" />

The Moderate Voice

An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right


You are here: Home / Politics / 2016 Elections / Did debate help Trump out? (Roundup of reaction)

Did debate help Trump out? (Roundup of reaction)

by 3 Comments

Did the second debate help beleaguered Republican Presidential candidate out? Did the fact that for some of the town hall debate he did better than his almost universally panned performance in the first mean he “won?” You can get predictable answers from that from many partisans. Was the debate a disgrace to the country, as some suggested? Was Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton smart in pulling back a little to let Trump self-destruct? But DID he? And, if not, did she miss a chance to put him away?

Online polls don’t really mean much, but if you’re into them here are two of the first: CNN/ORC: 57% Clinton, 34% Trump
YouGov: 47% Clinton, 42% Trump. But don’t expect to see that on the Drudge Online Poll, or Breitbart.

The reaction is now pouring in. And here’s a cross section.

This Tweet by former President George W. Bush aide Michael Gerson reflects a widely held view:


And many echoed The Daily Beast Executive Editor John Avlon:

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz:

The question has been asked so many times over the past 16 months of this presidential election that it has become a cliche: Has anyone ever seen anything quite like this? And yet, once again, Donald Trump took Campaign 2016 to places no one could have imagined when it all began.

What occurred here on Sunday is likely to be remembered as the Spectacle in St. Louis: a presidential debate wrapped inside a sordid and unfolding series of events that have left Trump isolated, defiant and politically wounded, his Republican Party at war with itself and the country caught up in a campaign that has left issues and even moderately civil debate far behind, almost an afterthought.

In the wake of the release of an 11-year-old video of Trump speaking of actions that, if carried out, would amount to sexual assaults of women, the Republican nominee could have stepped back, issued another apology and tried to keep his demeanor in his exchange with Hillary Clinton as restrained as possible. He chose to do otherwise.

By the time the 90-minute town-hall debate had ended, he tried to turn attention away from the damaging video by saying that Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, had treated women far worse. And he pledged that if he becomes president, he would appoint a special prosecutor to go after her for her use of a private email server, saying if he were in charge of law enforcement, she would be in prison.

Clinton said the Trump who appeared in the lewd video is the real Trump, a man who has insulted and denigrated women, Hispanics, disabled people, Muslims and others, and who is temperamentally unfit to be president. It is an oft-stated charge, but one with heightened effect at this particular moment of the campaign.
It’s not that serious issues were not addressed and at times serious disagreements aired, whether it was over the Affordable Care Act or the state of U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. But never has there been a debate in which the attacks, the body language and the exchanges conveyed the degree to which this campaign has reached the depths of division and disagreement, not just between the two candidates but between two Americas.

Put aside the effect of the debate on the campaign. There is time enough to assess that, but in many ways that was a secondary consideration. Instead, the larger implication of what unfolded was a debate unlike any ever seen in modern American politics, two candidates who have the utmost disrespect for the other hurling allegations, accusations, insults and criticism at each other.

The Atlantic’s Ron Fournier believes that no matter what, Trump is done – and his debate performance didn’t help him, and the numbers of GOPers fleeing being associated with Trump will increase:

Trump is a serial hypocrite who outdid himself with the attacks on Bill Clinton.

He once criticized Republicans for impeaching Clinton. “Look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally un-important. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense.

He also attacked Monica Lewinsky’s looks. “People would have been more forgiving if (Bill Clinton) had an affair with a really beautiful woman of sophistication.”

He called Paula Jones a loser and, in 1999, called Hillary Clinton “a wonderful woman.” He also said, “She’s been through more than any woman should have to bear.”

Had the Trump tape not been released, Clinton would be dealing with her own hypocrisy issues….But she had the better hand Sunday night, reminding voters that Trump has not apologized for attacking the parents of a slain U.S. soldier, mocking a disabled reporter, smearing a Hispanic judge, and questioning President Obama’s citizenship. “He owed the president an apology,” she said.

“You owe the president an apology,” Trump said, accusing a Clinton adviser of starting the false “birther” rumor in 2008.

