Watching yesterday\u2019s debate was a fascinating, frustrating informative look at this year\u2019s election dynamic.\u00a0 The most important fact I observed was that Donald Trump was the first Republican since Ronald Reagan who knew how to stand up to the moderator at a debate and say what he needed to say.<\/p>\n
Think of the pathetic image of Mitt Romney being corrected by Candy Crowley on something that he had gotten right.\u00a0 And that he meekly allowed her to get away with it.\u00a0 Compare that to Trump.\u00a0 Not only did he object to many things Hillary said (and while she was still speaking) but when Lester Holt tried to correct him on Stop and Frisk, Trump corrected Holt!\u00a0 It was a pleasure to hear and see.\u00a0 Trump may have been rambling and repetitive a lot of the time but at least he wasn\u2019t cowed by the tag team of Clinton and Holt.\u00a0 He asserted his opinion and it was a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n
Trump was even able to overcome the overtly biased nature of the questions.\u00a0 Whereas Clinton was given neutral questions about her policy direction, Holt singled out Trump to defend his decision not to release his income tax records.\u00a0 And to his credit he skillfully turned it right around on Clinton by declaring that he would release his income tax records just as soon as Hillary recovered the 33,000 e-mails that she has deleted.\u00a0 It is this kind of verbal jiu-jitsu that distinguishes the effective debate performance of Trump from the weak passive performance of the last four or five republican presidential contenders.<\/p>\n
Let me be clear.\u00a0 Trump is no Reagan.\u00a0 He is not a deep thinker.\u00a0 He\u2019s a salesman.\u00a0 But he knows enough about scams to know that all of us are being scammed by the politicians.\u00a0 He is an American and I think he empathizes with the common man.\u00a0 Is he trustworthy?\u00a0 Not if you\u2019re buying steaks or college courses.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not what he\u2019s selling.\u00a0 What he\u2019s offering is his expertise in negotiating with sharp operators. Some commentators friendly to Trump believe he avoided overtly attacking Clinton on personal matters (such as Bill\u2019s womanizing and assaults) because it might have seemed overly aggressive. I think they\u2019re right. He came off as a relatively moderate version of Trump which robbed his enemies (i.e., all of the MSM) of their charge that Trump is irrational. No national poll has been issued since the debate but a number of instant polls have appeared and the majority show people believe Trump won.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re six weeks out and two more debates to go. Where do I think we are? I\u2019m starting to think Trump is going to pull it off. I fully expect the NYT, WP and NBC will come out with polls showing Hillary up by some enormous amount (6 to 10 points). But if the other polls (LAT, Rasmussen, Reuters, etc.) don\u2019t move much or at all then I think he\u2019ll win. My hope is that in fact some of the polls will even show him ahead by a significant amount (3 \u2013 5 points). But that\u2019s not even necessary yet. Just the fact that he\u2019s right on her tail will be enough.<\/p>\n
In short I feel the Trumpocalypse is afoot. Take cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Watching yesterday\u2019s debate was a fascinating, frustrating informative look at this year\u2019s election dynamic.\u00a0 The most important fact I observed was that Donald Trump was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[61,51,16],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-debate","tag-presidential-election","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n