Final Debate Frenzy

The third debate is less important than the other two. The first debate is important -- a candidate's time to set the tone, for the dynamics of the race to be laid bare, and for each candidate to make their best case. The second debate is important, too, because it serves as a chance to correct problems from the first debate (think Obama v. Romney II, in which Obama stepped up his game). The third debate doesn't serve those functions. It's a last chance for a good impression and a last chance to correct any major issues.

Clinton, with a notable lead in national polling, was playing prevent defense, to use a football metaphor. Her goal was not to make a major mistake/not blow her lead. Trump, being behind, had to not only win, but change the dynamics of the race. The headlines today are all about Trump making a mistake and blowing it. They're not wrong about Trump making a mistake, but he was blowing it well before then, as you'll see.

Numbers
I told you that I don't think time spent talking means a whole lot, and Trump spoke more the first two debates. This time, Clinton spoke more, for 41:46, with Trump talking for 35:41, per CNN. I don't know that it means anything, but there you are. She got about 6 minutes more, but she was interrupted a lot.

Which brings me to interruptions. Fox News had 35 interruptions total for Trump, and 11 for Clinton.  Vox said that Trump interrupted Clinton 37 times and she interrupted him 9 times. FiveThirtyEight (scroll down to the graphic) had it a little more one-sided: 44 for Trump, 4 for Clinton. I did my own count, using the transcript. I have Trump at 53 interruptions and Clinton at 11, nearly a 5:1 margin. Don't let anyone tell you that she's just as bad as him on this. She interrupted less often than Chris Wallace.

No single word stood out to me like in other debates. But I did want to track the use of "very." Clinton used it 21 times. Trump used it 45 times, including 6 uses of "very, very" (counts as two uses of the word), including three in one specific answer.

Reactions
I didn't hear as much complaining as during the second debate or after the first debate. But there were a few subtle gripes/swipes at moderator Chris Wallace:
• When Wallace would bring up an issue that put Clinton on the spot, Trump said "Right" or "Correct" or "Thank you." It was as if he were saying, "It's about time you did."
• Clinton's only gripe/swipe was "If you went on to read the rest of the sentence, you'll see..."
• Trump picks a little fight with Wallace over Aleppo, but it's a weird fight. Wallace notes that Trump's description of Aleppo as having fallen is not true, and tries to ask about it, but Trump argues with him over how bad it is, I guess? The question Wallace eventually asks is that Russia and Syria have been bombing Aleppo, so why did you say it fell to ISIS?
• Wallace correctly points out that Trump's tax plan/economic goals are not going to address entitlements at all.

I should talk about Chris Wallace real quick. I have a short list of Fox News people that I like (Bret Baier and often Megyn Kelly come mind first), but he's at the top of it. I like hard news people and not personalities, essentially. Chris Wallace treats people on both sides fairly, in that he asks pointed, pertinent questions and lets the subject talk. He didn't have a very good relationship with his father, 60 Minutes/CBS reporter Mike Wallace, but he clearly learned a lot from both his father and his mentor, Walter Cronkite. Washington Post reporter Erik Wemple hit the best part of Wallace's performance: Get the substantive debate in early before you get to the personality/scandal issues later.

Facts

Here are a couple links. CNN on the facts. NBC News on the facts.

Politifact rated 36 statements. It rated 15 Clinton statements, and 10 of those were true/mostly true, with 0 (!) false/mostly false. It rated 19 Trump statements, with 6 true/mostly true and 11 false/mostly false. The final two were not really rated.

Breakdown
If you've been watching politics over the last.. *sigh* ... year and a half, then you know that Clinton is one of the two best debaters of this election cycle (the other being Ted Cruz, with Chris Christie not far behind). That's not to say I agree with either all the time, but they're both the best debaters, given their law degree. She can be beaten, but she won't beat herself. National Review editor Rich Lowry tweeted: "Hillary is pedestrian and over-programmed, but never made a notable mistake across 3 debates."

