Going into the debates Trump was leading in various polls in states like Colorado, Florida and North Carolina. Now he is behind. If Trump does not take Florida, he has virtually no chance of being president of the United States. If Trump does take Florida and fails in North Carolina he has little chance of being president of the United States.
The jigsaw puzzle tells us that any Republican faces a daunting uphill battle to get to 270 electoral votes and he is by the force of geography put into a place where he must virtually run the table of the battleground states to get to 270. Going into the debates, Trump was enjoying the momentum which might well have given him not only the battleground states of Florida, North Carolina, Nevada (Ohio and Arizona having been put away) but in some polls he was winning in places like Colorado to give him insurance in case of mishap in running the board. He looked to be closing in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and even Virginia.
After Trump's lamentable, petulant performance in the debate, coupled with his inexplicable Twitter rant, all of that has been squandered and the electoral college map is grim indeed.
It was all wholly unnecessary because Trump's sole assignment in the debate was to look and act presidential and put the lie to the narrative that he was temperamentally unfit for the office, that he was too scary to be in charge of the nuclear codes, and that he was an unpleasant bully. Instead, Trump actually confirmed the narrative before the astonished eyes of tens of millions of undecided voters. It is commonly accepted that the most damaging gaffe is that gaffe which confirms the narrative. This blunder was an unforced error and unnecessary because Trump needed only to show these undecided voters that they didn't have to vote for Hillary, that they could follow their inclination borne out of their decades long repugnance of Hillary as a liar and a crook and vote for Donald Trump, providing he was a safe alternative. All Trump had to do was present himself as a safe alternative, a reasonable man, a fellow possessed of the gravitas to be President of the United States. He did not have to win on every issue he only had to look presidential.
If his performance during the debate was not enough to confirm the narrative, within hours at three o'clock in the morning Trump climbed out of bed to get into the gutter and brawl on twitter with a whore. The media had a field day. Just as Ted Cruz had predicted, the media in October would tear at Trump for these kinds of peccadilloes.
His numbers tumbled. The Electoral College map turned ugly.
Now comes the New York Times revelations explaining why Trump has not released his income tax returns, because he is paid no taxes for years. So more damage is done as the media defames him as it defamed Mitt Romney as a wealthy hypocrite. The problem for Trump here is that Joe Sixpack will react emotionally, not legally, he will understand only that a billionaire has paid no taxes but Joe sixpack has. Just as Romney was skewered for his 47% remark, the media will relentlessly twist the skewer against Trump.
The game is not over, Trump can conceivably redeem himself among persuadable voters in the next two debates if he grows up, puts his ego in his pocket, and remembers that the election is not about him but about the future of 320 million people. I have previously suggested that he return between the debates to the practice of making serious speeches in a moderated tone of voice not to the crowd but to the camera. I recommend that he start with a hour and a half long, pedantic, yes even boring, Bill of Particulars indicting Hillary Clinton for her crimes, step-by-step from cattle futures through the decades to pay for play, giving examples, sources, and drawing parallels which convincingly show repeated patterns of venality. More than the content of the speech, the tone of Trump's delivery will make or break the effort. Trump has simply got to stop appearing to be an out-of-control rampaging ego and demonstrate that he could be a safe alternative to one of the most despicable and despised candidates in American history. The point is not to convince people that Hillary is loathsome, that is already a given, the point is to show Trump to be better than Hillary even as he exposes her.
One last word: it does not matter that some conservatives like Trump's brashness, it does not matter that his brashness won him the primary, it does not matter that his brashness plays well on Free Republic, what matters is the jigsaw puzzle.
