Seattle Sports Insider

Konspiracy Korner: POTUS Debate Thread

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9/26/16

Hola amigos! Please post your quik takes below if you're of a mind. ... I'm certainly not Mr. Sensitivity when it comes to making criminal laws out of the concept, but do suggest that we all show some "sensitivity" to friends who vote the other side. If you plan on voting Trump, for example, please comment with an awareness that you'll be read by people voting Hillary, and treat them as your friends.

TREMENDOUS PRESSURE

I don't know if Hillary, or Trump, will melt down. I do know, however, that if I were in their shoes I'd be well capable of melting down.

The Bobby Riggs - Billie Jean King tennis match was comparable to this, in terms of national attention, hard feelings, and what's at stake, but they could move around and burn off cortisone. As a chessplayer I know what it's like to be stressed Max and then to be forced to remain physically still. Both Hillary and Donald will probably be showing superhuman poise tonight.

But I'll be watching, empathetically, to see if either one cracks.

EARPIECES

Chessplayers, who compete for mere thousands of dollars, assume that their opponents are getting off-site help unless proven otherwise. It would be routine for a tournament chessplayer to ask, "How do we know that either one of these candidates doesn't have a thumper in their shoes?"

Just riffing. That's what is on the mind of any chessplayer watching tonight's debate.

PRO-HILLARY COMMENT

On the far right, they wonder about Hillary's neuro condition. Whether she is having seizures, spacing out, and so forth. And to be fair, I personally wonder about that "black van mobile medical team" she travels around with, as did the press, when she 'disappeared' for 90 minutes following the fainting on 9/11 ... if that happened to a sitting President (press blackout episode) the nation might assume the worst and go into crisis.

But! My basic reaction to this is that she did just fine in the Bernie Debates. Chance of a neuro moment tonight, very slim, I would think.

Obviously, Hillary's sheer knowledge of politics and policy dwarfs Trump's. We'll see to what extent she can translate that to debate impact.

PRO-TRUMP COMMENT

It seems to me that some corners of the media have been working very hard to portray Trump as, quite literally, a clinically insane person - neurotic and deluded at a bare minimum.

But the last few days, some of these same people are protesting, "Just because he is going to look normal does not mean he clears the bar." There's an essential irony in this: Here's who we've told you he is, and just because you get to meet him now doesn't mean you get to form your own opinion. In other words, the over-demonization could come back to bite those who were exaggerating.

Or not. We'll see.

MOST INTERESTING READ THIS WEEK, FOR ME PERSONALLY

Scott Adams' very creative argument for switching to Trump. No need to click if you are annoyed by sympathy to Trump, but if you do click, you'll find some fresh thought there.

Counterbalancing link with sympathies to Hillary: FiveThirtyEight.com. Nate Silver used to be one of Baseball Prospectus' stars; now he runs a NYT political blog with fairly objective math but quite subjective prose. I read it daily, especially the comments.

;- )

Blessings,

Jeff

Blog:

Tags:

Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump

Comments

The aftermath

1. During the 2nd half Lester Holt has pulled a couple of Candy Crowley's.

2. During the 1st 60-70 minutes Trump more than held his own. He punched, but wasn't mean about it. He hit Hillary with decent blows. He won on Chicago, on trade (where I disagree with him) and on repatriating American dollars overseas.

3. She came across as healthy, hearty and willing to swing away.

I think Trump had the better day, in that he didn't come across as a disaster. We're I an undecided voter, I might not see him as a loony tune.

Hillary has had the better finish....especially on honoring treaties. Trump got in great licks onthe Iran treaty, however. But I'm not sure she had the best moments of the debate. And debates are often won, not on overall substance and on high school debatnig points, but on the one or two moments that touch the voter's elementary concerns.

And I'm still writing in Paul Ryan.

But were this a boxing match using the old 10 Point Must Scoring System, there were no knock outs (and Hillary won the later rounds), I think the score is 10-9 Trump. Maybe 10-8. Strong body blows, but no knockout.

Still waiting for the final roundhouses to be thrown.....

