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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
The debate was broadcast at my 3:00 a.m., and I earnestly meant to stay up to watch it, but woke up this morning with my laptop still open in my bed. I fell asleep in the opening minute, which I guess says something. I watched it through this morning, before looking at any of the media commentary. Perhaps because my view of them both is so dim to start with, they both did better than I expected, in the sense that watching it didn’t actually cause me to die an agonizing death: I’m still alive!
What struck me most is that she didn’t challenge him at all on the “take the oil, take the oil!” business. Of all the outlandish or outrageous things Trump says, that ranks second in my view (after the slobbering over Putin). Since when do Americans comfortably view themselves as a nakedly imperialist nation that conquers to plunder? She missed what I thought was such an obvious shot by letting that pass unremarked. Am I hugely divorced from mainstream American opinion in thinking that’s a shocking thing to say?
I turned it on at about 1/2 hour into the debate. I watched for ten minutes and turned it off. I detest both candidates and watching them lie to each other and the American people was more than I cared to experience. Thank you to those of you who sacrificed yourselves and your time to keep the rest of us informed. I suppose rather than the Godzilla vs King Kong, my thoughts might be more like watching Killer Kowalski and Haystack Calhoun battle it out in the 1960s when both were seen as baddies, and no one wanted to see anything but both of them destroyed.
Yes, I think I do. Thank you for the language check — I always remind my students to read their essays out loud before turning them in, I should always do the same. Sorry!
My daughter (forced by a homework assignment to watch the entire debate) had the most accurate & pithiest comment on the quality of the debate: “PFFFFFFT” (verbal raspberry).
Hillary was well prepped, wooden & condescending. She sounded a great deal like the schoolmarm of the “Peanuts” cartoons: “Wah wah, wah wah wah wah.” The thing she did best was to let Trump go after the 1st 20 minutes.
Trump was effective in the 1st 20 minutes, focused on the mess that Clinton & her former boss have left us. Then, he decided that the American people wanted to hear his defense of his tax preparations, job creation, birtherism, etc. He bordered on the incoherent and kept interrupting himself.
I don’t think the phrase “Clinton Foundation” was used. If only for that reason, Trump missed an enormous opportunity and lost. He wins when the focus is on Hillary. Sadly, for him, he made much of the evening about himself.
I never watch debates because “my guy” always seems to under perform which make me feel anxious and not happy, and I prefer relaxed and happy. So I wait for the after debate highlights and discussions, which always seem to have each side saying their guy won…..so what’s new.
This year, while Trump is not exactly “my guy”, I am voting for Trump in a desperate attempt to save the Country and the planet from Hillzilla and all the evil that comes with the beast.
If you didn’t know Trump would be unprepared(ignorant?) on policy, easily baited into inane retaliation, and unable to drill Hillary when the opportunity fell in his lap(because of the easily baited thing?), then you haven’t been studying your candidate Trump….Unfortunately this is “my guy” this election cycle…..thank you very much (R) primary voters.
On the positive side, as bad a candidate as Trump is, and as well as Hillary did in the debate(basically by going an hour and a half without going into a coughing fit/seizure and being helped off the stage by her traveling personal doctor), Hillary Clinton is still a truly awful human being, an unlikeable person, a terrible politician, and an all but convicted felon….so we’ve got that going for ourselves….which is nice…
Agreed. On both counts.
International affairs are where I reach the “no way I can vote for this guy” level. Honestly, on the economy they’d be awful in different ways, but she’s so terrible that it’s hard to pick one or the other. We’re in for a rough 4 years either way. But the good news about the economy is that it’s resilient. It’ll tend to recover if the next guy backs off and leaves it alone.
Global and military matters — not necessarily. And that’s the area where — despite Benghazi, Libya, Iran, Iraq, emails and all her other manifest misjudgments (some of which are really Obama’s far more than hers) she’s got a leg up on a guy who’s so out of his depth that he doesn’t understand that it’s provocative to call NATO commitments into question.
