account by conservatives?
As to his refusal now to agree to results not yet in, he didn’t say he “wouldn’t.” He said he’ll think about it and wait to make that judgement. The media thinks such an appor
sorry!
conclusion:
The media thinks that such an approach is unreasonable? The media retells a clear “I’ll wait and see” answer as “He refuses to accept the result”? and then he gets criticized for essentially saying “It’s all rigged folks.” Unlike Omnivores claim, there’s no “reaching” on my part, just a willingness to look t the cards on the table.
I swear that I see as much narrative peddling in the #neverTrump realm as I see from the DNC-MSM.
One thing to remember about Wikileaks: It is often a conduit for Russian propaganda, and has been for years.
That may not bother the man who wants to be Putin’s pal, Donald Trump, but it should make the rest of us wary about what they choose to release — and what they don’t.
Here’s a selection from the generally positive Wikipedia article:
“In September 2016, the German weekly Focus reported that according to a confidential German government dossier, WikiLeaks had long since been infiltrated by Russian agents aiming to discredit NATO governments. The magazine added that French and British intelligence services had come to the same conclusion and said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev receive details about what WikiLeaks publishes before publication.[288][289] The Focus report followed a New York Times story that suggested that WikiLeaks may be a laundering machine for compromising material about Western countries gathered by Russian spies.[290]
In October 2016, CNN reported that “there is mounting evidence that the Russian government is supplying WikiLeaks with hacked emails pertaining to the US presidential election.” Wikileaks has denied any connection to or cooperation with Russia.”
But you don’t need to have help from the intelligence agencies to come to similar conclusion. Just make a list of the nations they embarrassed in their big stories — and a list of the nations they didn’t.
Credit where due: Marco Rubio apparently understands this.
“. . . it should make the rest of us wary about what they choose to release – and what they don’t.” [Jim Liller @ 2:44]
Fair enough, but the choice on what to release v. what not to release makes them no different than our own MSM which constantly does the same thing. This is neither to defend the Russians nor to refute the media, just to draw the comparison. In other words, everyone has their own agenda.
Most importantly, however, is that questioning what</I. is released is not the same as calling into question the validity of what is released. I have yet to see anyone, even the Dems claim that the WikiLeaks e-mail releases are falsified a la Dan Rather.
CUBBIES WON..!!!! FAR more important than Ling Bsby Donny or Queen Multi-Felony Lefty could have dreamed up.
“…King Baby Donny…”
Damn, I hate android gizmos!!!
1. Gore rescinded his concession when it was clear it was VERY close (a few hundred votes). That’s why there was no furor.
2. There’s a reason circumstantial evidence isn’t admissible in court.
3. I’d like to see that (seriously).
4. If you believe she’s unhealthy that’s a big step down conspiracy-lane.
5 / 6. For being provably false, I think there’s a reason O’Keefe paid out a 100k fine to the guy he got fired. In fact, I think his duplicity HAS been proven in a court of law.
1. Gore rescinded his concession. period
2. Circumstantial evidence is, indeed permitted in court and is used in court as a matter of course. Hearsay is not and then there are exceptions even to that.
Better to be thought a fool than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt–Mark Twain
4) whatever. ignore the leaked videos if you wish
5) show me. don’t speculate. He was taken to court over the Telephone issue in Missouri(?) If I recall correctly there was no verdict reached. I could be wrong here.–just don’t remember, and this conversation to too much a waste of my time to bother to look it up.
T:
No, Gore didn’t “rescind his concession, period.”
See this [emphasis mine]:
And it was that mandated, automaticlegal process that ended up triggering the suit that decided the winner, via SCOTUS.
If you would like to refresh your memory, read the whole article. Gore was correct to rescind his concession, and what’s more, the recount was automatic anyway.