Trump's body language was better than the town hall format. I heard an interesting theory about Trump recently originally proffered by his Art of the Deal ghostwriter. I'm not sure I completely agree with it, but it did affect the way I viewed his interjections/outbursts: Most negative things he says about others are actually describing him. It's projection, according to psychologists. This explains the following: Ruth Bader Ginsburg making inappropriate comments (he says inappropriate things often), the "that was a great pivot off of..." line (he did it all the time in the debate), "You're the puppet!", "She's been proven a liar on so many different ways" (See the Facts section above), getting upset when Clinton interrupts (see the number of interruptions above), she incited violence at his rallies (It was the other way around), the Clinton Foundation doesn't do any good work (the Trump Foundation has many problems of its own), "You are the one who is unfit," and calling Clinton nasty. Again, it's not completely perfect, but it certainly was a different lens of viewing his attacks. But in the end, I think Trump had several major mistakes that cost him the debate.

The Supreme Court segment was largely traditional and hit on their policy differences. Trump did seem to believe that just putting conservative justices on the Supreme Court would "automatically" reverse Roe v. Wade, but that's not how it works. He said abortion would go back to the states, which... if he's as pro-life as he says, wouldn't he want to just ban it outright? I don't understand his tactics, but both explained their policy differences well.

The immigration segment was also largely traditional, though Clinton got a little defensive on Trump's accusation that she's for open borders. But the immigration debate leads to a win for Trump followed by a major mistake. Wallace asks Clinton, per WikiLeaks, if she's in favor of open borders. She responds by saying the quote referred to energy and pivoting to WikiLeaks and Russia's involvement, which is probably accurate. She tries to turn the tables on Trump by challenging him to reject Russian espionage/involvement in the election. He calls her out: "That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders." The crowd clamors and Wallace tries to calm the audience down. Trump should have stopped there, but instead keeps going. He talks about her desire for open borders, then in the third sentence talks about people coming from Syria. Then, in quick succession: radical Islamic terrorism, don't know Putin, Putin doesn't respect Clinton. She gets in a good retort about Putin wanting a puppet for president, and Trump can't stand it. Three interruptions, all with some variation of "no puppet/you're the puppet." Any adult can see that the "No, you are" argument is silly. This is Mistake 1.

He then gets into it with her about believing the 17 government agencies who say the leaks are from Russia. She's saying he trusts Russia more than 17 government agencies. He says he doubts them, flat-out admitting what Clinton was intimating. This is Mistake 2.

Those were mistakes, but the debate was still fairly on track. The topic moves to the economy, and Clinton gives a fine, if unremarkable answer. Trump gets 2 minutes, and spends the first paragraph talking about how bad Clinton's tax plan would be, then shifts for five paragraphs (!) about our foreign allies not paying their share, then three paragraphs about how bad NAFTA was, then two and a half sentences about his own plans. Clinton follows with "Let me translate that if I can." He says "You can't." Then she explains his tax cuts better than he did. This portion is pretty typical for a while, even though he praised himself for getting a fact right (TPP as "gold standard.").

She gets an answer, and hits him on exporting jobs and using Chinese steel and gives some details about her plans. That's where he starts to lose it. He asks why she didn't do anything over the years, and she interrupts that she voted. He gets agitated — "Excuse me. My turn." He goes back to her point about using Chinese steel and seems to admit to it while using a terrible argument. He says "Make it impossible for me to do that." In essence, he's simultaneously admitting to doing it while making the argument that the watchdog (Clinton) is to blame and not the thief (him) — a thief's gonna thief, I guess? This casts him as the bad guy, though. This is Mistake 3.

Then the topics turn to Clinton's favor. The next topic is on "Fitness for President," followed by foreign policy. These are better topics for Clinton than Trump. The first question in the Fitness for President section is about Trump's sexual assault accusers. He gives a disastrous response. He says they've been debunked (They really haven't been.). He accuses her and Obama of causing the violence at his rallies (Long story short, there may have been some planted protesters, but none caused violence -- that was Trump's supporters.). He says he didn't apologize to his wife. He accuses her of planting the sexual assault accusations. She gets a chance to respond, and rips into him, quoting him accurately and turning it into an inspirational, uplifting message that we have to create a society that rejects that. It's a strong response. He tries to pivot to the emails. She hammers it by pointing out his comments on a disabled reporter, the Gold Star family, POWs and Judge Curiel. He weakly tries to change the subject to ISIS. The topic turns to the Clinton Foundation, and Trump eventually brings up his own foundation as a contrast. Chris Wallace asks if that money was used to settle lawsuits, and he sort of admits it ("There was. There was.") I'm not going to say this section was a mistake, but it was a terrible series of subjects for him, and he stumbled while defending himself. He was already off balance at this point, throwing accusations and getting hit hard by Clinton (and Wallace). He'd already made three major mistakes.

