Who won the first presidential debate? In my opinion, Hillary Clinton did. Much of what she said was eminently fact-checkable. There were times when she looked smug and supercilious. But she got out some of the attacks she wanted — including breaking in at the end to attack his coments on women and to proclaim that she would support treaty obligations.
Donald Trump also scored some points. But he was on the defensive much of the time, spending an inordinate amount of time on defending his business practices and on asserting that he opposed the Iraq War, when he could just have said he opposed it before Clinton did.
He said only a few words about what may be her greatest liability, the email scandal, and did not take the opportunity of a question about cybersecurity to press his criticisms home. He also missed citing today’s Department of Justice report that murders have increased 11 percent in 2015.
Preparation counted. Many of Clinton’s comments were canned, but were delivered with some force and clarity, even when they were vulnerable to fact-checking. Trump seemed far less prepared, and his failure to make some obvious and perhaps telling points.
Will this turn around the trend toward tighter polls? Not clear. Each probably reinforced their core constituencies, but there are a lot of voters who are not strongly for either candidate.
