Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)Pass the popcorn
Tonight's the night.
An estimated 100 million people are expected to tune in to the first of three planned presidential debates at 9 this evening. The question is how many folks will still be watching when the debate ends 90 minutes later at 10:30 (or will they have turned to the Monday Night Football matchup between the Falcons and Saints?).
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump will be the only participants. Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party failed to make the cut based on their results in the most recent major polling.
Televised presidential debates are fairly new events in U.S. presidential politics. The 1960 Kennedy and Nixon square off marked the first one. Nixon spurned make-up and the result was a sweaty Nixon contrasted with JFK's strong, youthful and ready (also under make-up) look.
Since then, we've been off to the races, and political junkies at NBC recently catalogued some memorable moments, like Al Gore's heavy sigh, George H.W. Bush's look at his watch, Mitt Romney's "binders full of women." The binders full of women comment marked a milestone of its own, as it was the first to be made into a meme that went viral.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan, who in his first term had been the oldest candidate ever to run for office, gave skeptics fodder about his age when, as he sought a second term, sometimes seemed at a loss for the words. But in the second debate of his re-election bid, he delivered this zinger to a question about his age and health: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I'm not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." Even challenger Walter Mondale guffawed.
In 1988, Michael Dukakis failed a voter gut check when he ignored the part of a question that asked if his wife was the victim of rape and murder, would he favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer. Dukakis didn't touch the personal aspect of the question and rather woodenly went straight to substance of policy. "No I don't I opposed the death penalty all of my life. " Voters wanted to feel a heartbeat.
In 2012, there was the Candy Crowley fact-check moment when Mitt Romney paced the stage to set a trap for Barack Obama, whom Romney thought had never called Benghazi an act of terror. Obama suggested he check the transcript of his speech in the Rose Garden on the day after the attack. But Romney foolishly pushed on, until Crowley, respectfully had to said, "He did, sir." Obama urged her to say it again a little louder.
This year, there's just no telling what we'll hear and see.
Trump's self-funding campaign
Donald Trump's presidential campaign has paid Trump family businesses more than $8.2 million, according to a Politico analysis of campaign finance filings. Politico terms this fact "an integrated business and political operation without precedent in national politics."
The Republican nominee's campaign has paid $1.3 million for his rent on his campaign offices, $544,000 for food and facilities for events and meetings, $333,000 to corporate staffers who helped with traveling security and his wife's convention speech.
Apparently what Trump meant when he kept saying he was self-funding his campaign was that his campaign was funding him and his family.
Add to that the allegations of "self-dealing" from the Trump Foundation after The Washington Post reported the foundation gave out $258,000 to settle legal disputes against Donald Trump's for-profit businesses. Several lawyers with expertise in tax and nonprofit law told the Post and The New York Times that those foundation payments appear to be egregious and clear-cut cases of "self-dealing," or using charity money to benefit the leaders of that charity or their businesses.
Michael D'Antonio, author of "It's Never Enough: Donald Trump and His Pursuit of Success," told MSNBC Thursday that this is business as usual for Donald Trump.
"Profit is his measure for what is right or wrong," D'Antonio said. "If he can beat bankruptcies four times and leave his creditors in the lurch, if he can walk away from small business people in Atlantic City and not pay them what they're due, he'll do it. Because the benefit accrues to him."
As with many things Trumpian, the Donald talks so much, it's easy to find a brag about anything and everything. He was quoted in Fortune Magazine in April 2000 saying, "It's very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it."
He's been playing us.