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So, how about those Senate Races. I am sure with the Trump and Sanders wave that traditional incumbents like Rubio and McCain must be in big trouble now!

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/30/491807412/despite-year-of-outsider-incumbents-poised-for-big-wins

Three big-name political insiders have been targets of the activist, outsider wings of their parties.

And yet all three — Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, as well as Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — appear safe in their primary battles for reelection Tuesday.

.... or maybe not!

I found this article about current political tribalism both enlightening and depressing.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439431/race-relations-getting-worse-america-why

 whembly wrote:

-So, here's what I'd advocate for those here illegally, that I don't believe would be considered amnesty:
a) Willing to submit to US laws and come out of the shadow.
b) Accept the plead-down-misdemeaner of trespassing and any work related fake ID uses (ie, SSN, e-verity, etc) that were used at their employment
c) PAY a $1,000 fine (payable in 10 yr increment on your taxes if desired)
d) Pay back taxes for the years you've worked (this isn't easy to determine since most migrant workers are paid under the table, but a good faith-effort is expected)
e) get/maintain 'non-citizen' legal residence <--- this is key (as they can't vote in federal elections)
f) if they desire citizenship, get in line.

I've been out of the thread for a while, but you basically don't want to do anything. With what you're proposing, no one comes forward, nothing changes. 18 year olds that have lived here since they were 2, are in the top 10% of their schools, cannot even go to a Vocational-Tech school. They could be contributing members of society and, yes I will say it, "Pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Instead they will work off the grid with phony ID, and continue to be a problem.

It's time to rethink this, guys. Also, the amnesty is for people that came over when they were kids! That's why only they would be eligible. Don't punish them for their parents decision.

I am very surprised that such an article came from NR. It actually does a pretty good job of laying out where the Republicans are hemorrhaging minority votes.

Title is a little misleading, though. I don't know if you can say "race relations are getting worse" overall. Certainly within the Republican party they seem to be!

But it shows how there are some critical economic issues that transcend race that offer tremendous opportunity. Contrary to the article's premise, the interests of whites and blacks didn't align under Johnson "by chance"- it was a policy decision. Likewise, a modern leader could easily choose to embrace economic, educational, and policies that would unite across racial barriers. But it may require stepping on some of the donor class toes, which is dangerous. It also means some sacred cows need to become hamburger.

Trump makes a decent faux demagogue, but at the end of the day, he is still a ruling class billionaire who is more than happy to exploit whatever he can for personal advantage. A message that focuses on increased opportunity for workers (instead of just tax breaks for the top), improving public education and access (instead of dismantling it), and a coherent immigration system that doesn't punish those trying to work hard for the American dream to (while benefiting the companies exploiting them) would be a pretty good start. Also, stop the anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic, anti-black crap. And that doesn't mean pretending like you don't know who David Duke is; whenever somebody starts that crap, shut them down. Ironically, most of the other candidates were much better than Trump in this regard.

 kronk wrote:

 whembly wrote:

-So, here's what I'd advocate for those here illegally, that I don't believe would be considered amnesty:
a) Willing to submit to US laws and come out of the shadow.
b) Accept the plead-down-misdemeaner of trespassing and any work related fake ID uses (ie, SSN, e-verity, etc) that were used at their employment
c) PAY a $1,000 fine (payable in 10 yr increment on your taxes if desired)
d) Pay back taxes for the years you've worked (this isn't easy to determine since most migrant workers are paid under the table, but a good faith-effort is expected)
e) get/maintain 'non-citizen' legal residence <--- this is key (as they can't vote in federal elections)
f) if they desire citizenship, get in line.

I've been out of the thread for a while, but you basically don't want to do anything. With what you're proposing, no one comes forward, nothing changes. 18 year olds that have lived here since they were 2, are in the top 10% of their schools, cannot even go to a Vocational-Tech school. They could be contributing members of society and, yes I will say it, "Pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Instead they will work off the grid with phony ID, and continue to be a problem.

It's time to rethink this, guys. Also, the amnesty is for people that came over when they were kids! That's why only they would be eligible. Don't punish them for their parents decision.

Of course the kids would be exempted... that goes without saying. Other than validating their SSN cards and stuff like that, they shouldn't suffer from their parent's transgressions.

I'm talking about individuals (parents in this case) willfully broke our laws.

