Presidential debates

[theymos]

The first presidential debate is tonight. Unlike the conventions, the debates do get quite a bit of viewership. The first 2016 debate had an average viewership of 84 million; for comparison, the Super Bowl a few months later had 111 million average viewers -- not that much higher. Most viewers are "cheering for their team", and are not particularly convinceable, though debate performance may affect enthusiasm. If you agree with everything your candidate says in the debate, but you don't see their performance as some kind of slam dunk, and the media is mixed about who actually "won", then you may be less enthusiastic and therefore less likely to vote. If you see your candidate as totally destroying the other guy, then this may really fire you up to vote.

Trump is pretty far behind Biden in the polls, so he could really use some excellent debates. It's not good enough for Trump to come out of the debates looking like the person who best made his points. It's not really helpful for Trump to come out ahead on any debates of actual issues (abortion, taxes, etc.); rather, Trump needs to make Biden not look like the safe choice. Most people who are going to vote for Biden are doing it because they don't like Trump (to varying degrees), and they view Biden as a "safe enough" return to the pre-Trump status quo. Even if Biden looks a bit weak in the debate, or he communicates his policy ideas worse, or in many cases even if viewers disagree with most of Biden's policies: if voters don't like Trump and they come out of these debates thinking that Biden looks like a normal, boring politician, then they're likely to vote for him.

The best case for Trump would be for Biden to get visibly angry and incoherent, as he has a few times on the campaign trail and in a few interviews. Maybe Trump can goad him into this, but surely Biden's campaign will have anticipated this strategy and taken every possible step to prevent it. Biden's performance in the primary debates was boring, but he didn't fall apart, and that would probably be a good enough performance here. Trump will attack Biden much more strongly than any of the Democratic candidates did, though.

If Trump can't make Biden completely fall apart, then his goals will be:
 - Have a lot of good attack lines that will fire up his base.
 - Avoid looking like a crazy, dangerous person, as this could fire up Biden's base and put off swing voters.
 - Paint Biden as dangerously radical. (Though I think it's difficult to credibly do this, since it's not how Biden comes off whatsoever.)
 - Point to the fact that Biden in many ways created the problems which caused people to resort to voting Trump in 2016
(Some of these are contradictory, so it'd be difficult to do all of them.)

A boring/ordinary debate is a Biden win, even if Trump is ultimately seen as a slight "debate winner". Trump needs to turn every policy/issue into a way of attacking Biden, and these attacks have to be really effective. I think that Trump probably won't be able to do well enough to move the needle. While Biden isn't all there mentally, IMO Trump's mental faculties have also degraded since 2016, he's in a worse political position, and Biden is more likeable than Hillary. But if Trump does pull it off, then it'll be a very interesting debate!

[Vod]

I don't think I've ever watched a presidential debate, as I view them as a contest for the best liar. 

But I'll be watching this one - shocking that someone can still claim they pay a lot of taxes when someone is looking at their returns and can see they did not.

$400 million in loans coming due in the next presidential term?  Trump is the kind of guy who will sell out people for money.   I would think most tax evaders are that way.

[Gyfts]

Trump really only has the first 30 minutes of the debate to make Biden stumble. People aren't going to stick around for the entire 90 minute debate. You essentially take out Trump's portion of talking and Chris Wallace's portion, you have roughly 12-15 minutes of Biden speaking time, which imo, isn't long enough for him to sound incoherent or for Trump to force Biden to stumble. Nonetheless, I expect Trump to come out swinging.

I think you're obviously right that people are looking at Joe Biden as the safe choice, I just don't know how Trump can paint Biden as a non-normal candidate. He isn't a great debater and I think Clinton outclassed him in every way last election cycle during the debates. Trump came off as unhinged, to put it mild, during the first debate against Clinton but reduced his tone and demeanor for the second and third debates which I think were better performances by miles. Trump also won't have a crowd which will hurt him -- no reactions to his witty or shocking lines..ie "you'd be in jail" to Hillary Clinton which made the crowd go insane.

Some other predictions - I think Joe Biden will obviously make the case of COVID-19 against Trump repeating the line "200k dead". Trump's best case for this probably is forcing Joe Biden to acknowledge he would not have done much different, that he listened to Dr. Fauci (very popular person among households), and that Joe Biden called Trump's travel ban racist/xeonphobic. Trump can also talk about how he provided governors with the equipment they needed when they requested for it.