She may have decided that it was too crazy to deserve a response.
You are not alone: http://www.theonion.com/article/poll-89-debate-viewers-tuning-solely-see-whether-r-54028
My impression of the performance I witnessed last night was that the Saints’ defense has no answer for the Falcons’ policy of strong running game and an accurate passing game.
Plus we’ve all heard him say it so many times we’re numb to it. He might as well be insisting we build wall across the entire Mexican border. (“Wait” — as @FredCole would say — “I hear it now.”)
I think both candidates have said so many outrageous things that we’ve become numb to it all and can’t keep track of the individual absurdities anymore. It’s the political version of Three Stooges Syndrome.
As I mentioned on another thread, the kids were watching it, so I couldn’t avoid hearing it. Two observations:
*A chalkboard was a device used before white boards came into being. It was black.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3809204/Most-snap-polls-Trump-winning-debate-landslide.html
If you, like me, were disappointed that he didn’t do better, follow the above link for debate poll results. The average person gave him the win in all but CNN. Amazing.
Nope.
My votes will go down ballot to the most conservative candidates who can protect us from whichever of these two incompetent candidates that get the keys to the White House.
Trump was right about the oil. The reasons are numerous as the oil profits, properly administered, could have benefitted the Iraquis through infrastructure repairs, creating jobs, helped to stabilize oil prices, etc. After we pulled out, it was seized by rebel forces and has bankrolled the ISIS rapid rise to power.
Has he ever said the money from the oil would be used to fund reconstruction in Iraq? He gives the impression that the money would be used to pay our bills.
I don’t think Trump knows how to debate, in even the dumbed-down format that constitutes twenty-first century Presidential ‘debates.’ What he knows how to do is bully and insult, and without a crowd whipping itself up into a frenzy when he does so, he’s quite lost.
One of the oddest moments of the night for me was that part about “I could have said some really bad things about you but I didn’t” (or words to that effect).
What does that mean? And what point was he trying to make? Was it a threat for the next round? Was he talking about the ‘bimbo eruption’ stuff?
Or did he just suddenly remember that he was supposed to be hitting her hard every time he opened his mouth on things like the server, Benghazi, her emails with Obama on the private server, getting hit with ‘sniper fire,’ and on and on, and that he’d forgotten to do so because he was so tied up in defending himself over a 45-year-old lawsuit, and the fact that he’d onced called Rosie O’Donnell a pig. Or a dog. Or a troll. Or something.
The three low points of the evening in my estimation were:
Last night, the Dems did their best to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. And, to a large degree, they succeeded. The Republicans didn’t even approach sow’s ear alchemy with the horse’s you-know-what who stood on stage representing them.
Now, I’m prepared for his abysmal performance not to make much difference. And it is possible for improvement from debate to debate.
But in order for there to be such, Trump will have to start listening to, and following the instructions of, his handlers. And he didn’t do that last night. I am absolutely certain that Roger Ailes, and KellyAnne Conway, for starters, have spent weeks drilling into his head, “Don’t take the bait.”
Clearly, that didn’t work out too well for them. Will it the next time?
That was definitely not my impression at all. Assume you are correct. Would you have preferred for ISIS to have it? It’s the second largest oil pool in the world.
That Kong Versus Godzilla is exactly what I saw! Exactly!!!!
You could put their voices in place of the grunts and the nation would learn as much.
I still can’t believe this is who the choices are.
Clearly it is a terrible thing that ISIS has the oil fields and revenues now. It would have been a lot better if the US had left troops to help keep Iraq from destabilizing, but here we are.
Trump from the Commander-in-Chief Forum:
“Just we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil…And we’re the only ones, we go in, we spend $3 trillion, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then, Matt, what happens is, we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: Take the oil.
