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SCORE THE FIRST DEBATE (DILBERT ON FIRST DEBATE)
Dilbert ^ | 09/27/2016 | Scott Adams

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016election; clinton; debate; debates; dilbert; hillary; scottadams; trump
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Scott Adams calls it for Trump.
1 posted on 09/27/2016 10:23:42 AM PDT by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop

“Clinton’s smile seemed forced, artificial, and frankly creepy.”
YES!


2 posted on 09/27/2016 10:28:21 AM PDT by MNDude (God is not a Republican, but Satan is certainly a Democrat.)
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To: goldstategop

I mean Adams says Trump intentionally lost the debate to win the election.

He needed to look less scary to swing voters and that was mission accomplished.

He achieved what he set out to do. Hillary’s debate victory was a Pyrrhic one.

Game, set and match. Whether or not you agree with Dilbert, you’ll love Adams’ takeaway on the bottom line on the first debate.


3 posted on 09/27/2016 10:28:34 AM PDT by goldstategop ((In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever))
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To: MNDude

Clinton had more knowledge of course, but what has all that knowledge gotten us..she has been in politics for 30 years, and everywhere she goes dead bodies follow..and she acted like a pompous jerk, full of it, thinking she is better than everyone else and it showed..oh and she calls ALL white people racist, HELLO, did anyone notice that


4 posted on 09/27/2016 10:29:28 AM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: goldstategop

“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.”


5 posted on 09/27/2016 10:30:21 AM PDT by Wisconsinlady (What we tolerate today, our children will embrace tomorrow)
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To: goldstategop

SHRILLARY is a MONSTER.

God Save us from the Fiend


6 posted on 09/27/2016 10:32:37 AM PDT by Rome2000 (SMASH THE CPUSA-SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS-CLOSE ALL MOSQUES)
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To: goldstategop

Perhaps the most interesting analysis so far.

Both scored some points, neither a knock out blow.


7 posted on 09/27/2016 10:33:33 AM PDT by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, deport all illegal aliens, abolish the IRS, DEA and ATF.)
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To: goldstategop
Hillary is a career politician and a lawyer. She's a professional speaker and has decades of experience with this kind of thing.

Trump is more like you and I. Little debate experience, not prone to lying or speaking in rehearsed sound bites and cliches.

He wasn't polished but that won't matter. It's that very lack of "politician sliminess" that Americans want now.

8 posted on 09/27/2016 10:37:36 AM PDT by FReepaholic (Stupidity is not a crime, so you're free to go.)
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To: goldstategop

Who is dilbert? Never heard of him..this is about the 3rd time this article has been posted.


9 posted on 09/27/2016 10:39:15 AM PDT by RoseofTexas
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To: goldstategop

Someone said Trump had to convince people that he isn’t Hitler and Hillary had to convince people that she isn’t Hillary!


10 posted on 09/27/2016 10:39:33 AM PDT by cartoonistx
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To: MNDude

The creep factor was real with the plastered smile and the shaking and bobbing. Maybe there was a strange coalescence of Parkinson’s and Botox but voting for would be like voting for Chucky.


11 posted on 09/27/2016 10:41:24 AM PDT by Scott from the Left Coast (I'm deplorable)
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To: Wisconsinlady

I was thinking about two movies.
One Rock’n’Roll High School where Trump is the Ramones and Hillary is the principal.
The other movie was when Trump did his uninhibited political exhibitionism and seemed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.


12 posted on 09/27/2016 10:44:28 AM PDT by magna carta
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To: RoseofTexas

Scott Adams is a cartoonist who draws a strip called Dilbert.

It has been one of the most popular in the country for over 20 years.

Adams also has an MBA, worked on the team that helped creat the first fiber optical networks, understands economics better than most writers and achieved a feat only equaled once of having both a non fiction and a fiction book number one on the best seller lists at the same time.

He is also notable for having both praised and supporting Trump and being unabashed about the grief he has gotten for doing so.

His comics are deeply loved by many people who have to spend their working lives in cubicles managed by idiots.


13 posted on 09/27/2016 10:45:42 AM PDT by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, deport all illegal aliens, abolish the IRS, DEA and ATF.)
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To: magna carta
Rock’n’Roll High School

A guilty pleasure along with Walter Hill's Streets of Fire.

14 posted on 09/27/2016 10:49:49 AM PDT by Stentor
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To: RoseofTexas

Cartoonist, author of the Dilbert comic strip and Cartoons.........................


15 posted on 09/27/2016 10:50:03 AM PDT by Red Badger (YES, I'm Deplorable! I Deplore the entire Democrat Party!....................)
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To: RoseofTexas
>
16 posted on 09/27/2016 10:51:20 AM PDT by Red Badger (YES, I'm Deplorable! I Deplore the entire Democrat Party!....................)
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To: goldstategop

I would prefer Trump to be more Socratic next debate...ask her/it more questions and that shows where communism/socialism/corruption/Bengazi/classified emails/ClintonFoundation/on and on DEFINE HER...by asking emails that the audience KNOWS he KNOWS the answers to...

And, Trump can also ask the moderator the same, like, “moderator, perhaps you can ask Secretary Clinton how 4 Americans were allowed to die”...that would throw off the mod and Hitlery.


17 posted on 09/27/2016 10:52:32 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (Deplorable to the last drop. "I don't know how Trump won, no one I know voted for him")
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To: goldstategop
I disagree with Adams about Trump losing, but winning by losing.

Trump won, and he won by winning.

18 posted on 09/27/2016 10:52:54 AM PDT by xzins ( Free Republic Gives YOU a voice heard around the globe. Support the Freepathon!)
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To: Red Badger

LMAO! FReeper Approved!!


19 posted on 09/27/2016 10:53:20 AM PDT by TADSLOS (Vote Trump. Defeat the Clinton Crime Syndicate. Reset America.)
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To: RoseofTexas

Besides what Red State rocker said about Scott Adams...He’s also done hypnotism for over thirty years and not only studies what people say but inflections, body movements and all kinds of “tells” that tell far more than the verbal.
He is a master at the art of persuation and he explains what he sees and what it means.
His blog :Scott Adams blog is interesting I read it several time a week. He’s
kind of intresting in that hes not political. Not a pundit and admits political philosophy wise he does not agree with either party .
But he says Trump will win in a landslide unless some other event changes that...I think he is correct
Freegards
LEX


20 posted on 09/27/2016 10:53:58 AM PDT by lexington minuteman 1775
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