Economy would be great for Trump. There is no denying that pre COVID the Trump economy was great. Record low unemployment, high stock prices, 401k growth, all the rest, yadda yadda.  I think he has a few job reports numbers that were ahead of predictions that Trump can cite post COVID which would give him a good appeal for convincing Americans that we are on the road to a V shaped recovery, GRANTED that we open up the rest of the country. Americans are opposed to lock downs, so I expect Trump to attack democrats in general on their pro lock down stances.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to watching old men that are barely alive verbally berate each other for 90 minutes which is always a blast.

[TwitchySeal]

Trump campaign accidentally blasted this email a few hours ago:

[squatz1]

Trump campaign accidentally blasted this email a few hours ago:

LOL. Ouch, some guy is getting fired for this.

Trump really only has the first 30 minutes of the debate to make Biden stumble. People aren't going to stick around for the entire 90 minute debate. You essentially take out Trump's portion of talking and Chris Wallace's portion, you have roughly 12-15 minutes of Biden speaking time, which imo, isn't long enough for him to sound incoherent or for Trump to force Biden to stumble. Nonetheless, I expect Trump to come out swinging.

I think you're obviously right that people are looking at Joe Biden as the safe choice, I just don't know how Trump can paint Biden as a non-normal candidate. He isn't a great debater and I think Clinton outclassed him in every way last election cycle during the debates. Trump came off as unhinged, to put it mild, during the first debate against Clinton but reduced his tone and demeanor for the second and third debates which I think were better performances by miles. Trump also won't have a crowd which will hurt him -- no reactions to his witty or shocking lines..ie "you'd be in jail" to Hillary Clinton which made the crowd go insane.

Some other predictions - I think Joe Biden will obviously make the case of COVID-19 against Trump repeating the line "200k dead". Trump's best case for this probably is forcing Joe Biden to acknowledge he would not have done much different, that he listened to Dr. Fauci (very popular person among households), and that Joe Biden called Trump's travel ban racist/xeonphobic. Trump can also talk about how he provided governors with the equipment they needed when they requested for it.

Economy would be great for Trump. There is no denying that pre COVID the Trump economy was great. Record low unemployment, high stock prices, 401k growth, all the rest, yadda yadda.  I think he has a few job reports numbers that were ahead of predictions that Trump can cite post COVID which would give him a good appeal for convincing Americans that we are on the road to a V shaped recovery, GRANTED that we open up the rest of the country. Americans are opposed to lock downs, so I expect Trump to attack democrats in general on their pro lock down stances.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to watching old men that are barely alive verbally berate each other for 90 minutes which is always a blast.

Eh I don't know about him only having the first 30 mins to do so. Most people won't even end up watching the debate, they'll just watch the highlights. But I understand where you're coming from here.

Totally agree with Theymos here though, Trump TRULY has to make Biden fuck up a ton and continue the line of 'Biden is mentally unable to be the President' while not making himself look crazy in the process. It's going to be much harder to paint him as horribly corrupt because ya know, Biden is NOT Clinton. Though Trump can point to the fact that Biden has been in government for the past 40 something yrs and nothing has changed.

30 mins folks!

[Gyfts]

Eh I don't know about him only having the first 30 mins to do so. Most people won't even end up watching the debate, they'll just watch the highlights. But I understand where you're coming from here.

Totally agree with Theymos here though, Trump TRULY has to make Biden fuck up a ton and continue the line of 'Biden is mentally unable to be the President' while not making himself look crazy in the process. It's going to be much harder to paint him as horribly corrupt because ya know, Biden is NOT Clinton. Though Trump can point to the fact that Biden has been in government for the past 40 something yrs and nothing has changed.

30 mins folks!

Keep in mind, most people have already made up their mind on who they're going to vote for so they don't need the entire debate to make up their mind. So first impressions are going to matter. Also consider, itt's a Tuesday night and middle working class people that spend their day hard at work are going to have a short attention span. These are working people, family people, that aren't going to spend their evenings glued to the screen for an hour and a half.

These are also the people that don't bother with highlights. The average American hardly cares about politics, frankly. And I don't think the highlight reals will highlight Joe Biden's slurred speech or incoherent statements if he makes them, so that's another hurdle for Trump. He needs to make his case early and hope Joe Biden messed up early.

[suchmoon]

Ok, I honestly tried for about 2, maybe 3 minutes. Joe is stuttering, Donnie is just saying random things with no relevance to the topic. I feel a bit dumber already. I'll let you guys listen to that shit and recap it here. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

[Vod]

Ok, I honestly tried for about 2, maybe 3 minutes. Joe is stuttering, Donnie is just saying random things with no relevance to the topic. I feel a bit dumber already. I'll let you guys listen to that shit and recap it here. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

will you shut up man???

    

[suchmoon]

will you shut up man???

