8:12 PM: Props to CNN execs for giving Jake Tapper those injections of Epinephrine.
8:13 PM: Rubio water joke about as well handled as original water goof.
8:15 PM: First presidential debate use of word “braggadocious” in US history. Drink.
8:16 PM: Watching Carson’s intro gives me a better sense of why he’s surging as a sort of anti-Trump. The guy is so gentle in his speech and manner I almost wonder sometimes whether he’s going to just fade away. He’s everything that Trump isn’t.
8:20 PM: Not to get policy-ish but Trump’s hair looks a bit off?
8:21 PM: This is not disappointing me.
8:23 PM: Walker’s zinger!!! oh, no. Learn timing, dude. Ouch.
8:25 PM: I think Walker’s word fugue there may be like agonal debating?
8:26 PM: I think Walker just said it’s about time the American people realize he’s awesome?
8:27 PM: On the plus side, 30 minutes in and now Hugh Hewitt?
The Trump phenomenon seems to encourage minor ritual humiliations like this gauntlet walking for a group portrait.
We generally don’t think of Republicans as the folks to go in for alternative lifestyles or outre sexual practices (at least not openly). But here we are, mere hours away from round two of the televised ritual humiliation of what were until a few months ago the top contenders for the Republican nomination – and at the hands of a former reality TV star with an exalted hairdo, who sometimes goes by his first name only. What’s surprising is how similar the mood going into tonight’s debate seems to be to the one going into the first debate on Fox back last month.
The setting seems to be this: Donald Trump is at the head of the pack. That’s unnatural. He doesn’t deserve to be and should not be. Someone has to destroy him. Last time Fox News took it upon itself to be the executioner and I think we can all agree that it failed spectacularly, though it took a few days for many commentators to realize that was what happened.
The sheriff of the second largest county in Georgia, in suburban Atlanta, went off on Black Lives Matter today, calling the movement “domestic terrorists” and a “hate group.”
Full statement, provided to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, below:
State lawmaker says quit your whining over the Facebook meme featuring Obama as as “Islamic son of a bitch.”
Over the years, both as an observer of politics and as a publisher, I’ve seen numerous cases where a big advocacy campaign comes together which clearly lacks the ability to spend all the money it’s raised. You’ll see adds run in California against a politician from New York. Or you’ll see TV spots running in time slots or on shows that are totally unrelated to the target demographic. Most campaigns – whether they’re advocacy, election campaigns or branding – are never lucky enough to have this problem. But the amount of messaging or advertising you can do or buy on any given topic is finite. You can so saturate a given market or audience that you not only move past a point of diminishing returns but actually run out of things to buy. That was clearly the case in what has turned out to be the colossal failure of the many tens of million dollar campaign to stop the Iran nuclear deal.