"Restrained" - One thing we can deduce from Trump's flubbed attempts at argument

[alcibiades_mystery]

It's pretty clear that Trump is being massacred by the Clinton negative advertisements. His campaign is in a panic over them. The Trump people's solution was to mention the attacks, attack the attacks, as it were, but make Trump seem above them. They wanted to liken the negative ads (like, say, his words about women) to what would be his own negative attacks, something something Bill Clinton? But he's too GOOD and RESTRAINED to do that, see?

This is, essentially, Minor League Rovianism, an amateurish and hackneyed attempt to flip the script, make his own weakness a strength, etc.

Needless to say, Trump is far too egotistical and lacks the experience and skill to pull off even this asinine Breitbartian plan, and so flubbed it completely. The keyword that the Trump people wanted out there was "restrained," which was to be opposed to Clinton being something like "wild and aggressive." Hence the word salad about temperament and Trump's weirdo espirit de l'escalier nonsense in the spin room. They were going to try to tie their own "restraint" to Clinton's negative ads in an attempt to blunt their force, since they're just delivering body blow after body blow.

This is actually the second attempt to undermine Clinton's negative ads. We saw a bunch of trolls around close to home two weeks ago all asking when Clinton was going to "go positive" or "be inspiring" in virtual unison, another set of talking points coming straight out of the Trump campaign. The negative ads are killing them.

It's likely that this was a Conway idea and that Trump hated it, which is why Conway can't stop saying "restrained" over and over again in increasingly desperate tones, and part of why Trump completely failed to pull it off. The real humor in it is two-fold:

1. Trump was wild and aggressive in yelling that he was restrained, completely undermining the whole strategy
2. Trump is now pot committed to being "unrestrained" in the next debate since that's how his own rabid voters read his comments, which were actually supposed to be geared toward undecideds.

I also think the Clinton people saw it coming, and countered it brilliantly.

The whole thing is a catastrophe.

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. The body blows eventually buckle the knees.

Amateur is the best description of the Assface campaign.

The Assface children looked stunned onstage after his drubbing at the hands of that small, but mighty, woman.

[cyberswede]

2. Aren't most of the negative ads Trump's OWN WORDS?

Hard to claim the HRC campaign is responsible for the shit he's said over the years.

[roscoeroscoe]

3. Ding!

How rude!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Not sure what you mean by "now pot committed"? not committed?

'now not committed to being unrestrained'? That double negative means 'committed to being restrained'.

Since when does a Trump commitment last more than 36 hours?

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. "Pot committed" is a poker term

It means he has so much in the pot on it that he has to do it even if he doesn't want to.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Cool, thanks! I learned something!

There's an old Turkish proverb which is smarter than being pot-committed: "However far you are down the wrong road, go back to the fork and take the good road."

In business (and presumably poker), bad bets should be written off. Poker does have the possibility there might be enough of a chance to win by keeping the bet going by bluffing or the other guy folding mistakenly or otherwise.

People tend to think that after they've invested a certain amount of money in something they have to keep going. Truly smart business people (Trump is not one) know that you have to evaluate your current position without much regard to the history of how you got there. (Of course promises must be kept but that is a separate issue.)

Yes, Trump is pot-committed to being unrestrained. He said he wouldn't read from a teleprompter because his rallies would find that boring and then about a week later began using a teleprompter and yes his audiences were bored!

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Wow

[geek tragedy]

8. I don't think the attack ads have his campaign in a panic, or are doing much damage at all.

I do think they're getting under his onion paper-thin skin, thus provoking the response.

What Trump is doing now is a combination of an trite political trick--talking about something while saying you're not talking about it--along with some "Jerk Store" attempts to retroactively fight the last debate (Obama did some of the latter after his sluggish performance in the first 2012 debate).

His idea of restraint is to pick fights with Rosie O'Donnell and Alicia "Most Sympathetic Beauty Queen Ever" Machado.