I just re-read what I wrote last night while the debate was going on, and it seems most of the other commentaries I’ve read agree with me. Trump became more and more unglued as the evening wore on, while Clinton kept her cool and smiled serenely while he ranted. This debate should help her; we’ll see.
I also want to point out that every specific policy proposal she made was right out of Bernie Sanders’s playbook. Clintonistas are still complaining that he “damaged” her, and they blame Sanders for the closeness in the poll. But it seems to me he made her a better candidate. Because he challenged her as doggedly as he did, she got a clue what actual voters are concerned about.
T.A. Frank at Vanity Fair summed it up:
Before Monday night’s debate, we all read that Hillary Clinton was planning to bait Donald Trump and that Donald Trump was blowing off debate practice. Two typical responses from jaded readers: 1) If that were Clinton’s real plan, she’d be hiding it. 2) Trump is obviously trying to set expectations low.
But never underestimate the power of incompetence. As it turns out, the pre-debate leaks seem to have been accurate: Clinton baited Trump, and Trump showed up unprepared. So what happened then? Clinton won. If we were to write it as a play:
Clinton campaign pre-debate: We’re going to bait Trump and make him lose his cool.
Trump campaign pre-debate: Whatever.
Hillary Clinton: Bait.
Trump: Loses cool.
Possibly the more important thing is that media are nearly unanimous that Clinton mopped the floor with Trump. Even right-wing media critters are grumbling that he could have done better and that he missed opportunities. So often, we’ve seen that the post-debate spin is more critical to public opinion than the actual debate, and Clinton clearly won the spin.
I mostly disagree with Jeb Lund that Clinton should have been more assertive and gone in for the kill. Yeah, she missed a couple of opportunities to stick a knife between his ribs, so to speak, but she was playing rope-a-dope very well, I thought. A shame Muhammad Ali didn’t live to see it. More assertiveness might have appeared to pull her down to his level.
At one point she even repeated Michelle Obama’s words — When they go low, we go high. Good strategy for last night.
Clinton clearly went into this debate not looking for one or two big “Have you no decency” moments but rather looking to hit him with a rat-tat-tat series of taunts and jabs to see if she could get him to lose his cool and throw him off his game. It ended up happening a lot more quickly than I expected. No more than fifteen minutes in he was getting visibly angry. And he stayed that way for the next hour plus.
From maybe a half hour into the debate Clinton had almost entirely seized the initiative. She was attacking while he responded, sometimes angrily, sometimes with new attacks and very often by doubling down on demonstrable falsehoods he’s been pilloried for for months. At various moments he shuffled in and out of parts of his stump speech. But through most of the exchange he constantly interrupted Clinton, talked over her, denied claims she made which are easily validated. In terms of body language and style it was thermonuclear Rick Lazio.
That said, how this came across to undecided low-information voters is anybody’s guess. But I’ll be surprised if the polls don’t show some improvement in Clinton’s favor in the next few days. Maybe in the next debate she’ll bring the knife. And maybe he’ll actually prepare. But that’s probably expecting too much of him.
As for Lester Holt, seems to me he was barely there. Righties are complaining that his questions favored Clinton, but they were both mostly ignoring his questions anyway and going off on their own tangents. There were several times I wanted him to reign in Trump’s ravings, and Holt sat there and did nothing. That actually may have favored Clinton more than any questions he asked.
Oh, and Amanda Marcotte is already complaining that everything about the debate was sexist. Give it a bleeping rest, Amanda.
Update: Charles Pierce is worth reading.
t-RUMP just got a wedgie – from A GIRL – on national TV, in front of millions and millions of people!
LOSER!!!
If the debate was an actual boxing match, then the ref would have been justified in stopping the fight.
In other words, give mercy, to a merciless asshole.
Hillary came in a strong second, but Rosie O’Donnall was the big winner. She proved she was years ahead of the crowd in seeing though Trump. Although Swami says it more and says it best, she scooped that one. Scored some free publicity to boot.
One time for Beau’s Grille 👠#NailedIt 🎯
Don’t forget the power of a smile.. If my interpreting body language skills or face reading skills were as great as Trump’s, I’d say he was frustrated and angry. Frustrated because he had no substance other than peddling his negativity..And without the encouragement and reinforcement that he usually gets from his unrestrained audience of racists and ignorant morons, he just feels lost and frustrated.
Trump is just a big bag of shit.. Here he claims he’ll release his tax return if Hillary releases her deleted emails.. How do you release “deleted” emails? By that logic either Trump is incredibly stupid or he believes the people who buy that logic are incredibly stupid. I suspect it’s the latter because Trump has the best words.
Speaking of frustration.. I kinda feel an affinity with Trump in some regards. I’m struggling with a frustration to identify in the most succinct terms exactly who and what Trump is as a person. I want to pinpoint that kernel of truth and essence of being that speaks to who Trump really is. My lack of preparedness in spiritual and psychological disciplines leave me short for the terms on which to identify him, but an innate sense and life’s experience well qualifies me to declare with an accuracy beyond description that Trump is a big bag of shit. I guess you’d have to have spent time on a New York construction site to fully understand the beauty of that assessment. He a blowout!
Wrong!
(sniff)
T-RUMP should renegotiate a new trade deal with Columbia!
That stuff he was snorting last night, was “stepped-on” too many times.
“every specific policy proposal she made was right out of Bernie Sanders’s playbook”
Yet, when Trump brought up TPP, she failed to criticize him for taking credit for something Bernie led the way on. Could have scored big points with Bernie supporters.
“It could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds…â€
Didn’t know Christie had hacker skills!
Clinton had several opportunities to land some knockout blows, and we were a little disappointed she didn’t. But there are two more debates to go, and it may be a good strategy to save some for the next two debates, and her best shots for the last one.
Yeah, but Lester Holt gave her a pass. He should have asked her right off the bat what she would do if Kitty Dukakis was raped and murdered. That would have been a test of character!
I didn’t bother watching — there’s nothing either of these two pustules have to say that I’m interested in. However, if your description is accurate then the matchup was Angry vs. Smug. And there are lots of good reasons to be angry… If you really think this is a winning strategy, well we’ll see I guess.
It’s good that she didn’t get too aggressive. When she gets aggressive she starts with the half-truths and the quarter-truths. It’s one of her worst traits. You saw it A LOT in her debates with Bernie, because he often had her in the corner. With Trump, there’s no need. Rope-a-dope is the way to go with that dope.
From Matt Bai.. 🙂