Fortunately for former President Donald Trump and his supporters, Presidential Debates are not won on points, indeed they aren’t really won or lost at all given the only score that matters is the final tally on election day itself.
If Presidential Debates were scored by collegiate rules, Vice President Harris won Tuesday’s contest against Donald Trump pretty handily. She was well prepared, delivering answers on a range of topics with poise. While pivoting between talking up herself and attacking her opponent, the Vice President had a clear game plan that was well executed. She referenced her personal autobiography, growing up in the middle class before entering politics to work on behalf of the people. She sprinkled in details about potential economic plans and her vision for the future, what she referred to as an “opportunity economy” centered on subsidies for first time home buyers, child care, and new small businesses. Sometimes, she combined everything into a single response as in her very first answer, “So, I was raised as a middle-class kid. And I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America. I believe in the ambition, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people. And that is why I imagine and have actually a plan to build what I call an opportunity economy.” She referenced meeting with world leaders to showcase her foreign policy credentials, talking about her commitment to the current order. “Let’s understand what happened here. I actually met with Zelenskyy a few days before Russia invaded, tried through force to change territorial boundaries to defy one of the most important international rules and norms, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. And I met with President Zelenskyy. I shared with him American intelligence about how he could defend himself. Days later I went to NATO’s eastern flank, to Poland and Romania. And through the work that I and others did we brought 50 countries together to support Ukraine in its righteous defense.” She highlighted her pro-abortion position, claimed the former President was threatening the health and safety of women, and perhaps needless to say, also attacked him as a felon, a disgrace, and a threat to democracy. “Well, I think this is so rich. Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing. And let’s be clear where each person stands on the issue of what is important about respect for the rule of law and respect for law enforcement.” Earlier, she branded him as extreme and unfit for office, “Talk about extreme. Um, you know, this is I think one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formerly worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congressmember Liz Cheney. And if you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is, if he didn’t make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him. His former chief of staff, a four-star general, has said he has contempt for the constitution of the United States. His former national security adviser has said he is dangerous and unfit. His former secretary of defense has said the nation, the republic would never survive another Trump term. And when we listen to this kind of rhetoric, when the issues that affect the American people are not being addressed, I think the choice is clear in this election.”
President Trump, in contrast, wasn’t nearly as polished or tightly focused. He was armed with plenty of material, up to and including newly released documentation indicating his opponent supported transgender surgery on the federal dime for migrants and inmates, but allowed the moderators and his opponent to dictate the pace and much of the subject areas, leading many commentators to describe him as being on the defensive. Others, some of them friendly to his cause, insisted, somewhat correctly, that he missed opportunities to deliver some type of epic response that would have permanently damaged his opponent. David Strom, writing for the conservative website, HotAir.com, put it this way. “Kamala survived, and Trump underperformed. Trump had the opportunity to score a knockout blow, and he failed to do so. Kamala was faced with the danger of imploding, and she didn’t.” Matt Vespa, writing for another conservative platform owned by the same parent company, TownHall.com, said something very similar, “The opportunity was there, and Donald Trump blew it.” Real Clear Politics Tom Bevan was a little more specific, “Twice Trump has missed the opportunity to hit Harris over the fact she told the American people Biden was sharp and mentally competent. She should have to answer for that.” Beyond the idea that there was specific, near-magical response capable of fundamentally altering the race, something so pointed and topical that viewers will almost unanimously agree it was a winning blow, implicit in this view is the notion of a scorecard, one the viewer, in this case, conservative pundits fills out almost independent of their knowledge of the candidates and the issues. The participant who checks more boxes across these various issues wins, with some issues being more important than others and some responses being more potent than others. It’s debating scored as Olympic gymnastics. By this standard, it was no surprise that many were quick to declare Vice President Harris the winner, or to suggest that the former President had a “bad night” as Fox News’ Brit Hume put it. CNN’s Stephen Collinson neatly summarized this perspective, “Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in a virtual coin toss before their presidential debate – but that’s about all he won. From the opening moments Tuesday night, when the vice president strode over to Trump’s podium and all but forced him to shake her hand, she dictated the terms of their critical clash exactly eight weeks before Election Day. From Harris’ point of view, the night could hardly have gone better. She came across as energetic and brimmed with a positive future vision. Trump glowered and ranted and blasted America as a failing nation and seemed off his game.” Politico’s Jeff Greenfield said something similar, “Harris knew the points she wanted to hit, and hit them. She did so well enough that the Trump folks might have suspected a hidden teleprompter had been smuggled in. She repeatedly talked about her plans to lower the cost of housing, to give tax relief to new parents, oh and did you hear that she won’t ban fracking and owns a gun?”
