* It got nasty right away. Trump v Paul then Jeb tried to take on Trump but that didn’t work out too well. It’s certainly been entertaining. Trump’s not too comfortable discussing foreign affairs.
* Trump has the hunter empathy gene – the ability to spot weakness – in spades.
That’s not necessarily a good thing – most pimps have it too – but it’s certainly useful in politics.
* Paul made a pretty good comment about intervention.
Rubio’s personality is grating.
Why are rich politicians with cushy jobs so fat and frumpy? Famous business guys are better put together than pols.
* Trump just called Fiorina a beautiful woman with a beautiful face. He’s great for entertainment. You know she just wanted to call him a damned liar but she couldn’t!
* Trump rode Bush around like a pony for a while and that was fun. He’s Andrew Dice Clay. Most of the act is grating, but when it clicks its hilarious. You watch Trump for 25 minutes and you want to bolt the room. Then he hits pay dirt and you forget all about the 25 minutes of agony.
The rest of them are just furniture. I expected the GOP toadies to be drooling over Carson, but they seem to be drooling over granny instead.
* The moderator asked Trump about his statements regarding !Jeb speaking Spanish. Trump said that immigrants need to learn English, but then he dropped the A-Bomb.
He said that immigrants need to assimilate. He continued by saying it’s a problem that immigrants aren’t assimilating.
* Trump talked of assimilation and the need for people here to speak English. BRAVO! He’s still the only candidate to speak the truth on such matters in clear, bold, declarative sentences.
* Trump’s “look at that face” was proven true as the camera got up close to Fiorina. What does it see? A rigid, botoxed-up, school marm’s scold of a face. Winner? Trump. How many males like that face? How many women have had a woman boss with a scold’s face and her lecturing tone?
* She’s so botoxed -up that she can’t even smile or talk normally, as her upper lip is frozen. She herself acknowledged that Secret Service would call her Secretariat. (Due to her horseface.)
* I watched the first thirty minutes at the gym and it was pretty clear that there was an orchestrated assault on Trump. Fiorina is a serious candidate because she wants to go to war with Russia, which is obviously a Great Idea. My guess is Vladimir would not be too intimidated by her saber rattling. Rand Paul was actually channeling his Old Man and taking some quality anti-neocon stances on foreign policy. Painful as it is to say, Chris Christie was pulling off the whole “I’m just a regular, hot-headed, fat guy from Jersey” routine pretty well, not that I think it makes him more attractive to the electorate.
Based on just the first 3o minutes, Trump took some hits, but it’s unclear that Jeb benefitted. Rubio was sweating and fidgeting weirdly. Walker looked like a well dressed extra from The Walking Dead. Carson probably did not hurt himself, but his humble guy/ brain surgeon schtick has to wear off at some point.
The Establishment Play will be to continue to celebrate Fiorina and Kasich, all the while, still hoping that the Chosen One, Jeb, finds his sea legs. The Media will continue to be easy on empty suit, Nice Guy, Ben Carson, because he is the main competition with Trump for the protest vote.
* Trump is well ahead in the race, and it’s his to lose. He did not harm himself. His two main points in the debate were that he will fix uncontrolled immigration, and he is not controlled by the military industrial complex.
Everyone else, except Bush and Fiorina, seem to be positioning themselves as a VP or cabinet appointment in a Trump administration.
Trump said Fiorina is very beautiful. The camera showed her reaction on split screen, and all America could see how terrifying she actually looks.
Carson, bless his heart, is an obvious token.
* One thing about Huckabee, not a fan of his but when questioned about Kim Davis he states how the Fort Hood shooter was allowed to grow a beard in the brig, we make accommodations at Gitmo for Muslim prisoners but we jail Kim Davis. Said something about denigrating our own culture but exalting others. Really made a good point there I thought.
That exalting others bit got me thinking: Dearborn, MI is known for a high Arab-American population. What if a gay couple went into a county office in Wayne County MI and asked for a license to marry? Wonder how the multicultural Left would respond if an Arab or Muslim at the counter said “No”.
* There is an interesting dynamic going on between Trump and Cruz. Cruz was very complimentary about Trump’s bringing illegal immigration to the debate. And later Cruz used the appointments of David Souter by GHWB and John Roberts by GWB to attack Jeb!!! It spared Trump from having to do anything other than nod his head in agreement. Cruz is obviously angling for the VP spot, but I wonder if they have an agreement.
* Metro Detroit Arabs are about 50/50 Christian and Muslim, but the Christians are smarter, richer, better connected, and have been there longer. Wayne county is liberal, so it pays its employees very well, and in economic and population decline, meaning openings for those jobs are rare and require very good political connections to get.
As a consequence, there are likely very few, if any, county clerks who are Muslims.
Turnover and new positions are so low in Detroit public sector jobs that even when Detroit schools reached 95% black students, the large majority of the teachers and admins were still white. Not the best place to teach perhaps, but $50,000+ jobs with very good benefits and no summers is a great deal in a depressed area with low living costs, so they held onto those jobs with a death grip. Since the schools were steadily closed, the numbers of teachers actually declined most years, so not even retirements created open positions.