Lester Holt

The moderator was much less of a factor than I expected. As one who worries about the MSM, it could have been far worse from my POV.

That said, there were major Q's about Trump's tax returns but none - zero - about the Clinton Foundation or her speeches to the Big Six on Wall Street. There was a long section on 'birther/racism' but nothing on emails. Holt wanted to know whether Trump's questioning of Hillary's 'look for President' made him a misogynist, but there was nothing about her health, fainting, etc.

The moderator's rooting interesting was clear, and yet I was thankful it seemed relatively a fair environment. Which says something about where we are, perhaps?

'Were I an undecided voter'

Hanging on your every word Moe, considering you've had a bigger career in politics than anybody else in the blog-o-sphere.

Newt Gingrich, who undoubtedly was part of the Trump debate prep, later identified your point exactly as their big-picture goal. Trump supporters were disappointed that he wasn't more ambitious, but Gingrich (and you) thought that a steadier-hand-at-the-tiller performance mattered most.

Debate

I was not able to watch the debate (traveling overseas), but I have to think that the debates don't really matter for Trump - Trump supporters have seen all manner of offensive behavior, immoral action, ignorance of issues, and supposed "un-presidential behavior" and it hasn't damaged his support (perhaps even increased it). I doubt any significant portion of the population would suddenly drop support for him after the debates unless he makes a colossal mistake (and possibly not even then). So who is it that sees Donald Trump doing the same things he always does, but now on a debate stage and it triggers a switch to support him?

Clinton just doesn't have the public charisma to sway voters it appears. He supporters are voting perceived policy issues or anti Trump. She hasn't seemed to rouse any passion about herself personally in decades or in the course of the election, I doubt it happens now from a few debates.

Outside of a colossal mistake, I doubt the debates make any impact on voter choices this election, regardless of polling results afterward.

Truly a depressing election cycle.

Debates' impact

It seems you called this one accurately, because the first debate looks to have had much less impact than I assumed it would.

Seemed like two football teams mostly punting from 30-yard-line to 30-yard-line. Apparently both sides believe that the election is theirs if they don't lose it in the debates.

Forbes Magazine on-line poll

I"m a big Forbes Mag. fan Along with The National Review (and when I can get it The Weekly Standard) they are my bread and butter.

300K on-line responses had it as a 50/50 tie, last night. 80% said it would not impact their voting, 12% said it changed their mind and 7% still undecided. That 12% is interesting. If you are this far into the election cycle flood and 90 minutes of debate, where nobody self-immolated, changes your mind then I would be interested to know in which way that change went.

Question

Do you honestly believe Forbes followers mirror the voting public?

People see different things...

I viewed this debate as Trump being off balance after the first topic, and he never really recovered. I do not think Hillary scored that many big blows either, but she definitely fought her fight, and made Trump fight her fight in her style... and he did not look comfortable. Trump also had the biggest whiffs on the night - not hammering Hillary on the emails, on lying on many topics, Trump got off track more and wasted precious time on odd stories to defend himself, and Trump never got into any of the true Clinton scandals from the past 20 years or so.

I would have scored the fight 10-9 or maybe 10-8 Hillary

10-8 Hillary

I'd have had it about 10-8 Hillary, maybe 10-7.

Agreed that Hillary looked more comfortable than Trump, and far more so than I thought she would. She obviously did a great job in preparing for tone, also, because she outsmiled and 'outsofted' him all night.

....

Your complaint jibes with everybody else's -- why so many 'missed opportunities.' For instance, she went into a long speculation as to why he might not have released his tax returns, 1, 2, 3, here are his possible nefarious reasons. It would have been so simple for him to go, "Here are the possible reasons she wiped her emails: to protect her Pay for Play partners, to yada yada yada." He didn't say a word. Not a word about deplorables, not a word about lots of things like that.

Agreed Rain. Lot of people wondered about that, including me.

Frank Luntz' focus groups

Luntz' twitter account has lots of instant reaction from the focus group. They said that they thought Hillary won the debate by 16-6, but Luntz' read of the debates' effects on independents was fascinating.

