re: #11 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Just struck me that when DT was at the Republican debates, the entire show revolved around him by nature of his celebrity status and dominant personality. He had trouble holding his own in a setting where he was not the focus of attention.

I would suspect that his strategy for any upcoming debates will be to try to wrest control of and hold center stage at all costs.

And yet, he DID hold center stage, and that was his undoing. Both Holt and to an even greater extent Clinton just let him talk. Hillary pushed a few buttons to get him mad, and Holt asked completely predictable questions, and Trump turned into a babbling mess onstage.

Two things that helped him in the GOP Primary debates screwed him last night:

First, the Primary debates had multiple participants, so Trump only had to speak when he wanted to, and he could let the other guys talk when he didn’t. Thus, he limited his time on camera to when he CHOSE TO BE on camera, and only spoke when he chose to. Last night, he was on camera THE WHOLE TIME. And he couldn’t stand back and let the others talk when he had nothing to say. He had to answer.

Second, the Primary debates had poorly controlled, raucous, partisan audiences, while the audience last night had agreed to ‘no applause, no reaction’. All his applause lines dropped into silence. He feeds on the applause, and that’s why his rallies are effective - he’s reading the audience. When the audience is silent, it tells him nothing about how well he’s doing.