I thought Trump did poorly.
Trump missed a chance to go after Hillary about Libya, especially her statement “we came, we saw, he died” in which she bragged about killing Gaddafi. Libya erupted in a civil war following that event and terrorists are running the country. Well done Hillary.
Trump also missed a chance to attack the Clinton Foundation.
Trump faced three gotcha questions, and Hillary zero. On those grounds, the debate was quite a bit biased. Still, Trump missed a golden opportunity on some of the questions.
On the nuclear war issue, Trump should have commented “Hillary has supported every war every time.”
On the Birther issue, he simply should have stated, “I changed my mind. If we saw the birth certificate sooner, I would have changed my mind sooner. Obama will be gone in a few months, why is Obama’s birth certificate even relevant now?”
Poof, just like that, the birther story would have died on the spot.
Trump was too fidgety. He interrupted too much.
Commentators Split
ZeroHedge offers this debate post-mortem: Rematch Required As Commentators Split On Debate Winner, Markets Give Hillary Nod
Time
September 27, 2016
More Mish Comments
I thought moderator Lester Holt did a poor job. Worse it was a biased hatchet jobs. Hillary got no tough questions. Yet, Trump could easily have done much better, and turned those question into an advantage. A nice little quip would have been nice “Doesn’t Hillary get any pointed questions?”
I watched on NBC. Immediately following the debate, the station had on Hillary’s analyst who bragged about what a great job she did. Then they went away to a commercial break, a very long commercial break. The Republican analyst was supposed to be on following the debate, but that never happened.
That was more built-in bias. And it was all so obvious.
What Matters?
In the end, I suspect most will say “hooray for our side”. If either side was looking for a knockout, this likely wasn’t it.
However, my opinion doesn’t matter. The opinions of undecided voters matters. I am surprised by most of the above polls. All but CNN had Trump winning.
If those debate polls hold in Trump’s favor and are reflective of undecided voters, then Trump may have come out way ahead. We will know more after the next round of election polls.