Essentially, he says that the I's reacted much better when Trump was speaking. In his account, Trump won by about 10-8 or 10-7 rather than by 10-3 with independents, because --- > he defensively overreacted to the IRS emails, the birther Q's, the loan from his dad, etc., and that regardless of what he said, the time was poorly spent from the I's point of view.

Seems to me that Trump's vanity was a real problem for him in this debate. Not, according to Luntz, enough to keep him from winning the debate, but very important.

....

Gingrich thought it was an upper-deck HR for Trump, which effects will sink in, in about a week. Dunno if that's true, but Trump's TEAM definitely got what it wanted Monday.

....

If I were a Hillary supporter, though, I'd be vastly relieved, and delighted, with her performance.

Where this matters:

North Carolina is in play. Trump's law and order stance is going to play really well with I's there.

Ohio may be in play. Trump's trade stance may help in blue collar communities. In Pennsylvania it appears (from what I've read) that the emphasis is on the suburban Philly region. I'm not sure that Trump hurt himself or that Hillary helped herself with swing voters in a swing state. He looked tough and she looked poised. He (generally) spoke an outsider's language and she (generally) spoke a policy-wonk language.

I think you will see whatever you were looking for in this debate. I think that includes those undecideds who might be looking for a reason to vote for Trump or a reason to vote against him. That is the undecided challenge. It isn't on whether I should vote for Clinton or not; if you're undecided then you're likely more than a bit uncomfortable with her legal/e-mail/foundation/Blumenthal/etc. morass........I bet you're looking for a reason to vote for or against Trump. He's the determining factor for most Undecideds, I think. Just his being on the stage last night gave him a "presidential" gravitas, and he didn't come across as a loony tune who you want nowhere close to the nuclear codes.

Voters send guys like Trump (or with positions like him) to Congress or state houses all the time. Most U's have voted for people sort of/kind of/maybe/in the ballpark/close enough like him.......I'm not sure most of us have voted for candidates with the Clinton ethhical concerns overhead. And those concerns are real. Perhaps they will amount to nothing, but the concern exists.

So I think Trump played just fine in Poughkeepsie, were you an undecided voter. At worst, he didn't shoot himself in the foot and he hangs around for another month. And that was the basis of my 10-9 win for Trump.

He didn't win on debating points. But he didn't have to. This election is no longer about such things. If Undecided voters feel a bit more relieved that Trump just might be able to occupy the Oval Office, then he did himself well.

I still think he has a very narrow road to 270, but after last night he's still on the road, anyway.

I am

Well, I AM one of those mythical independent voters. I'm still more likley to vote for Gary Johnson than I am either of the two on the debate stage last night but I thought that Hillary pretty much cleaned his clock. Pretty clear that he does not have command of the issues and is stuck with delivering his basic campaign lines. To be honest, he looked like more of a <donkey's butt> than he usually does. He lost a LOT of women's votes last night with is rude and boorish behavior. She even showed more personality - smiling and laughing while he scowled and grimaced. Of the two, she even looked healthier. It's pretty bad when "I have the right temperment" is the biggest laugh line of the night. Nobody is buying that one.

Outside of the US Vacuum Chamber...

Okay, so I've basically fallen out of touch with local/domestic US politics in the 10 years I've lived outside of the states, but for me it looked like a stalemate.

Trump acted as usual, but he was also in vague control of what he's doing.
He's essentially a reverse Al Gore... If you diss or treat someone who's perceived as a dull butter knife badly, you get flack.
But if you diss someone who's intelligent and relatively well spoken (aside from whatever usual political machinations), you get points.
Whether this will extend any further in the undecideds, I don't know, but it struck me as the tone of his first half.

Yet, Trump was also distinctly not Trump.
There wasn't a lot of edge or anything new here and he was largely ineffective in doing what Scott Adams argues.
He kept blabbering aimlessly and he gradually lost his touch as Hillary landed more effective soundbites.
Hillary's shimmy laugh is a hit GIF and the stamina comeback was effective because the comeback didn't even touch the original appearance question.
Donald took the ball out of position for him (presidential "look" to "stamina") and got tripped up worse than just saying she looks like Emperor Palpetine's bodyguard or a McD's french fry box.
It also helped that Hillary actually *looked* healthier and more presidential on stage as well, thanks to the two camera setup.

