Face to face one last time: Debate night for Clinton, Trump

[webfact]

Face to face one last time: Debate night for Clinton, Trump

By JULIE PACE

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's long and acrimonious battle for the White House is speeding toward the end, with the candidates taking the debate stage Wednesday night for one final prime-time showdown.

 

For Trump, the debate is perhaps his last opportunity to turn around a race that appears to be slipping away. His predatory comments about women and a flood of sexual assault accusations have deepened his unpopularity with women and limited his pathways to victory. Trump has denied the accusations and his supporters remain intensely loyal, but there are few signs he's attracting the new backers he desperately needs.

 

Clinton takes the stage with challenges of her own. While the electoral map currently leans in her favor, the Democrat is facing a new round of questions about her trustworthiness, concerns that have trailed her throughout the campaign. The hacking of her top campaign adviser's emails revealed a candidate who is averse to apologizing, can strike a different tone in private than in public, and makes some decisions only after political deliberations.

 

The last in a trio of presidential debates, Wednesday's contest in Las Vegas comes just under three weeks from Election Day and with early voting underway in more than 30 states. At least 2.1 million voters have cast ballots already.

 

Trump has leaned on an increasingly brazen strategy in the campaign's closing weeks, including peddling charges that the election will be rigged, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud in U.S. presidential contests. H(s running mate, Mike Pence, has insisted they'll accept the election results.

 

On Wednesday, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, seemed to undercut Trump's argument by saying she didn't believe there was widespread voter fraud.

 

"Absent overwhelming evidence that there is, it would not be for me to say that there is," Conway told MSNBC.

 

Trump has also charged that Clinton attacked and intimidated women involved with her husband's affairs, bringing three women who accused former President Bill Clinton of unwanted sexual contact and even rape to sit in the audience for the second debate. The former president has never been charged with crimes related to the encounters, though he did settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.

 

Trump is bringing President Barack Obama's half brother, Trump supporter Malik Obama, as his debate guest Wednesday night. Clinton is bringing billionaire and frequent Trump critic Mark Cuban and Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, one of the former secretary of state's highest-profile Republican backers.

 

Republicans want Trump to close the campaign by focusing on Clinton's weaknesses, a strategy some privately concede may not be enough at this point for him to win but could help GOP Senate candidates salvage their races.

 

The businessman has shown flashes of renewed focus in recent days, including highlighting recently released FBI documents detailing a senior State Department official's request that the FBI help reduce the classification of an email from Clinton's private server.

 

One of the FBI documents, the notes from an investigator's interview with an unnamed bureau official, suggested the FBI and the State Department official had discussed a quid pro quo to let the FBI to deploy more agents in foreign countries. But the FBI and State Department said this week that the two issues, while discussed, had never been linked.

 

Campaigning Tuesday in Colorado, Trump called the matter "felony corruption" and worse than the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. The Republican National Committee said Wednesday it had written the State Department's inspector general requesting a "full investigation," though the inspector general already looked into the broader issue of Clinton's emails classification last year.

 

Clinton, who has meticulously prepared for the three debates at the expense of time in battleground states, visibly rattled Trump in their first showdown by using his own controversial comments about women and minorities against him. The businessman was on the defense at the start of the second debate — which came days after the release of a video in which he brags about kissing and grabbing women — but ended on stronger footing, hammering Clinton for being a creature of Washington who won't be able to bring about change.

 

The Republican has acquiesced to some advisers who pressed for him to do more serious debate preparations. Still, he's continued to eschew the mock debates and multiday prep sessions for which he's mocked Clinton.

 

"She's been doing this for 30 years and now she has to do debate prep for five days," Trump said. "You know what the debate prep is? It's resting. It's lying down and going to sleep."

___

AP writers Josh Lederman and Hope Yen in Washington and Jill Colvin in Colorado Springs, Colorado, contributed to this report.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-10-20

[anotheruser]

Hillary just needs to take the high road and get a stalemate here. 

[anotheruser]

No handshake... I like it.

[MZurf]

Hasta la vista to the man-child

 

Trump in exile

Edited October 20, 2016 by MZurf

[canuckamuck]

I am sure the MSM has already penned their reviews of the debate. Trump lost.

[maoro2013]

I trust they check Hillary for the earpiece this time.

