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The First Presidential Debate
Not since Godzilla fought King Kong have people so anticipated the confrontation between a radioactive lizard and a brutish ape. The first presidential debate was billed to me by various news sources as the culmination of the campaign a TV event that could rival and surpass the Super Bowl. Naturally I was curious to see it, and like some people who watch NASCAR I was secretly hoping to see something (or in this case someone) crash and burn. I think my first and overall impression of the debate was that while at times spicy it really seemed very conventional overall. So if you didn’t see it, but have kept up with the news of the campaign you aren’t going to see anything new by watching it. Save yourself the 1.5 hours. That said I will go into a more detailed set of impressions about this debate.
First off, I would just like to put my cards on the table here. I am one of those scurrilous people who for a lack of a better term is a NeverTrumper. I don’t like the guy or his policies. I also don’t like Hillary Clinton and I have no plan to vote for her. In fact right now I am likely to vote for no one for president (or maybe Evan McMullin if he is on the ballot in IL, but then again I repeat myself). A recent post by @claire asked us what if anything Trump or Hillary could say at this debate that would change my mind to vote for them. Well whatever that thing was none of them said it. As is my wont I will break this down by the two candidates and give you my impressions of each and how they did.
Hillary Clinton: Going into this debate what I heard from pundits was that she had to work on making herself likable and trustworthy to the general electorate, while still seeming strong and presidential, and not overly scolding and pedantic. I think given her deficit in appearing human and warm she probably exceeded expectations, but it’s hard for me to judge this because of my own biases against her. Certainly if people were expecting her to be overly shrill and tone deaf like she was in a certain recent video, she managed to avoid that. She looked healthy, and relaxed. Maybe a bit too relaxed. There were times when her level of cool almost seemed like she was sedated. I think it might have served her well to actually be able to display some outrage and anger, but if she felt any of that it was not obvious. Frankly when Trump went on a long and somewhat incomprehensible defense of his birther stance I think some actual outrage would have helped her. I am not a fan of Obama but I felt more outraged and defensive of him than she did. Anger is fine especially if it is righteous anger, something that Trump took full advantage of in this debate and which she avoided.
The one thing that was obvious was that Hillary was well prepared and maybe even a bit too prepared, because I noticed that she had a few well prepped lines that she threw in there. I knew that they were well prepped because they were delivered poorly and for the most part fell flat. Most egregious of these was her Trumped Up Reaganomics line (just terrible delivery, made me wince to hear it). Though she did have one that stood out to me for its good delivery, it even made me smile. They were in the middle of their argument about taxes and tax returns and Trump was deflecting by going on about how in debt we are to which she interjected that it is perhaps because Trump has been avoiding paying his taxes. Generally I would say she did a good job of presenting the Democratic line, and if this had been a written essay she would have done better.
Donald Trump: Going into this debate what I kept hearing was two things. From Republicans it was that Trump needs to just show that he has some mastery of the facts and is solid, and from Democrats I kept hearing this whole thing about which Donald would show up at the debate. Frankly, I don’t much understand what the Dems were talking about. If there is one thing we know about Donald Trump it is that there is only one Donald Trump. Trump was aggressive; attacking Hillary as impotent and unable to solve any of our problems despite having been in office for 30 years (which is an exaggeration). He focused a lot on trade and how much we have been screwed by it and other nations. He talked about law and order in our cities, and on foreign policy he had a long argument with Lester Holt about his track record on Iraq (he was against it, just ask Sean Hannity). Trumps best asset in this debate was his righteous anger. He probably did the best job he has done of channeling and expressing it as an attack on Clinton that I can remember him doing. From the stand point of tone I think he sounded good, angry but not unhinged. From the stand point of policy I think he was on much shakier ground and I expect the “fact checkers” to be out in force.
