Trump complains first debate interferes with NFL schedule
As each day passes, Trump campaign seems more like something one would see in a Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell movie....I highly doubt Mitt Romney complained that the debate schedule w/President Obama was going to interfere with "The Walking Dead"..
Will Trump Show Up For Debates?
The first presidential debate is scheduled for September 26, still almost two months away. Nonetheless, Donald Trump is already complaining about the schedule, taking to Twitter to declare:
As usual, Hillary & the Dems are trying to rig the debates so 2 are up against major NFL games. Same as last time w/ Bernie. Unacceptable!
It's true that two of the three debates will be on, for at least part of the time, against an NFL game. Whether Falcons-Saints and Giants-Packers both count as "major" games is more debatable (the latter is likely much more worthy of that label than the former). In any case, Trump either doesn't know or doesn't care that the presidential debates are handled very differently than the candidates' debates. Candidates' debates are managed by the respective parties, and the schedule could be changed easily, so Hillary Clinton could, and likely did, have an influence there. Presidential debates, by contrast, are overseen by a non-partisan commission, and the schedule was set nearly a year ago, before any candidates were known. There is no practicable way Hillary Clinton could have influenced the process.
So why, exactly, is The Donald complaining? Well, one very good possibility that has been whispered about for the last week, and is now being spoken aloud by former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (and others), is that Trump does not want to debate, and he's trying to give himself cover for not showing up. He may not want to put in the hours upon hours that it takes to prepare. Or, he may be worried about putting his foot in his mouth again, nuclear triad-style. Or, he may recognize that his aggressive approach worked well against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), but it may not play so well when turned on a woman. If Trump were to decline to debate, it's hard to say what the impact would be. Presidential debates are a fairly new part of American politics (dating back to the 1960s), and there's just no precedent for a candidate opting out. It is also not clear how the commission would respond. To put pressure on Trump, the commission could say that if he doesn't show up, the moderator will simply question Clinton for 2 hours, giving her an opportunity to show off her policy chops. (Z)
www.electoral-vote.com
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