Overall, my main interest/concern is Trump's strategy.
My feeling is that this is going to be more of a hero's journey sort of setup where the email and other heavy hitting soundbites will be saved for part 3 in order to keep buzz as we get closer to the election.
Trump's main selling point is the same as Captain Kirk's Kobayashi Maru; his strategy has the virtue of having been never tried before... And people like that.
If he lands that part, his position on the ballot is more stable.

Hillary came out looking good, but she really needs to find a way to be likable.
She made a lot of progress, but parts still came off a bit rehearesed or inflexible.
The town hall debate will probably be more important for her than the last one.

No third party candidates involved

I am disappointed that neither Johnson nor Stein were in the debate, though Stein was escorted out. Both have not managed to gain sufficient support to be viable, but keeping them out of the debate nails that coffin. Maybe they need a JV debate like in the GOP primaries. It's too bad that with the divisions in both major parties, we didn't have Bernie and one of Cruz/Rubio/Kasich, etc. still running and in the debate. With any strong third party candidate, we'd have the excitement of the election decided by a Congress that doesn't like the candidates any more than we do.

health policy

It was odd that, unless I missed it, there was no talk about Obamacara/health insurance in the debate. Scanning the transcript at http://fortune.com/2016/09/26/presidential-debate-transcript/ shows only a couple references to mental health. Also, nothing about opioids/heroin/prescription drug abuse, and nothing about entitlement reform, which is the largest share of government spending. I guess that's what happens when politics is about personalities rather than policy.

My Morning After Two Cents

Trump's positives: He definitely has charisma and the bluster/outrageousness of a loveable scoundrel. In his best moments, you want to root for him when he points out real problems in how our government works at home and abroad. Clinton's positives: She exudes competence and knowledge when talking about government and world affairs. In her best moments, she comes across as the adult in the room and can be quietly likeable.

I think their performances will be largely forgotten, but what will be remembered are soundbites that will be played in attack ads ad nauseum. On this point Trump badly lost:

Trump: "I have the best temperment."
// cue thirty seconds of Trump yelling outrageous things at campaign stops and in interviews.

---

Clinton: "Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis."
Trump: "That's called business, buddy."

---

Clinton saying Trump paid no income tax.
Trump: "That makes me smart."

From my daughter's perspective

Just thought a few here might be interested...

My 19 year old daughter was with 5 other college freshman in her dorm last night, and they started watching the debate. Most in the room would have voted for Bernie, per my daughter.

They watched until Lester "attacked Trump for the third time" - her words - and they had to turn it off. The entire group was just so sick of the "smug Hillary", and how the media protects her that they had to leave... and it just reminds them too much of how she treated Bernie and his movement, and how they are just supposed to fall in line now... which they won't.

Per my daughter, there is one in the group that will vote for Trump, one that will vote for the green party just as a protest vote... and the rest will stay home.

Very little comments on Trump, other than he was who they thought he was.

Also - for whatever it is worth - the group went out to play Pokemon Go in the U District, and she said there were hundreds of other college kids doing the same.

Re: Pokeman Go, our daughter

Re: Pokeman Go, our daughter and son-in-law are having a house built in Puyallup. Since we will be moving in with them next spring, we go nearly every weekend to see the progress towards an early November completion. While there inevitably their attention is divided between the biggest monetary investment of their life and checking their phones for Pokemons.

Millenials

I find it interesting that they're quite a bit more binary and polarized than my generation.

Sure, all the analysis here is interesting, but...

who else is willing to state who they'll vote for? (Griz has)

Seems like a lot of 'pussy footing' (is that term still allowed?) going on.

I did, did.

Or, not abbreviating, I should say "I did, diderot."

I am writing in Paul Ryan. Said so above.

So you did!

Apologies...

