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Times Chris Wallace silenced the President tonight: 35

Winston Churchill to Son Randolph: "how dare you interrupt me while I am interrupting you."

Who was interrupting whom? Clearly, Trump was frequently intruding on Biden's time. We are inclined to think that that serves Trump well but we support Trump. Undecideds and independents are typically offended by interruptions.

The question is, was it Trump's objective to debate Mike Wallace or Joe Biden. Or better yet, should it have been Trump's objective to win over undecided voters?

I don't like to say this, I'm distressed to have to say this, but candor requires me to say that Trump entered the debate with the overwhelming advantage of incumbency As President of the United States Of America and left the debate a brawler who was behind in the Real Clear Average of polls. Biden entered the debate as a demented septuagenarian ahead in the polls and left the debate a viable candidate for president of the United States in possession of his faculties ahead in the Real Clear average of polls.

Trump's objective was to turn the polls around, I believe he failed to do that tonight. Biden's objective was to appear presidential rather than demented and to safeguard his lead in the polls, I believe he did that.

This is not to open debate about the reliability of these Real Clear polls, they are certainly suspect especially given the history in 2016 but they are now about all we have to go with. Moreover, Trump works at a disadvantage in the electoral college and cannot afford to lose more than 34 votes from his 2016 count. Up till now the trend, as I have frequently pointed out on these threads, appears to have been Trump's friend but it also appears to have stalled lately and in any event Trump is vulnerable because of the structure of the electoral college.

Killing the messenger, even messengers who live in Europe, does not change reality

Speaking of Churchill—I was thinking this earlier, even before this debate: if the United States fails to re-elect Trump, it will be like England failing to re-elect Churchill.

Trump's objective was to turn the polls around, I believe he failed to do that tonight.

I'll just leave this one here.

If Trump *were* ahead in the polls, the Dems wouldn't be pulling out every possible stop on every type of voter fraud ever seen.

You are utterly and irretrievably wrong.

With respect, sir:

I don't like to say this, I'm distressed to have to say this, but candor requires me to say that Trump entered the debate with the overwhelming advantage of incumbency As President of the United States Of America and left the debate a brawler who was behind in the Real Clear Average of polls. Biden entered the debate as a demented septuagenarian ahead in the polls and left the debate a viable candidate for president of the United States in possession of his faculties ahead in the Real Clear average of polls.

Trump's objective was to turn the polls around, I believe he failed to do that tonight. Biden's objective was to appear presidential rather than demented and to safeguard his lead in the polls, I believe he did that.

I think you are falling victim to two phenomenon:

I was interested when I heard that folk on DU were very upset with Biden's performance. Then it occurred to me... OF COURSE! We, on either side, want OUR guy to perform perfectly. We tend to notice our side's mistakes much more and not the other side's. We end up being hyper-critical of our guy. DU: "Biden did THIS wrong and should have done THIS", and FR: "Trump did THIS wrong and should have done THIS"
...and per the polls, I think you may have forgotten the professional polling cycle. Phase 1 is to exaggerate the left's numbers, to discourage the right. Phase 2 is to boost the right's numbers, to motivate the left. Then Phase 3 is to take actual polls so they can claim they were right this cycle.

As to my take on the whole debate: I will copy one freeper who I agreed with, and add my own text to it.

Biden exceeded expectations and did well. Some actually said Biden wouldn’t even show up. Biden spoke a lot of lies but he said them smoother than I expected. I doubt he is called out on any of them. Trump did very well and in certain segments he definitely rocked. But Trump interrupted too much. No KO. Opportunity missed.

I think Trump did very well on Law and Order, on Reopening, and on the Economy. I think those are the really important issues right now. People are tired of the virus. They want to move back toward a normal life. Trump did do a good job of framing that.

Biden did a good job looking into the camera and speaking directly to the people. He also had emotional tones in his voice at times, and that connects very well with suburban moms. I think Biden gets a big boost with the suburban mom crowd from this.

I think Trump wasted a lot of time with the Hunter Biden stuff. People don't care. Biden was smart not to hammer the Trump tax stuff too much. Again, people don't care.

On the whole, I'd say it's a wash. We cannot trust the media polls at all, and with the planned fraud, I suspect we cannot trust the poll that will occur the entire month of November, instead of November third, when it should have been decided.

The trends say otherwise, as more Democrats switch to Republican and Trump is expanding the electoral map into more Blue States.