Over the weekend I gathered some more good news stories, but I’m going to hold off on those and post them in a Wednesday column, because I’ve had the more serious subjects of debates on my mind.
As I started drafting a “debate” column, however, it kept getting longer. And since the only repeated quibble about my columns is that they are too long – you know who you are, and how dare you! – I’ve decided to give you one column per day for today, Tuesday and Wednesday.
I know: it’s like Christmas in September! And you’re welcome.
To start with an example of why this column got too long and must be broken up: I can’t even get into my thoughts on debates without first quickly pointing out the funniest story of last week, which happened when A-WOLz was giving what seems to have become his usual stump speech – no substance, no policy, lots of Trump-smearing and pseudo-“I’m a Midwestern dad/coach/military hero” blather.
But in the middle of the dishonest boilerplate, he made the most Freudian of all Freudian slips. (That’s when you say one thing but mean your mother.)
He started telling a positive story about Kamala, but instead of describing her as a “young prosecutor,” he called her a “young prostituter.”
I’d give that reference a “chef’s kiss” of approval, but that sounds like it could be a veiled reference to Que Mala’s Willie Brown days. And because I’m not up on my California leftist sexual slang, I’m going to leave that one alone.
But it’s still funny! And before you can say it, I know: let’s not act like children.
Okay, on to debates – both last week’s, and in general.
I’m very happy that five days later, the shameful tongue-bath that the MSM gave to Que Mala has done her no good, and may even have hurt her. The over-the-top leftist moderators’ bias did not gain her any of the independents she needs, and even though Trump displayed some of his less pleasant attributes, his essential Trumpiness – for good and ill – has been so baked in that it doesn’t seem to have hurt him at all.
Kamala’s empty and evasive answers have not gone unnoticed, either. Perhaps the most explosive post-debate development is the report from an alleged ABC whistleblower that Kamala had the questions given to her before the debate. That is shocking to me!
Not because the idea of corrupt leftist media types cheating for the Democrats is shocking – does anybody remember Donna Brazile giving Cankles McPantsuit the questions before the debate in 2016?
No, what’s shocking is that she could have performed like THAT, even though she had the questions beforehand! The first question was, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
I wrote about her 330-word verbal dumpster-fire of an answer a couple of columns ago. I pointed out how awful it was, and how she never came within 100 nautical miles of answering that rote question, which she should have been able to anticipate anyway.
But if she was GIVEN that specific question ahead of time, and had a week of intense “debate camp” to prepare, and THAT was still the best she could do?! Sweet, merciful crap!
In tomorrow’s column I’m going to throw out some ways I think Trump can and should negotiate conditions for another debate with Kamala, because no GOP candidate should ever do a 3-on-1 cluster-schtup like last Tuesday’s “debate” again!
But since CO posted a great question yesterday – “Which candidate needs a second debate more and why?” – that elicited thoughtful and varied responses, I thought I’d first give my answer.
And remember that while you obviously have a God-given right to disagree with me, you’re just going to make yourself look ridiculous. So c’mon, man.
(Why do I kid? That’s right: because I love!)
While it might be too strong to say that Trump NEEDS a second debate more than the Cackler does, and he does need to negotiate conditions for a second debate carefully, he should definitely do a second debate.
Because this election is way too close, with polls in nearly all the battleground states within the margins of error. There are some reasons to believe that Trump is doing better than the polls are showing – his numbers were underestimated in pre-election polls in both 2016 and 2020, and he’s doing better with blacks, Hispanics and independents than any Republican (including him in ’16 and ’20) has ever done, which should mean that he’s leading overall.
But there are also reasons to believe that Que Mala will do better than her polls indicate, primarily because of the depth of the Trump hatred that will motivate the other side to vote no matter what, and the well-known Dem fraud efforts (ballot harvesting, resisting voter ID, hinky drop box and vote by mail usage, etc.).
We all know that Trump needs to win by enough to exceed the margin of Democrat fraud, and as close as this looks now, I’m not at all confident that he’s ahead by that much.
So he should debate her again, for two types of reasons why – the first pragmatic, and the second philosophical.
Let’s look at the pragmatic ones first: Kamala was as good as she could be in that debate; Trump can do much better than he did in that debate; and the moderator (if any) will be MUCH better than Muir and Davis.
1. Kamala did as well as she possibly could… and she still wasn’t good! Even with the moderators running interference, her vague and rambling answers left her vulnerable, time and time again.
In fact, most voters have no idea that Kamala did a solo interview with a local Philly ABC anchor on Friday. It was a pre-recorded softball-fest with a sympathetic MSM lackey, and she STILL screwed it up.
