The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Debate Night Open Thread

Posted on | October 22, 2020 | Comments Off on Debate Night Open Thread

BERRIEN COUNTY, Michigan
Tonight is the second and final presidential debate, which I’ll be watching in the hotel lobby here. During our drive across northern Ohio and Indiana to arrive here this evening, we saw dozens of Trump signs and only one Biden sign. A quick preview of the debate:

The stakes couldn’t be higher for Thursday’s second and final presidential debate between Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Trump.
The showdown – coming with just 12 days to go until Election Day on Nov. 3 – is the last chance for both major party standard bearers to make their case in front of a massive national audience watching and listing on TV and radio and streaming online.
And it may be the last opportunity to reach out to the dwindling number of voters who’ve yet to make up their minds.
“This final debate will give each candidate a live opportunity to strengthen their core messaging and enhance their potential reach to undecided voters,” highlighted John Link, vice president at Advertising Analytics, a leading ad-tracking firm.
With so much on the line, it’s no wonder the campaigns are trading fire over numerous aspects regarding the debate, from the mute button to prevent the candidates from interrupting each other during their initial two minute responses at the top of each segment to the topics themselves.
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) – the bipartisan group that’s been organizing and running these faceoffs for more than three decades – announced late last week that fighting COVID-19, American families, national security, leadership, climate change and race in America will be the major topics debated during six 15-minute sections at the commercial-free 90-minute showdown at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.

I’ll be updating occasionally throughout the evening.

UPDATE 9:07 p.m. ET: They open with a COVID-19 question, basically blaming Trump, which is of course the Biden campaign’s theme.

UPDATE 9:17 p.m. ET: Notice how they allow this to go on and on, back and forth. The Biden campaign wants to make COVID-19 the main theme of the campaign, and the debate opens with 15 minutes on the subject, thus validating the preferred partisan narrative.

UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: Now more than 20 minutes of COVID-19, as if this will be the defining issue of the next four years.

UPDATE 9:32 p.m. ET: Now Trump brings up Hunter, and Biden claims he’s never taken any money from foreign sources, ever.

UPDATE 9:42 p.m. ET: Reactions to the Hunter questions:

UPDATE 9:50 p.m. ET: More reactions to Biden:

UPDATE 9:56 p.m. ET: After endlessly lying about Hunter’s foreign business deals, now Biden lies about healthcare.

UPDATE 10:13 p.m. ET: We’re past the halfway mark, and the general feeling of conservatives on Twitter is that Trump is winning this debate, bigtime.

Maybe they’re partial, but I can’t imagine that Biden’s winning over many people with his wobbly performance tonight.

UPDATE 10:39 p.m. ET: Biden vows to end the oil industry!

Good-bye, Pennsylvania! Good-bye, Ohio!

Debate over. Watching CNN and Jake Tapper is trying very hard to spin this as a “fine performance” by Joe Biden. Whatever you say, Jake.




 

Category: Debates

Comments

Comments are closed.