The headline sums it up. The second presidential debate was pretty much a draw between candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton but the big loser was the United States of America. I can only imagine people around the world are thinking about this farce of a political campaign. Actually, I don’t have to imagine. A friend of mine who was recently overseas said that the prevailing sentiment was that people from other countries felt “sorry for her” for having to endure this obscenity.
There will be many Hillary Clinton supporters who felt that she won this debate. There will be equally many Donald Trump supporters who felt that he won it. And it’s for that reason that I’m calling it a draw. But let’s dive into the how these debates are “scored” and call it a win or loss for each based on different judging methods.
1. Who will gain or lose voters based on their debate performance?
To me, this is the ultimate question because it speaks to being able to win or lose the election. On this basis, I really don’t think Sunday’s night’s absurdity will move the needle (apologize for the overused phrase) for either candidate. Trump was already hemorrhaging support because of the shockingly lewd Access Hollywood tape revealed on Friday (you can read my full write-up on that by clicking here). So to whatever extent that tape has damaged him, the debate didn’t change anything. And, by the way, based on the earliest evidence, the tape has really hurt him. Only one poll that has been taken exclusively after the tape’s release (conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal) and it shows Hillary up by 11 points (46%-to-35%, with Gary Johnson at 9%). That’s the biggest margin in any poll since immediately following the Democratic Convention in early August.
Although Trump apologized for his remarks on the tape he was hardly contrite. In just his second answer in the debate, he was strikingly incoherent. He dismissed the as “locker room” talk and then proceeded to talk about how ISIS is chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages. He then pivoted back to say he was “embarrassed by it” but that it was “locker room talk” and “one of those things” before going back to his vow that he would “knock the hell out of ISIS.”
Whaaaaatttt???? So, in a nutshell, Donald Trump’s way of handling the controversy of his videotape was to essentially say that he wasn’t as bad as ISIS?? Well of course his inappropriate words aren’t as bad as ISIS but, when you’re running for president and have to explain away a humiliating news story to an audience of 60 million viewers, that is not the way to do it. He needed to bare his soul, he had to really show genuine remorse and he didn’t do it. Even worse, he actually uttered this laugh out loud line when pressed by moderator Anderson Cooper: “Nobody has more respect for women than I do.” OK, maybe poor Mr. Trump is misunderstood, but for a man just caught talking about trying to sleep with a married woman and how he likes to just start kissing them or grabbing their genitalia, there’s nobody, no one in the entire world, who respects women more than he does? Give me a break.
Based on this pathetic opening performance, I really thought that Trump was going to go down in flames in this debate but he recovered well enough to the point that his supporters felt he had won the event. He went after Clinton with both guns blazing, accusing her of “viciously” attacking the women who had accused her husband of sexual misconduct and also vowing to appoint a special prosecutor to look into her use of a private email server. When her response was that she was glad that “someone with the temperament of Donald Trump” was not “in charge of the law in our country,” his response was “because you’d be in jail.”
I have written before that Trump should not play to the “lock her up” chants from his supporters but he chose to do it and, sad to say, it’s catnip for a lot of them. I’ve always said that he should declare that he would “pardon her, just like Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.” By offering a theoretical pardon he would be placing her corruption on the scale of Nixon’s but also show a compassionate side. Instead, he just looked mean and vindictive.
Later on in the debate he went so far to call her the “devil” and said she had “hate in her heart.” These are not words that are going to sway undecided voters or disillusioned Republicans (like me). I think Hillary Clinton is a truly awful candidate, a serial liar and fundamentally corrupt but never have I believed that she had “hate in her heart” in general terms.
The primary reason I feel Trump gained a draw in this debate is that, other than the opening section about the lascivious videotape, he had Clinton on the defensive far more than in the first outing. She didn’t have (and never has had) a satisfying explanation about her private email server and, when asked by moderator Martha Raddatz about her WikiLeak-ed comment (from a big-money speech she gave) that she had both a public and private position on certain issues, she compared herself to Abraham Lincoln, which was absurd and for which Trump zinged her. Trump also had Hillary on the defensive about Obama’s red line in Syria (catching her in a lie when she falsely claimed she was no longer in office when Obama drew that line) and about the failed state Libya. Clinton has forgotten more about foreign policy than Trump will ever know but that wasn’t fully revealed to the average viewer.
In addition, even when Trump should have been getting nailed for not paying federal income tax for years, he turned it on Clinton, saying that her wealthy friends wanted the same deductions that he takes advantage of and that she was an “ineffective senator” for not being able to close the carried interest loophole that benefits rich hedge fund managers. Trump actually had Hillary on the defensive for an issue that should be a big vulnerability for him. What Clinton failed to do is connect the dots in this way:
- Trump claimed a 900 million dollar loss in 1995.
