Tuesday, September 27, 2016

What Rules?







I think any fair assessment of the details would say Hillary won the debate points. She was better prepared on issues and had her punch lines lined up. Just like when she debated Obama in 2008. And she did score some good punch lines, because NBC brought up issues that are tough on Trump, like the tax returns and the Obama “birther” issue. Hillary’s email problem was barely an issue, and received none of the pushback from Lester Holt that Trump received on other issues like the Iraq War.


But as I mentioned this morning, this was Trump’s chance to show 100 million people he’s not the “Hitler” the media portrays, and that merely being on the stage normalizes him. I think he succeeded in that. He didn’t make any huge gaffes, and didn’t have any blow ups. He hammered the issues of jobs in the midwest — constantly referred to Michigan. To the extent Trump was able to stay on message, the message was one of feeling the pain of people left behind in the economy.

In a sense, the debate set up the choice — the better prepared career politician and symbol of the status quo, versus the less prepared but more emotional outsider representing the change agent. The debate may have rendered that change agent acceptable.

Will be interesting to see if this moves the polling needle at all. [Posted by William A. Jacobson; Prop Legal Insurrection]

This is a fair evaluation.  A rather large percentage of viewers watched to see whether Hillary would go into full spasm and flop about like a fish.  She did not, so she won points.  Other than that it was Presidential Debate 101; Liberal Media Moderator Polishes the Family Silver.

As an aside, I think Trump had a real opportunity here to refuse any debate that did not follow a formal structure, scrupulously overseen by an academic debate expert with no political ties.  If you think back to your high school or college debate experience, if any, you'll know that Hillary Clinton would then have been admonished repeatedly for making shit up .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

They need drug testing for the debates. And perhaps they should include botox testing in the mix. Hillary would be a big fail.
olds-mo-william

Hellen Les Déplorable said...

Got to give Hillary's handlers some credit for their performance last night. Her movements were amazingly natural and I couldn't even see the strings. Was Disney animatronics involved?

Anonymous said...

All Trump had to do was not look insane. Hillary had to prove she's not a corrupt demon from hell. Trump wins.
Luigi

Anonymous said...

She has a lifelong history of cheating, lying and stealing.

The moderator was in the tank with her too. In spite of all that help, she still sounded like she was reading (woodenly, badly, BTW) from cue cards listing the Dem stereotypical talking points. I swear I've heard the exact same words out of that bucktooth bitch's mouth in that pompous, grating voice for thirty years.

The upside is, that's the very best she can do, and in a free for all town hall where the audience asks the questions, is not hired by the Dems and prepped with softball questions, and is equally mixed Dem/Rep, she'll be eaten alive, both by the audience and Trump.
Hillary is a tin-earred, wooden, not very smart, lying cnut.
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

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