Fortunately for the former President and his supporters, Presidential Debates are not won on points, indeed they aren’t really won or lost at all given the only score that matters is the final tally on election day itself. In this regard, the debate doesn’t exist in a vacuum in viewers’ minds. Unlike high school or collegiate debates, opponents do not arrive ready to argue both sides of the issue, pick a specific side for a each contest based on a coin toss, and perform fresh from the same starting line each time. Contrary to what passes for conventional wisdom, candidates cannot simply magically reinvent themselves on stage, like some trick a David Copperfield might perform for a crowd in Vegas. They arrive with a history of policy positions and a record of their results, and they cannot simply deny that none of this exists, scoring points on a blank scorecard by talking about the future. From this perspective, Donald Trump likely performed much, much better in the eyes of the average viewer than the pundits on both sides suggest for two key reasons. First, there are fewer political personalities more well known, for better or worse, than the former President. He walked onto the stage as perhaps the most discussed individual on planet Earth for most of the past decade, known for his unique style, hard-hitting, even hyperbolic rhetoric, and generally free-wheeling approach, all of which were on full display on Tuesday as they were at the Republican National Convention in July. No one, including his biggest supporters, has ever referred to him as polished or poised or ready with some witty, prepared comeback. If he pretended to be someone he’s not, armed with talking points he wouldn’t normally use, portraying himself in a different manner than usual, people would have taken immediate notice, and more likely that not it wouldn’t have redounded to his credit. This doesn’t mean he took advantage of every opportunity or there is no truth at all to some of the criticisms, only that authenticity matters and Trump, at this point, has no choice except to be Trump. From his perspective, this also has the ancillary benefit of everyone already being well aware of his baggage, from impeachment to convictions to fierce opposition from the establishment and having long since made up their mind about it. Vice President Harris might well have replayed the greatest hits of his previous controversies, but she wasn’t telling anyone anything they didn’t already know and had already factored into their opinions. Putting this another way, there was no one in the audience who suddenly learned that the former President had been either impeached or convicted, and decided that was disqualifying. Anyone who thought it was disqualifying has long since decided to cast their vote against him. Therefore, the Vice President’s various attacks and criticisms, while well articulated and delivered, are limited by the law of diminishing returns and are not likely to earn her any votes. Second, and conversely, she suffered from the opposite dynamic. For all the talk of missed opportunities, President Trump relentlessly tore apart the Biden-Harris record right in front of her in a way that no one has seen before, and even worse, in a way she barely bothered trying to defend. Given a critical part of her strategy has been distancing herself from the Biden record, this underappreciated aspect of the debate is likely to prove the most lasting in terms of the public consciousness.
