Debate Night! 2024

The second debate of the 2024 general election will be begin in under four hours.  It is the first debate to include Kamala Harris.  As I usually do, I will post some questions that I would like to hear the candidates be asked tonight.  But first, a quick word about the state of the race.

I believe that Harris will win the popular vote by something between three and six points. I believe she will sweep the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. I also think she will win Nevada. I think Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona are true tossups that either candidate could win if the election were today. So my hunch is that she will win one or two of those, but not all three.

This is slightly more bullish than the average forecast, as you can see below.

I. The State of the Race.

The race is very close. Most recent national polls have been within two points. Harris has led in the majority of them, but that doesn't tell us much since she probably needs to win by a point and a half or two points to become president. The professionals and hobbyists who look at this stuff in some detail tend to put the likelihood of either candidate winning somewhere between 40 and 60 percent.

Which of course is making everyone on Politics Twitter mental.  The uncertainty is grating and not everyone is taking it in stride. But I don't think there's much difference between 60/40 and 40/60 when there are eight weeks to go. Here I have round up the predictions from various models and prognosticators. And I'll include myself because well, why not?

That's quite a spread, but of course the two most optimistic forecasts are amateurs with a rooting interest. The real divide seems to be between 538.com and it's prodigal son, Nate Silver. 538 gives Harris a nearly 56 percent chance of winning but Nate only a 38.4 percent chance of winning

II. Questions That Should Be Asked.

1. To Donald Trump, "Who won the 2020 election for president?" 

I'd like to get even more specific and ask Trump which states he is willing to admit that he lost last time. But last week Trump seemed to make some news in admitting on a podcast that he lost "by a whisker." He probably said that to avoid the podcast host from beating him up on election denialism. I think the moderators need to push further on this today because well, shit, democracy matters.

2. To Kamala Harris, "How would you have handed the withdrawal from Afghanistan differently than Joe Biden and Donald Trump did?"

I continue to believe that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the most successful large-scale operation carried out by the American military this century. Many disagree with me on that, although, none of them can name one more successful.  But this is an issue and I want to hear both her talk about it and Trump respond to it.

3.  To Donald Trump. "You are awfully fond of Vladimir Putin,  the House of Saud, Xi Jinping and Kim Jung Un. Do you believe it is important for America to promote democracy abroad?"

I am recycling this from my post about the June debate, because I think it's a great question.

4. For Kamala Harris: "Why specifically did you change your views on fracking since 2019?"

5. For Donald Trump: "The first time you ran for president you promised to balance the budge and pay off the debt in four years. Your current campaign is predicated on a lot of tax cuts and a lot of new spending. The only new revenue source you have endorsed are tariffs on all imported goods. Have you crunched the numbers on all of these plans and how much do you think the national debt will be four years form now if you are elected."

6. For Kamala Harris " Do you think that any tariffs currently in place contributed to the inflation of the past few years and will you repeal or reduce any of them?

7. For Both Candidates:  Three out of four of your parents were immigrants. Mr. Trump's father was born about 2 year after his parents arrived in this country from Germany.  Why do you think so many voters s have hostile feelings about recently arrived Americans and what will you do to change that?

As always, I would also like to have them answer the questions on the test to become a naturalized citizen but I don't think we will get anything like that tonight.

III. If This Were a Baseball Game.

As the election proceeds, I will play around with probabilities from a different passion, baseball.  

To think of think of the election as a baseball game. We'll treat the remaining weeks as innings. And we'll make Harris the home team, since we are root, root, rooting for her and if she doesn't win it will be a shame. 

So with eight weeks to go, the game goes to the second inning today. 

A. 538 Baseball Forecast: The game is tied in the top of the 2nd. There is one out and no runners on base.

B. Nate Silver Baseball Forecast.  The visitors have a 2-0 lead in the top of the second. There are two outs and no runners on base.

Bottom Line: A lot of baseball left to be played.

 

The Questions I Would Ask at the Debate

Before the first Republican presidential primary debate I posted on Facebook that I felt like a wedding guest who just realized that the Best Man, who is getting up to give his toast, is visibly drunk.  Before tonight's debate, I feel like a wedding guest again, but this time I'm at the church.  The preacher just asked if anyone knows of a reason why the couple should not be married.  In the pew behind me, I just heard the bride's ex-boyfriend clear his throat, and he is rising to his feet.  I turn around to look, and I see that there are note cards in his hands.  I look closer, and realize that they have pictures.

To put the past week in some broader context context, consider that the last debate was 13 days ago. Since then we learned that one of the nominees lost almost a billion dollars in on tax year.  And no one is talking about that.

I started thinking about questions for this debate a week ago and I realized something: it's difficult to phrase good questions for Donald Trump.  Whatever you ask, he will just pick up a bead and run with it. The debate rules prohibit the audience members from asking follow-up questions, although the moderator can do so.  They will have their work cut out for them.

Donald has a pretty good knack for reading rubes.  He normally might be well suited to this debate. He might, for instance, be able to read the mood of the qestioners well enough to give them the feeling that he is relating to them, even as the words he deliversa re indecipehrable nonsense.  Of course, he will have to deal with an extra heaping of anger and resentment tonight, of the media, of his opponnent and of the party establishment that is abandoning him by the hour. He may think that his best tactic is to attack, attack, attack.  That will be an epic mistake and very awkward television history, sort of like if somone stood up at Westminster Abbey and interrupted the Pincess Diane/Prince Charles weddding by bringing up Chuck's love for Camilla Parker Bowles.

