Wednesday, October 19, 2016

3rd Debate, 1st Reaction

One of the guys at Power Line said Trump did well but it's likely no minds were changed, I expect that is about right. The MSM will go crazy over his refusal to promise in advance to accept the results of an election he has been claiming is "rigged."

This is where you see Trump isn't a real politician, he actually cares about having to change his mind. A real politician would have answered "Of course" when Chris Wallace asked if he would accept the results. However, a real politician would not have felt bound by those words if irregularities later became manifest.

In the sorts of high stakes negotiations Trump's done, a commitment once made cannot be unmade without blowing up the whole deal. So he hedged and the press will go cuckoo over it.

With the last debate behind us, it is relatively safe to say one of two things will happen come November 8. Either Clinton will win, as all the mainstream pundits and polls predict; or Trump will win in a Brexit-style upset which, after the fact, will be attributed to Clinton's inability to motivate minority voters to actually go vote.

One of those two is likely so long as no black swan makes an appearance. A serious terrorist attack or a North Korean nuke on Seoul (or Tokyo) or even a Russian move into Latvia could alter the equation in ways entirely unforeseen. Absent such events, one of the two things mentioned above is highly likely.