President Trump began a sustained assault on her record from the very first question, pressing the case that the both President and Vice President have completely failed. “Look, we’ve had a terrible economy because inflation has — which is really known as a country buster. It breaks up countries. We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation’s history. We were at 21%. But that’s being generous because many things are 50, 60, 70, and 80% higher than they were just a few years ago. This has been a disaster for people, for the middle class, but for every class. On top of that, we have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums. And they’re coming in and they’re taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions.” Nor was he shy about talking up the economy when he was President, which many voters feel was far superior to the current conditions. “Everybody knows what I’m going to do. Cut taxes very substantially. And create a great economy like I did before. We had the greatest economy.” Later, he noted in response to one of Vice President Harris’ jabs, “That’s just a sound bite. They gave her that to say. Look, I went to the Wharton School of Finance and many of those professors, the top professors, think my plan is a brilliant plan, it’s a great plan. It’s a plan that’s going to bring up our worth, our value as a country. It’s going to make people want to be able to go and work and create jobs and create a lot of good, solid money for our — for our country. And just to finish off, she doesn’t have a plan. She copied Biden’s plan. And it’s like four sentences, like run-Spot-run. Four sentences that are just oh, we’ll try and lower taxes. She doesn’t have a plan. Take a look at her plan. She doesn’t have a plan.” He further criticized her for copying some of his policies, flip-flopping on key issues, and her leftist values. “We hardly make chips anymore because of philosophies like they have and policies like they have. I don’t say her because she has no policy. Everything that she believed three years ago and four years ago is out the window. She’s going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat. She’s gone to my philosophy. But if she ever got elected, she’d change it. And it will be the end of our country. She’s a Marxist. Everybody knows she’s a Marxist.” Repeatedly, he tied everything back to immigration as well, one of the most pressing issues according to voters, “Well, bad immigration is the worst thing that can happen to our economy. They have and she has destroyed our country with policy that’s insane. Almost a policy that you’d say they have to hate our country.” Towards the end of the debate he pounded her on foreign policy as well, “If I were president it would have never started. If I were president Russia would have never, ever — I know Putin very well. He would have never — and there was no threat of it either, by the way, for four years. Have gone into Ukraine and killed millions of people when you add it up. Far worse than people understand what’s going on over there.” Ultimately, he concluded both President Biden and Vice President Harris are “weak and ineffective,” “ But just so you understand, they sent her to negotiate peace before this war started. Three days later he went in and he started the war because everything they said was weak and stupid. They said the wrong things. That war should have never started. She was the emissary. They sent her in to negotiate with Zelenskyy and Putin. And she did and the war started three days later.”
Finally, the former President brought these threads to a strong conclusion in his closing statement, “So, she just started by saying she’s going to do this, she’s going to do that, she’s going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for 3 1/2 years. They’ve had 3 1/2 years to fix the border. They’ve had 3 1/2 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it? She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do. But you haven’t done it. And you won’t do it. Because you believe in things that the American people don’t believe in.” Here, the former President got to the real heart of the matter in a way that is hard to argue against. In order to believe the Vice President “won” you need to believe she fell out of a coconut tree, to use her expression, when President Biden was forced out of the race, but everyone knows she didn’t. She had a far left progressive record before she became Vice President, and a deeply unpopular if not disastrous record after she became Vice President. Her strategy, so far, has been to pretend none of this occurred and simply spread the joy instead, thanks to the assistance of the mainstream media, but that assumes voters are too stupid or too blind to connect her to what they dislike about the current direction of the country. Assuming they aren’t – and I think that’s a fair assumption until proven otherwise – the former President hitting her on issue after issue in a way that has never been done is likely to be effective in the long term. That’s why it wasn’t surprising that the debate was followed by focus groups of independent voters remaining “unconvinced” about the Vice President. As Reuters put it, “Kamala Harris was widely seen as dominating Tuesday’s presidential debate against Republican former president Donald Trump, but a group of undecided voters remained unconvinced that the Democratic vice president was the better candidate.” Their focus group found that six out of ten now back the former President. “I still don’t know what she is for,” explained Mark Kadish, 61, an entrepreneur in Florida. “There was no real meat and bones for her plans.” As another undecided voter on CNN’s panel put it, “It’s important to remember that we are voting for the future of our country, not who we like the most or want at our wedding party. Who is actually going to make our country better? We’re in an incredibly unique situation where we’ve had both of the candidates in office before, and we’ve gotten to see what they would do, and when facts come to facts, my life was better when Trump was in office. The economy was better. Inflation was lower. Things were better overall. And now, with Kamala’s administration, things haven’t been so fantastic. She’s saying she can fix the problems that her administration has caused, but I don’t know if I can afford to take that risk.” I could, of course, be wrong, but this is likely what many took away from the performance independent of any debating points.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 