Once again, Mr. Marks, I appreciate your analysis but I don't think I agree. How can someone run "a disruption strategy" banking on "mobilizing enough of the 63.7% of eligible voters who had disengaged from politics" while also "assum(ing) that most politically engaged Republican supporters will cast their ballots for him"? You're effectively arguing that insiders will vote for Trump because he's a Republican but outsiders will vote for him because he isn't a Republican.
Um, not really. I'm arguing that Trump was gambling on insiders voting for him because he won the Republican ticket (and, indeed, much of the party did fall into line after the Primaries), and outsiders voting for him because he's not a POLITICIAN. Pretty much all of this was abandoned in a single sentence in the debate, though.
I think you're putting a lot of weight on that statement when, if we consider how he said it, isn't that big of a deal. He acknowledged it but it's not like he was also happy and proud. It was more of a ya shit, I'm a politician now, that happened. Which wouldn't deter any of his voters really because they are well aware they are watching a political debate. I don't think highly of them either but they are at least aware of that. What they believe though is that they arent voting for a typical politician, something I wouldn't say he's messed up yet.