Posted on 09/27/2016 10:23:42 AM PDT by goldstategop
I Score the First Debate
Posted September 27th, 2016 @ 8:27am
Trump and Clinton debated each other for the first time last night. Here’s how I score the night.
Clinton won on points. She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers. Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive. If this were a college debate competition, Clinton would be declared the winner. I call that victory on the 2D chess board. But voters don’t care about facts and debating style. They care about how they feel. So let’s talk about that.
For starters, Trump and Clinton both seemed “presidential” enough. That mattered more for Trump. We haven’t seen him off the teleprompter lately. So Trump passed that test by being sufficiently serious.
Clinton looked (to my eyes) as if she was drugged, tired, sick, or generally unhealthy, even though she was mentally alert and spoke well. But her eyes were telling a different story. She had the look of someone whose doctors had engineered 90 minutes of alertness for her just for the event. If she continues with a light campaign schedule, you should assume my observation is valid, and she wasn’t at 100%.
Some will say Clinton outperformed expectations because she didn’t cough, collapse, or die right on stage. That would be true if she also looked healthy in general, and her campaign schedule from here on out is full. We’ll know more this week, based on her schedule.
Clinton’s smile seemed forced, artificial, and frankly creepy. I’m already hearing on Twitter that mentioning a woman’s smile is sexist. I understand the point. But when someone goes full Joker-face and tests the uncanny valley hypothesis at the same time, that’s a bit different from telling a woman to “smile more.” My neighbor Kristina hypothesized that Botox was making her smile look unnatural. Science tells us that when a person’s mouth smiles, but their eyes don’t match the smile, they look disingenuous if not creepy. Botox on your crow’s feet lines around your eyes can give that effect. But whatever the reason, something looked off to me.
To be fair, Trump’s physical appearance won’t win him any votes either. But his makeup looked better than I have seen it (no orange), his haircut was as good as it gets for him, and he was otherwise his normal self that some voters hate and some like.
But the most interesting question has to do with what problem both of them were trying to solve with the debate. Clinton tried to look healthy, and as I mentioned, I don’t think she completely succeeded. But Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that…by…losing the debate.
Trump was defensive, and debated poorly at points, but he did not look crazy. And pundits noticed that he intentionally avoided using his strongest attacks regarding Bill Clinton’s scandals. In other words, he showed control. He stayed in the presidential zone under pressure. And in so doing, he solved for his only remaining problem. He looked safer.
By tomorrow, no one will remember what either of them said during the debate. But we will remember how they made us feel.
Clinton won the debate last night. And while she was doing it, Trump won the election. He had one thing to accomplish – being less scary – and he did it.
—
You might love my book because the debate.
Funnier, perhaps; profounder, no.
He is already so ‘cratic: He is a man of the people, not of the elite.
Dilbert is the character; Adams is the creator.
It is what I call ‘S’ humor: Sensing type, a la Myers-Briggs. In other words, it is concrete-operational/existential humor.
Objectively, Adams is insightful and talented and unusual; subjectively, being an NT (iNtuitive/Thinking), it leaves me feeling indifferent.
I disagree with the idea that she “scored” more points folks.
if you look at the questions she refused to answer... and the fact that she failed to perform actual pivots, or even rationally strung together segues (which trump does quite well) to any similar related topics... the truth is she sidestepped the direct questions and barked out canned/pre-planned NON ANSWERS to the questions asked... and in the end, she retreated to her fallback position, when being over run, which was “check out my website and buy my (loser) book! Wink of eye and crap eating “creepout” grin to the camera...
Trump answered questions directly. And his defensive “segues” not only made sense, but in answering said questions, he turned each one, into an IMPLIED accusation/attack against Liar-Hillary. It was subtle.
He also allowed his answers to trigger “auto complete” in the minds of those who have heard him speak repeatedly from a factual basis, concerning Hillary’s treason and her being fit for Jail.
He did not do all the zingers we could think of... but every damned one of the people watching knew very well, what was playing in their heads regarding Liar-Hillary and her “guilty as sin” treasonous behaviors. Yet, Trump cannot be accused of “saying horrible things” to the “girl” and therefore did very little to offend the host of american women who are living vicariously through Hillary’s V(for vagina)... and the national stage.
Well done Donald.
Hmmm, you know I think in the case of DU it would be
more like “dumming” the poll.
Judging Screwtape Letters on how funny it was was sort of my strange sense of humor popping out. I do have to give cred to Luircin for pointing out where Screwtape actually is funny.
Nice looking flaming suit.
Ok...here is the deal...Of course she looked good with 30 years as a politician you get polished in delivery etc.I am sure her debate prep was long and hard. I was on college debate team for two years its a lot of fun and work and yes on responses and stuff...Hillary won on points.
Where I think she lost and this is what matters to folks ...that 80 million..she still comes across as a condescending witch and above us all...where Trump was forward ...always referred to her as “Secretary Clinton” rather than Crooked Hillary...and she called him Donald which demeans him she should have referred to him as Mr Trump or my worthy opponant or some such drivel
Be blessed
Keep the flame suit handy if this thing goes to hell in a handbasket it may be the best thing to own
Freegards
LEX
I think Scott Adams and Sundance have kept me sane through this whole process which is not saying much but it beats butting my head against the wall and screaming...
Freegards
LEX
It’s interesting that AFTER he named the character (which had populated bulletin boards at AT&T where Adams worked)- via a ‘Name The Nerd’ contest- Adams found out that ‘Dilbert’ was the name of a character in instructional publications in the Army Air Core in WW2.
CORPS- not ‘CORE’, spell check strikes again. :-(
Slick-hilly may have superior debate skills, but would you buy a used bridge from her?
From his lips to gods ears
Streets of Fire...Diane Lane...mmmm
If my tagline had an image; this would be it...
Good tagine.
And whatever was that “SHIMMY” that Hillary did? Normally something like that is cute and feminine. But it was so out of place. There was nothing being talked about and there was no complimentary thing being said. It was just out of the blue and weird.
If you have Twitter and Periscope, add @scottadamssays to each. He does a morning coffee live feed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.