Cooper and Trump pressed Clinton on her email scandal, failing to get her to budge off her deceptive talking points.

“If I win,” Trump said, “I’m going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.”

Clinton laughed and said it’s a good thing “somebody with Donald Trump’s temperament” doesn’t have such power.

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump blurted, precisely making her point. He also called her the devil.

Clinton laughed at him again. “OK, Donald, I know you’re big on diversions today—anything to avoid talking about your campaign and how it’s exploding and how Republicans are walking away from you.”

Nothing hurts a bully likes somebody laughing at him, unless it’s people walking away from him. Trump paced and pouted and sighed. As Clinton passed between her rival and his lectern, I half expected Trump to trip her. Instead, he falsely accused the moderators of failing to ask Clinton about her email.

“One on three,” he whined. Poor Donald; he thought the two moderators and Clinton were ganging up on him.

When you’re a dying star, you can’t do anything.

The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky:

Hillary Clinton won the second debate, just by looking more presidential, and because Donald Trump said some things that are going to wear badly over the next 48 hours (basically admitting that that Times story was right and he paid no taxes). But she didn’t win it by as much as she did the first one.
That’s partly because expectations for Trump were so low, especially after that sickening press conference he gave with the Bill Clinton accusers two hours before the debate, that people half expected him to spend 90 minutes screaming “Juanita Broaddrick, Juanita Broaddrick, Juanita Broaddrick!” That he didn’t—and that he actually seemed semi-prepared to talk a little policy, on Obamacare and the carried-interest loophole, say—gave him a surprising chance to look, for a few selected minutes, like he was actually running seriously for president.
Bottom line: Trump did well enough that the conversation will move away, or somewhat away, from the video tape. He could easily have fed into that. It came up early. Trump dismissed it as “locker-room talk” which it isn’t, but which enough people might believe. He said he was sorry. Then he pivoted right into Broaddrick and the other women: “Bill Clinton was far worse; mine were words, his were actions. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women.” He actually got applause for this riff from the ostensibly undecided audience.

Clinton’s reply was…fine. “If he wants to talk about that,” she said, “that’s his choice.” Then she said she would follow the wisdom of her friend Michelle Obama, who said, “When they go low, you go high.” She got big applause there, too, slightly bigger than Trump had just gotten.
That was a good moment for her, but overall she wasn’t on her best game.

And at then end of his piece:

Trump pleased the base. That much is indisputable. But whether he pleased swing voters…well, I’d say they were probably more impressed with him than they expected to be, but not impressed enough to think he really ought to be the president of the United States. And the Republican panjandrums, the senators and House members and other insiders who have to make decisions about what they’re going to say about Trump in the next 48 hours? This debate nudged the needle in a direction more sympathetic to Trump. But it only nudged it, and he’s got a lot of ground to make up and very little time to do it.
Overall: A sad and depressing night for America. I think it will prove to be a bad night for Trump: He admitted he pays no federal tax, in essence, and Americans don’t like that. If the Clinton campaign is effective, that will be the sound bite that lasts. But beyond that, it was a sad night for the country. We are in Trump’s gutter, and there’s no escaping it.

The Huffington Post:

Shortly into Sunday night’s wildly anticipated debate, Donald Trump made a campaign promise that might be more fitting in Vladimir Putin’s Russia than modern American politics: If he were president, he told Hillary Clinton, “you’d be in jail.”

It was part of a performance from Trump that put to rest the question, if it was still open, of whether Trump is fit for the presidency. Nobody appeared more aware of that reality than Trump, whose strategy seemed to be to extract as much public humiliation from Clinton as he could, rather than to win the election….
…For her part, Clinton turned in a less-than-inspiring performance. Her strategy seemed to be to get out of the way of Donald Trump, and just let his dumpster fire burn. And burn it did.

The New York Times editorial board:

Donald Trump boiled his decadent campaign down to one message during the presidential debate on Sunday night: hatred of Hillary and Bill Clinton.