One of the benefits we would have had if we took the oil is ISIS would not have been able to take oil and use that oil…”
Most of this is just hindsight. No real solutions for the current problem. Are we really going to leave some soldiers in the middle of Iraq just to take the “various sections” that have the oil? This has always been my problem with Trump. His policies are incoherent.
Did you bother to read this? It’s referring to self-selected polls with no randomization whatsoever. Those polls are “for fun only” with no statistical validity whatsoever.
I agree about her missing a good shot on dismantling the whole “take the oil” philosophy of Trump’s Middle East foreign policy. If her goal is to show people that Trump is irresponsible nothing he says can better explain that view then his “take the oil” line. But, I think she was just trying to avoid the whole issue of Iraq because she fears Trump blasting her with the Iraq vote, and ISIS.
I experienced it through a fog of disbelief and depression.
Both of them were horrible. Hillary’s smug smile and overly-calculated manner is off-putting, and her policy ideas are disastrous. Trump once again displayed the kind of deep political, economic and military knowledge we’ve come to expect from drunk uncles around the world.
Lost in all the talk about who beat who is the reality of just how far the Democrats have swung to the left, Their ‘mainstream’ candidate wants to offer free daycare, free health care, free college education, a nationwide $15/hr minimum wage, vast new swaths of regulations, massive spending on ‘infrastructure’ (i.e. more teachers and government workers, and new buildings to house them), total destruction of the fossil fuel energy infrastructure in favor of half a billion solar panels, and she wants to pay for it all by dramatically raising taxes on the wealthy and on businesses. Suffice it to say that if Hillary got even half the things she wants, it would lead to economic ruin.
On the other side, Trump’s idiotic beliefs about trade are dangerous, his notions of foreign policy will alienate every ally the U.S. has, and once again he demonstrated that not only does he not have a moral center of any sort, he’s proud of it. I was shocked when he basically accepted the accusation that he habitually screwed over his suppliers, saying that he simply ‘uses’ the law to his advantage whenever he can. Anyone who has worked with a businessman like that knows what kind of supreme jerks they are. The kind of people who see nothing wrong with screwing someone out of a payment, then burying them in legal fees and endless court shenanigans if they have the audacity to try to fight back. He is the perfect caricature of the ‘evil’ businessman.
In a sane world, both of them would have been watching the Presidential debates on their TV sets at home.
My prediction for who wins this November: Russia and China.
Well I think all of Trumps life is about himself for better or worse. That said I agree with what you say. When the issue of the Tax returns and his income came up he did a very poor job of humble bragging about his wealth, as a means to deflecting the issue at hand. What he should have done in my opinion is said something like this.
“Look, I’ve made a lot of money, a lot of money. Believe me. I’m not ashamed of that. I made it making things and selling things to people. I’m a business man, a good one, that is how I made my money. But, Hillary Clinton has also made a lot of money, not as much as me, but how did she make her money? Did she make buildings, build casinos, run a business? No. She made her hundreds of millions of dollars while being a politician? Now I ask you how can a politician make that much money when they don’t make anything? They literally make nothing of value. So how did she do it? Was it by selling political favors? Insider dealing? I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.”
Well she did a little with her pointing out the budget consequences of her economic plan vs Trumps. She could have done it with free trade and tariffs. I would have liked it, but I think she has made the calculation that people are pretty dense on economic matters (she has a point…. probably less than 5 percent understand the difference between the deficit and the debt), And it is just easier to patronize people than educate them… sad situation..
I would say yes….. a question of… should the U.S. Have taken over control of the oil fields after the invasion in order to reimburse the taxpayers of America for the war. Would probably be supported by 90+ percent of Americans.
Tell me more of this ancient past and its strange technologies. I hear they used to record sound on thin black wafers often over 10 inches in diameter?
I overlooked your comment here before making the same point — yes, that stood out to me, and I suppose I’m relieved that it did to you, too; the idea that this could sound normal to anyone is really unsettling.
No, she made the political decision that it would be a unpopular stance to take…