While in theory blacks might have an interest in pushing out the white public employees, in practice government employee unions run the city, not blacks, and an ambitious and educated black would realize it is better to wait her turn for her chance to milk the dying cow than risk tipping Elsie over.
* Fiorina did well again, and, as Breitbart’s Katie McHugh presciently predicted, the media is primed to exaggerate her success. She’s a terrible candidate though, the negative ads would write themselves. Also, proposed provoking World War 3 with Russia.
Rubio has very good vocal modulation – sounds like he’s spent a lot of time at Toastmasters. Would be a good keynote speaker for liquor wholesaler’s national sales meeting.
Paul had one good moment when he said if you want more wars there will always be a Bush or Clinton to vote for.
Christie did well – the only one to smack down Carly. Probably too little too late for him.
Cruz was Cruz.
Trump said beforehand he’d try to tone it down and did. Wasn’t at his best but landed solid blows on Carly and Jeb.
Jeb looked weak.
Carson sounded drugged.
* I bet Donald Trump can win a higher percentage of the Black vote than Rand Paul. Chris Rock’s brother Tony Rock referred to Donald Trump as a gangsta with swag. In the Black community that is considered a compliment.
* Given how much she has always been a Zio-bot, boy am I pleasantly surprised by Miss Coulter’s twitter feed.
* The airplane looked great.
A tighter setting, more time, and better questions yielded something more substantive than debate number one.
Most all candidates “did well,” and improved upon their last “performance,” while still reciting prepared remarks in an obvious manner. Some will gain polling points soon.
Many questions were loaded opportunities to attack candidate Trump. Like when a volleyball player pops the ball up in the air near the net so his teammate can spike it…
while…
No questions concerned our suicidally unbalanced trade practices.
Yeah. Lots of time spent talking about Planned Parenthood, but none on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The debate was a good show, and it won’t make a whit of difference with regard to who actually wins the nomination. Appropriately, Mr. Trump congratulated CNN on a long and profitable program which, as he pointed out, must have given them a lot of good commercial time.
* The second Republican debate was much better than the first one. Everyone stepped up his game, but that means you have to step up your game even more to stand out.
Best overall performances: Fiorina, Rubio, Cruz
Worst overall performances: Paul, Walker
Performed above expectations: Fiorina, Christie, Trump
Performed below expectations: Kasich
Best fight scene: Bush vs Trump on casinos in Florida. Jeb must not be our candidate. He’s another Romney. Worse, he’s a Romney named Bush. Remember how Romney let the moderator lady shut him up about Benghazi in the third presidential debate? That’s what Trump did here.
Best sense of humor: Trump easily this time. Last time, it was Carson but now he’s trying to seem all serious and knowledgeable.
* Like the alt-right twitter “poaster” says:
“It’s who wins the post-debate debate that wins the debate”
Drudge is showing Trump at 62% and Ann Coulter pissed off the Jews. A lot of the post debate Twitter is directed at her and not the debate. Politico asks, “Is the Summer of Trump Over?” after publishing the screed from “former” GOP consultant Rick Wilson “It’s Time To Go To War with Trump”. This is after getting all butt-hurt by Alt-Right Twitter and declaring a war between the GOP and The Troll Party. So interesting that lib writers keep up this “It’s over!!” and then it isn’t. Rick Wilson maybe better get a job over there with the Shitlibs because his career is probably doomed on the right.
So given the responses, maybe Carly takes some of Carson’s support and becomes the horse the MSM puts their ink and airtime behind now. Trump stays where Trump is. There was nothing that would cause The Troll Party to go, “Never mind”. The Twitters say Jeb-low energy, Jeb-beta, Trump Alpha for saying No to “apologize to my wife”, Carly botox face, Carly Broomstick, Carson Clueless, Good Surgeon-Bad President, Cruz sucking up to Trump, Mario-Amnesty Traitor.
I see the witch memes coming out very soon now. She’s gonna have a rough Halloween season.
But the GOP Kingmaker here is Sailer. One tweet said “Alt-right Twitter has more influence than GOP journalists”. And everyone of those guys Tweet links to Sailer. So Sailer is like some King Henry saying about Beckett, “Won’t someone rid me of that troublesome man.” and then the alt-right tweeters send out minions. The Right Stuff has huge numbers of active trolls. And Vaughn is getting huge views and NYT references. And I am positive Vaughn is a Sailer disciple. So then they go forward into their own blogs and into comment sections all over the internet and drive the conversation.
So then whatever Sailer posts tomorrow will drive the post-debate debate. It doesn’t even have to be directly about any one of the candidates. If he keeps driving immigration then Trump scores. So we’ll see tomorrow. My bet is the posts will probably be on immigration, directly or indirectly.
* At this point I don’t know why anybody here wouldn’t vote for Trump. Even if all of the other candidates parrot or even actually believe in his clear and concise position on immigration it seems pretty obvious that only Trump would have a hope of actually enacting it.
He’s running against the billionaire class and their media and winning. That is amazing in itself.