LOL Trump is going at it like cryptohunter, strategy seems to be to just talk over Biden...

Wallace should really separate them a bit and let them speak one at a time.

[squatz1]

Ok, I honestly tried for about 2, maybe 3 minutes. Joe is stuttering, Donnie is just saying random things with no relevance to the topic. I feel a bit dumber already. I'll let you guys listen to that shit and recap it here. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

I'll continue watching, but this is really a shit show.

I feel HORRIBLE for Wallace right now. Guy can't keep this entire thing together and I totally get it. Trump will continue to interrupt and Biden doesn't have a good way to shut it down. Wallace is really losing control of this debate, and this isn't working.

This is a total shitshow, not sure what to do here. SIGH.

[Spendulus]

Ok, I honestly tried for about 2, maybe 3 minutes. Joe is stuttering, Donnie is just saying random things with no relevance to the topic. I feel a bit dumber already. I'll let you guys listen to that shit and recap it here. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

Although the dumbness MAY be contagious, there is a method to achieve herd immunity even in the midst of the three baboon shoutshow.

Only watch such political porn drunk.

[squatz1]

Ok, I honestly tried for about 2, maybe 3 minutes. Joe is stuttering, Donnie is just saying random things with no relevance to the topic. I feel a bit dumber already. I'll let you guys listen to that shit and recap it here. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

Although the dumbness MAY be contagious, there is a method to achieve herd immunity even in the midst of the three baboon shoutshow.

Only watch such political porn drunk.

.... Will have to keep that in mind for the future. That was absolutetly horrible.

Had a few friends say that they were going to start playing a drinking game where they would drink every time they felt bad for Chris Wallace. I'd have to say that if they actually went through with it then they'd probably be fucking dead in a ditch somewhere right now. That was horribly painful to watch.

Hopefully we see a change in the debate rules and some mics get cut in the future. That was a fucking SHIT SHOW.

[Gyfts]

Okay, so nobody won this debate.

Trump came out swinging, as expected. He went way too overboard with the interruptions. It was clear he was trying to catch Biden off guard, and I think he did get him stumbling, but did so by sounding unhinged.

Biden, clearly stuttering and slurring his speech right off the bat and continued it throughout.

For COVID-19, Trump did a poor job at responding to the discrepancies between him and his CDC director but he is absolutely right that his shutting down of travel from China/Europe saved lives. Biden was strictly against this travel ban. Biden laughed when Trump mentioned that he provided governors what they needed, but Trump is right, he did provide them with the resources.

Biden also mentioned that he wanted schools open and tried to pin school closings on Trump which is plain false. Democrats across the entire country knowingly tried to shut down schools despite doctors stating that COVID-19 was not an extreme threat to children. Trump has tweeted about schools opening all the way back in July.

Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy, alt right, proud boys and pauses...Jesus Christ. At the end though, Chris Wallace asked Trump to ask them to not get involved and "stand down", and Trump said they should stand down. Way too late on his delivery. You fucking cannot tip toe around the line when it comes to this shit.

On the other hand, Biden refused to condemn antifa, which even Chris Wallace mentioned Portland which has faced months of straight rioting. He has refused to condemn BLM radicals. He did not put forth a plan to stop the violence in these cities, he did not mention bringing the national guard. Trump could have done a better job in pinning Joe Biden's position on him, but he kept interrupting. The violence in these cities are not ring wing and it's utterly disingenuous to pin it on the alt right or "agitators". They are out screaming "Black Lives Matters", starting fires, assaulting police, so on.

On climate change, I think Biden was more convincing but for the wrong reasons. He advocated for the Paris Climate Accord which does virtually nothing on stopping the total increase of global temperatures even if China and India meet their guidelines (which would never happen). The Paris Accord is a way for China to gain economic advantage of the U.S., and the US and China will most likely go to war within the next 50 years. The "Green New Deal" is also not economically feasible, Trump is right on this. But, again, most Americans think "going green" is a great idea without considering economic drawbacks, therefore Biden won this part.


On a peaceful transition of power - Trump did really bad. Trump supporters should not be at the polls "observing" and watching. Joe Biden plainly stated that yes, he will wait until an independent body verifies who the winner is, which was the "right" answer.

Trump was down and needed a debate win here to pull ahead. A "tied" debate (although I think many people will say Biden was the winner), technically means a Trump loss.

Might add some more things later but these are the things that stuck out to me.

Chris Wallace was decent, given the circumstances. BTW, all this is strictly my worthless opinion.

[Spendulus]

Okay, so nobody won this debate.

....Trump supporters should not be at the polls "observing" and watching....

