Sep.13

electoral-vote.com

Dem 49

   

GOP 51

Debate: With the Benefit of Hindsight... Harris Is Still the Hands-Down Victor

The presidential debate is, at least for those of us who write about politics, the gift that keeps on giving. Let's take a look at a dozen debate-related storylines from the past 24 hours or so, nearly all of them speaking to Kamala Harris' success on Tuesday evening:

• That's a Wrap... Maybe: Let's start here by reiterating something we've written before. When presidential debates were first held, they were optional. So, they did not happen unless both candidates felt they had something to gain. This is why there were no debates in 1964, 1968 or 1972.
  
  Eventually, the debates became something much closer to mandatory. Not legally, of course, but there was an expectation that if a person was nominated for president by a major party, they would submit themselves for what is, in effect, a job interview. So, there were presidential debates for 12 straight cycles, and for most of those it was unheard of for a candidate to even consider skipping out (the exception is Jimmy Carter for one debate in 1980).
  
  Thanks to Donald Trump, who has skipped both primary and general election debates at various times, we have returned to optional territory. Since the Commission on Presidential Debates no longer runs the show, debates only happen if both candidates and a host agree on a date, a time, and other conditions.
  
  Yesterday, Trump said he's not interested in having another debate, while Harris said she would be delighted to lock horns again. He declared that he won this week's debate, and that it's like a prizefight in boxing—only the loser wants a rematch.
  
  Trump's analogy misses a couple of key points. First, the winners of prizefights often want a rematch, so as to prove their victory was not a fluke. Second, Harris did not take a position until AFTER Trump did—she wasn't pleading for a rematch from the outset. In any event, Trump may feel he really won the debate. You never know with him. But it is indisputable that the overwhelming public perception is that he lost. Even many Trump-friendly politicians and media outlets say he lost. And so, if he ducks a rematch, he not only gets to spend the rest of the cycle as "the loser" but also as someone who is scared to tangle with Harris again. That is not great for his "macho" image.
  
  For this reason, he might well change course, particularly if his polling numbers get weaker. It's also possible that he thinks he is "negotiating" and that he can maneuver things such that he can grudgingly agree to another debate if it's held on his home turf (i.e., hosted by Fox). If that is indeed his thinking, he is grossly misunderstanding his position. He needs another debate more than Harris does.
  
  
• Polling: Speaking of polling, the first major post-debate poll, from Morning Consult, is out. Shortly before the debate, they had Harris +3 (49% to 46%). On the day of the debate, they had Harris +4 (50% to 46%). Yesterday, they had Harris +5 (50% to 45%).
  
  It's only one data point, of course, and the movement is within the margin of error. That said, a point or two is about what we would expect her to pick up from a very successful debate.
  
  
• That Was Swift: Taylor Swift's endorsement is already having an effect. By 2:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, or about 15 hours after Swift first posted to Instagram, 337,826 visitors had been referred to vote.gov through the link that Swift posted.
  
  Obviously, not all of those people will register. And not everyone who registers will vote. And many of those who do vote will be in "safe" states. On the other hand, the number of referrals will undoubtedly surpass half a million or more by the end of the weekend, and there will also be people who register to vote in other ways, or who were already registered but who are motivated to get to the polls by Swift's prompting.
  
  Now, the dumbest thing for the Trump campaign to do would be to further goad the singer, thus rousing the Swifties to anger. Needless to say, that's exactly what Team Trump did by announcing a knock-off of Swift's Eras Tour shirt:
  
  
  
  There is some talk that the Trump campaign is actually trying to bait Swift into a lawsuit. If so, well, we think that the PR from that will NOT work to Trump's favor. Of course, when it comes to musicians suing Trump, Swift will have to get in line. The White Stripes, earlier this week, became the latest to sue over the use of their music.
  
  
• It's a Conspiracy!: There are many debate-related conspiracy theories circulating in right-wing circles right now. This is yet another case of folks who don't apparently realize that they are advertising, in bright-neon letters, that they know their candidate lost.
  
  The wackiest theory, we would say, is that the pearl earrings Kamala Harris was wearing were designed in such a way as to conceal an earbud, so that she could be fed the answers from someone offstage. Because, goes the theory, she's just too dumb to have come up with those answers on her own.
  
  Naturally, this is all kinds of stupid. First, it would be very difficult to pull off. There's all kinds of equipment inside a broadcast studio, and interference with the signal would be a big problem. And keeping a person who is 10 feet from you, as well as two additional people who are maybe 25 feet from you, from hearing what is going on would be very hard. Second, assuming you did keep the equipment working and you did fool everyone in the room, it would be very difficult to deliver the answers in a natural fashion. Cyrano de Bergerac is a play, not reality.
  
  This particular conspiracy theory connects with the widespread insistence, on the right, that Harris isn't very smart. Inasmuch as we know that intelligence is a complex and multi-faceted thing, we do not love to deem people "smart" or "stupid" or "average" or whatever. However, in this case, we will say that of course she's very smart. There's subjective evidence, like her considerable command of the English language and her ability to express complex ideas. There's also objective evidence, like her academic and professional records.
  
  The folks who feel free to judge Harris' supposed lack of smarts—and these are the same people, not coincidentally, who tend to be obsessed with IQ—are, at very least, revealing that they don't know what intelligence actually looks like. They might also be revealing that they are not capable of seeing, or not willing to see, intelligence in a Black woman.
  
