Final Debate Review: One President vs One Petulant Child

So the last Trump vs Hillary debate is done. It will be remembered as the debate where Trump put himself and his personal acceptance ahead of the opinion of 200 million voters. I think this will damage him more than any other third debate ever, and will bring on a wave of condemnation by Republicans and more un-endorsements. I think he will walk that statement back, soon, and may be forced to Apple-igize or non-apologize for it.

As to the debate, we saw the mellow Trump, on downers. He kept his cool most of the way but started to lose his concentration on not interrupting about half-way in, and did ever more of the interruptions towards the end. On the issues, Trump had worked on several points, delivered a few of those moderately well, in particular keeping to a more-or-less single talking point per response, and developing it, rather than mentioning every right-wing talking point. As it is, he didn't have much to add to what was out there and a few of his attacks had already been fact-checked to be false, so their practical value would now be even less. He still is, a businessman, and his best argumnents were near his business background, on jobs, on trade, on the economy and taxes. He was also doing good Republican talking points on the Supreme Court topic, something significantly more coherent than his previous ramblings. Many Republicans will like the development of his debating skills in those areas and probably all would agree, this was the best debate Trump has delivered. He has taken coaching and it shows. Were it not for the promise to not accept the verdict of American voters but rather substitute his own judgment instead, then he could get close to a tie out of the debate.

Hillary was polished, calm, played safe, needled 'Donald' many times but not very roughly - I loved the Emmys - and worked constantly on her favorables. At every point of the debate she was Presidential. I would think most independents and moderates and undecideds will give the debate to her, she should end up having won the debate. The Democrats will all love of her of course (but not all Republicans will like what they heard from Trump). There were very pointed barbs that probably stung deep, like the one in response to Trump sexual assault defenses, that women know exactly that type of behavior and the excuses. I think the most damaging of the attacks on the issues other than election fraud, was the Putin spying and whether Trump accepts its Russians doing it. The ending statement was just about pitch-perfect, she's clearly had time to prep for this possibility and Trump was totally not prepared for it, so he fumbled around for his talking points and I would guess if we time it, Hillary went 5 or 10 seconds over, and Trump is at least 10 seconds under the 60 seconds they were allocated.

I was expecting a big attack from Hillary on some surprise, and it wasn't there. She did some hits on Trump but on familiar ground, like buying Chinese steel and hiring undocumented workers and not showing taxes, but I was expecting a bombshell. It may be that she had one, but decided (or had pre-calculated it with her team already, which is more likely, now that I think of it) that as Trump declared himself above the decision of American voters, that should be the story of the debate, and let it stand, don't bring any other issues now. Hillary can still use her TV ads and surrogates to run hits if she has other stuff to use. This is probably an impact as big as the 'p*ssygate' tapes, and Hillary made a good, solid rebuke of it in her response. I believe Trump didn't know how big a hole he just dug for himself (as he typically never does understand whenever he does big campaign mistakes). I am certain this will be the issue the Hillary campaign will use to push their narrative after the debate.

We saw a President on stage, a poised, calm, fully prepared and sensible President. And we saw a petulant child, out of his depth, blaming everybody, telling lies, claiming he hadn't said things he's said, arguing with the moderator, and interrupting. I believe many Republicans who voted or said they endorse Trump, felt ashamed by this charade. Hillary played both edges well, pointing out in a planned piece that Trump took an op-ed against Reagan in 1987 (saying same stuff as he now accuses of Obama) and then spontaneously when Trump pulled Bernie in to hit Hillary (rather well this time) Hillary slammed Trump on Bernie with the quote that Bernie calls Trump the most dangerous person ever to run. Haha, don't try that cheap trick against a pro debater. The real polling will probably give this something like a 55/45 or 60/40 level decision, I don't expect a 2 to 1 level drubbing like the first debate, but Hillary won more voter opinions than Trump won. The online polling obviously is bogus, that'll show now that Trump won as every debate always said, as those online polls allow multiple votes and Putin's minions are powering those. Of the horse race polls, which will start to come out around Saturday/Sunday that will have polling done in the next 2 days or so, I expect when we get the first 4 or 5 polls, the race will have moved into Hillary's favor another point or maybe two. It will mostly be undecideds now breaking for Hillary, and not so much lost polling support of Trump. But the erosion of Trump's Republican base voter support will continue, and I believe the enthusiasm of Republican voters will diminish, somewhat, in the aftermath of this debate. They will be getting very demoralized, as Trump had to knock this out of the park, and he didn't even hit the baseball. Trump will now face unprecedented pressure from everybody to acknowledge in public that the voters get to decide who becomes President.

