Now that the final debate is over, I'm ready to comment on
this whole hot mess. It's been a painful thing to watch these debates. They've
been unlike any other debates we've ever seen--the constant interruptions and
talking over each other, candidates not shaking hands at the start and end,
name-calling, etc. We've never had one candidate dominate all three debates
before, either--Clinton has been the clear winner of every debate, while her
predecessors have often performed better in one format or the other, and the
winner is often determined by style over substance. In this election, Clinton
had both. She remained calm and poised, even when Trump raised his voice and
became agitated. She rose above his insults and name-calling, and came back at
him with well-crafted responses that often used his own words against him to
prove her points. She tried to stick to the issues, particularly during the
first debate, before more pressing personal issues arose with more recent
revelations.
Clinton has used the debates very strategically and
masterfully--more than anything else in her campaign, her debate performances
have demonstrated her political skills. She refers to a person to illustrate a
point, as we've seen so many other candidates do (McCain's Joe the Plumber in
2008, David Cameron's '40-year-old black man' in Plymouth in 2010), but it's
not just any old anecdote. It's an interview, press release, viral video and TV
advertisement that are already filmed, edited and ready to launch. Her mention
of Alicia Machado at the first debate was absolutely brilliant--his awful
nicknames for her demonstrated both her opponent's misogynist attitudes towards
women ('Miss Piggy') and his racist stereotyping of Latinas ('Miss
Housekeeping'). It absolutely threw him and got under his skin--not only was he
visibly uncomfortable (asking 'where did you hear this?') at the debate, but he
subsequently spent a week tweeting about it, trying to harm Machado's
reputation and discredit her. Instead, it reinforced the image of him as a bully--an
image that was humorous during the GOP primaries when his target was
"Lyin' Ted" or "Little Marco", but the bully image took on
a much more sinister, more universally repugnant quality when his target became
any woman who's ever struggled with her weight (i.e. 99.9% of women).
I think the final comments of each candidate at the third
debate really do sum up this whole election campaign. They were asked to keep
it positive, and Clinton, first to give her remarks, did keep it very positive:
Hillary Clinton:
I would like to say to everyone watching tonight that I’m
reaching out to all Americans, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, because
we need everybody to help make our country what it should be. To grow the
economy, to make it fairer. To make it work for everyone. We need your talents,
your skills, your commitment, your energy, your ambition.
You know, I’ve been privileged to see the presidency up
close, and I know the awesome responsibility of protecting our country and the
incredible opportunity of working to try to make life better for all of you. I
have made the cause of children and families, really my life’s work — that’s
what my mission will be in the presidency. I will stand up for families against
powerful interests, against corporations. I will do everything I can to make
sure that you have good jobs with rising incomes. That your kids have good
educations from preschool through college. I hope you will give me a
chance to serve as your president.
She doesn't mention Donald Trump at all. She starts by
echoing Obama's 2008 election night promise--'even if you didn't vote for me, I
will be your President, too.' It's a lovely concept and an attempt to heal the
wounds inflicted by this divisive, crazy election cycle. The emphasis on
children and families plays to her strengths as the first female
candidate--women are expected to know what they're talking about when it comes
to children/families, so it lends her credibility (obviously that's all problematic
for gender reasons, but let's ignore that for the sake of political strategy).
It's an appeal to the voters, putting the decision in their hands and
empowering them--"I hope you will give me a chance to serve as your
president"--hope, a chance, to serve.
Trump's comments took the opposite tactic: he stayed on the
attack and kept his tone decidedly negative.
Donald Trump:
She’s raising the money from the people she wants to
control. Doesn’t work that way. But when I started this campaign, I started it
very strongly, it’s called Make America Great Again. We’re going to make
America great. We have a depleted military. It has to be helped, it has to be
fixed. We have the greatest people on earth on our military.
We don’t take care of our veterans. We take care of illegal
immigrants, people who come into the country illegally, better than we take
care of our vets. That can’t happen. Our policemen and women are disrespected.
We need law and order, but we need justice too. Our inner cities are a
disaster. You get shot walking to the store. They have no education, they have
no jobs. I will do more for African Americans and Latinos than she can ever do
in ten lifetimes.All she’s done is talk to the African Americans and to the
Latinos. But they get the vote and then they come back and say ‘we’ll see you
in four years.’
We are going to make America strong again and we are going
to make America great again, and it has to start now. We cannot take four more
years of Barack Obama, and that’s what you get when you get her.
He opens with an accusation, and it's not even particularly
clear what he's accusing her of. He says he'll make America great, then
criticizes the state of the military, veterans affairs, immigration,
"inner cities" (Trumpspeak for areas where minorities live). He says
a Clinton presidency would be four more years of Obama's policies as if that
were a bad thing--his approval rating is currently at its second-term high, so
I don't think the American people will have too much of a problem with that.
And finally, here's my official prediction. I've left Utah
blank because I think McMullin genuinely could win, which means Utah's
electoral votes go to neither Trump nor Clinton.
