I attended our debate club last night in Castle Rock. Popcorn and soda livened up the evening. One of the coaches gave a short lesson on analyzing how the presidential candidates should be evaluated. If only they acted presidential.
Overall consensus among the debaters: Clinton won. Trump could have been much stronger (debaters don’t count interruptions and aggressiveness as “stronger”), but Clinton turned debate to her side. Trump was strong for the first 1/2 hour, but then got defensive. Clinton became smug and tried to lure her audience into cheap applauses, caking on the sexism card at the very end (she should have let Trump suffer on his own).
The moderator asked questions that favored Hillary, leaning toward kicking dead horses like birtherism and tax returns. There were no mention of Clinton’s woes like her and Bill’s Foundation, Benghazi failure and follow-up lies, FBI investigations, political pandering and favors, etc., etc. Heck, Clinton even brought some of these up these herself, and Trump failed to jump on them (i.e. “I spent 11 hours in front of Congressional hearings!” was a wide-open door). Lester corrected the audience once to stay quiet, and that was directed to the Trump fans; he never once told Hillary supporters to hush up. The tit-for-tats he had with Trump were his most egregious offenses to fair and honest moderating, never once challenging Clinton. I’d say the bias was strong.
Anticipation was high for Trump to own the stage, so the night was his to lose. However, I wouldn’t say Clinton won big. My hunch is that few decided voters were talked out of their own positions, but maybe undecideds will lean Clinton. Not an election-turner…the polls will still be tight heading into Round 2 of #debates.