I actually think Trump would prefer having Johnson and Stein on stage. He admitted before primary that he doesn't like debating. I mean he invented some BS outrage in order to skip one. Trump's not the quickest of cats in the best of times so he'd be happy to decrease his share of speaking time. He doesn't have the temperament to handle a tough moderator as we saw with Megyn Kelly. If you notice the primary debates he did attend, his answers to questions were usually under the allotted time while most of the other debaters were fighting to get one extra word in. You can get away with that in a bigger field of debaters, but not 1v1 when there's nowhere to hide.
Yeah, you're right. Can you imagine him having to talk for half of ninety minutes and have to stop suddenly to give Hillary her time? It'll be insane. Although he'll probably break all the debating rules. If he even agrees to the debates.
I think Trump is too thin-skinned and egotistical to avoid debating Hilary. Could you imagine the barrage of "Trump's dodging the debate" or "Trump's too chicken to debate" themed attacks the Clinton camp would have at the ready if Trump didn't debate?
Forget where I saw this idea, but I could see it happening: Trump refuses to debate Clinton unless they waive the 15% threshold and let Stein and Johnson participate. He would make this demand knowing Clinton would be loathe to agree to their inclusion. So she doesn't. She'd stand up for the existing rules. Then the debates don't happen, which is what Donald wants -- but Clinton gets the blame. That said, the flaw in this scenario is that she could come back at him and call him a coward for refusing to debate her one on one -- wanting to hide behind Stein and Johnson. Which I think could work too.
No one likes a coward, that includes Republicans. Watching CNN live from the CNN grill is weird. Wolf Blitzer partying in the crowd and Brianna Keeler leading Sweet Caroline
I agree; Trump has often been able to "hide" among the field in the primaries. And when he got attacked he usually reacted by constantly interrupting and shouting down his opponent until the moderators moved on. In the last couple debates, his opponents caught on and tried to put him under constant pressure, shouting louder over his objections, but that usually dragged the debate through the mud and ended with no one looking good. And when all else fails, he'd reach for his unending bag of lies and bullcrap and just lie his way through the attack. In a 1v1, I think Trump will be thoroughly exposed against Clinton. Relentless interrupting won't look good, trying to match Clinton on policy would be disastrous, and bullcrapping will only go so far.
There's a potential minefield out there for Hillary too. She's a preparer, but there's no way to fully prepare for unpredictable Trump. She is a target rich environment and she doesn't play good defense. She had a tortured way of dealing with Bernie's Wall Street speeches attacks. She had trouble dealing with her email scandal detractors. She had major trouble in '08 rationalizing the Iraq vote. Trump has a way of taking a kernel of truth and mixing it with a heavy dose of conspiracy and innuendo so the average uninformed viewer has no idea where to draw the line. She has a tendency to get bogged down in long winded wishy washy explanations. Once you oblige Donald by giving a serious answer to an unserious question, you've already lost. The key for her is to defend by attacking. She needs to transition from every Trump attack into an immediate counter attack.
This happened yesterday when he was talking about Hillary's relationship with Terry McAuliffe. They're obviously close, but Trump took that fact and insinuated that there was some sort of affair going on by saying something like, "she's closer to him than she is to her husband."
Remember when Trump was bragging about how he can't wait until he can focus on Hillary after dispatching Cruz et al? How he was going to hit her like she's never been hit before? "But, she's been constantly attacked for 25 years. What else is there to attack?" "Believe me. I'm gonna hit her so hard your head will spin. She's never been vetted. Never been vetted." His "attacks" have been based on emails, Benghazi, and a breitbart's "Clinton Cash". Ooooooooh, aaaaaaaah.
Sept. 26th Oct. 9th Oct. 19th Vice-presidential debate: Oct.4 Thank you for your interest in our election. Many Americans factor in the global ramifications of our decision. It sucks that the most important election on the planet, only 130 million ppl get to/end up voting.
Hi Ezra!!! http://www.vox.com/2016/7/28/12281222/trump-clinton-conventions i operate under the assumption that Trump is going to get more and more unbalanced under the strain. So he is going to give Republicans more and more chances to get off the crazy train. It'll be interesting how that plays out.
Nah, all she'd have to do is agree publicly to a four-way debate and then drag her feet in back-stage negotiations ensuring that Johnson and Stein don't actually get on the stage. All the while publicly decrying Trump for not agreeing to debate rules.
Sept & October are the dates http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...16-general-election-debate-schedule/81238502/ First presidential debate: Monday, Sept. 26, 2016, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. Second presidential debate: Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, at Washington University in St. Louis (Town hall) Third presidential debate: Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
At some point, I think he'll get desperate. It if it weren't for the Comey presser, Hillary would have a 6 point lead, while waiting for her convention bounce to set in. As it is, I suspect she'll climb to a 6 point lead within a month
I didn't even know who she was (I asked my son who is the woman with crazy eyes) and I couldn't understand a word of the song she sang. For me, it completely killed the momentum of the show. I guess I'm not the demographic they were going for with her.