After The Debate
“Watching my dreams, turn in to ashes.
And all my hopes, into bits of clay.
Once I could see, once I could feel.
Now, I am numb, I’ve become unreal.
I walk the night, oh, without a goal.
Stripped of my heart, my soul.
What now my love?
Now that it’s over.
I feel the world, closing in on me.
Here come the stars, tumbling around me.
And there’s the sky, where the sea should be.
What now my love, now that you’re gone,
I’d be a fool to go on and on.
No one would care. No one would cry.
If I should live or die.
What now my love, now there is nothing.
Only my last goodbye.
Only my last goodbye”
I confess I did not watch the debate on Tuesday evening. I am an Elder here at our church in Scottsdale, and we had a previously scheduled session meeting that night. I’m sorry Donald and Kamala. But God comes first.
So, I will not comment on the debate itself, but instead on the reactions to it and perhaps where things might go from here:
Trump Campaign: It was a bad night for the Trump team. All but the most ardent always-Trumpers agree that Trump took the bait on too many issues that Harris wanted to talk about while failing to make her defend her record at all. The “moderators” were totally on board with Team Kamala, which even all lefties except the most fervent ones agree. Even taking that into account, Donald did not make his points effectively.
So now what? Polling showed Trump doing well and gaining momentum prior to this debate. Will that reverse? Maybe. Maybe not. I know the conventional wisdom is that these debates make a difference with swing voters. I am of the belief that few swing voters watch them. I think this is more like a weekend football game. Most people watch it to cheer on the team they want to win, not to see which team they should be for. Everyone I know who watched was cheering for one player or the other. What I think is more important is the reaction and the stories after the debate, which more people will see than the event itself. If you go back to the Trump/Biden debate, Biden’s numbers did not crater right after the debate. It took a couple of weeks of additional bad performances by the current president before his dementia (or whatever it is) seeped into the public and caused the Party Elites to pull him from the ticket.
If this debate reverses Trump’s positive momentum, that is not good. But there is still time to get it back.
Harris Campaign: Participating in this debate was a Hail Mary pass for them. They were losing and they knew it and they had to do something even if it was risky. They completed the pass, albeit not for a touchdown. But what do they do from here? They could decide that she is better on the stump than they thought and start putting her out there more. I think that would be a mistake. She had one decent night because her opponent had a bad one and the referees only called penalties on the other team. But I think it is unlikely that she suddenly is a way better campaigner than she has been before.
The better call, and the one I expect because there are smart campaign people in that camp, is to continue to hide her and use their money and friends in the regime media to carry them to election day.
Another Debate?: If either side feels they are in the lead after a week or so, they will not want another debate. If Trump wants one, I would have to think he would insist on it being at Fox, which Kamala will not accept.
The sad fact is that both of these candidates wear on people and the more exposure they get the worse they do. Trump reminds people of his arrogance too often and Kamala reminds them that she is vacuous. Trump needs to win on his policies which are demonstrably better than those of the Biden/Harris administration, regardless of the fact that Kamala suddenly doesn’t believe in anything she’s ever said before. Harris needs to win on “soft” issues like being “historic” and “huggable” and young and fresh.
ABC “News”: The performance of the “moderators” was abysmal in that they did everything they could to help Kamala. This is not new. Remember Candy Crowley who in a 2012 debate effectively attacked Mitt Romney? We know of other instances when Hillary Clinton was given the questions in advance. The regime media is not biased. They are on the Neo-Marxist team and are in their playbook.
I served with now Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) when we were both in the House. He is very smart and I like him a lot. He appears on regime media often. On the Hugh Hewitt show not long ago, he defended doing that against my protestations that it is a bad idea. He believes you must go in to the enemy camp and defend your positions to persuade people.
I respectfully disagree. When ABC (or NBC, CBS for any of them) put a Republican on air, their objective is to make that person look bad. If you go on five times and make one mistake, they will replay that mistake over and over again while burying the good points you made. If you make no mistakes, they will take what you said out of context and use that to make you look bad. I remember years ago when MSNBC did that exact thing with me, running an out of context phrase over and over again to make it seem as though I said something different than what I did.
I have said many times in these missives that culture is upstream from politics. If you lose the culture, it is only a matter of time before you lose the vote. Media is part of culture. ABC is owned by Disney, which in a tie with Google, is the most woke, miserable company in America. We should not have expected any different.
We will never win playing on their field where the crowd, the referees and the scorekeepers are all willing to cheat to ensure one team wins. We need to stop watching, stop paying for, stop going on any of these woke networks. We should be trying to help them fail, rather than improve their ratings.
Bottom line… this week: I have long pointed out that conservatives are afraid you will not understand what they are trying to do. Hence, they try to explain their policies thoroughly and why they believe in them and they defend them when challenged. Leftists are afraid you will understand what they are trying to do. Hence they run away from policies they have implemented in the past and talk largely in vague terms lest you actually saw what they would really do. You see this in congressional and senate races across the country where Democrats are adopting Republican positions, that they have consistently voted against, to try and win. Do you ever see Republicans adopting Dem policies on the border or economics or even abortion? No you don’t.
Trump can win if he is able to show what he has done and will do. Kamala can win if she is able to avoid what she has done and will do. She would be by far the most left, and fully Neo-Marxist president we have ever come close to having.
Meanwhile, there is more and more evidence of what is being called a K-shaped economy. More on that later. I hope your week is better than Trump’s Tuesday night was, and I’ll be back at you next week.
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free