# Donald Trump's 2016 General Election Campaign **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 4, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901 "2016-05-04T02:37:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 192
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3823 "2016-08-08T16:28:16Z")
Sixth protester and he’s looking _pissed_, but still sticks to the teleprompter. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3824 "2016-08-08T16:31:03Z")
Oh, the little hands in the “OK” formation have come up, and he’s started repeating points. Looks like he’s starting to go off-prompter as the seventh and eighth protesters are escorted out. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3825 "2016-08-08T16:31:56Z")
C’mon, Poor Donny! Blow up! Don’t let us down - we _expect_ it of you! ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3826 "2016-08-08T16:34:39Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Oh, the little hands in the “OK” formation have come up, and he’s started repeating points. Looks like he’s starting to go off-prompter as the seventh and eighth protesters are escorted out. Hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3827 "2016-08-08T16:36:41Z")
Protester #11 just escorted out, and the crowed is starting to actually boo. I really hope the boos will encourage him to go nasty. He’s spent the past five minutes attacking Obama. He did just ad-lib “I really gotta say the Sanders people had much more energy.” ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3828 "2016-08-08T16:40:14Z")
“We’ll reduce American business taxes from 35% to 15%. Hillary Clinton’s plan will require small businesses to pay 3 times what I’m proposing.” _Standing ovation._ “I’m going to cut regulations massively. Massively.” FYI, to watch the Detroit media’s Twitter feed of the event, [here it is.](http://live.freep.com/Event/Donald_Trump_to_speak_at_Detroit_Economic_Club) [Here’s a live feed.](http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/08/08/donald-trump-economic-detroit-cobo/88386750/) ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3829 "2016-08-08T16:42:07Z")
Good strategy by the protesters to speak up and get hauled out individually at intervals throughout the speech. Hard to tell when Trump is pissed or not, since he has resting bitch face. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3830 "2016-08-08T16:50:03Z")
Speaking out strongly against TPP and NAFTA. Not sure this is the audience for that. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3831 "2016-08-08T16:53:10Z")
I am sure Trump has pulled off a thousand gaffe-free speech so far this year. It’s just that his gaffe rate is still miles higher than a normal candidate. Suppose we use three measures for a politician’s propensity for screwing up: AGA - Average Gaffes Per Appearance measures the sumber of screw-ups a politicians makes divided by the number of public appearances, TV interview, stump speeches, etc. that are made. So if a politician makes 100 appearances and commits 25 unforced errors, her AGA would be .250 GEP - The Gaffed Event Percentage is the number of events that have one or more gaffes divided by the total number of events. So this is different from AGA; while AGA measures total gaffes, GEP merely looks to see how often the politician does or does not make it though an appearances without screwing the pooch. GEP treats an appearance with one gaffe as being just as much a failure as an appearance with ten gaffes. And finally, GMA. GMA is the same as AGA, but accounts for the magnitude of the gaffes. Each gaffe is rated 1 to 5, with 1 being a minor misstep and 5 being something that will live on for years, like insulting the family of a dead war hero, looking like Snoopy while riding a tank, or spelling potato with an E. See, Trump’s AGA is probably something like .150. I’d guess 85 percent of his appearances do not contain a significant gaffe. But .150 is incredibly high. A real politician would have a AGA of something like .020. A real politician would also have a GEP close to their AGA. Real politicians may make a gaffe now and then, but not more than one at a time. Someone like Hillary Clinton might have an AGA of .024, while her GEP would be barely higher, like .025, reflecting the very limited number of times she ever commits multiples gaffes in a single appearance. Even poor George W. Bush, who committed many gaffes by the standards of professional politicians, rarely combined them. His AGA might have been, say. .060, but his GEP would have been similar, like .063. Trump has not only a high AGA at .150, but a crazily high GEP, something like .300; he’ll cheerily follow one incredibly horrible statement with another just moments later. Meanwhile, Trump’s GMA is just off the charts. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3832 "2016-08-08T16:58:06Z")
“Obama/Clinton have been a disaster for the auto industry.” Except for the fact that auto jobs are way up since '09 federal auto rescue. Polite applause for this. This clearly isn’t an audience pleaser in Detroit, where the people in the room know Obama actually saved this industry. Trump’s response to every new protester: Lip pucker, grimace, nod, “thank you,” go back to prompter. Very restrained so far. Of course, this isn’t a rally, but a speech, so the room’s energy probably doesn’t encourage him to go too rogue. I keep hoping the increased “Boos” offer the encouragement he needs, but so far it’s a no-go. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3833 "2016-08-08T17:01:19Z")
“The Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan over 50,000 jobs.” Um, what? Just announced he’ll soon announce a child care plan that he’s been working on with his daughter Ivanka. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3834 "2016-08-08T17:13:33Z")
Speech just wrapped up at the Detroit Economic Club. No outbursts or gaffes from the candidate. At the end of the remarks his theme was “Americanism, not globalism, will be our new credo.” And things concluded with a standing-o from Michigan’s biz community. The meeting ended with a woman from the DEC apologizing for the “interruptions” and vowing that those people will not be allowed back into the DEC ever again. I’m sure they’re outside wailing over that now. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3835 "2016-08-08T17:28:15Z")
Who’d’a thunk it? He proposed to cut taxes and regulations. What novel ideas from a Republican nominee. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3836 "2016-08-08T17:35:23Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Speech just wrapped up at the Detroit Economic Club. No outbursts or gaffes from the candidate. Saying Obama has been a disaster for the auto industry should be viewed as a major gaffe. What color is the sky in Trump’s world I wonder? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3837 "2016-08-08T17:37:13Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > “The Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan over 50,000 jobs.” > > Um, what? He’s going to announce a plan to build coal-powered cars. ---
**Author:** ![Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambrosio_Spinola)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3838 "2016-08-08T17:50:52Z")
Well, looks like they’ve reined Trump in for now (getting him off Twitter, having him read speeches off the teleprompter and not yell at protesters, etc.) What’s his previous “good behavior” record in this campaign? Seems like he was capable of it periodically throughout the primary contests. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3839 "2016-08-08T17:53:54Z")
Team Hillary is likely baiting the hook with a tweet and waiting to toss it in the water, knowing he’ll strike like a crazed walleye. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3840 "2016-08-08T18:09:47Z")
> [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](#): > > Well, looks like they’ve reined Trump in for now (getting him off Twitter, having him read speeches off the teleprompter and not yell at protesters, etc.) What’s his previous “good behavior” record in this campaign? Seems like he was capable of it periodically throughout the primary contests. Seems like he hasn’t been yet been able to go for more than two or three days before reverting to “Trump Being Trump.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3841 "2016-08-08T18:11:37Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > He’s going to announce a plan to build coal-powered cars. _Clean coal_ powered cars, you may be sure. Unicorn turds. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901/3842 "2016-08-08T18:43:08Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Who’d’a thunk it? He proposed to cut taxes and regulations. What novel ideas from a Republican nominee. He has also proposed that the current seven tax brackets be consolidated to three. Seriously, does anyone think that reducing the number of brackets makes any difference whatsoever? I can only imagine that there are some rubes who think that their taxes will be more simple if the number of brackets is fewer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901.md?page=191) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trumps-2016-general-election-campaign/753901.md?page=193)