I do feel sorry for Hillary Clinton. She's that talented and prepared, she would have deserved a better Republican than this. Hopefully in 2020 at least the Republicans will nominate someone who is sane and coherent and prepared. This campaign for Hillary has been like trying to play billiards on a cruise ship that is in a vicious storm, constantly scrambling the balls on the billiard table. Still, its now done. We have 20 days left, people are already voting, and Hillary will run away with a landslide election victory. I am curious to see, will she reach neutral popularity in Gallup polling by election day. She just might.


ADDENDUM - After the Tweets

I again re-lived the whole debate via contemporary Twitter feed. I think there were 8 major moments, four on each side. Trump well, he managed to damage himself. He is struggling with the worst Hispanic level of support ever measured, and the debate was in Nevada. So Trump decided to speak Spanish and use the not-nice term 'hombre' It did not strike me, as a Finn, as a particularly onorous term, thinking more of some old Cowboy Western style movie. But plenty of Twitter users were offended. I think its safe to say, the Hispanics noticed.

The sexual assault groping issue went badly as probably could be expected. But that also went even worse for Trump than any sane person would say, in that he said he hasn't done anything wrong, because he even didn't apologize to Melania. Yeah. Good choice of word. Melania is already on videotape saying how Trump apologized. But now that issue - the most damaging tape from Trump's past so far, was given new life and will not help him with women.

Well, then there is of course the fact that Trump is having the worst gender gap ever measured. And how did he end the debate? By calling Hillary a nasty woman. Even a man gets it, that this is not how you win over women voters.

So lets switch gears. There were four moments from Hillary's side that could also be summarized by a single word. I'll start with the moderator slam. Energy. Hillary was so prepped for the Wikileaks quote, knowing they might use the one about her wanting open borders. And Chris Wallace did take the sleazy journalist short-cut (he is a Republican) to try to 'gotcha' Hillary with it. But she was prepped. So her answer, if you finished the sentence, I was talking about energy... OUCH. Yes, an open border not for PEOPLE to come across, but for USA to import and export electricity and natural gas etc between USA, Mexico and Canada, that makes sense (we have that in Europe for example between Finland, Sweden and Norway, selling electricity across the borders). That was just superb prep. And with that, except for the hardest of hard-core Hillary-haters, she took Wikileaks totally out of the picture, for the last 20 days. SMART and effective.

Then there was the word 'thirty'. Hillary loved it when Trump challeged her on not achieving anything in 30 years. A very precise but cutting rebuke, ending with Hillary helping catch Osama Bin Laden while Trump was doing celebrity Apprentice. Ouch. But a very good prepped speech on highlighting her strengths vs Trump's weaknesses.

The Trump bragged about his Hotel in Las Vegas. Hillary fast on her feet, and after Trump had been interrupting for an hour, hit him with 'made with Chinese steel' Bam! The word China stung Trump and will resonate especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania, coal and steel country. 

But Hillary's hardest hit is the word puppet. That was very very smart and devastating. After Trump did a good job of attacking Hillary about how 'weak' she was and how much Putin didn't respect her, for Hillary to hit Trump, yeah, Putin wants Trump as his puppet. That probably would have been the killer line of the debate. Except for one word. I gave 4 from Hillary but only 3 from Trump. The most devastating word, if you summarize the whole debate into single words to describe its main moments.

Its suspense. That Trump said he won't commit to accepting the verdict of the American voters, and he will keep the nation in suspense. I don't think this will be allowed to stand. I do think this will be the final straw for many who were on the edge of their seats, should they stay with Trump or bail. And many opportunists who were on the Trump Train, but seeing it will be a total train-wreck, will now find their 'principled' way out. If he won't respect American voters, I can't endorse him anymore, and they will start to un-endorse him. I would expect a new wave of those un-endorsements now. So eight words to describe the 8 main moments. From Hillary its Energy, China, Nasty and Puppet. From Trump its Hombre, Apologize, Nasty and Suspense. That concludes our election season 2016 debate analysis blogs. Thank you for playing along.

