Anyone expecting Monday night’s Trump v Clinton TV debate to produce a killer blow, decisively tipping the presidential contest one way or another, will have been disappointed.
Donald Trump was Donald Trump, all bluster, prevarication and lies, hectoring and interrupting, although he landed a few telling blows, notably over trade policy. The real Donald turned up, unpolished, and winged it. Hillary Clinton, in contrast, was poised, clearly well-prepared, substantive on policy, and clinical and sharp in her demolition of his claims of economic competence and of his racism and sexism. It was by any real measure her debate on points, but no knockout.
Ahead of the debate, viewed by up to 100 million, the candidates were running neck and neck in polls (although the tracker RCP poll still gives her a two-point lead). Clinton also seems to be holding a small lead it the battleground states crucial to the electoral college battle. How voters view the debate may indeed prove critical.
Trump’s insistence that his extraordinary business acumen and record are exactly what America needs, his unique selling point, was an open invitation to Clinton to go just there. With gusto she roamed through a history of bankruptcies and bad debt, of overleveraged companies and “stiffed” suppliers, to wonder was this really the model they wanted for the CEO of US Inc?
He had cheered the housing crash, she pointed out, as an opportunity for profit for his company. “That’s just business,” he heckled. When she mentioned the years he hasn’t paid federal or state taxes, and suggested that might be the reason he won’t release tax returns now, he jumped in with “that makes me smart”. That caring capitalism will surely go down well in the closed-down factory towns of Pennsylvania.
As she and the debate moderator tried to explode Trump lies on issues from climate change to the "birther" controversy and the Iraq War – she used Trump's record and words against him on 19 separate occasions – he just muttered "Wrong!" "Wrong!" "Wrong!" It was a refrain that echoed successfully in the primary debates, but now rings hollow in the one-on-one debates as he needs to reach across party lines.
The debate's all too brief venture into substantive foreign policy was also disappointing. Trump's repeated emphasis on requiring countries from Germany to Japan, Korea and Saudi Arabia to contribute to US defence costs – "they may have to defend themselves", he warned – will be troubling to allies and destabilising in east Asia. Not surprisingly Clinton reprised her chilling warning from the Democratic convention: "A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons".
As she demonstrated on Monday night Trump is a man easily baited. His compatriots must make sure he is never anywhere near that button.