Yes, they should. Historically, that's been common and accepted practice.

[sirazimuth]

The first presidential debate is tonight. ......

..... I feel a bit dumber already......

.......
will you shut up man???

    

.....

This is a total shitshow, .....

.....

Only watch such political porn drunk.

burp...

[theymos]

Not a boring debate, though very messy. Trump was interrupting so much that a lot of people might've just lost interest and turned off the channel. If you did watch, then Trump was clearly dominating; Biden looked very weak. Biden supporters will be even more irritated at Trump than usual for rudely steamrolling over Biden, though I don't think that their enthusiasm (=likeliness to vote) will be increased. Trump's supporters will be pretty excited. The most important factor was whether anyone was convinced that Biden is not the safe pick, and I think that there may have been a bit of this due to how incoherent/distractable/weak he was, but there was so much interruption from Trump that this effect may have been reduced. In many cases Trump's first inturruption clearly threw off Biden's train of thought and probably would've caused him to falter for the next 60 seconds if left alone, but Trump kept interrupting him, which ruins the effect. Trump would've been better-served by cutting his interruptions by 75% IMO (though definitely not eliminating them).

I think that it was a good night for Trump overall. Better than I expected, though far from perfect for him, and probably not enough to really shake up the race.

There were a lot of controversial things Trump said, but most of it will slide off of Teflon Don like usual. The only huge flub I saw from him was his refusal to denounce white nationalists. He handed that exchange very poorly for no apparent reason, and if the media makes a big deal out of this, I could see this actually hurting him a bit.

Random notes I made while watching:
 - Reasonable realpolitik answer from Trump on the court nomination. Best to drop any pretense of consistency, since everyone knows that's BS.
 - Trump was effective at prodding Biden about packing the court
 - Biden's prepared "look at your empty chair [from people who died from coronavirus]" response came off to me as an incredibly distasteful obvious political heart-strings-pull. Not sure how it will be viewed generally.
 - Interesting for Trump to note his CDC's lying on masks
 - Even Wallace laughed at Trump's joke about nobody showing up to Biden events
 - Trump was strong on the tax story. Directly denied it, changed the subject, distracted Biden when he was talking about it. It's really effective to blame Biden for creating the tax loopholes that Trump exploited.
 - It was very bad moderating for Wallace to ask a question about Critical Race Theory in a debate. Most viewers will have never heard of this, and will think that it's just some generic anti-racism sensitivity training, but this specific program has many critics on both the right and left. You could debate its merits, but you can't expect someone to even properly explain the issue in 2 minutes. (Trump should've dodged it more directly rather than actually trying to half-explain it.)
 - Biden had some good prepared remarks on suburbs and community policing, and Trump's prodding on this doesn't seem effective to me
 - One moment Trump is accusing Biden of writing a too-harsh, racist crime bill, the next he's saying that he's weak on law & order...
 - Trump's "name one police group supporting you", and Biden's failure to do so, was super effective.
 - Biden should've been able to fire back more strongly at Trump's refusal to commit to accepting the election outcome.

[PrimeNumber7]

Overall I would say that Chris Wallace did a bad job at moderating. This is surprising considering that IMO he was the best moderator in the last set of debates in 2016. Wallace really lost control of the conversation multiple times throughout the debate.

Wallace asked for Trump to denounce White Supremists, however he was unable to name a specific group he wanted Trump to denounce, and he did not ask Biden to do the same thing for BLM nor ANIFTA, and the left leaning groups are responsible for 99%+ of the violence and rioting. Trump did not specifically denounce White Suprremists, but he did ask for a specific name to condem, which he received no response.

Trump should not have interrupted Biden as much. I believe Biden would have embarrised himself more, and would have shown his declining mental abilities if not for Trump's interruptions. There were other times in which Trump should have interrupted when he didn't such as about the often repeated lie that Trump said White Suppremists were "very fine people" in Charlottsville.

Biden's non-answer on court-packing basically means he is for court-packing. If he comes out as being against court-packing, it shuts down any concerns about the SC being packed, while if he says he is pro-packing, this becomes a major headline (it is very unpopular). Biden's explanation is that he wont answer the question because it would distract from the SC conversation, and being pro-packing is the only position that would distract from the conversation.