  
• It's Not Looneytown, It's Loomertown: Speaking of conspiratorial thinking, there have been a bunch of stories in the last day or two about how far-right nut case/white supremacist Laura Loomer has taken up residence in Trump's inner circle (see here, here, here and here for examples). Loomer even accompanied Trump to the main 9/11 memorial event in Washington, DC. Some of Trump's nuttiest ideas—including, very probably, the "eating cats and dogs" thing—are coming from her. His problem is part that he's very credulous, and part that he gravitates towards information he likes, without worrying about whether or not it's true.
  
  Just in case anyone needed a reminder as to what kind of person Loomer is, she posted this to Twitter shortly before the 9/11 event:

  If @KamalaHarris wins, the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.

  If you don't already know, you'll never guess who called Loomer out for this tweet. It was—wait for it—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Greene said that the message is "extremely racist" and that it "doesn't represent MAGA." We'd agree with the first part of that; not so sure about the second part, though. Anyhow, when you're too racist and too crazy for Marge Greene, you're in a VERY special place. Greene, and other Trumpers, are trying to turn Trump away from Loomer. And we all know how Trump generally responds when you tell him not to do something.
  
  
• Yin/Yang, Putin/Harris: As we note above, Trump is easily manipulated. You can make him believe a lot of crazy things, as long as you make sure they are things he wants to hear. Similarly, there have been some good pieces in the last day or two (like this one) pointing out that the debate provided a pretty good object lesson in understanding how a Vladimir Putin or a Kim Jong-Un plays Trump like a fiddle.
  
  Kamala Harris, of course, had little trouble getting Trump's goat, and causing him to go off the rails. That is because his skin is as thin as the layer of gold on his toilet. The converse is that it's just as easy to get on his good side with shiny beads and shallow flattery. In other words, Harris mocks his rallies, Putin tells him they are the greatest rallies in history. Harris makes fun of Trump's "concepts of a plan" to replace Obamacare, Putin says that he likes Trump's ideas. Two sides of the same coin.
  
  Incidentally:

  because his skin is
  as thin as the layer of
  gold on his toilet

  is a pretty good haiku.
  
  
• Money Matters, Part I: In the 24 hours after the debate, the Harris campaign raised $47 million. The Trump campaign refused to say how much it had raised; it's probably safe to guess it was rather less than $47 million.
  
  
• Money Matters, Part II: The Trump campaign may not be willing to share their fundraising numbers. But what they can't hide is the share price of his publicly traded company. Reader M.M. in San Jose, CA passes this along:
  
  
  
  M.M. explains: "You can see here the effect of the debate. The price dropped by about 15% overnight after the debate. You can see the spike in volume (just over the 'W' in 'Wednesday morning') as people unloaded."
  
  For those who are wondering, the price has not rebounded since.
  
  
• Face Time: In our initial debate write-up, reader W.F. in Orlando observed that Harris did not repeat Joe Biden's error, and made sure to keep in mind that she would be on camera at nearly all times. W.F. included several screen shots showing particularly effective use of facial expressions by the candidate.
  
  We didn't include the screen shots, in part due to time constraints. That may have been an error, because there have been a plethora of pieces on her use of facial expressions and body language (we thought this one was especially good). There are now screen caps all over the Internet illustrating this point; here are the ones from W.F. that we did not include on Wednesday:
  
  
  
  
• He Got His TikTok Cleaned: The social media analytics firm Zelf crunched the numbers and found that Harris is wiping the floor with Trump on TikTok. Of the top-performing posts mentioning Harris this week (basically, 5 million views or more), 72% are positive. Of the top-performing posts mentioning Trump this week, 71% are negative.
  
  
• Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: In our original write-up, we noted that Harris did not lie very much, in our estimation, even including politician lies, while Trump lied left, right, and sideways. And we wondered what the fact-checkers would say. Well, we've now had time to read the fact-checks, and it turns out... they agree with us (see here, here, here and here for examples). They generally concurred that Harris should have been clearer that when she talked about the "Trump sales tax," she meant the impact of his tariffs. She said that Trump left office with the worst unemployment since the Great Depression; the truth is that the worst was actually in May of his last year in office, by the time he left in January, it was improved a bit. She also said a couple of things that she believes to be true (e.g., "he will sign a national abortion ban") but that run contrary to his public statements. That's about it. Meanwhile, they all found a mountain of Trump lies.
  
  
• Those Who Know Him: A few people who know Trump very well have weighed in on this week's debate with not-so-good-for-him comments. Most notable is Niece Mary Trump, who hates her uncle, of course. Yesterday, she shared her view that he suffered "narcissistic injury" in the debate, and he won't be able to recover before the election. In other words, she's predicting that he's going to remain off the rails for the rest of the campaign.
  
  Meanwhile, Philippe Reines does not literally know Trump. And yet, it's his job to "know" Trump, as he's the guy who plays Trump in mock debates with Harris (he did the same for Hillary Clinton). Having studied Trump in a way that few people do, he told CNN that Trump is a different person than he was in 2016. In short, there may have been madness 8 years ago, but there was also method. Now, in Reines' view, it's all madness. "He's all over the board," remarked Reines. "I think he's losing train of thought and he's just blurting out the next thing in his mind."

Please be clear, we did not cherry-pick here. The coverage, across the spectrum, is overwhelming: Trump got thumped, and now he's reaping the harvest. And we still have one more debate post today, plus we'll have one next week (with the bingo material). He's gotta hope that this doesn't last TOO many more cycles. (Z)