With knock-kneed Republican officeholders at last summoning the nerve to desert him, Mr. Trump went to lengths to demonize Hillary Clinton — blaming her even for his own failure to pay taxes — and to remind his hard core of supporters that he is all that stands between her and the presidency.

If he were in charge, Mr. Trump told Secretary Clinton at one point, “You’d be in jail.”

When Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Trump out for his failure to apologize to the minorities, immigrants and women he’s offended, he responded by promising vengeance. Should he win, he said, he would unleash a special prosecutor to investigate her.

Sniffing and glowering, Mr. Trump prowled behind her as Mrs. Clinton presented herself again as the only adult on stage, the only one seeking to persuade the great majority of Americans that she shares their values and aspirations. Mr. Trump, by contrast, fell back on the tricks he has learned from his years in pro wrestling and reality television, making clear how deep his cynicism goes and how little regard he has for his party, let alone the presidency.

Just before the debate, desperate to shift attention from his pattern of harassment, Mr. Trump sat hunched over a blank notepad in a bedraggled hotel meeting room, encouraging four women to face the cameras and tell their stories of sexual victimization — to save him, at the expense of anything else.

AND:

Lacking any 11th-hour surge of courage, the G.O.P. is asking Americans to vote for a candidate so flawed that he distorts the electoral process. During the debate, it seemed somewhere between quaint and futile to invite undecided voters to ask him for his plans for the nation.

When Mr. Trump so grandly accepted the Republican Party’s nomination in July, he said, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves.” By then, though, he has already campaigned for months by beating up on vulnerable Americans, including minorities and the disabled. It is only in recent days that the Republican establishment has acknowledged the magnitude of his hypocrisy.

Political Wire’s Taegan Goodard:

(Trump) is now speaking only to the audience for a speculated media venture. Its not a mistake that his top advisers are former Fox News chief Roger Ailes and Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon.

From the pre-debate spectacle with women who accused Bill Clinton of various sex crimes to saying he would put Hillary Clinton in jail after he wins, it’s obvious that Trump no longer cares to be a mainstream Republican. He treated this like a debate at the Conservative Political Action Conference, not a general election campaign for president of the United States.

This debate should be seen as Trump’s official divorce from the Republican party.

Trump has put every Republican in a downballot race in a really tough position. They can un-endorse their party’s nominee and incur the wrath of his supporters or they can back him and lose swing voters. Trump even dismissed his own running mate’s comments on Russia. At this point, it’s hard to see the Republican party offer any help to his campaign.

As for the debate, Trump was completely unprepared. His body language was terrible. He showed he doesn’t even know how a bill becomes a law. He admitted he hasn’t paid federal income taxes for years — and that won’t the headline from tonight.

Considering that backdrop, Clinton did a decent job. She was very smart to stick to audience questions and try to understand their concerns. Rather than needle Trump as she did in the first debate, she mostly tried to ignore him.

Clinton wasn’t perfect. Her answer on her emails was extremely weak. She left many of Trump’s attacks unanswered. But there’s only one candidate seriously running for president at this point. She won the debate hands down. It’s hard to imagine Trump won over even a single voter tonight.







The conservative blog Red State in its winners and losers list, put Trump as a winner and Clinton as a loser.

The liberal blog Daily Kos in its final debate post had this:

Donald finally released his assault on Bill Clinton. Hillary’s response on this, and on several other attacks that Trump made, was to dismiss his statement. She instead laid out a litany of Trump’s statements. This was the highlight of Clinton’s night, allowing Clinton to flay Trump steadily for most of her two minutes while Trump paced and turned various shades of pumpkin.

For the rest of the night, Clinton’s answers were mostly safe, and she concentrated on being responsive to the audience. But Trump delivered some real shockers, enough that it’s hard to pick out the biggest eye-openers…
Overall, Trump spent the first 20 minutes ranting, then the remainder of the night merely acting like a creepy stalker. And through it all he provided enough soundbites to power Hillary through a raft of commercials where Donald is forced to listen to his own words.