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.
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You might love my book because the debate.
I agree. Nice call by Scott Adams.
Trump will do better. Hillary successfully convinced the moderator to ‘fact check’ Trump’s embellishments and platitudes.
Trump was on personal defense, not strategically defense. Most of the accusations Hillary made could have been turned around and used against her.
Trump has better than this. Perhaps the he knew his first debate would be a throw-away as long as he didn’t get ko’ed or tko’ed and has better in plan for us.
..” full Joker-face..”
I thought the same thing. She looked insane to me.
Vote Trump 2016
And he was held up, twice, when he worked as a bank teller.
“The Dilbert Principle” is simply brilliant.
Read the uncanny valley hypothesis...
I learn something new from Scott Adams every time I read his blog/Twitter feed, or watch him on Periscope. :)
Much more than a mere cartoonist. He lampoons workplace dysfunction. His “comic collections” are knowingly to office management what “Screwtape Letters” are to Christianity. Except funnier. Much funnier.
Remember that people who LISTENED to the televised Nixon-Kennedy debates thought that Nixon won overwhemingly.
Hillary creeped out a lot of people with her weird Joker face antics last night.
Read the "uncanny valley hypothesis" link that I posted above.
It could be interpreted that she said “All” people are racist, as she said we “jump to conclusions about each other” or something like that.
She should be hounded to say whether she meant that all blacks are racist as well. After all, she defined racist as jumping to conclusions about each other, not as institutionally oppressing someone.
Good analysis by Scott.
However, I think that one thing is not being mentioned by anyone. I expected Drudge to be overwhelmingly for Trump, but I am not going to throw that poll out for one reason, enthusiasm. Trump has overwhelmingly been declared the winner in most of the online polls.
Are online polls reliable? I think that it reflects the enthusiasm of the people. Where are all the Hillary supporters? Where is DU? Why aren’t they busy “freeping” the polls for Hillary?
A poll taken by Slate and Politico shows Trump leading?
If they are not enthusiastic enough to participate in the online polls, will they be enthusiastic enough to go to the polling booth?
Trump won on that basis alone. Hillary may have won “technically” on points. Trump is winning with those that will vote.
Exactly my thoughts as well. Lots of us were disappointed she remained vertical the entire 90 minutes. But this show changes nothing. If there's such a thing as an undecided voter, this debate likely will move them to vote for no one.
Hillary talked like a politician. She had lots of little sound bytes, all typical politician things we’ve heard a million times at debates. I think she had to prove she wouldn’t fall down at a debate. I didn’t expect her to.
I told my family before it ever began, “She’s probably going to be pumped up on steroids, amphetamines, painkillers, antispasmodics - whatever it will take to get her through 2 hrs or so. I’d hate to see her at midnight, coming down. Remember what they used to do to Kennedy. That pantsuit is probably hiding a full support system holding her up.” I know. I’ve worn the things - belts, bandages - to get me through work on difficult days. I remember how she looked on that airplane after the bombing in NYC - like a zombie. They have time to get the dosage right, now. You can bet she’ll be brighteyed - for two hours.
Trump - he had real facts. He talked like a person. He got ticked when the moderator and Hillary doubleteamed him, but he didn’t lose it, he came back fighting hard, like an average Joe who was smart and sharp. He came across as someone who knew what he was talking about, and was up against a smarmy lawyer, who was pulling smarmy tricks, like a creepy laugh. God, when she came out with the creepy laugh, I was reminded of every evil TV lawyer I’ve seen on every TV show. “Mr Mason, do you REALLY expect us to believe your client is innocent?” Hahahahahhahaha.
I think Trump came off as a little underprepared, simply because he didn’t expect the moderator to be SO out there for Hillary, but genuine and smart and knowledgeable. Hillary was a cackling witch. She defied expectations by managing not to fall down. If you believe the things she said, you are the type to believe that kind of dumb stuff that govt creates wealth, people need to be taxed more, your life needs to be run for you. You are just dumb and you’ll fall for it every time.
We’ll see the way the cookie crumbles People will either be fooled or they won’t.
Dilbert is the title character in a famous comic strip produced by the author of the article, Scott Adams. Sample:
Much more than a mere cartoonist. He lampoons workplace dysfunction. His “comic collections” are knowingly to office management what “Screwtape Letters” are to Christianity. Except funnier. Much funnier.
***
Having said that, The Screwtape Letters does have some funny moments. Like when Screwtape accidentally turns himself into a giant centipede.
I’ve never thought of that comparison before, though. Huh.
“Dlibert”
That spelling was Dlibert, but not deliberate.
Won’t happen in our lifetime. It would turn into an eristic fiesta, the opposite of what you and I would like to see when engaged in Socratic dialogue, i.e., the dialectic in classic Socratic form.
That is what people will take to the polls.
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