The debate doesn’t start until nine o’clock, but I’m already calling it for the winner, Taco Trucks.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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So where the hell are they? I haven’t seen a taco truck since I left Albuquerque in ’79.
Central North Carolina!
I REALLY REALLY want HRC to say she thinks the idea of taco trucks on every corner is wonderful, and that she’ll do what she can to make it happen.
I have tacos for lunch easily 4 times a week.
The Taco Trucks in Texas were handing out voter registration forms.
Actual Clinton quote: “By the way, I personally think a taco truck on every corner sounds absolutely delicious.”
I have been pleasantly surprised by her performances.
Win, lose or draw the presidential contest will never be the same. Just pretend to listen to the commentary with 2015 ears; shocking!
Trump can barely speak in sentences; spit it out man!
Tip of the hat to Hillary on late-term abortion; on point, powerful, sincere and resolved. Chris Wallace threw her a curve and she hit it out of the park.
I’m notoriously wrong at this but it seems like Hillary has cleaned Trump up at every turn. There is something about their respective performances which seems especially toxic to Trump; the substance-free accusations, the hyperbole, interjections and conspiracy-mongering. She seems a person you might want as your advocate in a tricky situation; he seems shifty and vulgar.
It’s over. Donald is hemorrhaging women, and he’s being extremely graphic about abortion, while Clinton grabs Planned Parenthood tightly. The debate is already over.
Not just that. He’ll keep us in suspense on whether he’ll accept the election results? That’s breathtaking and I believe it will be like an anvil around his neck. Hillary gave her best performance and he gave another poor one. Game over.
I voted today.
what’s with chris wallace’s head?
There’s no brain inside.
I think he’s doing quite well.
Yeah, he’s been fair and in control. Hate to give props to the FOX guy, but he did a good job.
I found his assertions regarding the impending failure of Medicare presumptive and calculated to deflect challenge by a defensive Hillary. Seemed a bit strategic to me; Fox up to old tricks, always pushing the envelope.
Yeah, it was bs presented as non-partisan study, but it came so late, and it hit both, so it seemed inconsequential. That was the FOX being FOX moment. But by and large he was fair.
That whole subject is a thing with me. And I didn’t like the assumption nor the question nor the answers. Hillary though toed the usual line and stayed mostly vague. She did say no reductions in SS. But the real truth is a thing she alluded to but did not pursue. Of course there is money. It is literally impossible to run out of money for SS or Medicare. Neoliberal austerity once again.
yes, the assumption
yes, I meant his strange hair,
Chris Wallace was the perfect Fox host, trying to appear moderate in manner and behavior but subtly doing everything he could to help the Republican. Leads off with SCOTUS, guns, abortion – hot topics all for the GOP. Attempts to throw Trump softballs when he starts to lose it … here you go, Donny, Wikileaks. This should be easy. Don’t screw the pooch. Oh, shit, Donny …. Leading questions based on Fox Fax ™ – the stimulus hurt the economy, social security is running out of money.
That style can be very effective in favoring the GOP in a normal debate with normal candidates. But of course this wasn’t normal. Clinton was prepared for all of those topics and Trump, of course, wasn’t.
Very astute. That’s exactly what was happening. (Wallace was so smooth that conventional outlets like Slate declared that he “did a great job.”)
It’s more evidence of how dumb Trump is (albeit canny in a certain low-cunning way): he still is totally unaware of the basic tactical dynamics of all three debates — what was going on; how she beat him.
And almost certainly before the event Trump was told he had an ally. He’s just too stupid to get the message.
.
Here’s a Daily Kos thread on that topic:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/19/1584737/-Chris-Wallace-did-everything-he-could-to-help-Tr
ump-and-still-couldn-t
This is all true, but there’s a benefit to having an obviously slanted moderator. The questions and the framing around them was entirely predictable; remove the element of surprise and you are truly favoring the prepared.
Prior to Trump, the most noteworthy debate collapses have been when a moderator throws a question out of left field (Bernard Shaw and the rather disturbing Kitty Dukakis question). Given her experience in the political arena, there’s pretty much nothing that would have come as a surprise to Clinton, but by showing their cards right away, FOX made it easy.
I liked when he turned to Trump and asked “Did Secretary Clinton convince you when she claimed just now that she doesn’t want to steal everyone’s guns?”
I agree for the most part. I thought, in general, that he did a fairly good job of moderating – asking pointed questions of both candidates, reining them in as much as possible when they went over time or started interrupting, etc. However, Trump would not answer the questions in several instances and Wallace didn’t make an effort to force him back on topic. Moreover, the framing of the questions was at times very “Fox News”. Even the subjects that Wallace chose to discuss seemed to be directed at the typical Fox News viewer rather than a swath of the broader electorate. For example, once again, I don’t think there were any questions on global warming and yet we had to sit through about 10 minutes of back and forth on the size of the federal debt.
All in all, he probably did about as well as can be expected from a Fox moderator.
Right. At least with Trump the bullshit it out in the open and everyone can see it, but we mustn’t forget the far more dangerous, insidious game being played by the opposition from at least Bush I through to Romney.
The problem is that even when they (meaning, pretty much any commentator or journalist) earnestly attempt to be legitimately even-handed, they don’t realize they’re operating in a tilted arena that’s been built atop right-wing postulates — you can “agree” or “disagree” without realizing that the entire framework is slanted and you’ve tacitly endorsed their position the moment you agree to the terms.
(I have a right-wing cousin who excels at this: during the gulf war she wanted to argue about “whether the United States is too committed to spreading democracy overseas.” I said that, even though it sounds reasonable, the moment I agreed to discuss it she’d have won.)
So we get Chris Wallace assuming we all agree that the stimulus “caused the slowdown” or that Hillary “taking guns” is actually a legitimate debate point. Terms like “supply side” and “silent majority” and “liberating” Iraq are obviously placed there for this purpose; it’s going to take a long time before we can clean all the bias out of the language.
Completely agree. He also threw in some deficit scaremongering, which has now become conventional “wisdom”. I’m not sure why he’s getting such high marks today. If a moderator is just a fight referee, then yes he did better than the last three, four if you include the VP debate. But the moderator also chooses the “venue”, so to speak, and I thought Wallace was awful at that.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
We’ll see how the polls continue to shape up. The initial reactions are pretty obvious – HRC won this debate as she has the two previous debates. Her numbers have gone up after each debate. I would expect to see another bump in the polls. This will most likely end with a whimper for old Donny. Am more interested in how his poor performance on the campaign trail affects the down ballot races.
The continued assertion by Trump of the election being rigged should be a deal breaker for most rational viewers. To his base, they’ll buy it hook, line and sinker. That’s all he managed to reach tonight. And by the way he carried himself, at least a few among his troops must be feeling a bit demoralized.
Josh Marshall had a good point about how Trump’s line about not accepting the election:
I think that what Trump is saying is also in a psychological sense, literally true: He’s saying that since losing the election will be unacceptable to me emotionally, I’ll just deny that it happened and brazen it out. I’m a winner and winners win and any appearance of not winning is infinitely explain-awayable.
I’ll lay down this marker now. In reaction to Trump’s comments, Democrats and progressives from Obama on down are loudly proclaiming the notion of election fraud ridiculous. Meanwhile, many in this country vote on unsecure voting machines, and, even when they are made by different companies, most are programmed by the same company. If Trump steals the election, e.g. with the help of Russian hackers, the Left has pre-emptively silenced itself. Only a nut could think a US election could be stolen? Only a nut could have thought Trump could be the nominee.