Well, it looks as if the first Presidential debate will be occurring this evening. There are also Presidential debates scheduled for October 15 and October 22. The Vice Presidential Debate will occur on October 7. The debate will begin at 8:00 PM and run until 9:30 PM. Last time around the media uniformly called Clinton the winner of the debates. She was not. The debates were valuable to Trump because it allowed him to cut through the hostile media filter and present himself directly to the American people.
In his debate performances Trump reminded me of a clumsy bruiser who was outclassed by a much better trained opponent who dodged most of his blows while landing most of hers. However, when one of Trump’s blows landed, it did so with considerable force. Biden has never been noted for his eloquence, but he is a veteran of two Vice-Presidential debates. I actually think Palin won their debate, but the McCain campaign by that time was taking on water so it didn’t matter. As to the Ryan debate I think my comments at that time may be an indication of what to look for in the Biden performance:
1. Hyena Joe- Throughout the debate when Ryan was talking Biden was laughing and smirking. I assume Biden forgot about the split screen coverage on television. Judging from the talking heads post-debate, it made a very bad impression.
2. Manic-Depressive-Joe began the debate very manic as if he had swallowed a crate of jolt cola. By the end he was completely wound down, like a wind up toy at the end of its cycle, or someone had shot him with an animal tranquilizer. Very odd.
3. Canned Responses-Biden obviously had a checklist of points he had to mention: 47%, check, etc. The problem with having a checklist is that it takes fairly quick wits to put the list seamlessly into a debate performance, and I thought Biden’s interjections were far from seamless.
4. Joe Making Things up Again-As he has throughout his career, Biden simply made things up when he was in a tough spot in the debate. In response to the Libya question which clearly had him flustered, Joe claimed that the intelligence community initially thought that the Benghazi attack was preceded by a protest over the Mohammed video. That is completely at variance with the facts.
5. Wildman v. The Professor-Obviously the Democrats were reacting to passive Obama from the first debate. Biden was always interrupting, some 82 times or thereabouts. The”moderator” was completely useless. Ryan was too much the professor in manner and should have reacted more to the out of control Biden.
6. Zinger of the Night-In response to Biden raising the 47% remark of Romney, Ryan responded: “Mitt Romney’s a good man. He cares about 100 percent in this country, and with respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.”
7. Abortion-Ryan on the abortion question demonstrated that he is a strong pro-lifer. I thought it was clever the way he worked in one of his wife’s ultra sounds into the answer. Both my wife and I vividly remember the ultra sounds of our kids and I am certain that is true of virtually every couple with kids. Ryan worked the religious liberty issue into his answer, very well done. Biden did the usual personally opposed but Roe v. Wade is sacred dance of Catholic pro-abort politicians. I wish Ryan would have asked Biden why he voted for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in 1982.
8. Veep Debates Don’t Matter-The CNN instant poll among registered voters gave the nod to Ryan 48-44. Like most Veep debates I don’t think this one will have much of an impact, however that is probably bad news for Obama. Biden needed to staunch the bleeding for the Obama campaign tonight. I don’t think he made it worse, but he definitely didn’t stop it. On to the second Presidential debate next Tuesday!
What do I expect? I expect Biden to come out aggressive for about the first thirty minutes and then for the last hour he will be playing defense as his energy reserves dwindle. If he does give obvious signs of dementia this race is probably over. We shall see.
I will be giving a blow by blow tonight of the debate. As always, your contributions in the comboxes are welcome.
12:09 PM-Hearing that the Biden campaign wanted breaks each 30 minutes but the Trump campaign declined.
5:47 PM-I guess this is too much to hope for in the debate:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1311048761141915648
6:00 PM-Surprise!
6:03 PM-One thing Trump will not do:
8:00 PM-And the debate gets under way.
8:05 PM-We won the election and we have the right to appoint a Supreme Court nominee. Good answer by Trump.
Biden, should wait until after the election for the people to have a say. Immediately pivoted to health care parade of horribles if Barrett is confirmed. Hits affordable care act hard. Effective.
Trump defends appointing Barrett. Cites Ginsberg. Accuses the Democrats of pushing to end private insurance. Hits Biden on socialism and being a puppet to the Left of his party.
