Clinton lost chance to thump Trump at debate

With the proportion of “undecided” potential voters being nearly double what it was at the same point going in to the last US presidential election in 2012, with two “third party” candidates still attracting substantial poll numbers, and with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton nearly tied in about ten “swing” states which shall determine the outcome of the election on November 8 (though with Americans abroad like me beginning to mark their ‘absentee ballots’ now), there was unprecedented interest in the first of three scheduled debates that took place on Monday night (4am Kenya time). I had no option, therefore, but to wake myself and watch the ‘real thing’ rather than the video after the fact.

There is wide agreement, in terms of both polls and commentators, that aside from Trump’s strong beginning in their 90-minute verbal contest, Clinton walked away the winner. However, there were certain aspects of it that especially struck me, most of which I think represented lost opportunities for Clinton.

The first was her failure to directly address the supporters of her party Democratic nomination challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders. Polls have shown that about one-third of them remain unwilling to back her as of last month, one of the main reasons why her overall lead in the polls has been so thin.

Clearly the best moment to have done this was when Trump was scoring early points on the still-feeble economic recovery following the 2008 financial crisis that triggered the huge bailout-rescues to major banks and investment corporations, and the suffering of the wage-stagnant middle class. For example, she could have reminded viewers/voters that “Even without such a strong, and gallant, challenge from my Democratic colleague Bernie Sanders, I know how hard many Americans were hit by that Republican-driven crisis, and how much more work there is to do to overcome it”, or words to that effect.

POLITICAL PARTY

Second, and closely related, neither candidate mentioned their political party! (Indeed, I wonder if this is first time in US presidential debate history that this was the case.) For Trump, given his ‘outsider’ status and who, according to some, has taken the Republican Party ‘hostage’ (with many of its established Leading Lights – including the Bush family and its last presidential candidate, former governor Mitt Romney, refusing to back him), his silence was less surprising.

But not so for Clinton. For example, regarding the widely-acknowledged lethargic economic recovery, she could have turned her guns on the Republicans for having made the blocking of almost every Obama legislative initiative its raison d’etre. (Recall that his highly contentious ‘Obama-care” medical insurance program was enacted – and just barely – during his first two years, when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress.) And there were many other instances where she could have reminded the more than 80 million American viewers that “no matter how much you support my/our party’s policies, unless you give me Democratic majorities in the House and Senate I’ll suffer many of the same frustrations that have tied President Obama’s hands, which are largely responsible for Trump’s capture of the Republican Party.” Indeed, such a rationale might even help to pry off some of Trump’s support, since this would be a way of simultaneously explaining his rise and empathising with those who have flocked to him on mainly economic grounds.

The third and perhaps most striking aspect of the debate was tied to Moderator Lester Holt’s final question: “If you lose, will you accept the results?” Indeed, for a moment I thought I was in Kenya before the last election, or more recently, in Zanzibar, Zambia, or Gabon! Can there be doubts about the integrity, and thus legitimacy, of such a basic institution in a democracy that is over 200 years old? Presumably, the origin of this question was Trump’s warning at a rally in North Carolina early last month (prior to Clinton’s dip in the polls) that “the election might be rigged!”

'SAD DAY'

Here, Clinton could have pounced in the following terms (since the question was put to her first): “Mr. Holt, it is a sad day in the history of our country that such a question is being asked. And everyone knows why you have asked it: Because ‘Donald’ had the audacity to question the integrity of our democracy at a recent rally. Does he actually think elections can be stolen in 21^st century America? I know he has never subjected himself to the electorate in pursuit of public office, but this simply reveals how misguided he is about our most basic institutions. Indeed, such wanton accusations should help us understand just why so many Republicans have disowned him. So while I feel obliged to answer the question and say, of course, I shall accept the results, and I expect him to do the same, I sincerely hope there will never be a need for you or anyone else to ever have to ask this question again. And I say this recognizing that some of those on the Republican side have sought to impose barriers to voter registration, to gerrymander congressional districts, and to engage in other tactics at the state level that violate the basic notions of a ‘level electoral playing-field’. But these are matters that we shall attempt to sort through the democratic process, not by questioning its legitimacy.”

More generally, both candidates overstated the US’ diminishing capacity to shape world events (e.g., North Korea’s nuclear program, and Syria’s never-ending tragedy). Nothing new here. But if there’s one positive aspect to the record-high ‘ negatives’ the polls have continued to reveal about both candidates it is that whoever is sworn in next January is unlikely to carry into the White House anything like the usual level of unrealistic euphoria that accompanies such milestones, at least among his (and possibly in this case, her) most ardent supporters. In other words, such a deflation of expectations might not be such a bad thing, both for Americans, and for everybody else.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what lessons the candidates may have learned on Monday night that will be reflected in debate #2. In particular, Trump has threatened to “get nasty” and bring up Bill Clinton’s unsavoury sexual history, though whether this would help him appear more ‘presidential’ is unclear. Such threats have not deterred Hillary from declaring the following day that she eagerly awaits their next encounter. At the same time, a key Trump advisor, former (‘9-11’) New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, clearly unhappy with Moderator Holt’s occasional attempts to correct Trump on his ‘facts’, said he should boycott it “unless there’s a significant change.”

But if it does take place, the format will be different: a combined ‘town-meeting’ where members of the audience as well as two different moderators shall put questions to the two candidates, based on topics that will be announced a week prior to the event.

With Clinton increasingly upbeat as the latest polls confirm her debate ‘win’, the pressure will surely be on Trump to do better, mainly by avoiding issues and displays of emotion that Clinton can highlight of further evidence of him being “unfit for the world’s most powerful office.” I’ll be watching that one live, too.

Dr Tom Wolf is a former lecturer at the University of Nairobi.