You first

I assume you're voting Hillary, but considering how many liberals hate her, wouldn't be surprised if you went Stein. Care to share?

Sorry for the delay in responding

Hillary all the way. If I had 1,000 votes, they'd all go to her.

Supported her over Bernie, suppported her over Obama.

Bad read

on my part. I'll make another dubious assumption as to why you prefer her to Bernie and Obama. Experience. Care to elaborate?

My arguments

First, in reltion to the other candidates I mentioned:

-- Bernie: Full credit to him for identifying the signature issue of this campaign--income inequality. The thing that unites the protestors from Occupy Wall Street and the displaced steelworks in the midwest. But he had no chance of enacting anything if elected. The mainline representatives from the GOP AND the Democrats both opposed him (the Dems for his adoption of their party label for his own ends)

--Obama: not battle tested. His belief in his own intelligence and powers of logic led him to conclude that he didn't need to use the leverage from control of the House and Senate in 2009 to pass his legislative agenda. If people just sat down and talked to him they'd see it his way. By the time he found out he was wrong, it was too late. (Incidentally, I think this approach applies directly to Hillary's belief in 1993 that her similar powers could get helth care reform passed. Her hard-learned lesson means that she IS battle tested.)

More generally:

Hillary and Trump are running for the most important executive office in the world: CEO of democracy and the free market. So I apply the same process here that's used for any important hire in the business world: 1) resume, 2) references, and 3) interview. (People are free to add their own analysis of Trump here. I'll deal just with Hillary.)

1) Resume. Even her opponent grants her the advantage on 'experience'. Some say she's the ,most qualified person ever to run for the job. (I say no--check out what William Howard Taft had done.). But anyway, spending eight years in the White House dealing with policy matters...eight years in the Senate...and four as Secretary of State is a remarkable resume. But that doesn't describe what she did in those jobs, right? So on to

2) References. It's a matter of record that coming out of school she passed up a phenomenal and extremely lucrative career on Wall Street to go to work for something called the Children's Defense Fund. And there's never been any deviation from that mission to help others throughout her career. Maybe she could have done it better at times--but that's who she is. And of course there have always been a lot of people willing to offer character references to this point.

But no doubt, there's another side of this coin. Whitewater, Vince Foster, Benghazi, emails, the Foundation, etc. Anyone can believe what they want, but I would contennd here that ALL of those things have been proven to be totally wrong or virtually meaningless. Of course, many violently disagree. But it's hard to say that she skated on all this stuff because the Republicans went too easy on her.

But in references, you can choose who to trust.

3) Interview. That's the phase we're going through now in the debates. You can make your own decision.

So if all this is true, why don't many people feel like voting for her?

Two reasons IMO:

--the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: I'm top of the list in believing this

--her own mistake in this campaign talking too much about Trump, and too little about policy that addresses income inequality.

Appreciate the work fleshing it out

It's clear you've put more thought into it than the other Clinton supporters I've debated with(my sister and mom). Both played the gender card right from the get go, which led to immediate head/wall exercises.

Seems you clearly prefer realism to idealism. I can understand the appeal of wanting someone in the office who knows how the meat is made. Of all the arguments I've heard of the Clinton over Bernie people, that one does the most damage to my position. I myself am a super practical, pragmatic person, but I haven't yet abandoned my idealist intuitions. (Funny side note, I learned what idealist meant when being called it by one of my college professors during a debate about stealing music online, true story.) If I remember correctly, you and I are on quite opposite ends of the age scale. I remember you once saying you've been voting since the 60's, correct me if I'm wrong there. If so, that would probably go a little ways toward explaining my reluctance to let go of youthful idealism and your reluctance towards putting a grass roots political hippie into the white house.