Biden raises Roe being at stake. Trump denies that it is. Trump aggressive, talking over Biden, trying to unnerve Biden. Trump now arguing with moderator.
Trump saying he is debating Wallace. Biden almost an afterthought now.
Wallace asks Biden about his plan to add a public option. Biden denies that it would end private insurance. Trump heckling Biden. Trump calls Biden a liar. Trump says that Trump graduated last in his class.
Biden asked about court packing. Doesn’t answer the question. Trump nails him on court packing. Trump scores.
8:17 PM-Covid 19 section. Biden 200,000 dead. 40,000 a people contracting covid-19. Blames Trump. Says that Trump has no plan. Blames Trump for not doing anything.
Trump attacks Biden. Says that if we had listened to Biden we wouldn’t have closed the country early to international travel. Trump defends his record and attacks Biden. Biden goes back on the attack and blames Trump for the Covid deaths.
Question about the vaccine. Wallace asks if the vaccine won’t go online until summer. Trump says it could be faster than that. Trump attacks the intelligence of Biden.
Question about reopening the economy. Says Trump has no plan. Trump says Biden wants to shut down the country and Trump wants to reopen. Says that Democrats want to keep the economy shut down for politics.
Question about masks. Trump denies he is anti-mask.
Question about modes of campaigning. Trump defends his rallies. Touts the size of his rallies. Biden says that Trump has been irresponsible. Trump says Biden can’t draw crowds.
8:35 PM-Question about the economic recovery. Trump touts his economic record. Says that Biden wants to shut the nation down. Repeats that Democrats want to shut the economy down for politics. Biden claims that millionaires and billionaires are doing fine but common people aren’t. Attacks Trump on his taxes. Can’t fix the economy until the covid crisis is solved.
8:40 PM-Wallace asks about Trump’s tax returns. Claims that he paid millions of taxes in the last two years. Biden attacks the tax code. Trump asks him why he hadn’t done so in all his decades in Washington.
8: 43 PM-Wallace asks about the Biden planned tax increases. Biden engages in hand waving.
8:45 PM-Wallace asks Trump about Obama having a better job creation rate than he had. Trump and Biden fight on Trump’s economic record. Trump attacks Biden’s son. Biden denies that his son got 3.5 million dollars from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow. Biden getting tired. Biden rattled.
8:50 PM-Race. Biden refers to Charlottesville. Accuses Trump of gassing peaceful protesters in Washington. Accuses Trump of fostering racism. Trump talks about his crime bill and attacks Biden on his crime bill from the 1990s. Says Biden called them super predators. Touts his support from law enforcement. Hits Biden hard on law enforcement. Says the Left has Biden rapped around their fingers.
8:57PM-Biden says there is systemic injustice. Wants a White House conference to resolve problems with the police. Says violence is never called for.
Wallace asks about his ban on racial sensitivity training. (Wallace’s erroneous term.) Trump says he ended it because it was racist. Says they were teaching people to hate our country. Biden backs the racial sensitivity training.
9:00PM-Law and order. Homicide spike. Trump blames the Democrat mayors. Says Biden can’t talk about law and order because he is beholden to the radical left. Biden pivots to covid and the environment. Wallace asks Biden about reimagining law enforcement. Biden says he is against defunding the police. Trump nails Biden asking him to name one law enforcement group that supports him. Biden does not.
9:05 PM-Wallace asks Trump to condemn white supremacist groups. Trump says that this is a left wing problem.
9:10 PM-Trump asked why people should support him. He defends his record, particularly on the economy. Biden attacks Trump’s record. Calls Trump Putin’s Puppy. Trump attacks Hunter Biden.
9:15 PM-Climate Change-Trump says that the Paris Accords would have been a disaster for the economy. California needs better forest management. Biden denies that his environmental policy would tank the economy. Biden touts green jobs. Says he will rejoin the Paris Accords. Trump attacks the Green New Deal which he says will cost a hundred trillion dollars. Wallace got Biden to say that he does not support the Green New Deal.
9:25 PM-Election Integrity-Biden wants everyone to vote. Trump points out that the other side has never recognized their defeat. Expresses great concern about mail in ballots.