She even repeated her first gaffe from the Tuesday debate; when the reporter asked, “What are your specific plans to bring down prices?” she launched a verbal death march of an answer with, “I grew up a middle class kid…”
You would think that after a presidential candidate went all this time without giving a press conference or a solo interview, this sit-down would have been heavily covered everywhere. But it got nearly zero MSM attention, and for the obvious reason: she completely blew it. (I know, but let’s not act like children.)
The more voters get to know her, the fewer votes she’s going to get, so she’s going to do as few interviews as possible. And when her best chance is to hide, and a debate with Trump involves total exposure, he should debate her, and hammer her if she won’t.
2. Trump can do much better than he did in the first debate. While his first 20 minutes and closing statement were solid, he did pretty poorly in between, and I believe that he can learn from a painful lesson that is this fresh: don’t take the bait and get distracted, and stick to the specific facts on the issues! (Melania should attend, and if he brings up crowd sizes or Haitians eating cats, she should walk on stage and kick him in the groin!)
On this point, he’s also got a great template to follow, provided to him by his strong VP choice.
I’ve been very happy to see the way JD Vance has handled himself over the last month. He’s given over a dozen media interviews to MSM hacks, and he’s “won” every one of them, to one degree or another, by doing exactly what I’ve been talking about. He doesn’t take their bait, but calls them out on the bias and distortion in their questions, and then doggedly advances his arguments.
His interview with Dana Bash yesterday was a great example. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch. (But make sure you’ve got an empty stomach, because she is absolutely nauseating.) She “pulled a David Muir” – which sounds like a double-entendre, but I don’t know gay slang, and I don’t mean it that way – spending a ton of time talking up the “Haitians are not eating cats!” angle, coming back to it repeatedly, and making herself look totally obnoxious to anyone who’s not an all-in, far leftist.
JD parried her efforts well, doing the minimal amount of defending the constituent reports, and pivoting constantly back to the substance of the immigration issue, which Dana desperately did NOT want to talk about.
Because the elephant in the room re: Springfield is the horrible results of the flood of illegal immigrants there. And no, I’m not suggesting that the Haitians are eating elephants now!
But only because there is no zoo in Springfield.
HA!
(And that is why I’m cut out to be a harmless smart-ass, sniping from the comfortable environs of stately Simpson manor, and not a major-party political candidate.)
Where was I? Oh yeah.
The main point of the story – which is horrible for the Dems and Que Mala, because it is entirely their fault, and incredibly unpopular throughout the country – is the cascading catastrophe caused by millions of illegals: hundreds of billions redirected from services for American citizens, increased crime, strains on schools and hospitals, etc.
The best way to distract from that obvious truth is the “Trump’s racist cat-eating Haitians slur” talking point. So Dana did her repulsive best to continually try to sell what JD wasn’t buying.
But Vance knows that there is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. (By the way, rumors that “More Than One Way to Skin a Cat” is the title of the best-selling cookbook in Port au Prince have NOT been confirmed. So stop spreading them, people!) And he beat her at her own game, and made her corrupt favoritism obvious.
3. The first moderators have been roundly lambasted by everyone, including many on the left, and EVERYONE not on the left! Trump should be able to hold out for a better moderator — ask for Brit Hume and then Joe Rogan, and settle for Megyn Kelly maybe? – or even just a time-keeper who enforces time limits without interjecting otherwise. But whoever he gets will be on notice that s/he can’t afford to repeat the level of corruption of Muir and Davis.
And even if they tried, the entire audience will be hyper-aware of that this time, and Trump can have some responses holstered and ready if they start going down that road again.
One suggestion, for the first time they show blatant bias: “I think it would make things easier if you just joined Kamala at her podium, so everyone in the audience knows where we stand.”
He could also be primed to respond to any of Kamala’s rote lies – fine people, bloodbath – if she’s desperate and stupid enough to use them again. Just do the Reagan-esque, “There you go again,” and calmly point out the specific facts.
Bottom line: Trump is a much better candidate than she is, and his track record is light years better than hers. He’s an inconsistent debater, but she’s a consistently fragile and terrible debater. And the optics of her challenging him to a debate that he refuses creates a lose-lose situation: it contradicts the reality that Que Mala is fearful and in over her head, and undermines Trump’s core brand as a bold fighter.
With this election still as tight as it is, I think it would be political malpractice for him to not take Kamala on in another debate.
Tomorrow I’ll discuss a couple of philosophical reasons Trump should debate her again, and suggest ways that he can negotiate a rematch that circumvents the pitfalls of recent debate formats.
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 