Nevertheless, I am not playing your game now.
Bugger off!
Posted on 09/30/2020 6:21:08 AM PDT by lasereye
President Trump came into Tuesday night’s debate trailing both nationally and in key battleground states. The debate gave him the largest audience of the campaign and provided him the first real opportunity to press his case against Joe Biden and shake up the race. Instead, it ended up as a blown opportunity.
Right out of the gate, Trump pursued an aggressive strategy of interrupting Biden, speaking over moderator Chris Wallace, and launching a flurry of attacks.
At first, one could perhaps see a method to his madness, as Biden seemed frustrated and rattled. At one point, an exasperated Biden snapped, “Shut up, man!”
As the debate wore on, however, the constant cross-talk and interruptions and arguments with Wallace overshadowed the debate. Nobody will remember any of the actual details of the debate. They will just remember it being a chaotic mess.
In all of his interruptions, Trump, despite his reputation for being a master at messaging over the TV medium, lost chances to damage Biden. He often set up attacks only to fall back into repeating phrases that didn’t communicate to outsiders what he was talking about.
Trump, if he had one goal, was to establish that Biden, despite his centrist image, would ultimately be beholden to the radical Left. However, he never clearly explained this point.
For example, when he said that Biden would usher in socialized medicine and lead 180 million people to lose health coverage, he didn’t offer details. Had he taken a breath, he may have been able to point out that Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, explicitly said during the primary that she wanted to eliminate private coverage. Or, Trump could have explained how the purpose of Biden’s plan to add a government-run “public option” to Obamacare is to migrate to a socialized health insurance system over time. Instead, Trump just started shouting about socialism.
Biden, explaining his plan, falsely claimed that his public option was only limited to those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. “Anyone who qualifies for Medicaid would automatically be enrolled in the public option,” Biden said. “The vast majority of the American people would still not be in that option.”
Yet Biden’s actual healthcare plan says the public option would be made available “whether you’re covered through your employer, buying your insurance on your own, or going without coverage altogether.” Rather than apply to a small number of people, in other words, the option could eventually replace every form of private insurance that exists.
Instead of explaining this to voters, Trump interrupted Biden with statements such as, “Joe, you agree with Bernie Sanders, who's far Left, on the manifesto we call it, that gives you socialized medicine.” But what sort of voter who is learning about Biden’s healthcare position knows what Trump was referring to?
Trump then interjected multiple times during Biden’s same answer with pointless political analysis. When Biden denied supporting socialized medicine, Trump replied with, “You just lost the Left” — a silly comment given that the whole point of this line of attack is to convey that Biden would be beholden to the Left if elected. Trump then said Biden got lucky in the primaries because “if Pocahontas would have left two days earlier, you would have lost every primary.” What does that sort of punditry, and potshot at the increasingly irrelevant Elizabeth Warren, do to advance the ball for Trump? And why was it so important to make this comment that it was worth interrupting Biden for?
There were other examples, such as on the Green New Deal and tax policy, on which Trump failed to land obvious blows because he was too busy interrupting with pointless cracks.
Another problem was that Trump’s constant barrage of interruptions threw a lifeline to Biden when it would have been better to step back and let Biden stumble over the answer.
Toward the end of the debate, Trump went down the rabbit hole of discussing mail voter fraud, Michael Flynn, the Logan Act, spying on his campaign, and so forth. While such issues may receive a “Thatta boy!” from the talk radio crowd, Trump already has the vote of those this will impress. The point of the debate was to win over undecided voters, or to convince those leaning toward Biden to give him a second look.
One could argue that the mess of the debate essentially made it a draw. Biden failed to land his planned blows on Trump on tax returns, the coronavirus, or the Atlantic story claiming based on anonymous sources that Trump referred to service members as “suckers” and “losers.”
But debates cannot be viewed in a vacuum. They must be viewed in the context of the broader campaign. And given that Trump is losing, he needed to show that Biden was too far left and too mentally unfit to be president. But Trump did not accomplish that. After months of attacks claiming Biden doesn’t even know that he’s alive, Biden exceeded that low standard by showing he could stand and debate for 90 minutes, remaining more or less composed in the face of Trump’s relentless attacks. The tie, thus, went to Biden.
If there are two more debates, something that has to be seen as uncertain after Tuesday’s debacle, Trump is going to have to change his strategy to make focused and substantive attacks on Biden. Because the status quo means that Trump likely loses the election.
Nevertheless, I am not playing your game now.
Bugger off!
First sentence of the article shows their bias and stupidity.
He’s got a great thesaurus.
