How Donald Trump's Debate Performance Played for the Red State Crowd

National Journal ^ | August 7, 2015 | S.V. Dáte

[BlueNgold]

Anyone who liked what they saw from Sen Paul was likely already a Paulian.

[familyop]

"...even his refusal to rule out a third-party run should he not win the Republican nomination, the crowd responded with among the biggest cheers of the night."

Let's put that claim to the test. Here's the question, Trump's raised hand, the response from the crowd, Paul's interruption, Trump's verbal reply and the crowd's response again to that.

https://youtu.be/eFSexejZVZA?t=3m40s

[A CA Guy]

I hope we get Cruz, but if he can’t bust out they probably have to seriously vote Trump.
If both of them go down, the country IMO is rather screwed as to who probably gets in.

[Paul R.]

Interesting too, now that the immediate Faux post debate “continue the attack” (on Trump) effort is over, Trump is rising again in the Drudge post-debate poll, and is (presently) over 52%. I’m beginning to believe Trump would have done worse if Faux had showed extreme bias FOR him!

[The Working Man]

But does that mean conservatives are actually ready to vote for him for president? Erickson says probably not, explaining that their current willingness to support Trump is more of a message to the Republican Party establishment than an actual embrace of the New York developer-turned-reality TV star.

In the same way many Bernie Sanders supporters believe they will realistically have Hillary Clinton as their eventual nominee, today’s Trump backers know they will, in the end, have a different nominee, but want to make their point to party leaders nevertheless, Erickson said.

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More “whistling while walking past the Graveyard” thinking going on here. Once people get emotionally invested in a candidate it is nearly impossible to change their minds.

[9YearLurker]

Aren’t there usually some network flash polls after a debate like this?

Yet, none reported, with the time.com and drudge polls were heavily pro-Trump.

I’m thinking some polls were done, but they contradicted the “Trump blew it” narrative, so they’ll never see the light of day.

[AFreeBird]

Yup. Megan Kelly showed the world that she’s just another presstittute.

[freedomfiter2]

Erickson thinks we want to send the establishment a message. The only thing I want to tell the establishment is, rest in peace. They have been unfaithful too many times and the divorce is going to happen. The only thing left is to take everything I can get. I don’t want any promises to reform.

[MasterGunner01]

Then there was that slime, Frank Luntz’ focus group. This was a get Trump setup from the get go. Fox News really blew the debate and Megyn Kelly's post debate show continued the pile-on at Fox. This was a real hatchet job by Fox and they are deserving of the blowtorch of criticism they are getting. Megyn was not watchable and Luntz was a buffoon. Trump got in some great direct hits and Cruz was outstanding; Scott Walker not so much. Forget Marco Rubia and Rand Paul..

[trebb]

I always decide to consider it a semi-factual/accurate "amusement" column when they do the bit where they find two folks to quote who both support the meme that the target isn't a serious/worthy contender. Willing to bet they had to ignore a number of inputs because they were favorable to Trump....

GO CRUZ!!!

[GoneSalt]

I would like to see a YouTube video made where they show actual street corner prostitutes reading a piece of news, auditioning as Megyn Kelly’s replacement.

[Iscool]

Those of us in “flyover country”...who pay for everything...have been insulted and kicked around for years by these worthless hacks while watching our country circle the drain.

The arrogance of these people is astounding...Surely they didn't think they could pull this off without people realizing what they were doing...