[philipma1957]

Not a boring debate, though very messy. Trump was interrupting so much that a lot of people might've just lost interest and turned off the channel. If you did watch, then Trump was clearly dominating; Biden looked very weak. Biden supporters will be even more irritated at Trump than usual for rudely steamrolling over Biden, though I don't think that their enthusiasm (=likeliness to vote) will be increased. Trump's supporters will be pretty excited. The most important factor was whether anyone was convinced that Biden is not the safe pick, and I think that there may have been a bit of this due to how incoherent/distractable/weak he was, but there was so much interruption from Trump that this effect may have been reduced. In many cases Trump's first inturruption clearly threw off Biden's train of thought and probably would've caused him to falter for the next 60 seconds if left alone, but Trump kept interrupting him, which ruins the effect. Trump would've been better-served by cutting his interruptions by 75% IMO (though definitely not eliminating them).

I think that it was a good night for Trump overall. Better than I expected, though far from perfect for him, and probably not enough to really shake up the race.

There were a lot of controversial things Trump said, but most of it will slide off of Teflon Don like usual. The only huge flub I saw from him was his refusal to denounce white nationalists. He handed that exchange very poorly for no apparent reason, and if the media makes a big deal out of this, I could see this actually hurting him a bit.

Random notes I made while watching:
 - Reasonable realpolitik answer from Trump on the court nomination. Best to drop any pretense of consistency, since everyone knows that's BS.
 - Trump was effective at prodding Biden about packing the court
 - Biden's prepared "look at your empty chair [from people who died from coronavirus]" response came off to me as an incredibly distasteful obvious political heart-strings-pull. Not sure how it will be viewed generally.
 - Interesting for Trump to note his CDC's lying on masks
 - Even Wallace laughed at Trump's joke about nobody showing up to Biden events
 - Trump was strong on the tax story. Directly denied it, changed the subject, distracted Biden when he was talking about it. It's really effective to blame Biden for creating the tax loopholes that Trump exploited.
 - It was very bad moderating for Wallace to ask a question about Critical Race Theory in a debate. Most viewers will have never heard of this, and will think that it's just some generic anti-racism sensitivity training, but this specific program has many critics on both the right and left. You could debate its merits, but you can't expect someone to even properly explain the issue in 2 minutes. (Trump should've dodged it more directly rather than actually trying to half-explain it.)
 - Biden had some good prepared remarks on suburbs and community policing, and Trump's prodding on this doesn't seem effective to me
 - One moment Trump is accusing Biden of writing a too-harsh, racist crime bill, the next he's saying that he's weak on law & order...
- Trump's "name one police group supporting you", and Biden's failure to do so, was super effective.
 - Biden should've been able to fire back more strongly at Trump's refusal to commit to accepting the election outcome.

Heres one :

Howell ,NJ police pick Biden.

A town of 60,000 with 100 or so cops.

Trump should give up trying to convince anyone that Biden and Harris will be soft on crime. They are known to be hardasses much the same as he is.

Trump’s best move is to say Biden is too afraid of covid and will shut down the country again much like Boris Johnson Did.

As I lay on my bed watching my wife still suffer from her bout with covid-19 last Jan .

Trump cant win me over cause it is pretty obivous he is willing to kill off people to make money.

[PrimeNumber7]

Trump cant win me offer. cause it is pretty obivous he is willing to kill off people to make money.

This is false. The coronavirus is something that cannot be stopped. No matter what happens, people will get the virus and no matter what, it will still spread. This is regardless of whatever lockdowns are put into place. Broad economic shutdowns are a novel concept way of handling coronaviruses, that can be traced back to China.

It is unfortunate that Wallace did not bring this up, however Biden and Obama did a very bad job at handling H1N1 in 2009. If H1N1 was as deadly as the Wuhan coronavirus is, millions of Americans would have died, hospitals would have been overrun, and it would have been an overall disaster. Biden was lucky it was not much more deadly than the flu, and tens of millions of Americans were infected.

[philipma1957]

Trump cant win me offer. cause it is pretty obivous he is willing to kill off people to make money.

This is false. The coronavirus is something that cannot be stopped. No matter what happens, people will get the virus and no matter what, it will still spread. This is regardless of whatever lockdowns are put into place. Broad economic shutdowns are a novel concept way of handling coronaviruses, that can be traced back to China.

It is unfortunate that Wallace did not bring this up, however Biden and Obama did a very bad job at handling H1N1 in 2009. If H1N1 was as deadly as the Wuhan coronavirus is, millions of Americans would have died, hospitals would have been overrun, and it would have been an overall disaster. Biden was lucky it was not much more deadly than the flu, and tens of millions of Americans were infected.

You are one of the reasons trump is willing to kill off people.


On the other hand Since I have been directly affected by covid-19

We simply will never agree.

Btw I had H1N1 and for me it was worse then covid-19 which I had with my wife. Jan of 2020.

Trump canceled Biden Obama pandemic programs to save a few bucks. So defending Trump over covid-19 is your choice not mine.