Round one – fight.
It was perhaps the most anticipated presidential debate in history, and whilst the gloves didn’t completely come off there were still plenty of fireworks.
Trump and his basket of deplorables (HERE) will no doubt say he handled himself well, and he didn’t implode to the extent that many had hoped, but Hillary managed to poke the bear and rile Trump up – something analysts say worked in her favour.
This from Huffington Post:
The Clinton campaign’s greatest fear throughout the general election has been that some other Trump would emerge ― a more measured, reasonable and mature man, one who might look like he was ready for the Oval Office. That man doesn’t exist, so he didn’t show up…
…he fairly quickly reverted to the alpha male role that had worked so well in Republican debates, becoming something of a Rick Lazio in split screen, hectoring, interrupting, sniffling loudly and rolling his eyes…
And that, more than anything, was the impression the debate left: Trump hasn’t thought about this stuff much. He’s not ready to be president. His odd campaign set awfully low expectations, but, paradoxically, high ones as well. He had to show he was ready to be president. He didn’t.
Trump has been gaining on Clinton in recent weeks, and has brought the race close to a tie. If it were held tomorrow, however, Clinton would win, and Trump did nothing to change that dynamic Monday night.
For a three-minute summary be patient and the video below should load:
Let’s head over to Fox News, basically the political polar opposite of Huffington Post, and see if they agree:
The debate took a number of twists and turns, and it’s unclear how and whether it will tilt the race at a time when the polls are tightening. The general election rivals will meet twice more on the debate stage next month…
[Trump] vanquished 16 foes and dominated the stage over the roughly dozen early-season debates.
That record rendered him a rival not to be underestimated by the Clinton camp, which spent days preparing the Democratic nominee in study and mock-debate sessions even while Trump was out campaigning last week.
Yeah, how dare she be preparing for something big and important. Trump reminds me of that kid at school who mocks the other kid who studied, although when he sees his results he refuses to share them with the rest of the class (much like his tax returns).
TIME’s poll (HERE) has, at the time of writing, Trump down as the clear winner:
The Donald certainly thinks he did well:
At least Trump won the battle of the Twitter stats:
Great, except for what some of those tweets were saying:
That Hillary jibe would be Trump denying that he ever said global warming was dreamed up by the Chinese, but forgetting to delete the tweet from 2012 where he explicitly said that.
And as for getting chirped by Jerry Springer – yoh, rough.
For a breakdown of fact-checking from the debate head to the Washington Post HERE, but I guess this one has ended as many of us knew it would.
Trump supporters and the media that feeds their fantasies has him down as the winner, left-leaning outlets have Clinton down as a winner, the rest of the world are left shaking their heads at how it has actually come to this.
Six weeks out from Election Day, November 8, and there is a real chance that Donald Trump might be the next U.S. president.
2016, go home you’re drunk.
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