Tuesday, September 10, 2024

The presidential debate

Couldn't have been better.  I am officially impressed with Kamala Harris.  And, oh my, what a show.  Just watch it.


Or   you can watch Aaron Rupar's clips here.


"He went for the bait every time she baited him, something I'm sure his advisers begged him not to do."  -- Brit Hume, Fox News

"If you're a fisherman, you'd be lucky to have your bait taken as much." -- Jake Tapper, CNN

An indication of how it went: she went immediately to thank and speak to a room full of her supporters, and he went to the "spin room" where Sean Hannity helped him wipe off the blood.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09/11/2024:  Watch this...


Talking about Russia in Ukraine...


She did her homework.  There's the Polish American vote. Perhaps 800,000 of them.  That could be Pennsylvania in blue November.




"She spanked that ass."




Only 33?  I guess that's counting them only once per lie.  And the rest of the time, he was just ranting and raging.






He never even turned his head in her direction the whole night.  She looked at and spoke directly to him often, and he never once looked at her.  Beta, yes.



Yeah.  He should know.





He doesn't have bone spurs, either.  He's not 6'3" without heel lifts.  He's definitely not 225 pounds.  He's fake, through and through.


They also fact-checked him on some of his more insidious and insane claims.



"So many things I said were debunked."  Hahahahaha.  He inadvertently tells the truth for once in his life.


Bingo.


Jon Lovett said on "Pod Save America", it was like when Bugs Bunny paints the tunnel on the wall.  Perfect analogy.  Perfect.

UPDATE 11:40 am:


Hysterical.  

No one needs a rematch more than he, but there's no way it would go any better for him.    There's no reason for Harris to do one.  We're good.  
In recent decades, every presidential debate has featured something called a “spin room.” The idea is entirely straightforward: News organizations covering the debate want to hear from prominent voices and get their reactions, so the candidates and their campaigns deploy surrogates to a designated area at the venue to say flattering things.

After Donald Trump failed spectacularly during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Republican did something extremely unusual: The former president went to the spin room himself to tell everyone how impressed he was with himself.

The appearance had the opposite of the intended goal. In fact, one reporter asked Trump, “If you’re so confident you won tonight, why are you here? Why not let the performance speak for itself?”

  MSNBC
Apparently they didn't get an answer.
As the dust settled, much of the right, instead of celebrating, lashed out at the debate’s ABC News moderators for occasionally having told viewers the truth, or they spread conspiracy theories about the vice president’s earrings. The morning after the event, Trump told Fox News he believes Harris might’ve secretly received the questions in advance.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but these responses only help reinforce what was plainly true: Trump flopped under pressure.
That would be the dust she stirred up mopping the floor with him?

A fair assessment of the moderation:
Where Muir and Davis really excelled [as moderators] was in their preparation and their demeanor.

[...]

Their deep preparation and calm demeanor also showed in their judicious and effective use of real-time fact-checking, which they deployed occasionally in response to some of Trump’s more bizarre claims. Live fact-checking in a televised debate is hard to do well. It can come across as scolding, and it can sometimes seem like the person being fact-checked—no matter how deserving the fact checks—is being ganged up on by the moderators. Davis and Muir did neither. They didn’t try to rebut every lie that Trump told, and they never allowed themselves to seem upset about Trump’s inaccurate claims; rather, they picked their spots and delivered their rebuttals in neutral, matter-of-fact tones.

During an exchange about abortion, for example, Trump announced that some states would permit infanticide after a baby was born. Davis waited for Trump to finish his response and then said this: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born. Madame Vice President, I want to get your response to President Trump.” Later, when Trump tried to claim that undocumented immigrants in Ohio were eating residents’ pets—a typically odd Trumpian regurgitation of a baseless right-wing claim that’s taken the internet this week—Muir responded calmly and immediately: “I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” Preparation and demeanor. Muir and Davis predicted that Trump would make these claims. They did their research to rebut them. And then they delivered their rebuttals quickly and calmly without derailing the broader debate.

If there’s anything to complain about regarding Muir and Davis’ moderation, it’s that it occasionally seemed like they were refusing to let Harris respond to some of Trump’s provocations, while giving Trump carte blanche to respond to whatever Harris said about him. Watching the debate, it sure felt like Trump was jumping in and responding over and over without having formally been given the floor by the moderators, and at times I didn’t understand why ABC kept allowing him to do it. But ultimately, ABC’s decision to let Trump ramble at times felt judicious. One of the main points of these debates is to let viewers see who these candidates are and what they stand for. Allowing Trump to insist on a few digressive, mean-spirited, generally incoherent rebuttals gave viewers the unmistakable impression that Trump is a vicious, empty bully who stands only for himself. That’s a journalistic service.

  Slate

The polls they're feeding Trump and MAGA:





He went to his corner, like a boxer who's losing, for a pep talk.




UPDATE 09/12/2024:
Users of the online betting market PredictIt pushed her chances of winning to 55 percent by Wednesday afternoon, while Trump’s chances fell to 48 percent.

Other betting markets were more muted, but are also putting their post-debate money on Harris: She overtook Trump across online oddsmakers on Wednesday, according to an average of betting markets by RealClearPolitics.

  NPR




The man's only got one dimension.

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