Trump's support after the Wounded Warriors event

[Progressive]

Is he a genius or an idiot re: dropping out of the debate?

[politicallpd]

Look, Trump essentially accomplishes three things with this move.

He:
1) proves his strength-- 'he'll stand up for himself!'
2) Sucks all the oxygen out of the conversation in the critical 4-5 days before the Iowa

and most importantly,
3) If he doesn't show at the debate, Ted Cruz goes from the hunter to the hunted. If he does show, he's already scrambled everyone's debate prep. And the storyline will be that he did show. No matter what, he is the story.

Brilliant move. He's been 5 steps ahead of everyone else this whole time-- there's no indication that he's wrong now.

[defe07]

Sorry to say but he's on the verge of wrapping up the whole thing! And it's all the media's fault for giving him this 24/7 free media coverage a.k.a The Trump Show!!

[Volrath50]

Yeah, regardless of whether this is overall a good or bad move for him, it pretty much prevents any other candidate from gaining any air time. All the coverage is and will be about Trump, and viewership for the debate will be down by at least 1/3, possibly more. Even if someone has a great debate, far fewer people will see it, and even fewer will hear about it second hand.