Wallace then asks if the election is rigged/will he accept the results. This lead all the major networks and is still an issue this morning. He wouldn't say yes. This is obviously Mistake 4. He doubled down this morning, saying he would accept the results "if I win." *SIGH* Look, I'm not going to spend time on something as clearly black-and-white terrible as this.

He blames the media, talks over Chris Wallace — who is trying to explain how important this answer is, invents voter fraud and says she should have been disqualified for her emails. Clinton hits back with her best answer of the night. "Every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction... it is rigged against him." She notes the FBI investigation. She notes the Iowa caucus and Wisconsin primary. She notes Trump University. She even brings up his Emmy loss, and he can't help but interject "should have gotten it." The crowd laughs, because he's seemingly verified her point. He tries to hit back with emails, but Wallace moves on to foreign policy, another Clinton strength.

Trump tries to cite Bernie Sanders, and Clinton says you should ask Bernie who he supports for president. Trump walked into that one. The rest of the foreign policy segment goes fine, aside from the Trump-Wallace fight about Aleppo.

Wallace asks both about entitlements and the budget, and Trump does not address the question whatsoever. He talks the economy (not the issue) and tax cuts (also not the issue) before Wallace points out those don't affect the entitlements issue. Trump then spends three paragraphs on Obamacare, which is also not the issue. Clinton actually answers the question, saying that the wealthy paying their fair share will help. She notes that she and Trump will pay more, assuming he won't find a way out of it. This prompts his "such a nasty woman" line. He's being attacked, but this isn't exactly an out-of-bounds statement. His response is accusatory and unnecessary. I don't know that it stoops to sexism, but it's really off-putting. It's Mistake 5.

She didn't make major mistakes, and he made five. She swept the three debates. She can be beaten by a good debater. Trump can't get out of his own way to put on a good debate.

Other thoughts
• The transcript I read has "You're the puppet!" with an exclamation mark at the end. Grammatically, I find exclamation points like the word "very" -- they rarely mean a whole lot, and a period is just as effective. In fact, the next use is "No, you're the puppet." With a period. The decision to put an exclamation mark on the first one made me laugh.
• The Supreme Court was the first question, and it's perhaps the best display of their differences, touching on gay marriage, Citizens United, gun rights and abortion. Trump spends an entire paragraph griping about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He also said that justices shouldn't decide what they want to hear, but... that's the way the Supreme Court works — they vote among themselves on which subjects to hear.
• Trump says that Clinton was "extremely upset" about a gun rights case. Wallace asked if she was "extremely upset." She said she was just upset. How do you quantify "extremely"?
• Things Trump interjected to say were wrong: 1) his cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons (depends on the specific country). 2) There's no quote about nuclear weapons for some of those countries (Yes, there is.)
• At one point, Trump says he's not going to single out countries that aren't paying for defense. Then he immediately names Japan, Germany, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Great job not singling them out.
• Trump believes the U.S. should be growing at the same rate as India and China. But those are developing markets. The U.S. should be compared with its peers in Europe and Japan, and by those standards, it's doing better than its peers.
• The Celebrity Apprentice was, in fact, interrupted for the Osama Bin Laden raid announcement.
• Just before the part about accepting the election, Clinton uses an interruption effectively: "Made with Chinese steel." He doesn't argue the point.
• Clinton, at one point, notes that Trump took out a major ad against Reagan's trade policies. This makes her the champion of Reagan, which is a weird dichotomy. Trump essentially says, "Yeah, we disagreed on trade."
• Chris Wallace gave them both an unexpected 1-minute closing statement. It was this campaign in short. Clinton: I'm reaching out, we need to work together, make the economy work, I understand the presidency, my mission is children and families, please vote for me. There's no mention of her opponent, and it's all positive. Trump: Attack on Clinton for closeness with donors, make America great again, take care of military, stop illegal immigrants, law and order, people of color shouldn't believe her, it's four more years of Barack Obama (note: Obama's favorability is over 50 percent. Probably not a great tactic.). His response is negative about his opponent while espousing a few authoritarian/protectionist policies.