* Must read:The Daily Mail interview with Carly Sneed’s first husband Todd Bartlem. He describes Carly Sneed as a merciless MBA Corporate psychopath devoid of humanity. Frank Fiorina’s ex-wife got their two daughters after the divorce. She stated emphatically in the Daily Mail interview that Carly Fiorina had very little contact with Frank Fiorina’s late daughter. She claims that Carly Fiorina is just using her dead daughter as a campaign prop.
* I’m totally puzzled by Carson’s high standing in the polls. Your suggestion is as good as any: white guilt. I thought it was because of his modesty and religious demeanor which seems to really impress evangelicals. I thought his proposal of making illegals do agricultural work was silly. I interpreted his remarks to apply to all illegals, in which case he would discover that it is not just Americans who don’t want to do that kind of work but a large percentage of illegals as well. One good thing about his idea is that it might start a lot of “self-deportation.” I don’t see any qualifications to be president: no substantial executive experience, no prior political experience, not exactly a wiz when it comes to mastery of political issues. Since he is not qualified to be president, he is not qualified to be vice president (“a heartbeat away”). I expect to see him start to fizzle in the polls. Looking ahead, I see nothing after Iowa where he likely to do well. I don’t think Trump would like having him on the ticket. It’s too soon to be speculating about possible VPs anyway. That will have to wait until we see how the primaries go. I have previously said it is unlikely that Trump will pick Cruz as his running mate, for he doesn’t need Cruz to carry Texas. Another poster suggested that Cruz is looking to be appointed to the Supreme Court, which makes a lot of sense. He’s very bright, conservative and young, sort of like the Justice he clerked for, William Rehnquist, when he was first appointed. I also previously threw out the names of Walker and Kasich as possible running mates, but Walker looks much less likely in light of his big drop in the polls and Kasich would have to do well in the primaries to justify his selection. Of the two, I think Ohio counts for a lot more than Wisconsin in a Presidential race, and Kasich offers a lot more experience than Walker. So, if you were to limit VP speculation to the existing field, I would have to say that Kasich looks better than anyone. Otherwise, I can’t come up with a good candidate.
One matter that hasn’t received much attention is the dispute between Trump and Fiorina on birthright citizenship. As even Rand Paul conceded, Trump stands on firmer ground than Fiorina. Trump believes correctly that the matter can be handled through legislation, while Fiorina erroneously thinks a constitutional amendment is necessary, which indicates either that she hasn’t done her homework or is blinded by ideological considerations. Trump clearly has the better legal advisers.
* Steve Sailer: I don’t watch much TV, so I don’t know anything about Dr. Carson other than that he’s a black conservative brain surgeon. He seems like a respectable placeholder, better than Herman Cain last time, for people who get called up by a pollster but who don’t want to emotionally commit themselves yet. So they say “Carson.” Hey, it’s only September 2015.
If Dr. Carson leverages the publicity he’s getting as a Presidential candidate into a lucrative retirement career as an after-dinner speaker, well, that seems fine with me.
* It was tough for Trump because there was absolutely no applause lines for him even after his best moments.
* Trump
– AMOG’ed Jeb on his energy level. lolz
– Jeb asked him to apologize to Columba… “No. I’m not gonna do that.” lolz
– Got repealing/reinterpreting/re-vamping the 14th Amendment and ending birthright citizenship debated on live TV.
– Got English as the official language debated on live TV.
– Trolled Fiorina so hard she turned to stone.
– Translation on Russia/Syria: “I’ll get a long with Putin because he’ll respect me as a biological male with functioning testes. He’ll eat the rest of you sackless chumps for lunch.”
– Entered a hostile environment, came out unscathed
Jeb
– Tried to beat Trump at his own game, got pwn3d
– Does he talk about his wife so much to distract from questions about his dipshit brother?
– Made it clear that he really likes speaking Spanish.
– Foreign policy starts and ends with Israel. Pathetic.
Cruz
– Top dawg in the VP fight
Carson
– Cuckservatives love him because he’s black and that proves they’re not racist.
– Played the “crops rotting in the fields” card.
– Your 15 minutes are about over
Fiorina
– Cuckservatives love her because she’s female and that proves they’re not sexist.
– Bibi! Israel! Bibi! Israel!
– Putin = Hitler!
– Trump said she sucked at running HP. Responded that the person who compiled the evidence was a Clinton plant. Huh?
– Your 15 minutes are about over.
Paul
– Plus one for being sensible about Putin/Russia
– Plus one for not mentioning Israel
– Plus one for slapping birthright citizenship around
Huckabee
– Yeah, what Corn said (#45). That was a great analogy.
Rubio
– Did you know his parents were immigrants?
– Seriously, they were.
– Did you know all of his neighbors are immigrants?
– Seriously, they are.
– Not sure why he’s running for president of this country?
Christie
– Came a cross as likable on camera
– Got in a few good jabs.
Kasich
– VP potential. Could deliver Ohio and its electoral votes to Trump.
– Kind of a non-entity
Walker
– Wait, which one was he again?