This debate had some great Trumpian nonsensical deflections the best of which might have been his claim that he settled a lawsuit over discriminatory renting practices in the late 70’s with a non admission of guilt clause in it. Now I’m not a lawyer, but just because you don’t admit guilt in a settlement doesn’t actually mean you aren’t guilty. But, that is Trump for you. I imagine Democrats will be pulling their hair out over that one. One thing that struck me as a missed opportunity for Trump was to push much harder against Clinton on her server. That said Trump certainly seemed in charge and as long as you don’t try to parse out his words too much he probably did a good job projecting mastery of the issues. At least in so far as he needed to argue that things have been going poorly and Hillary Clinton has done nothing to fix them.
So who won the debate and who lost it? Well, I don’t really know. Frankly, if Hillary had been hoping to draw Trump into some jaw dropping tirade she failed. Nothing he did or said at this debate was any where as bad as other things he has done. That said, you never know what will get to people. If Trump hoped to look presidential he succeed only in so far as those watching want a president who is angry at everyone and everything for screwing America over (which arguably is what a lot of people want).
Let me know what you guys think of the debate. Who did you think did well? Were you convinced to change your vote?
Published in General
Val,
https://youtu.be/OVwsiIKOBsA
Regards,
Jim
I was using the analogy from memory, but seeing the video again I think it is safe to say that it is an accurate representation of what happened tonight. Same level of quality and substance. Thanks for posting the video Jim. One day I too will learn how to embed video’s into posts.
Val,
Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist. I needed the laugh. Too bad Stein & Johnson weren’t there. We could have had a visit from Mothra and Rodan.
Regards,
Jim
No, no, it is a classic video. One of the great monster fights. I would have loved to see Mothra and Rodan there too. Would Evan McMullin be the little Japanese boy then?
Ahhhh Hillzilla!
Trump missed some chances and looked stupid at times. He had swagger and zinged her a few times. She won but took some damage that may end up being longer lasting than what she hit him with.
I think your analysis is pretty good, I don’t quite give him the benefit in projecting mastery of the issues that you seem to, but to the average voter perhaps you are right, no need to confuse them with details. I think his birther defense makes him look silly and I expect Clinton will keep hammering him on it til the election. Not sure how he could extricate himself out of that hole even if he wanted to at this point. Clinton should also keep banging away on the deficit busting budget that Trump is proposing. Clinton looked better and had more knowledge of the issues, but Trump avoided the big gaffes, so it’s hard to see what way the polls are gonna be moved. Clinton did look well rested and was clear in her speaking so that probably allays a little of the health fears.
Experienced the debate through clips and BBC coverage. With an eight hour time difference I could not watch it live. Your analysis of the Debate Valiuth was far superior that presented by the BBC, who are strongly in Hillary’s camp. They had one interview with one college professor obviously a Hillary supporter, who they treated as giving impartial analysis.
Thank you for this post. My impression was that Trump pressed Hillary well on some of the corruption issues, was weaker on policy then he should have been and allowed people to see him goaded. Not good for him. Hillary seemed a bit drugged and programmed and unable to answer corruption charges. I think that gives her a slight edge in the debate but pretty much leave us where we started at. Nothing big to change from tonight.
One thing that Hillary might have helped herself on is that she seemed to last better at the debate than Donald did. Might make his charges of her having no stamina fall a little flatter.
oh yeah, Donald repeated his claim that hillary doesn’t look like a president, expect that to make the film with the other stuff he has said about women….
Oh yeah, one more thing, I was really surprised at the end that donald agreed to accept the election if Hilary won. Seems like his modis operandi is to motivate his true believers with constant claims of victimhood, the system being rigged and the deck stacked against him,…. Of course it’s the donald and this might not preclude him from whining about the rigged election… nevermind.
