To be clear, I suspect that Clinton et. al. saw nothing but upside from goading Trump into running, and once they were pleasantly surprised by the amount of upside, they doubled down. I'll even go as far as hypothesizing that they foresaw the Trump/Breitbart angle, especially once he went on muthafuckin' Infowars. /r/The_donald, and his AMA there, pretty much illustrated that he was a highly manipulable patsy who could be made to run like a bull at a red cape. I'm not saying they foresaw this outcome in its entirety, but I am saying that it is one of many outcomes within the probability fan (and probably more dramatic than they expected). I'll give you tinfoil hat, though. What the fuck was that shimmy during the first debate? I mean, the Alicia Machado salvo was loaded and armed and ready to fire. Was that some weird signaling shit or something? ;-)