mtutiger

I'm not sure what the CSPAN callers are saying, but Trump's debate performance was objectively terrible last night as well, so it shouldn't exactly be surprising that people listening to the substance are more ambivalent than a lot of folks in elite media IMO, who are almost exclusively judging on style here. But I do think it highlights the biggest weakness for Biden, IMO: that Trump said a lot of crazy last night and made a bunch of mistakes of his own ("black jobs", tripling down on not accepting the results of the next election, his J6 answer, etc.), but that ultimately he wasn't able to do as much as he should to capitalize on that. I think that's where people's concern about his age / acuity matter.... the debate may end up being a wash but he probably needs to do more than just a wash to change the dynamic of this race.

Yeah, the magical thinking on this stuff is wild.... from people who should know better!

I'm torn, because the elite media crowd is often really really wrong on matters of public opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if this didn't move the needle much overall TBH OTOH, they have a lot of power to set the narrative, it's already been set and is *further being reinforced*, and he's not getting any younger. And even beyond Joe's age issue, the most common refrain I've heard (to the extent people talk about the election) in real life is "these are our options, really?" People need to be clear that if they make a change, it's going to be Kamala Harris. She's the VP, she's the only option that has gone through a full background vetting, going around her would create additional schisms within the party. But this has also been a relatively stable race from the beginning - her being elevated would upend that. I would add as well that while people focus on her negatives, to the extent Biden's age is the thing dragging him down, this would take that off the table, and potentially point it back at Trump (who is 78 and incoherent in his own right)

Biden's performance was horrific, no getting around it. But it seems like more non-politicial follows on Twitter + friends on Facebook commenting about debate seem to be more focused on the overall "these are our choices" theme, which doesn't exactly reflect well on Trump or his performance either. Biden will bear the brunt of the media coverage though, and not totally without reason. This debate was supposed to assuage fears, not further inflame them. And if they did it, it would take some time, but they would need to orchestrate some sort of dignified off-ramp to Kamala (who, again, is really the only option at this point)

The other point that has come up leading up to this debate (and it's a valid one) is that incumbents usually run into trouble in the first debate. But part of that history is that challengers generally had to fight through debates to get to the nomination, something that Donald Trump didn't do during this nomination contest because he didn't participate in any debates. The last time *either* man has debated was the same date and place: October 22, 2020 at Belmont University. It's hard to compare the situation with Biden to the past cycles just because the expectations / stakes have been raised. And you can tell, given the amount of time they have prepped, that they are aware of it and aren't taking anything for granted. Not a guarantee to success, but he / they aren't being complacent as far as I can tell about the challenge ahead.

And expectations are really really low here.... too low in fact. Again, there's a reason that the same crowd who has been throwing the "D" word around shamelessly has spent this week backpedaling and framing Biden as the greatest debater of our time, referencing back to his debate with Paul Ryan, etc. I don't know what will happen, but the chances of him being fine are probably greater than we are giving him credit for IMO.

Biden's campaign released a pre-debate ad a day or two ago which hit the theme of "I'm fighting for you, Trump is fighting for himself".... so a safe bet that's the direction they are looking to go in.

I've come to this conclusion as well... 2020 was as much about persuasion as turnout, but Biden's issues at the moment are with groups that historically have been in the Democratic corner. He has to consolidate.... there's time, but a number of things have to go right between now and November. I don't know that tonight will change much, but certainly the spin from Trump's campaign going in doesn't exactly project confidence about their candidate IMO

This sort of voter is probably already voting for Trump and really isn't the target, IMO

The human psychology of it is easy to understand, especially as one gets older... they based their careers around this stuff, and it's hard to start over; it's easier to just put your head down and play dumb and lie on Trump's behalf than it is to stick to principles

NBC wrote an article a while ago about people reevaluating Florida or choosing to leave, discussing a number of factors including skyrocketing cost of living, property insurance rates and (of course) political climate.... Nate Silver, of course, had to respond and basically trashed the article because the data suggests that Florida remains popular. Silver isn't wrong, but data is a lagging indicator.... I don't expect the overall trend of "north to south" to change, certainly with boomers being a large demo relative to their younger peers and with boomers all hitting retirement age, that in and of itself will keep population growth health in the south. But if this was starting to happen, you wouldn't see it immediately - it would show up gradually over time in the data. I don't know if rates of growth will decline going forward or not (I doubt it myself), but sometimes data analyst types can miss the forest through the trees if they just ignore anything qualitative that doesn't reflect in last year's population estimates. Having said all of that, I think there *is* a story about people choosing to move back up north or second guessing moves to the south as well. And it's not necessarily all political - some of it is simply not wanting to move away from family or being miserable all the time during the summer. The hidden costs of being down south as well - anecdotal of course, but we have now have a state income tax and somewhat higher property taxes compared to living in Texas (not to mention gas prices), but it costs less for property insurance and home heating / electric and utilities overall where we live now. Government services are better, schools are better, etc. There are tradeoffs to the lifestyle down there that tend to get lost in these discussions that focus exclusively on taxes, and that shouldn't be brushed aside IMO. And for demographic data to reflect a change in attitudes, it's not going to happen overnight.... people have been talking about Detroit's upswing for a while now, yet it took until last year (per the latest estimates) to reverse a 40+ year streak of population declines. This stuff just takes time to manifest.

I love how Byron York just unironically shares this stuff as if it isn't word salad mixed with absolute horse****

It sounds like "The Running Man" lol

WTF

Now reading about that movie, I had forgotten that his role came down to him or Gene Hackman.... Hackman is phenomenal, but I don't know if he would have quite gotten to the emotional depth that a movie like that required.

Such a good scene.... and I don't care what the Scorsese people all say, Ordinary People was an Oscar-worthy film.

Between this and outsourcing ground game to Charlie Kirk, a lot of interesting tactical decisions being made Just get the sense that this is a campaign that's getting high on it's own supply

He seemed to have stepped into it with his comments on giving out green cards... not very MAGA. Granted, he'd never do it and just tells people (such as the tech bros on that podcast) what they want to hear.

One underrated thing going into this debate, IMO, is that while incumbent Presidents usually are at a disadvantage going into debate #1 because they are rusty (think Obama v. Romney in 2012), challengers usually are more accustomed to the debate format for having gone through it in the primary cycle. That isn't the case here.... the GOP had primary debates, but Trump ducked every single one of them. And now, apparently, he's not even doing mock debates. Caveat being that some of this may be expectation setting on their part, but regardless it's not hard to imagine that Biden is taking prep more seriously than Trump is.

Even when you have local media these days, views are still colored through the nationalization of media. If you're a sicko like me and read the comments under news articles from local radio / news outlets on Facebook, for instance, it's hard not to notice people bringing in national political figures into discussions about the tax rate being adjusted for the local High School District or otherwise benign local issues. As if Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whoever have any relevance to local property tax rates lol

Their strategy (both the campaign and it's media apparatus at Fox) of lowering expectations to floor-level for Biden may be rhetorical junk food for his base, but it doesn't help either in the grand scheme of things.

We may be underrating the idea that RFK is a non entity when it's all said and done

Interesting but not surprising...