@valiuth, thanks for an excellent summary. I agree with most of your points, but had a little different emphasis. Overall, I thought Hillary had a slight edge over Trump. Trump started very strong in the first 20 to 30 minutes, but seemed too defensive over the last 60 minutes. He tried to defend himself against every accusation that Hillary made. He wasted time he could have used attacking her. He spent too much time defending his championing of birtherism and not making his tax returns public. His body language on the split screen did not help him. I wondered whether each candidate was aware it would be split screen for the entire debate. His defense of his trade position (with which I disagree) was very strong and effective. In my opinion, his defense of his tax plan was not effective. He didn’t mention how much Obama has raised taxes, and what a negative effect that has had on the economy. His also didn’t defend an energy plan that creates high paying domestic jobs. I thought Trump missed too many opportunities to attack Clinton. This was particularly true in regard to Hillary’s emails. During the cyber discussion, he could have pilloried her for how she exposed national security secrets. Overall, he didn’t convince me that if you wanted change, you must vote for him.
I think he will be stronger in the second debate. He will watch tapes of this debate and make the necessary adjustments.
The Hillary team took a risk with the flaming red suit. I was a little put off at first but it worked beautifully on her color and the blue backdrop. She looked better than Trump who seemed older than usual.
On CNN, they were both on a split screen the whole time and that worked to her advantage. There was never a shot of the whole stage except at beginning and end. Did other channels show it in the same way?
So, Donald is ignorant; Hillary is corrupt. Sounds like I didn’t miss anything.
It would be interesting to know how many viewers stayed on after the first half hour. My guess is that the audience quickly dwindled . . . out of boredom. That might have an impact on overall impressions.
Excellent point professor.
I, like you, am not voting for either of them and this didn’t change that. (It will take armed men showing up at my door to change that.)
As far as the debate goes I think you mostly got it right. I don’t honestly know who “won” although I’d give it to Hillary. One of the reason is linked to something you said “as long as you don’t parse out his words too much . . .”
I think most people won’t. But for those who do there was a lot of non-responsive, incoherent, word salad in there. He was running out the clock more than making the case for himself in a lot of those answers.
The other is just that so many of his answers came back to the only subject he seems to care about – Donald Trump. It’s always amazed, and frankly disturbed, me how high his self regard is and how little he seems to realize that an election is about 320 million people and not just one. That’s an impression I actually suspect a lot of people will walk away with. He avoids it when he’s doing his “the Mexicans are stealing our jobs” shtick, but on pretty much any other subject, the answer always seems to get back to Donald Trump.
I watched all of it. After a while, I started cleaning my house as they talked. Why? I found it deeply depressing that one of these two people will most likely be president, but scrubbing my bathrooms made me feel less dirty.
Anyway, your analysis is fair.
Many people who have gotten on the Trump Train won’t find anything egregious in anything the Donald said, but they don’t matter at this point because their die is cast and has long been counted. (I believe the same thing about Never Trumpers you scurrilously call “scurrilous” :) bc they aren’t changing positions.) Clinton probably pulled back a few Democrats, though I’m kind of thinking she’s in the same place as Trump: she didn’t lose any voters but I’m not sure what she gained.
This is because the wider field of “undecideds” are so hard to read.
Are they all smart like you? Or are they voting gut only? How much research do they do? How far beyond soundbites do they think?
Like you, they are probably left with whatever feelings/thoughts they already had about either candidate, though Clinton did a much better job hammering Trump on his tax returns than he did hammering her on the secret server.
Oh one other thing to say — Hillary remains as repellently, brainlessly, leftist as you remember. A lot of her answers could have come from Bernie Sanders. If you hoped, as I secretly did, that she might prove just a slight tick less of an economic catastrophe than her predecessor, she put those hopes to bed. She’s gonna tax, regulate, and redistribute with every ounce of energy she has (and god willing a republican congress to put up roadblocks).
And statist? My favorite horror movie lines were when she said she thought the federal government had a lot to contribute in training local cops and that she wanted to intervene to eliminate private management of state prisons. [Gadzooks], doesn’t a federal government that spends $4 trillion/year give her enough to do? She thinks she needs to teach the states their business on top of it?
Fox News had it on a split screen too.
Yes. What the pundit class thinks about these debates is certainly interesting. Everything that I’m reading* indicates that she had a somewhat “good” night compared to Trump, but it’s not the commentators who make the call on election day.
