My Trump-opposing friends seem to be divided about this Town Hall that he's doing tonight on NBC. Roughly half seem to think it's shameful that the network is giving this man air time; that he should either do the planned Town Hall with Biden or keep the hell off their television sets. The rest seem to think that the more the public sees of him, the less likely they are to vote for the guy. One suggested Biden in his competing town hall should just keep telling viewers to switch over to NBC.
Me, I'm kind of feeling it doesn't matter; that anyone who hasn't voted yet or isn't sure how they will is going to flip a coin or vote for Howie Hawkins (he's the Green Party candidate) or not vote or something. Still, more votes for my guy is always nice.
And I think it says something that most of you don't even know who the Green Party candidate is this time and I had to go look it up. The last two times out, we all knew it was Jill Stein.
I'm not watching much of the mud-wrestling though I have to admit to a certain fascination with Trump's ranting about the Nobel Peace Prize(s) he thinks he won or deserves a few dozen of or something. Being nominated for one is absolutely meaningless since hundreds of people are nominated each year, usually by one person, and the judges who actually pick the honoree must not take even take 98% of those nominations seriously.
Trump doesn't understand that. He doesn't understand that the best anyone can possibly do there is to win one, not a shelf full. He doesn't even understand that being "nominated" doesn't mean you've got a real shot at winning. It's like buying a lottery ticket and figuring out how you're going to spend all that money.
I'd be surprised if he even knows what the Nobel Peace Prize is. He just knows he doesn't have one and he wants a few, like he wants his face on Mount Rushmore and on all the stamps and money.
So there are all these clips of him complaining that the evil news media didn't make a headline story out of his "three" nominations — which were actually two different right-wing guys with no clout nominating him for the same one award — like the evil news media did with Obama. There was actually no attention paid when Obama was nominated and not all that much when, unlike Trump, Obama won.
But it's so important to Trump to always be The Victim, unfairly denied recognition of his greatness…so important to convince people that the only news reported about him that's true is the good stuff and even that isn't good enough…
Years ago when Ross Perot took his best shot at becoming President of the United States, he went on Larry King's show and other programs just before Election Day and confidently predicted he would get all 538 Electoral Votes. He would carry every single state in a landslide. And then when the actual votes were counted, he didn't come within fifty miles of winning even one of the electoral variety. The closest he came was 30% of the popular vote in Maine.
I wondered a lot about how much Mr. Perot actually believed he was going to win at all, let alone by the biggest victory in the history of politics. Even dictators who can have you killed for not voting for them don't win like that.
And I also wondered about the simple wisdom of predicting that because I think it made him look like a nutcase to voters who decided at the last minute. He may also have convinced a few of his supporters they could stay home because their ballots weren't needed.
There's a fine but significant line between spewing bullshit and actually believing your own bullshit and I still have no idea which side of that line Perot was on. Or quite where Donald Trump — the highly-aggrieved deserving winner of multiple Nobel Peace Prizes — is.
I've been nominated for three Emmy Awards and I've won a grand total of None of Them. I can live with that. What gripes me is that the friggin' Hollywood Reporter didn't run headlines saying I won six of them. Over the years, they've announced that Commie/Liberal Ed Asner has won seven. It's not fair, I tell you. It's not fair.