Does anyone think that, from a purely electoral vote perspective, Trump has any real chance at this point? 18 states plus DC have voted Democrat in the last six presidential election. That is 242 right there. So Clinton only needs to pull 28 from other states to hit 270. Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia have trended blue, with Romney barely squeezing NC in '12. If HRC can pull the other two (and she seems to be polling way ahead) that is another 22 EV. Which means she would just have to dig up 6. If NC goes HRC? Game over. Trump on the other hand would have to win every state Romney won and then convert another 64 EVs somehow.

Which seems unlikely since now Georgia seems up for grabs, and Arizona seems a lot closer than Trump can afford.

 jmurph wrote:
I am very surprised that such an article came from NR. It actually does a pretty good job of laying out where the Republicans are hemorrhaging minority votes.

Title is a little misleading, though. I don't know if you can say "race relations are getting worse" overall. Certainly within the Republican party they seem to be!

They try to dismiss class as the main driver of politics, and I think it is a mistake to do so. Politicians have successfully managed to fool the poor into self-dividing based on race, but the true root of many of these issues is not race, but class. We are just now starting to see it in the Republican NR wing too. They recently published many diatribes against working and Appalachian whites that closely mirrored their rhetoric on Black communities. This revealed to me that all along the disdain was more along class than racial lines.

 jmurph wrote:
Does anyone think that, from a purely electoral vote perspective, Trump has any real chance at this point? 18 states plus DC have voted Democrat in the last six presidential election. That is 242 right there. So Clinton only needs to pull 28 from other states to hit 270. Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia have trended blue, with Romney barely squeezing NC in '12. If HRC can pull the other two (and she seems to be polling way ahead) that is another 22 EV. Which means she would just have to dig up 6. If NC goes HRC? Game over. Trump on the other hand would have to win every state Romney won and then convert another 64 EVs somehow.

Which seems unlikely since now Georgia seems up for grabs, and Arizona seems a lot closer than Trump can afford.

He has no chance. w/o some other factor that makes HRC looks worse than Trump.

Well... I take that back. If the turn out ends up being 'record low', then Trump could theoretically eke out a win.

However, after the first debate where Clinton'll thrash el 'Trumpo, that's it, free fall'n Trumpo.

 jmurph wrote:
Does anyone think that, from a purely electoral vote perspective, Trump has any real chance at this point? 18 states plus DC have voted Democrat in the last six presidential election. That is 242 right there. So Clinton only needs to pull 28 from other states to hit 270. Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia have trended blue, with Romney barely squeezing NC in '12. If HRC can pull the other two (and she seems to be polling way ahead) that is another 22 EV. Which means she would just have to dig up 6. If NC goes HRC? Game over. Trump on the other hand would have to win every state Romney won and then convert another 64 EVs somehow.

Which seems unlikely since now Georgia seems up for grabs, and Arizona seems a lot closer than Trump can afford.

No real chance. He would have had to have done better with women, African-Americans, and Latinos than did Romney. Apparently Trump never got the memo, or maybe he balled it up and threw it in the trash.

 jasper76 wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Does anyone think that, from a purely electoral vote perspective, Trump has any real chance at this point? 18 states plus DC have voted Democrat in the last six presidential election. That is 242 right there. So Clinton only needs to pull 28 from other states to hit 270. Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia have trended blue, with Romney barely squeezing NC in '12. If HRC can pull the other two (and she seems to be polling way ahead) that is another 22 EV. Which means she would just have to dig up 6. If NC goes HRC? Game over. Trump on the other hand would have to win every state Romney won and then convert another 64 EVs somehow.

Which seems unlikely since now Georgia seems up for grabs, and Arizona seems a lot closer than Trump can afford.

No real chance. He would have had to have done better with women, African-Americans, and Latinos than did Romney. Apparently Trump never got the memo, or maybe he balled it up and threw it in the trash.

"They'll vote for me! In YUUGE numbers! The best people are saying so. Believe me!" - Trump, probably.

I think Clinton is a virtual lock barring something dramatic and unforeseeable, due to demographics and electoral maps going in her favor, and a much stronger ground game combined with all the Obama-style microtargeting wizardry.

But the race will tighten just because partisan politics matter so much more than candidates these days. And I still don't think the debate will go well for her. Those things aren't about scoring points by knowledge of the subject and advancing arguments, high school debate style. It's about all the other stuff.

Note that the 2000 election turned about the time of the debates (Gore had a similar kind of lead to Hillary post-conventions, IIRC), mostly because people found Gore all over the place from a personality standpoint.

Trump can be crazy in the debate...he just has to be *likeable*. Do that, and this race could tighten up quite a bit, because there's nothing to suggest that Hillary is going to show a warm, engaging personality. Supposedly she is in real life, but she sure doesn't project it...