I do think in your last lines about why people don't like her you missed a meaningful, perhaps primary reason. She been on record SOO many times being deceitful. I myself am far from a (R), and I find the Glenn Beck, Rush, Breitbart end of the spectrum nauseating. But behind all the noise there are some real problems for her, and they stem from her inability to just be honest and straight forward. From calling NAFTA the gold standard and pushing it hard then coming out against it once it became unpopular, to the sniper fire story, the entire email saga, Hillary flipping on Elizabeth Warren on bankruptcy legislation after becoming a Senator, the cattle futures stuff, all the things you mentioned, travelgate, pandering to specific audinces at opportunistic times, I mean the list goes on forever with her. In nearly every case she is on record saying something that is unequivocally false and if not, incredibly misleading. The vast RWC is one thing. Giving your enemies unlimited ammuntion throughout your entire time in the public eye is another, and to me is the main reason people (even many in her own party) don't like her. It's my main reason anyway.

A very thoughtful response

You know there's a lot of talk about fact checking in this election--in theory, a very good thing.

But unfortunately when it does occur, it's confined to what so-and-so said today. I would really like to see a comprehensive list of all the Hillary statements you mentioned...and any other ones that exist. Believe me, I'm not saying that every charge is false; but I'd like to see 'the record set straight' in some fact-based manner.

Too late for that to happen now. But it would be great if that record were explored for anyone ever running for president. Did the position really change? Were the words different? Had the context changed?

See...I still have my idealism!

And yes, although I was not nearly old enough to vote, I did watch the Nixon/Kennedy debate on TV--black and white, as a matter of fact. :)

I just watched some of the Nixon/Kennedy debate on youtube

My oh my how times have changed. Two thoughtful, intelligent, well spoken people having a high level, detail oriented, well mannered debate. Something else that stood out to me was they didn't have to deal with the dummies cheering after every single sound bite delivered by their preferred candidate like we get now. That's one thing that makes the state of the union address unwatchable for me nowadays.

Anyway, I was able to come across a few examples for you:

Here is a CBS breakdown of her Bosnia sniper fire lie. 2 mins long

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4

About her claim of being "dead broke" when leaving the White House.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/10/hillary-c...

About her claim that all her grandparents were immigrants.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/16/hillary-c...

About her claim that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first to climb Mount Everest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/nyregion/17hillary.html?_r=2&

On her flipping on the TPP after running for president in 2016.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/08/hillary-c...

....................

I'm not going to get into the email stuff (which she clearly does lie about on many occassions), just wanted to detail a few of the "smaller" lies she has been accused of. There are quite a few more, and these don't even touch on any of the major scandals she's been involved in. For all of these I skipped over the $HILLARY FOR PRISON!! sites and only chose those that are pretty well respected, well sourced etc. To me, taken individually each exampe has a varying amount of weight. If you only look at each one in isolation most don't seem like a big deal. The problem that people have with her is the amount of these types of "I misspoke" or "I misremembered" or "I swear I made 99x my money of cattle futures trading after only reading the WSJ I swear!". There's an overflowing library of in some cases pure, straight forward, easily identifiable lies and in others shady, foggy accounts from her that are disputed by others involved. To me there's a clear pattern of intentional deceipt.

Voting for Gary Johnson

Neither of these two should be rewarded for their disgraceful behavior to get to this point. I want an honest man at the helm. I want someone who can admit when he makes a mistake. Johnson's a two term governor and economic policies would ignite this economy. Not perfect at all, but the best in this field.

Double entry

removed.

Not Hillary nor Trump

I was a Bernie fan, though I'm not so liberal. I can't in good conscience vote for either Hillary or Trump, and Johnson comes across as a bit off on a number of issues (I'm being kind). I'll probably vote for Stein, and judiciously try to discern the best candidates regardless of party down the ballot. I am disappointed to hear of young voters planning to stay home for the election (especially in vote by mail WA!), as I have always felt that (legal) voters of every ilk need to be engaged to hold politicians accountable.

My vote for Stein will matter little in WA state, and won't swing the outcome for either Hillary or Trump here, but money won't buy my vote. Many Bernie voters in WA state that beat HRC in a landslide here will be voting for her out of fear of a Trump win. I find that irrational, just as those voting for Trump as an anti-Hillary vote. If they voted conscience over fear there would be at least one third party candidate with perhaps a plurality, if not a majority.

I'm afraid we'll get what we deserve, not what we want.