Jonathan Chait wonders if Donald Trump will weasel out of the debates with Hillary Clinton. I dunno. Common logic says that Trump needs a public K.O. to reverse the trend of his plunging poll numbers…but as Chait notes, "the 'candidate would never do something stupid' model has a poor record of predicting Trump's behavior so far."
Trump is saying he'll do it but he has to see the rules and make sure the moderators are acceptable to him. In other words, he has to be The Boss here and everyone has to appease him, plus he's setting up excuses in case he decides to chicken out. If he does, he has to be able to explain to his supporters that he could have mopped the floor with her but pulled out as a matter of principle and because everyone was trying to rig the debates against him.
I wonder if he is emotionally capable of walking out on a stage from a position of weakness. It's likely that Trump's poll numbers will be better by September 26, which is when the first one is scheduled. But as of today, Nate Silver's site has Hillary with a 94.7% chance of winning in the "if the election happened today" model and that's a lot of ground to make up for someone who needs to dominate every situation he's in. And I would think that the fact that it's a woman leading him by a wide margin would make it even more difficult.