 

Are the sexual allegations against Trump similar to Wikileaks founder, or Trumped up?

[klauskunkel]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

"She's been doing this for 30 years and now she has to do debate prep for five days," Trump said.

"Wanna know how I debate prep? I just grope someone..."

[anotheruser]

Trump dropped the ball on the Clinton campaign being hacked by Russia. All he had to say is "Secretary given your record with security and emails is it an y wonder your campaign was hacked and not mine?" Very simple and direct she wouldn't have had a reply to that.

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

I am sure the MSM has already penned their reviews of the debate. Trump lost.

Trump couldn't have given them more ammunition than if he had written the reviews himself.

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, anotheruser said:

Trump dropped the ball on the Clinton campaign being hacked by Russia. All he had to say is "Secretary given your record with security and emails is it an y wonder your campaign was hacked and not mine?" Very simple and direct she wouldn't have had a reply to that.

Now selling tickets to the theater of anotheruser's mind and view the debate that might have been.

[anotheruser]

Just now, ilostmypassword said:

Now selling tickets to the theater of anotheruser's mind and view the debate that might have been.

 

Just pointing out that he could have had her dead to rights and missed the chance. The debate that was showed Donald as the bumbling idiot he is. Anybody with half a brain could have done better against "such a nasty woman" 

[thaibeachlovers]

Zero sum debate.

Neither scored a knockout, and no one will be convinced to change their vote.

I expected fire from Trump and got a damp squib, while Clinton merely repeated her bullet points.

I learned nothing, didn't get excited, didn't change my mind.

 

I still think Clinton will be POTUS, simply because the liberal media won't tell anyone all the bad things about her. Fox does, but Clinton people don't watch it.

[ilostmypassword]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Zero sum debate.

Neither scored a knockout, and no one will be convinced to change their vote.

I expected fire from Trump and got a damp squib, while Clinton merely repeated her bullet points.

I learned nothing, didn't get excited, didn't change my mind.

 

I still think Clinton will be POTUS, simply because the liberal media won't tell anyone all the bad things about her. Fox does, but Clinton people don't watch it.

You're not in the bag for Trump much, are you?  I just went to breitbart.com and even their ludicrous online poll showed Clinton ahead 57 to 43 percent.  I imagine that they're working on changing that right now.

[Thakkar]

3 hours ago, anotheruser said:

No handshake... I like it.

 

I can understand why she didn't want to shake that tiny hand, knowing what it's been grabbing.

 

T

[CaptHaddock]

I have read a report that the online bookie PaddyPower has already paid off Clinton-to-win bets. 

[Ulysses G.]

55 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Zero sum debate.

Neither scored a knockout, and no one will be convinced to change their vote.

I expected fire from Trump and got a damp squib, while Clinton merely repeated her bullet points.

I learned nothing, didn't get excited, didn't change my mind.

 

I still think Clinton will be POTUS, simply because the liberal media won't tell anyone all the bad things about her. Fox does, but Clinton people don't watch it.

 

Agree all around. I was hoping Trump would not hold back, but he remained fairly cool.

[nottocus]

The nutcase or the crook. Any of you Americans think there is something wrong with your system?

[ilostmypassword]

10 minutes ago, Ulysses G. said:

 

Agree all around. I was hoping Trump would not hold back, but he remained fairly cool.

And you scored Trump as the victor in the 2nd debate. All four scientifically conducted polls had Clinton the winner. Even Breitbart has Clinton winning easily. (And to my surprise, they don't appear to be tampering with it.) But no, you're not a Trump supporter. Much.

[Chicog]

Kudos to Chris Wallace. He asked awkward questions to both candidates.

Of course all he got back from Trump was gibberish (again).

 

 

[Pimay1]

This election could be a Dewey defeats Truman moment. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Publicus]

 

 

This gives a proper focus and pretty much sums it up...

 

"Clinton was methodical in her approach, but she showed that Trump lies very easily and has major flaws as a person. He took her bait nearly every time.  He even called Clinton “such a nasty woman.” By the end of the debate, Trump had collapsed into his basket of flaws.

 

"But the scariest part of the night was Trump refusing to say he would abide by the election results, saying, “I will look at it at the time.”

 

"Trump refused to commit to the peaceful transfer of power following an election. It was appalling and a massive political mistake."

