[Ohioan]

The best debate preparation is simply to get in a mentally sharp mood, and think before you respond. Every subject has a very broad context of relevant factors. Responses, rather than being canned--as Mrs. Clinton's obviously were--need to be left flexible, to allow you to hit any subject from the cotextual perspective (which is sufficiently vast to allow all sorts of responses outside the comfort zone of any Leftist pseudo-intellectual) that will be most likely to confound your opponent at that particular moment.

Hence, a loose but very alert Donald Trump--not trying to remember a canned response-- could have hit Mrs. Clinton's confiscatory tax policy, from any of that vast array of contextual factors such as:

1. My tax plan is not giving anyone anything. It has to do with letting people keep more of the fruits of their own labor, to spend in building the economy; or

2. Mrs. Clinton has forgotten that we won the Cold War. We do not confiscate the fruits of other people's labor; or

3. What is "fair," about imposing punitive tax rates on people who achieve? The high income tax payers will pay much more taxes even with a flat tax rate, applicable to all. Confiscatory taxes are just plain theft; or

4. Your war on success is a glorification of envy & resentment. You encourage a form of covetousness; a self-defeating grievance mentality rather than a constructive desire to emulate what has been the key to success for others--the exploitation of prospective voters by the demagoguery that destroyed Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, and which is now destroying Venezuela: or

5. Mrs. Clinton does not understand how big businessmen pass on high taxes to the small investors & consuming public. If you look at the rising trajectory of enormous Corporate pay packages, you will see that they took off in the pre-Reagan era of confiscatory tax rates--in effect putting the pay packages at a level, where after taxes they would still exceed the buying power of the pay packages before the era of excessive graduation in the marginal rates. Thus the taxes ultimately come out of the pockets of the small stockholders & the consumers of Corporate products.

I could go on, suggesting dragging in the Clinton Foundation; the Totalitarian massacres of people targeted in the upper 1% of certain countries, etc., or a wide variety of other contextual possibilities; but this should illustrate the point.

[ArtDodger]

Exactly. Ignore the bozos who think zero prep is the way to go. Zero prep is a great way to get creamed. He had a mulligan on this one and to think he won because he didn’t lose votes is childish thinking. Beware the fools who confuse luck for prowess.

[vis a vis]

WOW !!! +1 Powerful..