@Cotor Shas: Well, when your life is nothing more than a miserable hellscape of bullets, lost dreams, and hip hop music what the hell do you have to lose?

 gorgon wrote:
I think Clinton is a virtual lock barring something dramatic and unforeseeable, due to demographics and electoral maps going in her favor, and a much stronger ground game combined with all the Obama-style microtargeting wizardry.

But the race will tighten just because partisan politics matter so much more than candidates these days. And I still don't think the debate will go well for her. Those things aren't about scoring points by knowledge of the subject and advancing arguments, high school debate style. It's about all the other stuff.

Note that the 2000 election turned about the time of the debates (Gore had a similar kind of lead to Hillary post-conventions, IIRC), mostly because people found Gore all over the place from a personality standpoint.

Trump can be crazy in the debate...he just has to be *likeable*. Do that, and this race could tighten up quite a bit, because there's nothing to suggest that Hillary is going to show a warm, engaging personality. Supposedly she is in real life, but she sure doesn't project it...

I agree with this. The debates might actually matter this time around. Trump just has to have a pulse for the media to try and get the horse-race narrative up and running again, and then that could start to tighten the race. Hillary really can;t do anything in the debates to put Trump away for good that she hasn't all ready done or tried to do. She can only stay on message, and the media will call that tactic boring and lackluster.

 Easy E wrote:
So, how about those Senate Races. I am sure with the Trump and Sanders wave that traditional incumbents like Rubio and McCain must be in big trouble now!

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/30/491807412/despite-year-of-outsider-incumbents-poised-for-big-wins

Three big-name political insiders have been targets of the activist, outsider wings of their parties.

And yet all three — Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, as well as Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — appear safe in their primary battles for reelection Tuesday.

.... or maybe not!

They were actually just talking about McCain on the radio this morning. There are some potential problems for him and others. McCain is suddenly very noticeably quiet regarding Trump now, as he can't afford to turn the Trumpiteers against him.

So... this happened:

Trump hammers Clinton for new Benghazi emails

B

Emails were found that the FBI recovered MAY be about Chelsa's Wedding or yogas in Libya.

N

G

Hillary was under oath that she turned in ALL work related emails to States Dept... evidently... that's not correct.

A

Z

It at least knocks off the Clinton Foundation scandal from the front page for a bit.

 jmurph wrote:
Does anyone think that, from a purely electoral vote perspective, Trump has any real chance at this point?

He does still have a chance, because while it all comes down to the states and each state has its own variations, across the whole vote shares from state to state typically move together. A gain of 3% in national polls more or less translates to a 3% gain in each of the swing states. So it's a bit misleading to say that Trump needs to move the polls in North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and New Hampshire by about 5 points each. What he needs to do is make up around 5% in overall polls, and each of those states will move in his favour.

5% is a lot, of course, but it isn't outside historic norms and this campaign has been more swingy than most. And I think it is likely that Democrats will struggle with their turn out, forget the faux scandals the issue is that Clinton is simply invisible in the media. She's gone from being bad at campaigning to now not really campaigning at all.

Now, I'm not saying Trump is a good chance, because the idea that he'll suddenly start being a decent campaigner, let alone a decent human being seems remote. And by and large even if Trump did figure out how to campaign better, he's largely locked in to his positions at this point. His recent attempt to moderate his immigration position was transparently manipulative, and he ended up largely abandoning it within a day.

But 5 points is only five points, and if polls move that much then a whole lot of swing states will turn to Trump.

 sebster wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Does anyone think that, from a purely electoral vote perspective, Trump has any real chance at this point?

He does still have a chance, because while it all comes down to the states and each state has its own variations, across the whole vote shares from state to state typically move together. A gain of 3% in national polls more or less translates to a 3% gain in each of the swing states. So it's a bit misleading to say that Trump needs to move the polls in North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and New Hampshire by about 5 points each. What he needs to do is make up around 5% in overall polls, and each of those states will move in his favour.

5% is a lot, of course, but it isn't outside historic norms and this campaign has been more swingy than most. And I think it is likely that Democrats will struggle with their turn out, forget the faux scandals the issue is that Clinton is simply invisible in the media. She's gone from being bad at campaigning to now not really campaigning at all.

Now, I'm not saying Trump is a good chance, because the idea that he'll suddenly start being a decent campaigner, let alone a decent human being seems remote. And by and large even if Trump did figure out how to campaign better, he's largely locked in to his positions at this point. His recent attempt to moderate his immigration position was transparently manipulative, and he ended up largely abandoning it within a day.

