Clinton wasn’t quite as awful as I had hoped, but hey, it’s pretty easy to high jump when the bar is on the ground.
Democrats in the media will overestimate the actual impact of this round on potential swing voters. They will have come in expecting Hillary to be slick, not damaged (that’s just our partisan theme). And she was slick. But even though it wasn’t a perfect debate performance by the Donald, he did plant the necessary seeds of doubt about another four years. Now it’s time to build on that in future speeches and debates.
I would not expect the polls to change much for a while. Some of the issues discussed tonight have no relevance to the voter-decision. So it was basically dead air for about half the time. The other half was a mixture of good and bad efforts on both sides to make partisan points of some significance. The net effect would be a tie, status quo ante.
A friend of mine just texted me about the debate and we were discussing and I realized that I don’t remember really anything Hillary said because she rambles in her rehearsed way. Trump draws attention. You remember what he said, good or bad. I think she came across as arrogant and smug. Trump at least made the point that he wants to make America a better place and beat ISIS.