For the record I will tell you because you post in good faith that I live in Bavaria and often visit my children in the states.
Four posts to me, and you won’t say where you live.
It’s almost like you are ashamed to say where you live.
Antonius Schwaige best meal in Ingolstadt!!
[I don’t like to say this, I’m distressed to have to say this, but candor requires me to say that Trump entered the debate with the overwhelming advantage of incumbency As President of the United States Of America and left the debate a brawler who was behind in the Real Clear Average of polls. Biden entered the debate as a demented septuagenarian ahead in the polls and left the debate a viable candidate for president of the United States in possession of his faculties ahead in the Real Clear average of polls.
Trump’s objective was to turn the polls around, I believe he failed to do that tonight. Biden’s objective was to appear presidential rather than demented and to safeguard his lead in the polls, I believe he did that.]
Your line of thought assumes that people know more than they actually do. In reality, what viewers *knew* from the media is that Trump is a Russian agent, but Congressional Democrats couldn’t find a smoking gun. Now they’ve heard from Trump that Biden took a $3.5m bribe from Russia through his son Hunter. What they *knew* from the media is Biden is a working class, middle of the road guy. Now, thanks to Trump, they know that Biden belongs to the party of arsonists and looters, because he won’t criticize Antifa and no police unions have endorsed him.
Basically, Trump took Biden’s tactic against Ryan in 2012, and flung it back against him. Biden’s victory over Ryan brought the Obama campaign back to life. We’ll see soon enough how this plays out for Trump. But his strategy is fairly sound - keep hammering away at a few basic points, because voters who will decide the election have short attention spans. That’s why they’re independents - ADD.
The history of debates shows that incumbants don’t do well in the first debates, but get better.
Reagan had a real bad night in 1984, in his first debate against Mondale.
And Romney had Obama on the ropes after their first debate.
As it happens I am looking out my window as I dictate this and I see a beautiful blood red full moon with a face appearing over the snowcapped Alps with a lake below.
If I didn't live here I think I would live in Montana.
And The Blaze, founded by Mr. Rolling his face in Cheetos Glenn Beck, and proudly featuring someone who was an AVID never-Trumper in the first campaign in the run-up to the 2016 election.
I cannot say I am entirely impressed. /dry>
And the n00b comes down from on high to give a pronouncement.
(rolls eyes)
Joe’s train tour is going really well... 😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/0aUI72wmYX— Jewish Deplorable 🇺🇸 (@TrumpJew) September 30, 2020
Trump voters lining the path of the Biden Train. Which train is packed with two people on camera, one of whom appears to be Joe's wife.
Used to summer occasionally on Lake Constance, not far from Zeppelin University. Friend had a lake house....(she was amazing...lol)
My judgment of the debate has to do with who moves closer to victory in the election. That means, usually, who succeeds in the debate of accomplishing goals and musts. You quoted my synopsis discussing that above.
Most of my objections comes not from the particulars you point out, for example Trump bringing up the 3.5 million to Hunter Biden, but to the manner in which it was done. I don't think Trump was clear, concise, fact driven and therefore not persuasive in most of his ad hominem attacks against Biden. His good points got lost in the welter of insults and over talking.
That is not to say that Biden doesn't deserve to be riven limb from limb for his corruption, it is to say that it could have been done better and more persuasively.
The only thing that gives me comfort with the thought of a Biden win is, that no matter if Trump wins or loses this time, there *will* be another Democrat president. It’s only a matter of time. And that candidate, if not Biden, will be even further left. So it’s really not necessary to pin all my hopes and dreams on a Trump win. There is no “saving” America anymore (the last assured death blow was the ACA and preexisting conditions mandate and Trump isn’t getting rid of preexisting conditions. Too many sheep have been taught it’s a “right” now).
My main reason for voting for Trump is the exact same as in 2016, to stave off the inevitable. Hopefully making it to retirement with my 401ks intact (Ie all in gold by then) before the economy collapses, and it WILL be collapsing in the next few decades. Because it is inevitable that there will be a hard left Marxist as president one day. It’s just a fact of time. It’s just that simple.
So in that sense I agree with what pburgh wrote. There really isn’t any reason to get all upset and angry about any of this. It’s a fait accompli. (And for the last decade people like Hannity have been saying every 2 and 4 years “this is the most important election in our lifetime”, so I don’t put much stock into bromides like that either.)
These days I prefer to obtain happiness from a relationship with God, He’s the real source of happiness anyway, not any political golden calf Fox or CNN tells us to worship.
[That is not to say that Biden doesn’t deserve to be riven limb from limb for his corruption, it is to say that it could have been done better and more persuasively.]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.