Trump didn't beat or tie Hillary in the 2nd debate. She annihilated him.
Last edited Tue Oct 11, 2016, 12:40 AM - Edit history (3)
I think Trump bombed the first debate, but blew the second far worse, especially considering the stakes. I felt Trump tied or even beat Clinton in the first third of the 1st presidential debate (on the economy), but decisively lost the last 2/3ds. I gave Clinton around a B- for the first debate, and Trump a D-. (For reference, I gave Tim Kaine a C- in the VP Debate, and Mike Pence a B/B+). For the second debate though, I'm giving Clinton a solid A and Trump a solid F.
I honestly think most of the CNN pundits saying he did well are being highly delusional. Or maybe they think that because the expectations for him were so low and he was graded on a curve. Yes, he didn't completely fall apart but that doesn't mean he did well. He really did nothing to help his candidacy, and is still losing. Clinton also effectively needled Trump for the RNC's and elite Republicans’ abandonment of his campaign in the wake of the tape.
I think this is where Trump's whole-in-the-ground expectations come into play. I would say Clinton won, by a tighter margin. She remained cool and composed, was measured and articulate like Pence, while Trump was very rambling, and often avoided questions and got way off script. The moderators held his feet to the fire to make him answer questions directly, and he make himself look boorish and unprofessional by arguing with Cooper so much, and interrupting Clinton, which she handled with tact.
Trump was worse than McCain in 2008 with regards to his body language with wandering around the stage, and seeming to hover behind Clinton is not a good look for him. He interrupted, was nasty, and complained incessantly about his speaking time.
I think he came off as a jumbled, angry, nervous mess consistently, although his worst performance was in the first 40 minutes over the sexual assault allegations. Trump accused the other nominee's spouse of rape, threatened to jail his opponent if he wins the election, and espoused conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, which the moderators partly called him out for, and which he'll be eviscerated for by fact-checkers in the coming days. And yet, some in the media are calling it draw because he literally didn't light himself on fire.
I thought Clinton explained away the "public vs private" position well with by placing it into context (the Lincoln movie), and killed that issue dead in its tracks. Trump came off as unhinged and awkward. Clinton displayed effective political ju-jitsu by pivoting from the WikiLeaks dump to the its source, Russian government hackers who back Trump's candidacy, and relevantly hitting Trump on his pro-Kremlin rhetoric.
On taxes, he was a mess accusing Clinton over and over with not closing carried-interest, which she dispatched his comment relatively quickly and listing her detailed tax policy. She clarified Trump's plan would increase middle-class taxes, and she wouldn't raise taxes at all on households making $250,000 a year or less. She professionally apologized and took responsibility for the e-mails, while Trump didn't apologize for anything, making him look petty and immature. She articulately defended her 30-year old record and hashed out exactly what she's accomplished (CHIP, healthcare for 9/11 first responders, nuclear disarmament with Russia as SoS, etc.), and then laid out her specific plans for the future.
Almost every time Trump was cut off, it was in the middle of a drunken-uncle-on-Facebook-esque alt-right rant that was unrelated to the question. At least when Clinton got cut off, it was because she was getting into the weeds of her policies.
For Trump, I think it was more or less the same stream of consciousness he had last time. Maybe a little tighter but not by much. Clinton's a far better speaker. The visual optics favored her and she looked Presidential and calm, and didn't interrupt him. She didn't control the tone and tenor of the debate, but I think it's best she was restrained instead of attacking Trump more directly. He dug himself in a ditch and got called out by the moderators. She didn't engage in most of the attacks against her, which meant they were in the middle of a long, rambling rant of Trump's and quickly forgotten.
He was just nervous and angry and awkward, trafficking in hot-air answers. He wasn't as big of a disaster as people thought, and maybe that's why they're praising him. She's done a lot of town halls so her strong performance was to be expected and she actually looked the audience members in the eye and answered their questions directly.
She looked relaxed, smiled a lot,and laughed a lot (mostly at Trump's awkward attacks). She spoke intelligently and with details. He just looked psychotic, especially when he kept weirdly and randomly name-dropping Bernie Sanders. There's a part of me that is actually amazed at the lack of respect for Clinton's ability to debate, because even her "canned" answers knocked Trump out of it before ten minutes had passed.
Last night Donald Trump said:
- He hasn't paid federal taxes in 20 years
- As president, he will personally pick a judge to prosecute and put Clinton in jail
- Called Clinton a rape enabler, and Bill Clinton a rapist
- Doubled down on the "locker room talk" excuse
- Stated he had never done anything like he said on the sexual assault tape. Was condescending and aggressive about the tape, and proceeded to talk over Clinton and made no case for himself
- Went on rant after rant never answering the question that was asked
- Got completely lost time after time
- Continued to display plenty of hyperbole and alt-right anti-Clintonianism, and was very cold to the Muslim woman who asked about Islamophobia
- Did nothing to reassure women, people of color, or Muslims
- Sided with Russia and Iran on Syria and explicitly threw his VP pick, Mike Pence, under the bus on the topic
- Admitted he doesn't really talk with his VP pick that much
- Admitted he didn't know anything about Russia
- Had no idea about the legislative process and system of checks and balances (like wrt the carried interest tax loophole)
- Displayed his sheer lock of policy knowledge and foreign affairs, especially wrt the Syrian conflict
- Clinton had specific policy plans while Trump ranted about how horrible Clinton was and offering no real plans on his own
- Pointed like a petulant child saying Clinton's a disgrace and called her "the devil," saying she "has hate in her heart"
- Had no self-awareness
- accused the moderators of conspiring against him (“that’s three to one”)
Trump had tons of embarrassing gaffes as well, such as "perhaps there was no hacking at all," "I don't know anything about Russia, etc. When asked about Aleppo, Trump talked for two minutes about random shits, and Raddatz had to call him out and repeat the question.
