Sad News for Ajax

[_Kevin Graham]

Here you go substupid, from Business Insider:

At least three Fox News hosts cited unscientific online polls in the hours after Monday night's presidential debate to suggest Donald Trump emerged as the winner of the political showdown.

Trump had come out ahead in a slew of unscientific polls, or polls in which the sample of participants did not accurately reflect the sample of viewers who watched the debate. Such polls are almost always discounted by professional pollsters and analysts.

The only scientific survey conducted in the debate's immediate aftermath was the CNN/ORC instant poll, which showed that viewers thought Hillary Clinton handily defeated Trump. Respondents to a Morning Consult poll released Wednesday also said, 49% to 26%, that Clinton bested Trump in the debate.

"News networks and other organizations go to great effort and rigor to conduct scientific polls — for good reason," Blanton wrote in the memo. "They know quick vote items posted on the web are nonsense, not true measures of public opinion."

[_just me]

Lots posturing going on the only poll that means anything will be held Nov. 8th.

My greatest desire is that by the morning of November 9 there is an obvious, honest winner without the silliness of the 2000 recount debacle. I certainly have my preference for who wins in November but I would happily settle for an orderly transfer of power in January 2017.

HANGING CHADS!!!

*memories*

[_Analytics]

My greatest desire is that by the morning of November 9 there is an obvious, honest winner without the silliness of the 2000 recount debacle. I certainly have my preference for who wins in November but I would happily settle for an orderly transfer of power in January 2017.

If Trump gets the votes on November 8, I would hope that the actual people in the Electoral College would do their duty and vote for the person whom they as informed, rational adults know is the one qualified to be president, and not for the one who got the most votes in their respective states. This is the Constitution's main purpose for having an Electoral College--to protect the presidency and the country from an unqualified populist becoming the president.

Of course if that happened there would be a huge can of worms. But dealing with that would be better than a Trump president.

[_candygal]

Personally, I think we would have seen a better debate had it not been for Lester Holt. I wasn't impressed with his moderation. Very disappointed....and I don't particularly care for either candidate but had popcorn out and rearing to go on a good debate!!

[_Kevin Graham]

I don't know what he could have done better. The Right says he didn't ask the right questions, the Left said he didn't stop Trump from interrupting all the time.

[_Quasimodo]

Personally, I think we would have seen a better debate had it not been for Lester Holt. I wasn't impressed with his moderation. Very disappointed....and I don't particularly care for either candidate but had popcorn out and rearing to go on a good debate!!

I think Lester did just fine. He had a tightrope to walk and he did it very well. He didn't allow much monkey business from either candidate and kept things going nicely without too much interruption on his part. That was a job that I would never want and he pulled it off with style.

[_Some Schmo]

Personally, I think we would have seen a better debate had it not been for Lester Holt. I wasn't impressed with his moderation. Very disappointed....and I don't particularly care for either candidate but had popcorn out and rearing to go on a good debate!!

Can you articulate what you think he did wrong?

[_EAllusion]

Personally, I think we would have seen a better debate had it not been for Lester Holt. I wasn't impressed with his moderation. Very disappointed....and I don't particularly care for either candidate but had popcorn out and rearing to go on a good debate!!

Can you articulate what you think he did wrong?

I doubt this was Holt's fault, but the debate questions were far too topical to the current media cycles of this election. The kind of things people are thinking and talking about right now aren't necessarily what's going to matter to them in 2-8 years. What people are thinking and talking about in the media right now is largely driven by what the campaigns want to talk about. That means the questions focused unnecessarily on the messages the campaigns rather than asking questions that have more breadth about what a president will actually be involved with and where their answers might be more instructive. Why not ask a question about the expected coming boom in automation, how this will effect people's jobs, and what, if any, governmental response they expect to to favor in response to it? That's going to be a huge issue in the near future that hasn't touched this campaign.

I was also very disappointed that there was no question on climate change. This is one that is topical, especially as we are in the middle of the year that is obliterating temp records. It is an area where the candidates views distinctly differ and it is an issue that is near the top of significant issues for the next president. Clinton tried to shoe-horn it into an unrelated question because she's trying to win back millennials to her side and this is an issue millennials care a lot about. But that's no substitute for an actual question on it.

[_EAllusion]

Contrary to the view of Trump and other protectionists, American manufacturing jobs didn't crater because of trade deals. Trade deals were a minor factor that were a strong net economic benefit in other ways. American manufacturing output is actually drastically up since the signing of NAFTA, for instance. The main factor is improvement in the quality of computers and automated technology. Fewer people with more educated skills are needed to produce the same stuff.

It is the consensus opinion of experts that a similar automation boom is coming to a huge range of jobs that Americans do. It's gonna happen, and it's going to happen soon. For instance, automated driving is only a few years away from widespread market use and it isn't too much father from that that this technology will be able to replace paid drivers by being much cheaper. But even jobs like physicians are on the cusp of seeing massive gains in efficiency due to improvements in artificial intelligence and processing power. What happened in the manufacturing sector is about to happen to a huge chunk of the economy.

This isn't a doom and gloom scenario. In fact, it should be awesome. But that does depend on how the government reacts to it. It's the perfect issue to ask about because it makes candidates think about future issues they might have to deal with, but also gives insight into their current stances.

[_moksha]

Trying to get Trump to follow an agreed upon debate format would be like expecting a dancing bear to speak at General Conference and not go off script. You know the bear is going to lunge at the first picnic basket he smells and you know Trump will somehow stick his foot in his mouth the minute his foot is released from confinement.