Remember how the debate was supposed to knock out Trump and firm up the "reasonable" candidates? pic.twitter.com/28H9xIPFrG
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 16, 2015
You’d think some of the Repub ratfvckers and dog-whistlers would at least remember a few lines from the first part of that book they talk about loving so much… like, for instance, Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling. From the numbers guy at the Washington Post, “We Can Now Name the Winner of the GOP Debate…“:
Fox News released the results of the first major-outlet national poll since the first Republican debate
three monthstwo weeks ago. Comparing those results to the Fox poll released immediately before the debate, we can, as objectively as possible, declare a winner: Ben Carson, who saw a five-point jump in the polls — a 71 percent increase over where he was two weeks ago…Trump essentially held steady. Don’t read too much into a one-point drop, given the margin of error here and the fact that these numbers are rounded. Trump certainly didn’t see a gain, though. Is this his peak? Who knows anymore. But feel free to read things into Jeb Bush’s change: He dropped six points — and three spots in the ranking.
Over time, Bush has gone from the consistent leader to part of the second-tier pack. Scott Walker also dropped a fair amount and is now in the third tier, which Fiorina has just joined. (Marco Rubio and John Kasich, whose debate performances were generally praised, basically didn’t move.)
In total, 42 percent of the support from Republican voters went to people who have never held elected office: Trump, Fiorina and Carson. Feel free to read into that, too.
What I’m reading, as a cynical Democrat, is that Fox has convinced its Repub-base watchers that government is just another crappy reality show, so they might as well vote for the gaudiest bloviator on the dais. The sercon Establishment picks eroded their perceived support, the niche candidates didn’t impress anyone who wasn’t already enamored of them, and the winner was that nice quiet doctor man who was just different enough, for some reason, that those half-watching while they did other stuff remembered his name when the pollsters called.
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Apart from being cruelly cynical about almost half the American voting public, what’s on the agenda for the evening?