If this debate left you with a really nasty taste in your mouth, a sick feeling in your stomach, and you want to try to wash it out with some laughter. I released my 13th book. Its 1001 Jokes about Donald Trump. Get it while he's still the alleged candidate, and laugh. At this point Laughter is the Best Medicine (I already emailed the Hillary Clinton campaign a shared licence complimentary copy of the book). Its 235 pages long, has 1,450 jokes in total, and only costs $4.99. I am showing 1 free page of jokes every day from now until election day to help promote the ebook, and the first 3 pages of jokes are already up for you to enjoy even if you don't buy the book. So lets laugh at Trump. See it here TRUMP vs The Seventh Steve.

Comments

[grouch]

Tomi:

Read that Vox article and you'll see that this is far from over. The ripple effects of that orange bastard are going to plague us for at least a generation.

[grouch]

Winter:

Is there a positive feedback loop going on between Donald and Bannon? The crazy seems to be growing.

[Winter]

@grouch
"Is there a positive feedback loop going on between Donald and Bannon? The crazy seems to be growing."

This has been discussed before. Trump's opinion is what the last person he spoke to said. And it seems he only speaks with Bannon nowadays.

[Winter]

About Bannon as the only non-family voice left at Trump Headquarters:

Donald Trump and his advisor Roger Ailes are no longer on speaking terms
https://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/donald-trump-and-roger-ailes-speaking-terms/26368/

[Winter]

Probably not helpful:

Donald Trump Finally Wins a Newspaper Endorsement – From the KKK
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/21/donald-trump-finally-wins-newspaper-endorsement-kkk.html

[Winter]

This is a summary of Trump's campaign:

Donald Trump vs. America
He’s no longer running against Hillary Clinton. He’s running against our democracy itself.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/donald_trump_vs_american_democracy.html

[Winter]

Important planning a way out for the losing side:

How to Build an Exit Ramp for Trump Supporters
https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-to-build-an-exit-ramp-for-trump-supporters

If you want people to change course, you have to create an “exit ramp” for them. This entails creating the space and safety they need to acknowledge and pursue a better way forward. Here’s how you might go about doing that when the situation is emotionally or ideologically charged.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi grouch & Winter

On Bannon's role. I think yeah the politically smartest/most competent had left already Chris Christie bailed a while ago, Senator Sessions left, Newt Gingrich seems to have had an argument that kicked him out (or walked out) and Kellyanne Conway was never an equal in that boys' club but now is definitely no more in charge. Roger Ailes left in the troubles with debate prep. So its Grumpiest Old Man, Rudy Giuliani and Trump and Bannon. And I would guess Bannon getting most of Trump's attention. This is all getting far more 'Breitbart propaganda' as the message even compared to previous stages of Trump (so where are we now, Trump 6.0?) and the feuding with the Republican party is a major part of Breitbart and Bannon. He hates Paul Ryan and the traditional leadership of the party. The departure of the mid-level guy, whatever-his-name-was, the one from Manafort's group, who was doing liaison with the GOP, that further severs what bridges may have been left.

So on the one hand, they KNOW they've lost the election. So they need to prepare a good spin on 'it was not the fault of Trump' haha. Try to skapegoat the party and its disloyalty to Trump as much as possible. And claim a rigged system, the media is in bed with Hillary and there are dead people voting and the whole election is a farce.

Then also, try to set up his exit strategy. The TV network has a lot of gossip around it. So what do we see with that? Several media people who were getting onboard with Trump, have moved away from him. I'm thinking Hugh Hewitt and the Morning Joe team specifically. They could have been in talks to join Trump and now with Trump struggling, Trump may be having a hard time with his business plan, and that talent sees how Trump won't pay if he feels some grudge, so if they depart good jobs, they will insist on pretty solid employment contracts with pretty good sign-up bonuses haha, just in case Trump crashes or decides not to pay.

