The right question

A lot of the debate coverage is an argument over which candidate won the kind of contest the author thinks should matter to the rest of us.
Drew McCoy wrote, “Before declaring one ‘the winner’ and the other ‘the loser,’ consider their goals, their specific audiences, etc. Did they accomplish them?”
What did blue-collar voters in swing states get from Hillary Clinton in this debate? What did college-educated whites in the suburbs get from Trump in this debate?
Glenn Reynolds calls it a draw on the ground that Trump didn't throw anything and Clinton didn't cough up blood.  Others point out that although Trump's arguments were lackluster, all he really needed to do was appear calm enough to dispel his persistent portrayal as a nut job; from there he can rely on the desperate desire of many voters for a change, any change.

Joe Bob Briggs was right on point:
I’ve got news for these Rhodes Scholars. People don’t care about who’s prepared. They care about who’s lying and, in this case, who’s lying more than the other liar. . . . This is where we end up—two liars arguing over who’s the bigger liar and who’s more crazy. Trump probably wins that argument, simply because all his sins were under the rubric of surviving in a brutal business world, whereas all Hillary’s were committed while serving as an office holder.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whenever the Lizard Queen's lips move you can be sure she is lying.

http://www.compulsivelyingdisorder.com/what-is-compulsive-lying-disorder/

-Mississippi

Grim said...

We'll find out, but it is a reasonable point that, in general, the Clinton campaign has been run like successful campaigns of the past and the Trump campaign has not. Clinton's debate performance was a carefully synthesized example of what a 'good debate performance' should look like. Trump's was completely undisciplined, but so also has been his campaign to date. Nevertheless, he's running even.

That suggests that voters really may not be in the mood for an ordinary politician this year. Evidence of being good at being an ordinary politician may not help you as much as you'd expect.