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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 09 August 2024 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Yesterday Vance was saying he wanted to debate Harris.  That was a bizarre and ill-considered strategy, because it raises obvious questions like "Why are you offering to stand in?  Is Trump afraid or unable to debate her himself?"  It doesn't do anything but make Trump look bad for him to say that.

The Trump campaign seems to have realized this, since today Trump announced he is backing down from his debate modification demands and will agree to the already-scheduled September 10 debate on ABC.

++++++++++++++++++++
And on September 8 or 9, Trump will make up some flimsy bs reason to drop out of the debate. Which his sheep will eat up, while everyone else rightfully brands him a coward.


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Brian Miller
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Posted: 09 August 2024 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Yep. There ain’t no way he’ll debate her.
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Peter Hicks
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Posted: 09 August 2024 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

If she continues to gradually pull ahead of him, Trump will have no choice.  The candidate who is not winning desperately needs to debate the leader to try to raise their profile.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 09 August 2024 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Brian(s), I disagree with the notion that Trump will not debate Harris.  His ego won't allow him to drop out.  He's a narcissist, and he truly believes he is a great debater.  He would never pass up an opportunity to have a large audience and get a lot of attention.

Look at it this way:  avoiding a debate would be an indication that he has accurately assessed his own strengths and weaknesses and made a rational decision based on knowledge of his own limitations.  When in the last eight years has Trump EVER done something like that?  He's not capable of doing something like that.

He can debate and even if he does poorly and spouts nonsense for 90 minutes, he will declare himself the winner.  That's what he did in 2016 in both debates against Clinton, in which she mopped the floor with him in terms of content.  And unfortunately, people seem to make allowances for Trump's inarticulateness and cognitive decline, and do not hold him to the standards which most politicians (cough, Biden) are held.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he always projects absolute confidence in his demeanor.  I've often said that anyone who read a transcript of his 2016 debates with Clinton would say she was easily the winner, but anyone who watched the debates with the sound turned down would think Trump won.

The way to beat Trump in a debate would be to make him get flustered and to make him look unsure of himself and unsure what to say.  I'm not sure if that's possible or how to do it exactly.  But no one should be confident that because he's an ignorant, slow-witted idiot that he's going to "lose" the debates in a way that will notably move the needle of public opinion.

  

 
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Kevin Brown
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I know polling has become a bit of a hot topic since 2016, but many of the pollsters have changed their algorithms and how they're calculated. With that said, when Biden dropped out he was behind 3% nationally.  Currently Harris is up 3% nationally and a few of the swing states have her ahead and outside of the margin of error.  It seems that she's getting Kennedy's "votes" as his numbers have dropped dramatically.

This race isn't over yet, but I'm a lot more optimistic currently.  Far more than I was in 2016 and 2020.
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Richard Stevens
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I mean, comparing a few months ago to now is apples to apples. At the very least we can enjoy the fact that we're no longer in a doom loop! But make sure everybody shows up.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Again, it doesn’t really matter if “everybody shows up”. Because of the antiquated Electoral College, it matters WHERE they show up.

Remember, Gore and Clinton won the popular vote.

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John Byrne
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Yep. There ain’t no way he’ll debate her.

•••

And if he does, will he stalk her around the stage, like he did Clinton?

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Brennan Voboril
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I take polls with a grain of salt.  I remember the 2016 polls, which had Hillary beating Trump handily.  They are wrong.  

It is hard to tell what is going on.  
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John Byrne
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I remember the 2016 polls, which had Hillary beating Trump handily.

•••

As I recall, those polls were strictly head counts, taking no consideration of the Electoral College.

(Sorry to sound like a broken record on this, but as a former registered Republican I cannot fully express the frustration of living in a blue state and watching my vote go to the Democrat, because more Nutmeggers* had voted that way. One man, one vote? Nope.)

________

* To forestall the uninformed building a Big Bad Byrne story out of this usage, Connecticut, my home since 1985, is known as The Nutmeg State, and it’s residents are Nutmeggers.

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Do not apologize or parenthesize! That's my situation too. My friend in North Carolina, his vote for President actually is determinative. Mine in New York? Holds no sway. What sense is there in a little tiny group of voters in a little tiny group of states effectively deciding who becomes President?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 11 August 2024 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

A friend from Oklahoma explained to me that he approves of the Electoral College because in a true One Man/Woman One Vote scenario the states with smaller populations would not have the same clout as states with larger populations.

BUT THAT’S HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS, I cried.

Besides, in a real system where all the votes poured into the same pot, it would not matter where they came from.

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