The more Trump deals from a position of weakness, his brand value collapsing, his national polling support collapsing etc, the less he will be able to bargain with on setting up his network. And there are growing boycotts which will scare away many major advertisers who might have been very positive about a Trump TV network idea when first floated very privately in say May or June when Trump was riding high in the polls and looked like he might win the election, or if not, that he'd get to 48% of the national vote anyway.

So Trump who doesn't listen to advice much anyway, and who is allergic to any honest critical appraisal of HIS work/contribution/performance - now has had most who know, and who could have been honest with Trump, long since departed (and several of them, Christie & Newt in particular, have made comments that signal they are preparing the road to be able to say, I was also critical of Trump in public, BEFORE the election). Meanwhile who remain are very prone to vicious attacks and nastiness. Oh and a 'run-the-clock-out' Conway collecting her massive paycheck to do the PR statements to try to spin Trump's latest mistakes, and show up at TV shows to sell pure bullshit.

There was an interesting Tweet about Kellyanne responding to a not-very-nice joke from Hillary at the Al Smith dinner. She seemed very pleased and retweeted it. As if she was happy to be called out by Hillary. The person who Tweeted the comment about this behavior, said that Conway was sending a signal to Trump, that if Trump doesn't pay up, she will bolt, and the Democrats will take her onboard... Interesting view but yeah, in a very hard-nosed New York mind-set where 'hello' follows immediately with 'I will sue you', gosh I do remember that type of really nasty hardnosed negotiation. And that makes sense. She feels the pressure and Trump drops hints that he might stop her paycheck.. She now has leverage and wants to be sure her salary comes in this month haha. She probably can guess that in November the campaign will be bankrupt..

Oh, and yet another wrinkle. A HUGE expense out of the campaign is the commision/sales expense to the fund-raising emails. It may be a money-laundering scam. Some say its way too expensive and a red flag. Trump may have a deal with that company, that they overcharge Trump every month, and then Trump privately splits that money with that company. This way Trump can channel a dozen million dollars out of the campaign - donations from 'supporters' - into his own pocket. And then to pay 2 million dollars as his personal investment donation into the campaign as a small fraction of that, to keep everybody thinking that Trump is honestly investing in this, so it can't be a scam...

Anyway, it will be a mess and yeah, we are gonna see the aftermath that can be really nasty too. The bigger Trump's loss is the worse it will be for him and the less relevant he can be. If its a 16 point loss, then he will be in a far far worse state than say Sarah Palin after 2008. But he is building a cult following and serving it well, many will stay brainwashed for years. Most of all, its a shame for them. They've been conned and they don't know it.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[cornelius]

@Winter
Very nice article, a bit too nice for my taste. I've been preparing my troll comments for Breitbart and Infowars for a while now. I will not give up the pleasure of trolling them after the election day. I will post my troll ideas here after the election and I would like encourage everyone here to go to Breitbart and Infowars and other racist websites and troll hard for a few days. After that, I guess it's OK to follow the advice from your article.

[Winter]

@cornelius:
Breitbart and Infowars are beyond redemption. Just as anyone who sticks with them after 8 November.

[Winter]

A nice illustration of what we already know:

Richard Branson Recalls ‘Bizarre’ Lunch With Revenge-Obsessed Trump
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_580a45b4e4b000d0b15658d8

[Wayne Borean]

I love comics!

http://www.alternet.org/comics/trumps-word-salad

[PaulEdward79]

Data analysis of the differences between Trump and Clinton supporters on twitter. (Tomi, you should enjoy it being a huge twitter user yourself. :P )

http://data.huffingtonpost.com/2016/we-the-tweeple

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Ok, there it is. Politico runs story that in early voting in several states, there is a surge of female voters. The part of the election that I said would come and would guarantee a double-digit victory for Hillary, that would not be visible in normal polling... That I warned about in 2014 in my first blog about Hillary becoming President, and in 2015 during the early primary race, and in the first official forecast for this pairing of candidates, that I did in March of 2016. And in the months since, with the Conventions and now the debates. Even as polls have counted an even race at times, even momentarily some polls showed a slight Trump lead, I said its a double-digit landslide .. because of the surge in women voters, which would not be visible in normal polling.