- Because of a tax provision that benefits real estate developers, this paper loss enabled him to avoid paying taxes for up to 18 years.
- His tax plan is to close the carried interest loophole that benefits hedge fund managers but he has said nothing about the loopholes that he has benefited from as a real estate developer.
- Trump manages to live in a Fifth Avenue apartment in a tower with his name on it and fly into a 737 with his name on it but somehow has managed to avoid paying federal income tax. And yet, part of his tax plan is to eliminate the estate tax. The chief argument against the estate tax is that a person is taxed twice, initially on the money they’ve made and secondly on the money they’ve saved for their heirs. But Trump apparently didn’t pay federal income tax for years so, under his plan, his wealth would never be taxed at all.
She didn’t do any of this and that’s why I feel, on the question of gaining or losing votes, she only scored a draw in this debate. Any shift in the polling that we may see in the upcoming weeks will be the result solely of the smutty videotape of Trump from last Friday.
2. Who was more in command of the facts?
This is another way to score a debate and on this, of course, Hillary Clinton was the winner. Unfortunately for her, most viewers don’t know the facts. If you go to fact checking sites, they’re going to tell you that Trump told far more lies than she did. This is his brand. He nailed her on a few facts, such as her desire to increase the influx of Syrian refugees by 550% (confirmed as true by CNN) but many of his attacks were either exaggerated, misleading or false. I will say that, however, if you go to the fact checking websites they claim that Trump made “false” accusations that are at best uncertain, unconfirmed or murky. Another example of media bias.
3. Who dominated the optics?
Ever since the calm, cool, good-looking Senator John F. Kennedy squared off against the sweating, wiping his brow Vice-President Richard Nixon in 1960, the optics have always played a major role in how people view a debate. They are moments that are captured on tape, replayed for weeks and (today) shared on social media. People remember George H.W. Bush looking at his watch in his 1992 debate against Bill Clinton, they remember Al Gore sighing when he took on George W. Bush in 2000 and they’re going to remember Donald Trump looming over Hillary Clinton with a grimace on his face in the 2016 town hall debate. Trump is a tall man and, when she moved forward to respond to an audience member’s question, he moved to an uncomfortable distance behind her which is being called creepy on social media.
Anyway, to wrap up, there are three questions that beg to be answered in the next week, leading up to the final debate on Wednesday, October 19th.
1. Will Trump stem the tide of GOP defections from his campaign?
As I chronicled in my most recent piece, scores of Republicans have disavowed Trump or called on him to drop out of the race in the aftermath of the appalling videotape that was released last Friday. My guess is that the list will not grow, that Trump did well enough last night to stop the bleeding of GOP support. House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated today that he’s going to focus his time on protecting the party’s majority in that chamber but will not be campaigning for Trump. That’s an appropriate position.
All of the talk about dumping Trump from the ticket is silly. That ship sailed at the convention in July. The ballots are printed and early voting has begun. It is understandable and justified for Republican Senators or House members to distance themselves or disavow him in light of the disgusting tape revelation. But he is the nominee and the GOP is going to have to live with that, at least for 29 more days until the election is over. If somehow the Never Trump crowd convinced the Donald to drop out of the race, his name would still be on the ballot. The massive army of Trump loyalists would stay home and the GOP would lose the Senate and likely even the House. Better for the party to let it play out, fight hard to keep the Senate and make sure they don’t blow their big House majority.
2. Where will the polls go in the next week?
Every political analyst or junkie will eagerly await the next round of polling conducted not only after the videotape release but also the second debate. My guess is that the NBC/WSJ poll released today (which shows Clinton up by 11 points) will prove to be a bit of an outlier but that she will have a smaller but real, consistent lead in every national poll and most relevant swing state polls. You may see Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson make a pseudo-comeback at the expense of Trump but not enough of a comeback to get him into the final debate. Still, even as Republican politicians and disgusted voters jump off the Trump train, his core base of support will remain loyal.
3. Is the race over?
The answer is most likely yes. Hillary Clinton will almost certainly be the 45th President of the United States. While it’s still possible that there will be a “smoking gun” email that has yet to be Wiki-leaked, it’s highly unlikely that there will be any bombshell on the scale of the disgusting Trump tape. I find it hard to fathom that Trump will be able to convert enough undecided voters to provide the margin of victory.
With the electoral college map already in her favor, the view here is that the only thing that could prevent the Clintons from returning to the White House would be another health scare for her. Short of that, say hello to President Hillary Rodham Clinton and another four years of gridlock.
Hey, it’s only 1,490 days until the Presidential election of 2020. That’s about all some of us can look forward to in this deplorable and depressing election season.
Thanks for reading.
Chris Bodig