For Donald Trump.
1. You have spoken at campaign rallies about recent incidents between the United States Navy and the Iranian Navy.  You have remarked on the fact that some Iranian sailors make obscene gestures to our destroyers and that if you were the commander-in-chief you would order the commanders of those ships to kill the offending sailors.  When told that this would constitute an act of war, you claimed that it would not.  Let's suppose that after you take office, an American sailor fliped of an Iranian vessel and the Iranian ship responded by shooting that sailor dead.  How would you respond to the death of that American sailor?


2.  You often brag about having graduated from the Wharton School of Business. Whenever discussing trade deals you refer to trade deficits that the United States runs with other countries as those countries "stealing" or "taking" money from "us."  Why do you think trade imbalances are theft?

3. You have said that Climate Change is a hoax created by the Chinese to undermine American manufacturing. What evidence do you have for this and how much time have you spent analyzing the scientific evidence for climate change, which has been accepted by virtually every climate scientist on the planet.

Bonus Retread Question:  In your campaign speeches you oftne say that business experience and knowledge of how to get business deals done as the most important qualifiction you have to serve as president.  You have blamed a lot of President Obama's failures on his lack of business experience.  Why then did you choose Mike Pence, a man with absolutely no business experience to be your running mate?  (Incredibly, the Republican party has twice nominated buisness men for president on the theory that those skills translate well to being president. And yet both men choose as their would-be successor men with literally zero such experience.)

For Secretary Clinton.

1. Throughout your career you have shown a prediliction for secrecy. Recent examples include your refusal to release transcripts of speeches given to private banks and your decision to use a private email server so as to minimize having your communications be subject to disclosures required of official documents. Often the consequences of this sercrecy is more sever than the consequences of prior disclosure would have been  Have you learned this lessoon and will you pledge to err on the side of transparency going forward

2. The United States gives about 3 billion dollars of foreign aid to Israel every year.  Israel is a wealthy country that continues to violate international law by occupying Palestinian territory and building illegal settlements there. What does the United States get for this aid and will you be willing to withhold those funds if Israel continues to refuse to work towards an indpendent Palestinian state?

3.   The current opiod addiction problem relates back to the decision of the FDA to approve Oxycontin for pain-relief in the 1990s.  Many doctors are now reigning in their presciption rates for those drugs, but many users have turned to the black market to get their fix and are now being prosecuted for drug crimes.  What would your policy priorities related to this epidemic be?

Bonus Retread Question:   Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was intentionally killed under your orders issed by President Obama whil you were Secretary of State.  What policies will you put in place to ensure that no one will be denied due process during the process of adding names to this list.  (I barely had to change the wording of that one.)

First Debate, Immediate Reaction

The first presidential debate ended one hour ago.  The consensus on cable news is that Hillary Clinton won big.  I agree.

Donald Trump got off to a reasonably strong start.  The first question was about jobs, and Donald Trump has a pretty good rap about trade deals that he can spit out on demand.  The substance of this argument is pretty weak but there are definitely a lot of voters out there who think that NAFTA and other free trade deals are the reaons that manufacturing jobs have left the rust belt.  So 15 minutes in, it was more or less a drawer.

But slowly, Trump rode into a ditch.  He was sniffling constantly and interrupting Hillary with great frequency  Hillary for her part was very sure of the facts and very well-rehearsed in her delivery. Tonight at least, Hillary's dilligence paid off.

I think the most important reprecussion of tonight will be that Trump cam across as so damn rude to his opponent. I think women in particular recognized him as the loud mouthed jerk who dominates a conversation even when he no facts on his side.

But Trump was bad in a lot of small ways too.  He completely lied his way through the birther question and he somehow managed to brag about having been mean to Rosie O'Donnell.  For me the worst momen was when he cited imaginary phone conversations with Sean Hannity as proof that he opposed the Iraq war in 2002.  Hannity's show is a nightly hour of Sean performing fellatio on Donald Trump.  But Donald can not understand why no one takes Sean at his word about the contenst of these secret conversation that were unspoken about for 14 years.

Hillary won on style and on substance. She won on temperment and on veracity.  The prediction markets tilted her way by about 5 points over the course of 2 hours.  She should get a bounce out of this. But it's still six weeks from the election and Donald will adjust before the other debates.

Report Cards:

Hillary Clinton:  A.  You can always find flaws in 90 minutes of live speaking, but I don't think Hillary missed any of the points she wanted to make and I don't think she gave Trump any terrible sound bites to use in commercials.

Donald Trump:  C-.  This is the gentleman's C-. He didn't call Hillary any misogynist slurs, so that's something.  The most damning criticism of his perofrmance may be that right now all his spinners are on the airwaves complaining that Hillary prepared too mcuh for the debate.

Lest Holt:  A-.   I read a lot of criticism of Holt for not interfering more, especially when Donald Trump kept interrupting Hillary.  It's a reasonable point but I don't think that's the role of a presidential debate moderator.  The debates should be about the candidates and if one candidate is being a jerk, the jerk candidate is the only one who suffers for that.

I was worried about Holt when the topic were announced.  These topics, remember were: "Achieving Prosperity", "Securing America" and "America's Direction."  This sounds like the parameters for an award four outstanding achievement in the field of excellence. But Lester Holt asked good questions tonight and raised all the subjects that have dominated the conversation so far, including Donald Trump's horrific record on birtherism.  I think he did well.