It’s a really weird election cycle so the conventional wisdom about how much the debates matter and who “won” a particular debate might also be irrelevant.
So keep your collective chins up my Trump supporting friends it might not have been as bad as you think.
(*because there was no way on earth I was going to watch that. I appreciate the people who did and reported back on it.)
You know there is an old joke whose details I can’t remember but whose premise is that a man in order to seem smart learns everything he can about cucumbers and then focuses on bringing every conversation to them in order to appear smart. I thought of that reading your comment. I think the only thing Trump genuinely believes of the things he says is his bit on trade. Which is why it is his most effective and sincere line of attack. It is his intellectually most consistent line of attack too. The problem is I think he has nearly all the facts wrong on the subject.
Great point. Yes, she does.
Are you sure you’ll need armed guys dragging you out to vote against her? C’mon!
She can’t be worse than he is, she really can’t.Edit: He can’t be worse than she is, really.
(Always read your comments out loud before posting, thank you Valiuth.)
@catorand yah, Hillary made no attempts to triangulate on economic policies, but unlike you I did not expect anything from her. I thought she made a fairly worthy case for NATO against Trumps blustering. It is good to remind people that even if the NATO allies don’t all pay their promised share the only time Article V was invoked they all came. Trump’s ignorance and seeming disdain for the international institutions our country has built really frightens me. One missed opportunity by Clinton was to attack Trump on the whole “take the oil” thing. Though as people have been pointing out Trump was getting hit on a whole bunch of other things. Still that particular line if parsed out is a monumental indictment of Trumps unserious foreign policy.
Don’t you mean she can’t be better than him? If she can’t be worse it means she is as bad or better? If the former then there is no point if the latter than he should vote for her.
Yes.
Though I have to admit, in my darker and more lunatic hours this election feels like it’s aimed directly at me. “So Kate, you think you might want to vote Republican for the first time in your life? Here’s your Republican. Oh, and by the way, here’s your alternative.”
Trump was…well, Trump. And Hillary was able to speak knowledgeably, or at least to sound like she was speaking knowledgeably. I am comfortable around people who speak knowledgeably (and who can spell “knowledgeably”). I don’t like loathing people.
But then she she was asked about the issue of race and police, and I loathed her again.
And that was the one question Trump actually sounded pretty good on. Ai yi yi.
Still voting for Blank.
Two progressives pretending to be what they aren’t. Hillary pretending to be a decent moderate and serious person. She did a pretty good job. Trump pretending to be a conservative, but doesn’t understand what that means so he can’t answer Hillary’s narratives. He was pathetic. Our only hope is that Trump will be so weak and face so much opposition that he won’t do a lot of damage domestically and so unpredictable and thin skinned that foreigners may be reluctant to challenge him.
The NATO thing is a warm fuzzy blanket that guys in bars like to kick around when tossing back a few at the end of the day. Same with Mexico stealing our jobs, or how the government deficit is due to welfare fraud. These are people comfortable in their gripes, and don’t want to be told they are untrue. But they are also (I suspect) the core of Trump’s support, so facts will not move him off those talking points.
I think Trump lost. I know he lost in my eyes. But I also felt he lost in the primary debates. Some people like to see monkeys toss feces, though. We’ll see where the polls go.
All I can say is that I tip my hat to those of you that watched all or most of that…..spectacle. I only watched 10 or 15 mins during halftime of MNF and it reduced most of my thoughts to a stream of profanity and despair. I did get to catch Trump totally waste the cyber security segment without even mentioning Hillary’s obvious achilles heel there, instead talking about how is “10 year old son is so good at computers it is unbelievable” and the reducing the issue to the phrase “the cyber”. Thankfully the game started again and I could quit thinking about how one of those equally horrible people is going to be president for the next 4 years. Sheeze
I only made it for 5 minutes. In that time, I was reduced to yelling at the TV at both candidates.
Spoken as a Divine Intervention hoper.