Election Update

Presidential
I said I'm eliminating the Toss-Up category, so let me get into it. Clinton is way ahead in Colorado, Wisconsin and Virginia. All but one poll of Nevada shows a Clinton lead. New Hampshire's not close. North Carolina hasn't had Trump with a lead this month, and there have been many polls. They've all been close, but consistent. Pennsylvania's less close than North Carolina. Florida has consistently shown a 4-point Clinton lead, or thereabouts. Trump keeps the lead in Georgia. Arizona is close, but there have been 8 polls since the first debate: two ties, two 1-point Trump leads, and four Clinton leads of varying sizes. It's blue this week. Most of the recent polls of Iowa have shown Trump leads. It's red. Ohio is also really tough to call. Most of the newest polls have a slight Trump lead. I'm going to turn it red for this week. For lack of more polls, I'm going to give Maine's second district to Trump and Nebraska's second, too. I don't have much reasoning, but it's a gut feeling. Finally, Utah. Utah is a three-way race between Clinton, Trump and Evan McMullin. I think Trump wins, but McMullin makes him sweat every one of those electoral votes. Arizona moves blue. Ohio moves red. Iowa moves red. Maine and Nebraska's 2nd district go red. States to watch: Utah, Iowa, Ohio, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida. Electoral College: 333 Clinton, 205 Trump, 270 to win.

Senate
I'll do a more in-depth analysis of the Senate next week. But I said I'm removing the Toss-Up category. Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana stay as flips to the Democrats. Two good polls came out in Pennsylvania. I'm going to give incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Toomey the edge for now. It moves red. North Carolina is really, really close. Only one poll shows a lead larger than 2 points. However, they've mostly been consistent for the incumbent GOP Sen. Richard Burr. The important race in Nevada had several new polls. The trend is toward Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and away from a flipped seat for the Republicans. There are not many polls of my state, Missouri. Jason Kander (who was scheduled to come speak at Jewell, but canceled) has a tie and a lead in the two most recent polls. I'm flipping Missouri blue. Based on polling, the closest race is in New Hampshire between incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Gov. Maggie Hassan. For every poll with a lead for one candidate, the other has one of equal size. It's close. I'm giving the edge to Hassan for now, since the state will go blue. Nevada, New Hampshire and Missouri go blue. North Carolina and Pennsylvania go red. +5 Democrats to take a 51-49 Senate advantage.

Summary Judgments

I'm not a fan of WikiLeaks. That's because how you get information is just as important as the information itself. They're not journalists. Journalists are not hackers. Journalists have ethics (usually). Marco Rubio agrees, and warned the GOP not to celebrate WikiLeaks going after Democrats. Because although it's the Dems now, it could be the GOP later.  •  •  •  Here's a link to a great breakdown of the two candidate's health care plans, put as simply as possible.  •  •  •  After the debate, we watched The Langoliers -- Alyson and I's favorite terrible Stephen King interpretation. It's so bad, everyone: Lots of vacant airport staring, lots of dramatic nothing happening, lots of bad acting. The most famous actor you'd recognize is Dean Stockwell (not Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap). It's ripe for MST3K.  •  •  •  Obamacare has its ups and downs. That might make a good topic of discussion in a future edition of News Judgments after the election. But one thing I didn't realize was that its estimated price tag has been below estimates — and the estimates have been revised downward five times!  •  •  •  I couldn't agree more with this request to kill the "Spin Room."  •  •  •  I want.  •  •  •  I'm debating whether I want to run a Thanksgiving morning 5K. I want to, but it's hard to go running in the early morning when the sun hasn't risen (usually around 6:30 a.m.).  •  •  •  Roland's favorite day care worker is going to leave, so he's going to be a wreck after next week. Evie can help. Twice this week, I've been accidentally kicked or something, and covered the injured body part. Both times, she's said "I kiss it" before kissing it. It warms my heart.