News that Ben Carson will endorse Trump tomorrow morning was breaking in the hours before the debate.
Reince Priebus, who’s name qualifies him to be an intelligent undead nemesis in any good d and d campaign, gave a weird announcement before the beginning of the debate that basically amounted to saying “what potential fatal party schism?” with a shrug, and “oh, we are going to come together and support whoever get’s chosen as the nominee, I don’t know why anyone would say otherwise, what are you talking about?”
Half an hour in and the candidates are being very civil so far, in comparison to everything else I have seen between them.
I wonder if they made some sort of pact to stay away from the Tiny Hands Donald and Little Marco Pee-Pants stuff, in order to start the party realignment and coalescence that will have to happen of they are going to beat Clinton.
Wow. These guys got a serious talking to before this debate. They’re acting like the kids who got in trouble with the principal who are being good for the next school day or two.
After the last few debates, the only place left to escalate was into straight up fisticuffs. So I guess it makes sense they’re trying to keep things calm.
Um, when it stops being true? Or at least partially true?
You can’t pin the depression on one single factor, but the Smoot-Hawley tariff certainly contributed to the downturn. After its passage U.S. trade exports and imports dropped by over 50%. If you think that was a good thing, I suggest a refresher course in basic economics.
I can’t help staring constantly at Trump’s comb-over. At what point does he not have enough to, well, comb over? It’s so thin you can see right thru it.
It is worrisome to note here that Trump wants to do virtually the same, to press for tariffs against nations like China and other punitive measures to force companies to “bring jobs back”. It is no wonder that experts are worried about Trump too.
Totally agree. The effect of a trade war would be devastating - much worse than the original Smoot Hawley tariff. The world is economically globalized now, and you can’t stop trade without destroying domestic production as well. A domestic car can have electronics from Japan, a transmission from germany, Steel fromChina or South Korea, software from india or Canada, tires with rubber from South America, upholstery from Italy, and on and on. Only the final assembly makes it ‘American’, unless of course it was assembled in Canada or Mexico.
Boy, it sure seemed that way, didn’t it? But everything I’ve seen and read in the past has not led me to believe that the party has that kind of power. So despite appearances, I still have to wonder if it was instead just individual decisions on the part of candidates and their advisors.
Drumpf of course had the most obvious reason to cool it down: to try to, if not stop the Stop Drumpf chorus, at least bring it down to a dull roar.
Rubio said he and his family felt embarrassed when he got down in the gutter, and of course he hasn’t done well since. I actually enjoyed his mudslinging mode, but I can understand why he took a different tack.
And Cruz was really about the same as always. He hit Drumpf on being too liberal and supporting Democrats like he has in past debates. It seemed different only because Drumpf didn’t rise to the bait and get nasty and interrupt-y in his usual way.
Speaking of Cruz, TPM had some good insights on his performance:
I wonder what it’s like to enjoy that kind of treacly and tacky stuff completely unironically. I cannot imagine it whatsoever. And I think this is a big part of what makes many conservatives so angry, that we elitist liberals are sneering at them and their jingoistic sentimentality. They might be more gentle in some respects if they were blissfully unaware that anyone would even dream of laughing at that kind of thing.
When someone with Trump’s money and ego decides that’s the best he can do, it paints a grim picture of the current state of hair replacement technology.