That is now happening. And I have not seen articles that deal with this specific female surge aspect until now at Politico (there may have been, but I certainly have not seen any; and I mean articles that separate a woman voter SURGE from the obvious increased gender gap). If the rival had not been Trump, and we had had a more normal sane election season, then the pundits would have gotten to this aspect many months ago. Now it got lost in the daily nonsense of Trumpisms. But one of the biggest reasons Hillary won in 2016 was the SURGE in female voters, if not THE biggest reason. And even if we take out Trump completely, simply a generic Republican male candidate would have lost due to this surge that was destined to show up for the first female President. And that was a disaster the Republicans had prepared years before Trump from 'Binders full of women' to 'transvaginal probes' to Congressional hearings about women where only men were allowed to testify. This is what the GOP built. The surge was there, just waiting for the first female President to be nominated. This election will be an epic landslide.

Time for a brief happy-dance about this blog delivering remarkably valuable foresight, with relevant deep insight, that nobody else talked about. Not back then, not consistently through the election; and here we are. YOU guys KNEW this, haha. You've had this discussion with me, you will not be surprised.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Oh PS

Funny anecdotal story about the election. The Democrats have their Get-Out-The-Vote project fully under way. Its vastly bigger than anything the Republican party can muster to run against it, being underfunded and divided. So a Democrat GOTV worker reported on how some families behave. Came to the door of a known Republican house. The door was opened by the husband. When asked to talk to he wife, the HUSBAND said his wife was voting for Trump and then told the worker to go away. What happened next, was that the WIFE called the worker on the mobile phone and said, actually she was in the house, heard what happened, and wanted to call and say, she'll be voting for Hillary.

There are tons of the stories of the internal tensions, if a family is divided, its invariably that the husband votes for Trump and the wife for Hillary. And its interesting, the Democratic GOTV effort is going to TALK TO WIVES OF REPUBLICANS to discuss the vote for Hillary... How wicked is that? And yes, they leave their materials, they have phone numbers, they run local ads, they end up talking at least once to every voter who is registered, and marking down their vote preference - and if they don't get to talk personally to the wife... haha... the Hillary GOTV person no doubt has the markings on that visit, that 'talked to husband, did not talk to wife' and that WIFE WILL REMAIN A TARGET. They'll try to talk to her again, and try again, in person, via phone, via email, via Facebook, via any means, and if they don't get to talk to her in person, they'll keep targeting this particular house as one that has a plausible Hillary-voter Wife trapped inside haha..

How smart, how incredibly precise, and how revealing. The husband thinks he can bully the story and he can force his wife to vote for Trump and she knows she has the sanctity of the secret ballot where she can have her revenge.

And imagine how powerful the GOTV machine for Hillary is, if it has every single household catalogued so precisely, they know the Republican voters and will still go in and talk to those that are households of married couples to see if the wife (or possibly voting-aged kids) will vote for Hillary instead..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

Even the rallies of The Donald are not the same anymore. They know they are losing, and it shows:

Donald Trump is in a funk: Bitter, hoarse and pondering, 'If I lose. . .'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-is-in-a-funk-bitter-hoarse-and-pondering-if-i-lose/2016/10/21/d944b518-97a3-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html

[grouch]

‘The Economist’ Sums Up The U.S. Election With The Perfect Graphic

https://www.good.is/articles/trumps-speaks-for-the-wrong-end-of-the-elephant

[Winter]

It has become difficult to separate comedy from serious argument:

He's With Her: Inside Paul Ryan's Months-Long Campaign to Elect Hillary Clinton President
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/21/hes-with-her-inside-paul-ryans-months-long-campaign-to-elect-hillary-clinton-president/

[Wayne Borean]

Tomi,

Have you heard of 30 Songs in 30 Days? Guess what the songs are about...

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/brilliant-new-aimee-mann-song-surprising-reason-trump-may-have-started-his-campaign

[Wayne Borean]

"Thank you for your financial help, your patriotism, and your extreme gullibility. Suckers like you are why we don’t have to promise anything more specific than Make America Great Again."

https://extranewsfeed.com/in-february-i-subscribed-to-all-the-presidential-candidates-email-lists-d9b10ca77b4d#.pb97f62oy