But 5 points is only five points, and if polls move that much then a whole lot of swing states will turn to Trump.

Seb... it's insurmountable.

Hillary's is pretty much at where Obama was in 2012. That bodes extremely well for her.

At this point, there's really nothing that's going to tip the election towards Trump w/o some major, MAJOR event. I mean, something of a 9/11 magnitude sort of an event.

 whembly wrote:
However, after the first debate where Clinton'll thrash el 'Trumpo, that's it, free fall'n Trumpo.

I remember everyone waiting for that moment in 2000, when Gore was expected to thrash Bush.

It didn't work out, the opposite happened really, and it wasn't because Bush surprised anyone with his knowledge of anything. It was more because of the magic of 'low expectations', Bush was graded on the curve. Add in that actually knowing stuff and giving informed answers is great, but if you don't have that then you can just bluster and hammer some canned talking points targeted at your key audience and it will still work okay.

The same thing worked for Palin in '08.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
However, after the first debate where Clinton'll thrash el 'Trumpo, that's it, free fall'n Trumpo.

I remember everyone waiting for that moment in 2000, when Gore was expected to thrash Bush.

It didn't work out, the opposite happened really, and it wasn't because Bush surprised anyone with his knowledge of anything. It was more because of the magic of 'low expectations', Bush was graded on the curve. Add in that actually knowing stuff and giving informed answers is great, but if you don't have that then you can just bluster and hammer some canned talking points targeted at your key audience and it will still work okay.

The same thing worked for Palin in '08.

C'mon Seb...

Hillary is going to tear Trump a new bung hole at the debates. I mean, neither Bush nor Palin were as compromised as Trump.

 whembly wrote:
Seb... it's insurmountable.

Hillary's is pretty much at where Obama was in 2012. That bodes extremely well for her.

"It bodes well for her" and "its over" are different things. Clinton is up by about 5 points right now. She was up by more than 7 at the end of June, by the end of July polls were even.

People are making the mistake of thinking the 2008 and 2012 elections, which were very steady throughout, are how all presidential races play out. But they aren't, moves of 5%+ are fairly common. We've already seen to such moves happen in pretty quick time in this campaign.

At this point, there's really nothing that's going to tip the election towards Trump w/o some major, MAJOR event. I mean, something of a 9/11 magnitude sort of an event.

There's the old line - 'Republicans fall in line, Democrats have to fall in love'.

Trump has a boring next two months. He says nothing outlandish, he avoids twitter fights with anyone too sympathetic, and he just spams the tried and tested Republican talking points. This works well enough among Republican loyalists who want to pretend he's an acceptable presidential candidate. Meanwhile Clinton continues to blegh along, putting little of herself in the media, this means the only coverage of her instead returns to emails and Benghazi (or as you posted above, emails about Benghazi).

This plays in to the Republican strength - turnout. No matter the candidate the party is very good at squeezing every possible vote out of their base. In 2004 Republican got 62 million votes, in 2004 they got 60 million, and in 2012 they got 60 million votes again. Trump is obviously a much tougher challenge for the Republican vote operation, but even after all the mistakes if Trump has an okay last two months Republicans will come close to 60 million votes again.

In contrast, Obama went from 69 million in 2008 to 65 million in 2012. That's 4 million voters who dropped away because of the difference between Obama the campaigner and Obama the president. It isn't that unlikely to say that 5 million more voters will drop away because of the difference between Obama the president and Clinton the campaigner. And that puts things on equal footing.

Now, admittedly, all of the above relies on Trump suddenly starting to run an okay campaign and stop being an awful failure of a human being. That seems unlikely. But it won't take a GFC or a 9/11 to close this race. Just a functioning Trump campaign.

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
However, after the first debate where Clinton'll thrash el 'Trumpo, that's it, free fall'n Trumpo.

I remember everyone waiting for that moment in 2000, when Gore was expected to thrash Bush.

It didn't work out, the opposite happened really, and it wasn't because Bush surprised anyone with his knowledge of anything. It was more because of the magic of 'low expectations', Bush was graded on the curve. Add in that actually knowing stuff and giving informed answers is great, but if you don't have that then you can just bluster and hammer some canned talking points targeted at your key audience and it will still work okay.

The same thing worked for Palin in '08.

C'mon Seb...

Hillary is going to tear Trump a new bung hole at the debates. I mean, neither Bush nor Palin were as compromised as Trump.

