Clinton v. Trump: Hostility at Hofstra

In this strangest of presidential election years, the first of three debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was just as it should have been — strange. 

The first third of the evening was like a heavyweight championship match with the boxers standing in the middle of the ring just slugging it out. The remainder of the debate saw Clinton on the offense, slamming Trump about sexism, race relations, business dealings and personal honesty. Trump attacked Clinton right back but at times seemed restrained, missing opportunities to deliver a crushing blow. 

2016 is a change election; voters are looking for something different. That’s why Trump won the GOP primaries and why, against all odds, Bernie Sanders gave Hillary a run for her money in the Democratic primaries.

As the “change agent” candidate, Trump needed to show that he could be presidential, that he could handle the issues, and that he could debate without some of the craziness he displayed during the primary season. Clinton would have to demonstrate her experience, show that Trump isn’t presidential material, seem likable, and because of her recent health problems prove she could last through a 90-minute debate without keeling over.

Trump achieved the goal of looking presidential and debating without the errors or the nastiness of the primary debates. In fact, Clinton was the attacker for most of the night.

Trump also needed to show that he could keep up with Clinton’s knowledge of policy. And while Clinton’s knowledge base did seem deeper at times, the gap wasn’t wide enough to display a clear difference. And on the bread and butter issues of the economy and national defense Trump was the strongest.  

Perhaps the most substantial policy part of the debate was the economic section at the beginning, where Trump was the strongest (and even Democratic commentators conceded he won this section of the debate). Strangely that’s when moderator Holt abandoned the issues and grilled Trump about his tax returns.

While she seemed confident through the night and certainly unflappable, much of the time her smile turned into a “cocky smirk.” At one point when Trump defended his temperament Clinton answered Trump with a shimmy and a “Woo, okay.”

Trump, on the other hand, answered many of Clinton’s attacks too softly, rather than pivoting and turning back an attack onto the Democrat.  To win the election, Trump needs to make Hillary’s track record the issue. At times he did it well; the “you’ve done it for 30 years and never fixed anything” argument was effective.

At other times Clinton gave Trump a perfect opportunity for a devastating blow, and he passed it over.

Prior to the debate there was a controversy about whether moderator Lester Holt should facilitate a discussion between the two candidates, or assume the role of “truth police.” He did fact check five times, all on Trump.  When he played truth squad, twice he repeated Candy Crowley’s error — his correction was wrong. The incorrect Holt corrections were in the area of “stop and frisk” and Trump’s feelings about the Iraq war.

Holt argued with Trump that “stop and frisk” was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which isn’t true. In the 1968 ruling for Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed. In the case New York City lost in 2013, a federal judge ruled that the way the city was applying stop and frisk was discriminatory against minorities. 

As for whether or not Trump was against the Iraq war before the war, moderator Holt insisted that the record showed that Trump did not say he was against the war before it began. 

After the debate, Neil Cavuto of Fox Business played the tape of a Trump interview he did on Jan. 28, 2003 (the war began on March 20).  During their discussion, Trump told Cavuto that it was more important that Bush focus on the problems with the economy rather than Iraq, certainly supporting the Trump timeline.

During the debate Trump also pointed to arguments he had with Sean Hannity about the war, prior to its first battle. However, while Hannity did back up Trump, until a tape of that confrontation, Hannity’s confirmation is not as convincing as Cavuto’s.

Also interesting was Holt’s choice of topics. While he questioned Trump on his tax returns, his statements about Clinton’s stamina and about birtherism, Holt did not ask similar question of Clinton. There were no questions about her saying she wanted to put the coal industry out of business, the email scandal (Trump brought it up), the pay-for-play Clinton foundation scandal, lying about the cause of Benghazi being a YouTube video, and more. 

The American voter would have been better served if Holt avoided “gotcha” type questions to either side. Rather, he should have spent time on policy issues such as health care, saving Social Security, immigration, or gun policy.

When all is said and done, after watching the debate twice and reading the transcript I can clearly stat that after ninety minutes of debate it would be a surprise if either candidate generated a major shift of voters to their side (especially in the “college-educated whites” demographic which many pollsters say are the last voters to make a decision).

There is a Vice Presidential debate next Tuesday, and presidential debates Oct. 9 and Oct. 19. Look for Trump to be “no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

Finally, one may notice that the viewer polls conducted by Drudge, Time, and CBS showed Trump to be the big winner, and the one from CNN showed that Clinton won. Ignore them all. They are unscientific and meaningless. Beyond that, history has shown that the real effect of a debate doesn’t really show up until a week or so afterwards. In two or more weeks, when the election preference polls are updated to include five to ten days after the event, only then we will be able to determine whatever voter swings resulted from the debate. 

Contact Jeff Dunetz: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com