After tonight's performance by Donald Trump with an utter disregard of irony you accuse me of an ego problem. This afternoon I published this reply which should tell you where I thought the race was, what I thought Trump had to do to win. After you read this I think you will have to admit that I did not go into this debate with an anti-Trump attitude. I wanted him to win and I still want him to win but I'm not going to deceive those who read my replies and I am certainly not going to deceive myself about what occurred on the debate stage tonight.
Here is that reply from earlier today:
I believe that the performance of a candidate in a debate should be judged on whether or not he advances his candidacy. That judgment supposes a clear understanding of what will accomplish that objective. That understanding has radically changed in the last days.
Until some time ago the odds were firmly with Hillary to win the election because Trump was in the unenviable position of being required to run the board of battleground states in order to prevail. Therefore under that state of the race, Trump must "win" the debate in order to get a new deal of the electoral college cards. Under those circumstances, Hillary needed only to muddle through and bank on Donald to simply disqualify himself or, if Trump somehow managed to escape whole, Hillary could count on her huge air game and the standard Democrat ground game to pick off one or two states and finish Donald Trump off.
The polls which have come out in recent days and even this morning make it clear that the momentum is with Trump and that Hillary must "win" the debate or watch her numbers diminish every day on the electoral map. Unless something changes the direction, Trump's momentum will carry him to victory. Therefore, Hillary must use the debate tonight to stop Trump's momentum.
Clearly both sides understand this dynamic but that does not mean the Trump by his nature will hold back. The question is will Trump moderate tone and concede the odd issue knowing that the burden is on Hillary to really win the debate not just to score a few points. The next question is, will Hillary become even more strident and unattractive as she desperately tries to bring Trump down?
This is not to say that this inversion of roles in the debates will by any means be dispositive but it does say that the real advantage lies with Trump.
Finally, most Americans are not really interested in Hillary's encyclopedic knowledge of arcane politics, they already know they dislike Hillary, they have viscerally dislike her for decades, they just want to know if it is safe to vote for Donald Trump. This dynamic makes it even more difficult for Hillary to accomplish what is necessary to advance her candidacy. She has the burden to kill off Trump in the debate but she cannot do so by being aggressive because that is precisely part of the reason why she is hated.
How can Hillary conceivably do it? Unless Trump commits a world-class gaffe, she cannot hope to do it. The odds are with Trump.
When Trump had 100 million people watching him, many of them eager to believe he had the temperament to be president, he betrayed once again that he (not I or any other messenger) is run by his own ego.
Tonight's misfire does not mean that the election was lost but it might mean Trump's momentum is stalled. If that is the case he is back playing on a game board in which he must run all of the critical battleground states. A daunting challenge.
It was all so unnecessary.
