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Donald Trump spent more on hats than Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal raised in three months. Democrat Martin O’Malley’s fundraising for the quarter was dwarfed by rival Bernie Sanders’s haul in just the 24 hours after Tuesday’s debate. And Hillary Clinton’s parking expenses surpassed Lincoln Chafee’s entire third-quarter haul.

It is a sad state of affairs when a bona fide Renaissance man cannot get traction in the race for this nation’s Presidency. We have seen the likes of Winston Churchill, author, wit, strategist, Cabinet Minister, hero in the United Kingdom. Vaclav Havel, already an iconic poet and playwright in then Czechoslovakia, led a revolution and rose to the presidency. But not here in the United States. Guys like that don’t have a chance.

Thursday is the deadline for presidential campaigns to submit their third quarter fundraising reports to the Federal Election Commission. Many campaigns — confident in their numbers or hoping to inoculate the response to bad ones — have already released top-line details. For all of them, though, it’s a moment that’s not unlike heading to the doctor for a particularly invasive examination.

The first Democratic debate is in the books, so we surveyed the state of the Democratic primary in this week’s 2016 election Slack chat. As always, the transcript below has been lightly edited.

The first debate among the Democratic candidates was held last night, and most press accounts seem to agree that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out on top. A special version of the POLITICO Caucus (they normally weigh in on Friday) offers the following assessment:

Insiders: A runaway victory for Clinton

Hillary Clinton won — by a landslide.

Clinton was the clear winner of the first Democratic presidential debate, according to the assessment of both Democrats and Republicans in this week’s ... Read More >>

Before last night’s debate, I suggested the media was likely to emerge with one of two narratives about the state of Hillary Clinton’s campaign: Either she was mounting a comeback, or she was in a downward spiral. “It may not take all that much,” I wrote, “for the media to choose one narrative over another and then find all sorts of ‘evidence’ to reinforce it.”

Bernie Sanders dominated social media during the first Democratic debate, capturing most of the conversation on Facebook and the most talked about moment on Twitter.

Hillary Clinton did take No. 1 on Twitter during the half point of the debate, becoming the most mentioned candidate from either party.