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/politicalwire/status/788932183461363712

 

 

And here's perhaps the best summary of 'em all...

 

 

 

Meanwhile, here are the polls released Wednesday in the USA. These are the most important states because virtually every other state is settled.

 

(HRC is not going to win Texas, although Trump will win in an embarrassingly poor vote for a Republican there. Alaska is actually still an open question, but with the state being one of so many red states that have only 3 Electoral College Votes, who cares about AK except AK hasn't ever voted for the Democrat for Potus.)

 

 

North Carolina: Clinton 46%, Trump 44%, Johnson 6% (SurveyUSA)

 

Colorado: Clinton 40%, Trump 35%, Johnson 12% (Magellan)

 

Arizona: Clinton 39%, Trump 34%, Johnson 6% (Arizona Republic)

 

Virginia: Clinton 47%, Trump 38% (Tarrance)

 

Wisconsin: Clinton 47%, Trump 40%, Johnson 6% (Monmouth)

 

Georgia: Trump 46%, Clinton 43%, Johnson 2% (Clout Research)

 

Pennsylvania: Clinton 45%, Trump 41%, Johnson 4% (Emerson)

 

New Hampshire: Clinton 44%, Trump 36%, Johnson 10% (Emerson)

 

Utah: McMullin 31%, Trump 27%, Clinton 24%, Johnson 5% (Emerson)

 

New Hampshire: Clinton 49%, Trump 34%, Johnson 8% (UNH)

 

Wisconsin: Clinton 50%, Trump 38% (PPP)

 

The long and the short of it is that the Trump-Putin Republican Party ticket of 2016 marks the end of the Republican Party.

 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Publicus
Typos & spacing.

[StevieH]

23 minutes ago, Chicog said:

Kudos to Chris Wallace. He asked awkward questions to both candidates.

Of course all he got back from Trump was gibberish (again).

 

 

 

he's incapable of answering any question about the middle east because he knows literally nothing about it. aleppo, mosul, assad - he's got no clue. so he just rambles on about the iran deal and how bad it is, it's so bad, it was the worst deal ever made, and believe me i know about deals etc etc.

 

if he had any concept of shame he should be embarrassed about his own stupidity on the subject. for a man who uses twitter as much as he does he seems not to know of the existence of google.

[LomSak27]

TRUMP: I'm not going to answer your question about what I'm actually going to do about ISIS because that would take away the "element of surprise".

Just trust me!

He's going to grab their pussy.  

[elgordo38]

4 hours ago, anotheruser said:

Hillary just needs to take the high road and get a stalemate here. 

They are both on the low road. Its all a matter of measuring lowness. 

[anotheruser]

1 minute ago, elgordo38 said:

They are both on the low road. Its all a matter of measuring lowness. 

 

Well there was no knock out blow for Trump so we can pretty much now say Hillary is the next president. 

Edited October 20, 2016 by anotheruser

[elgordo38]

Just now, anotheruser said:

 

Well there was no knock out blow for Hillary so we can pretty much now say she is the next president. 

Its to late to go back to the drawing board. All Hillary had to do was to stand back and watch Trump implode. Stand well back and duck the flying BS. I give Hillary credit time and again Trump tried to talk over her but she just kept going in a monologue manner. I had a wife like that once. 

[anotheruser]

Just now, elgordo38 said:

Its to late to go back to the drawing board. All Hillary had to do was to stand back and watch Trump implode. Stand well back and duck the flying BS. I give Hillary credit time and again Trump tried to talk over her but she just kept going in a monologue manner. I had a wife like that once. 

 

Did your wife have the same awful smile as her when she was at the divorce hearings? God her smile makes me cringe. 

[SoiBiker]

Clinton won that by a mile without having to make much effort. Like watching an adult debate with a child.

[attrayant]

2 minutes ago, SoiBiker said:

Clinton won that by a mile without having to make much effort. Like watching an adult debate with a child.

 

Seriously.  His response when being called Putin's puppet:

 

"No, YOU'RE the puppet!"

 

and:

 

"He's NOT my best friend!"

 

 

[anotheruser]

Can anybody that still supports Trump, thinks he won that debate and believes he will win the election please hold up your hand? We need to quickly document and study you in the sake of science as you are the last of your kind at this point.