Palin... Sorry Mods, that HAD to be done.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Seb... it's insurmountable.

Hillary's is pretty much at where Obama was in 2012. That bodes extremely well for her.

"It bodes well for her" and "its over" are different things. Clinton is up by about 5 points right now. She was up by more than 7 at the end of June, by the end of July polls were even.

People are making the mistake of thinking the 2008 and 2012 elections, which were very steady throughout, are how all presidential races play out. But they aren't, moves of 5%+ are fairly common. We've already seen to such moves happen in pretty quick time in this campaign.

At this point, there's really nothing that's going to tip the election towards Trump w/o some major, MAJOR event. I mean, something of a 9/11 magnitude sort of an event.

There's the old line - 'Republicans fall in line, Democrats have to fall in love'.

Trump has a boring next two months. He says nothing outlandish, he avoids twitter fights with anyone too sympathetic, and he just spams the tried and tested Republican talking points. This works well enough among Republican loyalists who want to pretend he's an acceptable presidential candidate. Meanwhile Clinton continues to blegh along, putting little of herself in the media, this means the only coverage of her instead returns to emails and Benghazi (or as you posted above, emails about Benghazi).

This plays in to the Republican strength - turnout. No matter the candidate the party is very good at squeezing every possible vote out of their base. In 2004 Republican got 62 million votes, in 2004 they got 60 million, and in 2012 they got 60 million votes again. Trump is obviously a much tougher challenge for the Republican vote operation, but even after all the mistakes if Trump has an okay last two months Republicans will come close to 60 million votes again.

In contrast, Obama went from 69 million in 2008 to 65 million in 2012. That's 4 million voters who dropped away because of the difference between Obama the campaigner and Obama the president. It isn't that unlikely to say that 5 million more voters will drop away because of the difference between Obama the president and Clinton the campaigner. And that puts things on equal footing.

Now, admittedly, all of the above relies on Trump suddenly starting to run an okay campaign and stop being an awful failure of a human being. That seems unlikely. But it won't take a GFC or a 9/11 to close this race. Just a functioning Trump campaign.

Seb... you're too freaking awesome.

The thing is, that an extremely well-thought out, rational take on this election.

You may be right about all of this.

However, Trump running a functioning campaign? The freaking CEO of Breibart is running this fething show....

Seriously?

I can see why the Clinton team is trying to 'Run out the Clock™" strategy to give Trump enough rope to hang himself.

 whembly wrote:
C'mon Seb...

Hillary is going to tear Trump a new bung hole at the debates. I mean, neither Bush nor Palin were as compromised as Trump.

In terms of actual debate points, Clinton will almost certainly hammer Trump. Just like Gore dismantled the nonsense of the Bush campaign, and Biden revealed Palin's talking points as comically stupid. But none of that matters. Remember there is no-one watching the debates that isn't a political junkie who's already decided their vote. The impact on swinging and undecided voters is how the debates are reported in the media. After 2000 the media reported Bush did well because expectations were set so low, and that Gore was irritable and bullying. Everyone was so amazed Palin didn't act as stupid as her Tina Fey parody that she somehow got a pass, despite ignoring every single question asked of her in favour of pre-prepared talking points.

Trump is arrogant enough that he won't rely on the 'don't reveal how stupid I actually am' strategy of Palin. If he does try to engage on issues he knows little about it could end up terminal for him.

I just wouldn't assume it.

 whembly wrote:


I can see why the Clinton team is trying to 'Run out the Clock™" strategy to give Trump enough rope to hang himself.

You mean kind of like the other Republican candidates did? That turned out great for them

 whembly wrote:
However, Trump running a functioning campaign? The freaking CEO of Breibart is running this fething show....

Yeah, that is the big hypothetical in my post

I can see why the Clinton team is trying to 'Run out the Clock™" strategy to give Trump enough rope to hang himself.

That's the bit that really pisses me off. I hate teams running out the clock, in politics and in sport. If you've played better and built up a big lead over the first 90% of the game, it's probably because you're a better team. Best thing is to back yourself and keep playing as you have been - it worked to get you in front. Teams that go on the defense and hope their lead survives the rest of the game are playing too cute, and I think most times it increases the chance of losing.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
C'mon Seb...

Hillary is going to tear Trump a new bung hole at the debates. I mean, neither Bush nor Palin were as compromised as Trump.

