The numbers are in
How much did the debate hurt Donald Trump? As actual scientifically-based polls start to come in, the answers seem to range from a little to a lot. Via The New Yorker.
Do your homework
Trump advisers, seeking anonymity in order to tell the truth, tell The New York Times that they hope Trump will change debate strategy for Round 2. They’re advising him to actually practice this time.
Half-wrong
Everyone got some of the details wrong on stop and frisk, but Lester Holt may have been the most wrong. Via New York magazine.
Trade-off
The one area where Trump owned Clinton in the debate was on trade. Not because Trump really knows anything about it, but because, in today’s political world, Clinton has no way to defend her defense of NAFTA or her flip-flop on TPP. Via The New Republic.
Trump’s weighty problem
So Trump has a problem with “fat” people, particularly if they’re “fat” women even though his own weight – according to his very thin medical report – puts him at five pounds shy of being considered “obese.” Via The Washington Post.
Erasing Republican conservatism
In one column, George Will calls Donald Trump a demagogue, piratical, mendacious and a lot of other big, nasty words. But the hardest shot is this: Will likens Trump to – who else? – Spain’s King Ferdinand VII, who, upon regaining the throne in 1813, apparently promised to end “the disastrous mania of thinking.” Trump, Will concludes, is America’s Ferdinand. Via The Washington Post
Yet another Aleppo moment
Remember when Gary Johnson didn’t know what Aleppo was? This time, at an MSNBC town hall, Johnson – saying he was having an Aleppo moment – was unable to name a foreign leader. Via The Los Angeles Times
Compromise over Flint
Who says this Congress doesn’t do anything? Just before adjourning until after the election, the Senate and the House reached an agreement to avoid a government shutdown over Flint’s water contamination. Via Vox.
Best of Enemies
The day TV debates turned into spectacle had nothing to do with politicians. It was Gore Vidal vs. William F. Buckley working the 1968 national conventions for ABC-TV that changed both TV and politics. The Atlantic is offering up a link to excerpts from the PBS documentary “Best of Enemies,” which premieres next Monday, Oct. 3.
Flickr photo by Daniel Lobo
