Thoughts On Debate #2

Donald Trump had a better debate last night than he did in the first but that was one of the lowest bars to cross. It will certainly fire up his base but it will hardly matter - they were never going to desert Trump anyway. He did virtually nothing to convince anyone else to vote for him. And the fact checkers will have a field day with some of his comments. Especially damaging was his virtual admission that he paid no federal taxes and his seeming to be proud of it; his brushing off the Access Hollywood tape as just "locker room talk" and refusing to show any contrition; and his incredible statement that if he won he would get his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor and throw Hillary in jail. Apparently, Trump is not aware of how our Constitution actually works and his statement is more reflective of a banana republic rather than the United States. Trump's visceral anger was clear in his body language throughout the debate as was his hatred for Hillary. And his leering over Hillary's shoulder when she answered questions just added to the impression he is a sexual abuser. His direct accusations that Bill Clinton was a rapist probably didn't help him much either and his foreign policy answers were a disaster, especially when he basically recommended allying ourselves with Russia, Iran, and Syria to defeat ISIS. This was only minutes after declaring Iran the greatest terror state ever.

As far as Hillary is concerned, she apparently decided to take the Presidential route staying calm and focusing on the issues rather than spending inordinate amount of time rebutting Trump's accusations. She was happy to let Trump ramble on with his answers and throw out all sorts of accusations and her two responses were that what he said wasn't true or to go to her website for a fact check and then she would pivot to the issues she wanted to talk about. And it also allowed her drive home the point that Trump was not fit to be President. That seemed to be her unspoken theme of the night - just look at this guy, he is clearly not Presidential material but I am. And her spoken them was about needing to bring all Americans together to be a stronger country.

As I said in the live-blog of the debate, I doubt this will change the trajectory of the election at all. In fact, it is possible that the debate did even more damage to Trump when the fact checkers get through with him and the 30 second ads start coming out. Initial polls show that Hillary won the debate though by a much smaller margin than the first. But Trump's better-than-expected performance that probably solidified his base makes it even more difficult for those Republicans in tight re-election races to decide whether to repudiate Trump or not. And it is impossible to know whether there is more dirt to come out on Trump or when he will go on another self-destructive tweetstorm. The polls for Trump and Republicans are in free-fall and there was probably nothing in this debate that changed that dynamic.