# 2020 POTUS Debate 2 (22 October) follow-along and discussion thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 22, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634 "2020-10-22T22:20:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/362 "2020-10-23T18:09:49Z")
I simply don’t see how lies from start to finish constitutes “performing better” in any meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/363 "2020-10-23T18:14:00Z")
> [@susan](#): > > I simply don’t see how lies from start to finish constitutes “performing better” in any meaningful way.- Well he didn’t pee himself and he was still standing at the end, so considering how low the bar is for DJT, that qualifies as a win. The standard for Biden (even here among Biden supporters) is much higher: “He wasn’t as good as Obama, but I guess it will have to do.” ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/364 "2020-10-23T18:14:30Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Well he didn’t pee himself and he was still standing at the end, so considering how low the bar is for DJT, that qualifies as a win. Also, probably, not quite as unhinged and ranty? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/365 "2020-10-23T19:08:23Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Well he didn’t pee himself Cite? (I mean, the man wears diapers.) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/366 "2020-10-23T19:23:23Z")
Both of them lied their faces off. Biden did it more stupidly, with specific, easy to check lies. For example, he claimed he never said he opposed fracking. Then he doubled down and said ‘show me the video where I say that’. The Trump administration tweeted multiple places on video where Biden said that within five minutes. Then he said that no one lost their health coverage due to Obamacare. For those who forgot, Politico called that the lie of the year in 2013 when Obama said it. Millions actually lost their health coverage, and Obama even subsequently apologized for having said it. Joe was an idiot to repeat that lie. As an aside, I wonder how President Obama feels about Joe re-labelling it ‘Biden-care’ with his changes He also lied when he said the Hunter Biden Laptop was Russian disinformation. There is zero evidence of that, and the DNI, FBI and DOJ have all given statements (well before the debate) that their belief was that the laptop was NOT Russian disinformation. And the FBI confirmed that they have had a copy of it for months as the store owner claimed. Biden said that Trump’s tariffs caused the trade deficit with China to go up. The trade deficit has gone down, and is at its lowest since 2013. Trump lied just as much or more, but this was a debate between two veteran liars. Biden’s lies ended his first two runs at the Presidency. He’s a chronic liar. That said, I don’t think people really care about that. Politicians lying is fully discounted already, so the lies aren’t going to hurt either of them. More troubling for Biden was his admission that he would transition away from fossil fuels. You can bet the Trump campaign will be playing that non-stop in Texas, Pennsylania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, etc. The ‘battleground’ states with a couple of exceptions have large fracking and petroleum economies. If anything hurts Biden in that debate, it will be fracking and the corruption issues. It’s hard to see where Trump was hurt, because his failures are already fully discounted. Just appearing somewhat Presidential at times might help him slightly. But I don’t expect the needle to move much in either direction. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/367 "2020-10-23T19:28:55Z")
Looks like this debate amounted to a touchdown for Trump. Problem is, he’s still trailing Biden by 4 touchdowns. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/368 "2020-10-23T19:32:12Z")
Field goal, tops. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/369 "2020-10-23T19:37:25Z")
How did you determine that? By the fact Trump embarrassed himself less this time? ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/370 "2020-10-23T19:42:48Z")
No, not really. As I’ve said before, it’s more like the bottom of the 9th in a baseball game where Biden is up 7-3, and Trump is at bat. He could still win, but it would be by a narrow margin. He could score some runs but still lose, by a narrow margin. Or he could lose more decisively if he fails to score any runs at all. But he cannot WIN decisively. He can absolutely still win though. It is not comparable to trailing Biden by four or even two touchdowns. Biden should NOT have said that shit about the oil industry. I don’t have a clue in hell why he made such an idiotic statement when he could very VERY easily have gave a noncommital answer and NOT lost ANY points with ANYONE by doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/371 "2020-10-23T19:43:26Z")