9:30 PM-Trump urges his supporters to watch the polls. Trump will not accept a fraudulent election. Biden says that it will take to count the ballots.
Not a very edifying debate. Trump was too aggressive. Biden gave his best performance of the campaign, although he was weakening towards the end.
We’ll see how long the medications last and their effect of lasting is probably be a function of how agitated Biden gets.
Trump will likely jab early to irritate. Throwing haymakers at the end.
Biden will be well rested and maybe some drugs later this evening to perk-up the old brain for a few hours, so I predict he’ll seem fine (few if any gaffes). Basic strategy? Attack Trump continuously, blame him for everything and avoid answering policy questions with any detail….And Trump will be Trump. Get your popcorn ready!
Radio jammer. If the GOP doesn’t use one they are maroons.
And no matter what happens the drive-by media will declare Biden the winner and Trump mentally unfit. Projection is everything.
Biden could pass out on stage and the headline would still be that President Trump looked weary and unhealthy.
The media will declare Biden the winner of the debate, unless he obviously loses, in which case it will be declared a draw
And I just had the bad luck to catch a Biden TV ad…it only took one minute for my blood pressure to soar to an unhealthy level, and I do not have BP issues. That is why I will not be watching tonight. Y’all take good notes. 🙂
Caught some of the debate on the radio when driving between point A and B. Didn’t really want to listen to more. Looks like your observations were largely spot on. Lyin’ Joe is back (claiming that Trump’s recovery from the COVID-19 economy is horrible, but that Obama’s recovery was amazing, and claiming that the economy was horrendous before COVID-19).
Biden’s responses, when they are coherent, are obviously canned. This was especially apparent in his response to the predictable question about President Trump’s taxes. The President made clear that he pays millions in taxes, which the moderator admitted was true, though they squabble about whether they count as “income taxes”. Biden goes on to make a speech about how the president “pays less in taxes than a school teacher” which is nonsensical even just with the immediately preceding discussion.
Even in the 15 minutes I listened too Biden noticeably lost energy. Don’t really care to keep track of the rest.
I said a while back this debate should be a pay-per-view event. Boy was I right! Instead of Chris Wallace, they should have gotten this guy to moderate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w12_RO_GSak
I guess I do have one more comment: they aren’t even trying to hide how this is stacked for Biden. Wallace constantly interrupted the president, and even made arguments directly for Biden (such as arguing that Obama created more jobs). But Biden is allowed to say whatever crazy lie he wants with no pushback whatsoever (seriously: the economy was terrible before the pandemic?)
But even with that Joe isn’t able to do much more than read talking points and make broad attacks.
Notice Wallace debating and challenging President Trump’s points.
He does not challenge Biden. He asked questions from the left talking points. 👎🏻Chris Wallace
Not a very edifying debate. They rarely are. Trump was too aggressive. Trump is gonna Trump. If he hadn’t been aggressive, the media spin would be that he was uncharacteristically weak. Biden gave his best performance of the campaign, It was an exceptionally low bar. although he was weakening towards the end. Dr. Feelgood can only carry you so far.
And no, I didn’t watch the debate. Because, what was the point? These things are entirely predictable.
Disappointed. Very short amount of time to answer. Climate change? 2 minutes. Race Theories? 2 minutes. Etc.
The short times prevented Trump from answering. The short time allowed Biden to look competent.
This was a bad look for the president. Most of the debate was Wallace, Biden, and Trump trying to talk over each other, and you couldn’t understand what any of them were saying. As the clear aggressor, Trump’s likely to take the majority of the blame for that.
“The media will declare Biden the winner of the debate, unless he obviously loses, in which case it will be declared a draw”
Apparently a significant number of left leaning talking heads on MSDNC, CNN, etc. are saying the remaining debates should be called off, ostensibly because Trump’s behavior was so undignified and disgraceful — but they wouldn’t be saying that if they thought Biden had won, would they? Sounds to me like a tacit admission that the debate was at best a draw and at “worst” (from a lefty viewpoint) a clear Trump win.
I saw that too Elaine. If the Left thought Biden had triumphed I agree that the last thing they would want is to cancel the last two debates.
Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyer is planning to sue Joe Biden for libel for calling Rittenhouse a white supremacist in the debate.
Good.