CLAIM: Trump’s old debate tricks won’t work on Clinton.

He entered each debate with a game plan and flawlessly executed it. By the time the debates began, for instance, Trump was at the top of national and battleground Republican polls. So he was able to consistently tout his polling strength while needling opponents such as Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. Trump never missed an opportunity to remind the audience he was the only candidate self-funding his campaign. He claimed vast wealth and said it ensured he was not beholden to special interests. He attacked other candidates on stage for accepting his personal donations, which he said were accompanied by leverage and return favors. And he railed against the corrupting influence of super PACs, including the one supporting Bush that raised more than $100 million.

Trump also would constantly tussle with debate moderators in order to curry favor from the audience. This started in Cleveland when Fox News’ Megyn Kelly confronted him with insulting remarks he had made about women, extended to the CNBC debate in Boulder, and culminated in Houston with his dressing-down of Salem Radio’s Hugh Hewitt, who had pressed him on his failure to release tax returns. Finally, Trump was a debate chameleon who receded from the spotlight at crucial moments for extended periods of time. He never participated in a debate with fewer than four candidates, and he never spoke longer than 30 minutes.

These tactics that worked so well for him in the primaries will be difficult to replicate in his trio of upcoming debates against Clinton.

I think Aaron Kall might be conflating Trump’s points from the primary debates with Trump’s style. The issues changed from forum to forum, question to question, but his style remained essentially Trump throughout — dialed down for more serious issues, dialed back up whenever he could, but always Trump. And voters respond to Trump’s take-no-guff style at least as much as they do to whatever the topic-of-the-moment might have been during the dozen or so GOP debates.

Trump also had the benefit of honing his skills and his style against 16 hungry GOP competitors. Hillary Clinton had only Bernie Sanders (who pulled his best punches) to square off against, plus a couple of other contenders so milquetoast that I can’t remember their names at this early hour without consulting Google first.

The last time Clinton had to square off against someone with so much style, it was eight years ago and his name was Barack Obama. And Clinton doesn’t seem to have the strength or health she enjoyed back then.

In either case, we’ll find out tonight, and of course I’ll be drunkblogging the debate at the PJMedia home page.

DISPATCHES FROM THE UNCANNY VALLEY: “On the eve of the first presidential debate, Clinton’s campaign is launching a drive to convince voters that she is, well, human.”

Ahh, the umpteenth attempt to unveil “the real Hillary!” And shades of Time magazine’s postmortem for Al Gore after the 2000 election:

So perhaps it’s fitting that even in defeat, Clinton seems poised to dominate Gore’s political life. This was the man, after all, who brought Gore to the executive branch, who shared books and jokes with him, and then, as Gore sees it, betrayed him not once with a shocking infidelity, but twice: By turning just enough voters against the administration with his various extracurricular activities, the President helped crush Gore’s chances at victory Tuesday night. Clinton’s inexorable charm got him elected, got him in trouble, and finally, set Gore up for a defeat. It was Bush, after all, who charmed voters, not Gore. It was Bush who managed to captivate with his easy laugh and his loose-limbed grace. Gore was stuck with the old caricature: A stiff, a robot, a typical policy wonk.

As that article was headlined, “Poor Al Gore, Forever to Be Haunted by [Bill] Clinton’s Ghost.” Bill’s made-for-TV charisma was sufficient to power him past a group of better known but plonking dullards in the 1992 Democratic primaries and ultimately into the White House. It kept him there even after being impeached by the House of Representatives, and allowed him to rebuild his image among many after leaving office, even after his license to practice law was suspended. But it’s not a gift that’s transferable, even to his closest associates.

(Classical reference In headline.)

TROLL LEVEL: UNPRECEDENTED. Gennifer Flowers accepts Trump’s invitation to sit in front next to Mark Cuban at debate.

I wonder what they’ll talk about.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS: JOHN SCHINDLER: The FBI Investigation of EmailGate Was a Sham: We now have incontrovertible proof the Bureau never had any intention of prosecuting Hillary Clinton.

How exactly Cheryl Mills got immunity, and what its terms were, is the long-awaited “smoking gun” in EmailGate, the clear indication that, despite countless man-hours expended on the year-long investigation, James Comey and his FBI never had any intention of prosecuting Hillary Clinton – or anyone – for her mishandling of classified information as secretary of state.

Why Comey decided to give Mills a get-out-of-jail-free card is something that needs proper investigation. This is raw, naked politics. . . .

Corruption is the tamest word to describe this sort of dirty backroom deal which makes average Americans despise politics and politicians altogether.

How high in this administration EmailGate went is the key question, and it’s been reopened by the latest tranche of redacted documents that the FBI released – on Friday afternoon, as usual. There are lots of tantalizing tidbits here, including the fact that early in Hillary’s term at Foggy Bottom, State Department officials were raising awkward legal questions about her highly irregular email and server arrangements.

Most intriguing, however, is the revelation that Hillary was communicating with President Obama via personal email, and he was using an alias. The alias he used with Hillary, and apparently others, was withheld by the FBI, and let it be said the fact that the president wanted to disguise his identity in unclassified email is not all that odd.

What is odd, however, is the fact that Obama previously told the media that he only learned of Hillary’s irregular email and server arrangements from “news reports.” How the president failed to notice that he was emailing his top diplomat at her personal, clintonmail.com address, not a state.gov account, particularly when they were discussing official business, is something Congress may want to find out – since certainly the FBI won’t.

Not if it can help it.

SETH CROPSEY: NATO Should Expel Islamist Turkey.

According to Erdogan, the leader of the moderate Islamic movement that favors secularism orchestrated an Islamist coup in July while living in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. This proposition is far-fetched.