I bet Trump is regretting playing “nice”. In the first debate, in Trump’s mind, he hit it out of the park with his Alpha male showmanship. This last one, it’s a toss up (not to me though). And now none of the liberals are whining about what a meanie Trump is. To Trump’s mind, that’s a loss. Somebody gonna get fired this week. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/372 "2020-10-23T19:46:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He also lied when he said the Hunter Biden Laptop was Russian disinformation. There is zero evidence of that, and the DNI, FBI and DOJ have all given statements (well before the debate) that their belief was that the laptop was NOT Russian disinformation. And the FBI confirmed that they have had a copy of it for months as the store owner claimed. The DNI was just on television claiming that Russia (and Iran) was interfering in our election. It’s a lot easier to believe that that laptop was disinformation (if not by Russia, then by some Trump ally) than to believe Hunter Biden flew across the country to drop off a laptop for repairs and NEVER picked it up. > [@](#): > > More troubling for Biden was his admission that he would transition away from fossil fuels. You can bet the Trump campaign will be playing that non-stop in Texas, Pennsylania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, etc. The ‘battleground’ states with a couple of exceptions have large fracking and petroleum economies. Fossil fuels are going to go the way of coal. The faster people realize that and start looking for a new line of work, the happier they’ll be. Tough rocks if you don’t want to go back to school to learn a new technical profession. > [@](#): > > If anything hurts Biden in that debate, it will be fracking and the corruption issues. There are no corruption issues, except in the so-called minds of Fox News junkies. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/373 "2020-10-23T19:49:24Z")
538’s before and after polling scored a solid no change. Biden solidly preferred on policies and performance but no meaningful changes on how anyone will vote or how excited they are to do so. Both gained some on popularity with Biden 3 more net positive and Trump 3 less net negative. Just one before after. And national not focused in say Pennsylvania. Not losing ground is better than Trump has done before but Biden’s pretty boring but stable performance results in no race impact. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/374 "2020-10-23T19:53:13Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > How did you determine that? By the fact Trump embarrassed himself less this time? That tends to be how these things go. Before the first debate the Trump camp was pushing hard on lowering the bar with that asinine “Biden’s senile!” line of argument. So the fact that Biden could actually walk and chew gum at the same time ( and also Biden wasn’t an unhinged loon) was a “win”. The assumption on this one (even in this thread and even by me) was that Trump would eventually revert to full-on unhinged loon. Since for the most part he was only a lying baboon, he exceeded expectations and that’s a “win.” Remember that low information voters don’t look at these things systematically, it’s mostly surface appearances and soundbites. > [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > Field goal, tops. But also that. Maybe a safety or just an extra point when he is way behind. Trump didn’t score much, he just didn’t hurt himself as much as the first debate. A self-inflicted fishhook through the thumb is better than a self-inflicted sucking chest wound. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/375 "2020-10-23T19:54:53Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Fossil fuels are going to go the way of coal. The faster people realize that and start looking for a new line of work, the happier they’ll be. Tough rocks if you don’t want to go back to school to learn a new technical profession. But this is not what you want to be shoving in voters faces 10 days before an election. Especially when you might need them in Texas. It was a real fuck up. People need to feel secure in their jobs now, not some promise of new jobs down the road. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/376 "2020-10-23T19:57:43Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Fossil fuels are going to go the way of coal. But not any time soon, so phasing becomes important. It was a real stumble, just probably/hopefully not a fatal one. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/377 "2020-10-23T19:58:34Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Especially when you might need them in Texas. In no circumstances will Biden “need” Texas. If he wins Texas he’ll already have a massive landslide without it. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/378 "2020-10-23T20:04:33Z")
Its not just Texas and a landslide would be really nice. Why this unnecessary balk so late in the game? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/379 "2020-10-23T20:04:58Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Fossil fuels are going to go the way of coal. The faster people realize that and start looking for a new line of work, the happier they’ll be. Tough rocks if you don’t want to go back to school to learn a new technical profession. Yeah, Biden should run with that as his campaign slogan. “Hey Pennsylvania and Ohio: We’re shutting down the one bright spot you’ve had in your economies in the last 15 years. Learn to code!” ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/380 "2020-10-23T20:06:45Z")
I thought you were complaining that he was lying. Here, he tells the truth, and you are complaining that he was acknowledging reality. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634/381 "2020-10-23T20:08:27Z")
As opposed to Trump’s “Don’t worry, you can keep your job AND your emphysema!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2020-potus-debate-2-22-october-follow-along-and-discussion-thread/923634.md?page=20)