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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
I didn’t say I’d vote for Chelsea for president. She hasn’t done anything that I would say makes her ready for that office.
But if you say you wouldn’t count those degrees as accomplishments for a kid of yours… I just don’t believe you. Sorry.
As for that last bit… While I support their right to think on their own and live their own lives, the Reagan children bothered me for their lack of loyalty to their father. I guess I just see Chelsea as being loyal to her parents.
I just don’t see the point of attacking politicians’ families. I mean, what’s the point of doing that?
Regardless, of course Ivanka and Chelsea are friends. It’s a complete farce that the Trumps are “outsiders.”
Most oil in Iraq is currently controlled by the Baghdad Govt and the Kurds.