However, its underlying argument — that Islamists have taken control of Turkey’s government — is fact.

Erdogan himself, both before and after the failed coup, has been working steadily to transform Turkey into an Islamist state. As of today, Erdogan has succeeded. Although not an Iranian theocracy, Turkey’s leadership is explicitly Islamist.

Its values and goals are antithetical to American interests and those of NATO as an alliance of free, democratic states that respect the rule of law.

Such a nation has no place in NATO, despite its previous history as a critical American ally.

Read the whole thing.

AMERICAN HOSTAGE LEFT TO BUY HIS OWN PLANE TICKET AFTER IRAN RELEASE: Pastor Saeed Abedini “said he and other hostages were left to fend for themselves after flying from Iran to Germany when they were released after the Obama Administration’s $400 million payment to Iran. After spending a few days in a hospital in Germany, Adedini was surprised to hear that he needed to buy his own plane ticket home. ‘We were actually all shocked because I came out; I just had prison clothes and [they] just told us you need to buy your own ticket.’”

In an article for Fox News, Abedini adds:

During the 3 and a half years of my imprisonment, there was no income for my family. When I returned to America, I was virtually homeless. My wife, my family and I were victims of unbelievable trauma. We are still suffering because of it in countless, painful ways.

Yet I was informed when our flight from Iran landed in Germany that I would have to buy my own plane ticket back to the US. They didn’t even intend on helping me get home. Without the kindness of friends like the Rev. Franklin Graham, I would have been stranded in Germany. In spite of all I had experienced, I felt completely dispensable.

How could so many people go to such great lengths, including a airplane full of $400 million in cash, and yet a plane ticket home for me was, as I was told, “not in the budget.”

Because if there’s one thing this administration is known for, it’s doling out taxpayer money with an eyedropper.

WEAK CANDIDATE SCORES WEAKLY: “You know, that’s not that good. Clinton is touted as supremely qualified — even the most qualified person ever to run for President. How come only 57% of the respondents will give her the minimal status of ‘qualified’?”

CEASEFIRE UPDATE: Syria airstrikes kill 85 people in Aleppo amid diplomatic row.

“Everyone in Aleppo is depressed,” an activist on the ground told CNN.

“They don’t know what they have done to become targets for warplanes. Fear is clear in the eyes of anyone you see walking the streets of Aleppo. Yesterday I saw a woman walking on the street and crying , no clear reason, just crying.”

Hundreds of airstrikes have pummeled the city, home to more than 250,000 people, since the Syrian government, backed by Russia, announced a renewed, “comprehensive” offensive Thursday following the collapse of a short-lived ceasefire.

It’s impossible to calculate how much American prestige President Obama has squandered in Syria, drawing disappearing red lines, making unenforceable demands, negotiating nonexistent ceasefires, and allowing ISIS to metastasize globally.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 27 things we learned from Clinton’s FBI files. Here’s just one: “Clinton deleted nearly 1,000 emails with Petraeus.”

IF HILLARY LOSES, COULD THE DEMOCRATS WIND UP LIKE BRITAIN’S LABOUR PARTY?

What they haven’t been interested in is cisgendered white male liberals. The largely forgotten John Edwards fell by the wayside quickly in 2008, and Martin O’Malley, with credentials similar to those of Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis, attracted zero support in 2016.

That leaves them with no obvious choices if Clinton loses this year. Their most visible and attractive left-wingers, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will be over 70 in 2020. Prominent black and Hispanic officeholders tend to represent overwhelmingly Democratic constituencies and have made few of the bows to moderation that made Barack Obama a plausible national candidate in 2008.

It’s possible that a post-2016 Democratic Party could look like Britain’s Labor Party, which has abandoned the New Labor posture of Tony Blair that produced three landslide victories in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Now, under far-left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn, the party seems headed for landslide defeat in 2020.

This is why they’re pulling out all the stops. Well, that, and this: “For Hillary Clinton, winning that election may be a legal necessity to protect her from prosecution.”

ROTTEN TOMATOES: All my friends universally hated this show.  I don’t know, I don’t watch television.  BUT since they all hated it, I thought it deserved (dishonorable) mention. Don’t watch the new MacGyver if you value your sanity!  Concurring: Fall has come and so have the shows to avoid.

FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS: Echoes of Liberty: The Clarion Call, Vol 2. 

ALL THE EGGS ARE BROKEN; NO OMELET IN SIGHT: Socialism’s left Venezuela a ‘walking dead’ nation.  In progress at a country near and dear to you.

NOT CREEPY  CANDY CROWLEY’S: ‘Fact Checking’ the Candidates at the Debate: Whose Job is It?

FROM DECLAN FINN: For All Their Wars Are Merry: An Examination of Irish Rebel Songs.

I’M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN BEVIS AND BUTTHEAD WEREN’T MODELS FOR EMPOWERED WOMEN: Why is Amy Schumer Talking Tampons on the Red Carpet?

SO, NEW YORK TIMES: When you say your endorsement of Hillary is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience and courage, you indict yourselves in a far worse way than I could ever do. Also, “pointillist”?  You might as well say her husband governed by frottage. You’ve gone past being repugnant.  We, here in flyover country, are pointing and laughing.

COME FOR THE DENUNCIATION OF PATRIARCHY, STAY FOR THE CRAZY CHICKS: These are history’s hottest messes.

AH! THAT IVORY TOWER: Call for Submissions for Edited Book, “Loanwords to Live With: An Ecotopian Lexicon Against the Anthropocene”.  For those of you who don’t speak fluent “crazy academic, allow me to translate: Yes, this is a serious call for inventing a new language to use when talking about the physical environment and things associated with it. I suspect taxpayer funds are going to be dumped into this.