In terms of actual debate points, Clinton will almost certainly hammer Trump. Just like Gore dismantled the nonsense of the Bush campaign, and Biden revealed Palin's talking points as comically stupid. But none of that matters. Remember there is no-one watching the debates that isn't a political junkie who's already decided their vote. The impact on swinging and undecided voters is how the debates are reported in the media. After 2000 the media reported Bush did well because expectations were set so low, and that Gore was irritable and bullying. Everyone was so amazed Palin didn't act as stupid as her Tina Fey parody that she somehow got a pass, despite ignoring every single question asked of her in favour of pre-prepared talking points.

Trump is arrogant enough that he won't rely on the 'don't reveal how stupid I actually am' strategy of Palin. If he does try to engage on issues he knows little about it could end up terminal for him.

I just wouldn't assume it.

I can't imagine Trump doing anything different in the debate with HRC than he did vs. the GOP also-rans. He's going to come out loud, try and suck the air out of the room with bluster, insult, and carry on without regard to protocol to keep Clinton out of rhythm.

I doubt very much Trump will do poorly in the debates.

First, he's been through a few and knows what to expect. The ones he's run through have had nearly everyone on the stage attacking him. He survived, even thrived on it. What is Hillary going to do - try and wear him down with facts and well thought out policy decisions? Yeah, that worked pretty well for Jeb!.

Second, as Sebster said, you have to consider that most people watching it already know who they want. They don't want boring platform statement and concrete plans, they want zingers. Look at what is considered one of the great debate moments in recent US history:




Carter makes a good, impassioned, well thought out argument. Reagan shrugs it off with a snappy non-answer. Yet, people remember that, and he beat Carter shortly thereafter. Americans don't want substance, they want fireworks.

bodes well.

One gathers there's some/more traction with regards to the potential rape trial -- maybe even trials -- against Trump , which is, AFAIK, yet another first for an American election.

... err..... yeah.

 Ouze wrote:
I doubt very much Trump will do poorly in the debates.

First, he's been through a few and knows what to expect. The ones he's run through have had nearly everyone on the stage attacking him. He survived, even thrived on it. What is Hillary going to do - try and wear him down with facts and well thought out policy decisions? Yeah, that worked pretty well for Jeb!.

Second, as Sebster said, you have to consider that most people watching it already know who they want. They don't want boring platform statement and concrete plans, they want zingers. Look at what is considered one of the great debate moments in recent US history:

{video}

Carter makes a good, impassioned, well thought out argument. Reagan shrugs it off with a snappy non-answer. Yet, people remember that, and he beat Carter shortly thereafter. Americans don't want substance, they want fireworks.

I'm not sure about this. I think there are two conflicting things that make it kind of hard to call:

1) The expectations for Trump are really low. Everyone expects him to be a racist , rant incoherently about being "great" again, etc, and get absolutely demolished by Clinton. If that's exactly what happens then Trump comes out no worse than he started, and there's only room to improve from there. Even losing the debate less overwhelmingly than expected is a "win" for him, and every moment where he makes at least a marginally competent response is a grand triumph.

2) The audience is much tougher. The sad truth is that the republican primary is about proving that you're a far-right zealot. Substance isn't all that important, and you can score a ton of points by telling the voters you hate the same people they hate. The angry mob already has the torches and pitchforks out, they're just waiting for you to prove that you're willing to lead them. And you can win with hardly any appeal at all to moderate conservatives as long as the angry mob supports you rabidly enough. But that's not true in the general election. Trump can't just make obnoxious comments about how the Mexicans are ruining our country while the audience cheers, that kind of thinly-veiled racism isn't what moderates want to hear. And it certainly isn't going to convince people who currently dislike Trump that they should change their minds.

So, I think Trump is going to do very badly by conventional standards but I'm concerned that he's going to find a way to turn "I was on stage with Clinton and she didn't literally rip out my spine and beat me to death with it" into improved poll numbers. And I don't think there's any real way to predict which of the two factors is going to be more important until the first debate happens.


As for the fireworks theory, I think there's a bit of a cultural difference there. The Reagan vs. Carter debate wasn't in the age of the internet, 24/7 news, and comedy shows offering the most insightful political commentary. And Reagan, for all his flaws, could actually do a decent impression of a qualified presidential candidate. Trump is in a completely different position. His biggest problem is the perception that he's a spray-tanned clown pretending to be a presidential candidate, and giving the comedians even more fodder for mocking him isn't going to help his case. And I think that shows in how his previous "fireworks" have been received. The people who are already going to vote for him love it, but for everyone else it's discussed in the context of "look how much Trump sucks".

So, uh, did anyone see the news that Trump is going to Mexico to meet their president? I don't see that ending well.