These statements will be the real legacy of the debate. They can all be translated into sound bites and quick clips that will be on the morning shows and attack ads. Fact-checkers at NYT, CBS, PolitiFact, NPR, WaPo, etc., have already decimated Trump on the substance, and his incongruities, blatantly false statements, and ridiculous assertions will dominate the news cycle. It’s hard to find anything Trump said that wasn’t either a lie or highly misleading. Moreover, early polling shows that voters feel Clinton had her decisive victory against Trump. The news cycle is already being very positive for Clinton due to the substance of her attacks on Trump’s policy holding weight.
This election is over. We need to get used to saying "Madam President." According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released today, Hillary Clinton has opened up a 14-percentage-point lead against Donald Trump nationally. In a four-way race involving third-party candidates, Clinton leads Trump by 11 percentage points. True, this poll was conducted after Trump's sexual assault tape and before last night's debate. By not completely imploding, Trump may have stanched the bleeding somewhat. But with early polls indicating that voters felt Clinton solidly won the second debate, Trump's extremely unlikely to gain much ground.
Today, Paul Ryan vowed not to defend Trump any longer, saying he wouldn't campaign alongside Trump, and would instead focusing on retaining the GOP's congressional majorities. Ryan also told House GOP members they can act however they want with regards to Trump, opting to disavow him if it helps them with reelection. While new Republicans haven't been denouncing Trump today, he still lost many GOP leaders' support in the past few days, who called on him to leave the race and have Pence become the nominee. Those who denounced him still haven't taken back their condemnations or pleas for Trump to step aside.
The RNC basically made it clear it was abandoning Trump in a de jure sense, instead focusing its resource on down-ballot races. Trump didn't have much ground game independent from the RNC. He might have somewhat stanched the bleeding, but he dug himself in such a huge hole before the debate, and failed to win it, meaning it does nothing to benefit him in the grand scheme of things.
The question now isn't whether Clinton will win, it's whether she can preserve or even expand her commanding lead. As of now, Democrats are set to win both the presidency and U.S. Senate, but Republicans are very, very likely to retain control of the House. But remember, a double-digit win in the presidential popular vote is approximately what Clinton needs for her coattails to be strong enough to flip control of the House to Democrats.
The worst contrasts where when Clinton answered the Muslim girl vs Trump (her "stronger together" message, saying she wants to create an America where everyone feels like they belong), and the question about who is a better role model for youth. Trump came off as a dangerous demagogue while Clinton came off as very presidential, professional, and inclusive. Trump's strategy was literally. deflect, insult, interrupt, negative barb, sensationalize, and sniff loudly.
To me Clinton remained calm. Trump went all over. To me she seemed more presidential, prepared, knowledgeable, positive, and uplifting. While Trump was negative and evasive.
Trump looked completely out of his depth in places to the point where the moderators had to jump in and force him to answer a question specifically or tell him he was just wrong (announcing battle plans as psychological warfare and/or as a warning to civilians to get out). He said some absurd things (Captain Khan would be alive). He lied about saying he opposed the Iraq War and was called out on it. He was all over the place in most of the questions (Alicia Machado to Benghazi in seven seconds; the Supreme Court question ended with him challenging Hillary to donate $30 million to hersel!!?). I think he brought Paula Jones et al assuming that Hillary would take the bait like he did with Machado and didn't really have a plan B for them.
One thing I've noticed about Clinton is she will rarely directly go after Trump, even when given the opportunity. She makes it about his temperament, judgment, or policies. She is so even and calm I think it plays well against someone like Trump. I think she made a strategic effort to focus on the issues. Trying to correct all of Trump's lies would have taken too much time. I applaud her for remaining above the fray. She looked at the audience often and engaged with them while Trump was just sniffling away. Clinton had far better answers on unifying the country.
Clinton did give great policy statements, too. I really liked her response to the question on energy policy. She acknowledged the security benefits of energy independence, while promoting renewable, clean energy sources and addressing climate change. Clinton displayed a mastery of policy, facts, and logic. I liked her answer on using national gas to transition to renewable energy, and how she'll help coal country adapt. Trump's response on energy was awful substance-wise.
Whatever her flaws, I think Clinton has shown an impressive command of policy in the debates. Every single time Trump litigated the fact that Clinton has been in Washington for 30 years and somehow all our problems aren't gone, he displayed his awful, fundamental misunderstanding of how the federal government works. U.S. Senators don't have autocratic power. And we've been in divided government for the past 30+ years.
I think Trump came off as a petulant, tantrum-throwing child while Clinton came across as professional and even likable (something she's often failed to do. Like, I thought she was nervous and robotic in the first debate, whereas she was pretty calm and confident last night).
