Scoring the Third Debate: Mild Win to Clinton, by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.
Clinton’s goal was to stay vertical for ninety minutes and sound more well-informed than Trump while framing him as an unstable monster. She accomplished all of that and won the debate, in my opinion.
But it wasn’t a big win. Trump only needed to act semi-presidential, and he did. We don’t expect him to have the same mastery of the facts. The bar is lower for the outsider. He needed a knockout punch but there was none. …
Ask Clinton voters why they prefer her over Trump and few people will mention the economy or any specific policies. Almost everyone will mention Trump’s “temperament” or alleged racism/sexism. Those were the only variables that mattered. …
The Wikileaks attacks are toothless so far. So toothless that Clinton’s “Russia did it” defense is good enough (for a debate) even though it is ridiculous. …
Rigging the election:
The biggest buzz from the debate seems to be Trump’s refusal to say in advance that he would accept the election results if they went against him. The pro-Clinton pundits are framing that as another example of Trump’s terribleness. But of course it is nothing but Trump keeping all of his options open as he does in every other situation when he can. He wants to maintain the right to complain later if the result looks rigged to him. That seems reasonable to me, and no real danger to the Republic. …
[A]sk yourself why the mainstream media is so keen on framing the election as “not rigged.” …
Why do I say it will be rigged? Because whenever humans have motive, opportunity, a high upside gain, and low odds of detection, shenanigans happen 100% of the time. Our vote-counting systems have plenty of weak spots. Rigging (to some degree) is a near guarantee.
And keep in mind that Team Clinton has framed Trump as the next Hitler. That gives every citizen moral cover to do outrageous things to stop him. The stakes are sky-high. In this environment, it would truly be a miracle to have an unrigged election. But again, we don’t know how much rigging there will be. It might not be enough to matter.
UPDATE: Poll: 72% of Voters Have Concerns Over Election Security.
