These aren’t debates, they’re more
like speed speeching. I am all in on that suggestion of cutting the mics after
2 minutes.
As in the first debate, which Trump
overwhelmingly lost, he needed to do much better than just hold his own in
round 2. He’s trending downward in the polls so he needed a tour de force
performance. He gave a Trump performance; the kind of performance his
supporters love. So far that hasn’t worked when it comes to convincing the
undecideds who they are going to vote for. They’re trending to Hillary Rodham
Clinton as we approach Electageddon. Subsequent polls will provide us an
indication of who won.
Trump added to his controversy for
the next news cycle before the debate began. He foreshadowed his own performance
whether it was bad or good. He trotted out, against advice not to, women that
claimed former President Bill Clinton committed various sexual improprieties
against them. He doesn’t seem to understand that he’s running against Hillary
Clinton. Wives are often perceived as being victims of philandering husbands.
And here I go—off message and not
talking about the debate. Why? Trump did it to himself. He may have done it to throw
Hillary Clinton off her game but he really needs to stop poking the bear. It
isn’t working out well for him.
Then he starts off in the debate
apologizing but coupled the apology with the “locker room” defense. This is not
a good defense for a man who was caught on tape talking about sexually
assaulting women by grabbing their personals. He would have been way ahead if
he had simply apologized and then just STOPPED.
What was with all the sniffing
again? Trump did that in the first debate too. I’ve watched way too much video
of him lately but I haven’t seen him doing that in any of them or at his rallies.
Another conspiracy?
Trump said during the debate that
it was 3 against 1. At one point he seemed to be complaining that the
moderators interrupting were getting in the way of him interrupting when
Hillary Clinton was interrupting. Nevertheless, he managed to talk longer than Clinton. My personal feeling is that
when a person says stuff like that it makes them sound weak and that they know
they’re losing.
Then it was like he was playing
Lurch, following her around. His campaign manager said that’s what people would
talk about rather than him winning. That means she noticed him doing it too.
While they both avoided answering
some questions, I believe that Hillary showed the more professional behavior of
the two. Her responses were more coherent while Trump tends to wander and be
repetitive when answering questions. He leaves out words like when he’s talking
about the “nuclear.” At times I think that he’s talking about the triad but at
other times it seems he isn’t. During the primary debates he didn’t know what
the triad was.
People may decry the negativity but
often the same people fill up Facebook with it. And why do politicians do it?
Because it works. The number crunchers and polls have demonstrated that year
after year. It’s what sells. We’re the audience and they know what we respond
to.
The polls will tell us how the undecideds
responded.