By Matthew Pertz, Opinion Editor
The second of three presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was arguably more contentious than the first. Even the introductions were icy when the candidates refused to shake hands. After a fiery 90 minutes, here’s how each party fared.
Hillary Clinton: B-
Sunday night gave viewers the same Hillary Clinton they’ve known since 1992: smart, poised, rehearsed, robotic, confident and off-putting. She knows her issues but not her audience. She sounds friendly and relatable but her act isn’t as convincing as it was 25 years ago. Clinton gave good answers that showed her intelligence and candor, but she provided nothing new to anyone who has seen her on TV before. She was like a burnt-out match: captivating for about 20 seconds before becoming an unchanging stick.
Donald Trump: D
However, if Hillary Clinton was a burnt match, Donald Trump was a fireworks warehouse sopping wet with gasoline, just waiting for someone to drop a cigarette so he could explode. Even before the second audience question, Trump had already accused the moderators of ganging up on him, telling Anderson Cooper, “I’d liked to know Anderson, why aren’t you bringing up the emails? I’d like to know.” (Martha Radiate had actually asked Clinton about her emails several minutes earlier). The real estate aficionado also threatened to jail Clinton over her private email server, loudly disagreed with his VP pick’s opinion on the Syrian Civil War and falsely claimed that Clinton ally Sid Blumenthal started the birther movement. While he did score points on energy and trade, Trump’s few good lines were muffled behind the noise of his miscues.
Clinton Campaign & Democratic Party: C
According to a flash poll from CNN/ORC, 57 percent of debate viewers thought the former First Lady beat the businessman. Unfortunately for her, scandals continue to follow the Clinton camp at every turn. The ever-controversial Wikileaks has been steadily dumping hacked emails from the campaign since this past weekend, covering every subject from paid Wall Street speeches to gossip about Chelsea Clinton. This is only the latest revelation in a disturbing pattern: Hillary Clinton has a terrifying penchant for privacy that will continue to damage her even if she can win the White House.
Trump Campaign & Republican Party: B+
No one expected a stellar performance out of Trump after having possibly the worst two weeks in political history. But imagine if Mitt Romney had suffered these same setbacks in 2012: most Americans would have supported permanently exiling him to Lake Placid for eternity. On the other hand, the first post-grope poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal showed Clinton up by only a 50-40 margin: discouraging but not damning.
Perhaps the only obstacle that the Trump campaign is unable to overcome is the defection of establishment Republicans who once supported Trump. Former GOP nominee John McCain has rescinded his support. House Speaker Paul Ryan implied on a conference call that he would no longer defend Trump as he essentially conceded the election to Clinton. Even vehement Trump backers like Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) have condemned their nominee’s recent words.
Anderson Cooper & Martha Raddatz: A
These two journalists set the gold standard for future debate moderators. A town-hall format generally doesn’t lend itself to moderators’ ability to intercede with follow-up questions, but Cooper and Raddatz still found appropriate places to press the politicians.
Early on, Cooper brought up the explosive leaked tapes of Trump bragging about groping women, saying, “That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?” Trump tried to pivot his answer to his policy on ISIS. Cooper brought him back to the question: “For the record, are you saying that what you said on the bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent?” After two more circumlocutions and two subsequent follow-ups, Trump relented and said that he has never committed the nasty acts he described on those tapes.
Raddatz similarly repeated questions that went unanswered. When asking Clinton about Syria, Raddatz said “Would you introduce the threat of U.S. military force beyond a no-fly zone against the Assad regime to back up diplomacy?” to which Clinton replied with her condensed version of her strategy from the State Dpartment in 2012. Unsatisfied, Raddatz rephrased the question: “What would you do different than than President Obama is doing?” Those were only two examples of the stellar questioning from the two real stars of the night.
The voters’ questions: A
The voters invited by the CPD all gave fair, substantive questions that required thoughtful answers. Some of the highlights include Patrice Brock, a schoolteacher, asking the candidates if they were modeling an appropriate behavior for kids to emulate, James Carter asking if either would be a devoted leader to all of the United States and the now-legendary Ken Bone wondering how the candidates would balance saving the environment with saving jobs. The best question of the night came from Karl Becker, who asked whether or not the candidates could say something nice about each other. The audience members forced both nominees to back off their attacks and focus on their own answers.
Undecided voters: D
Unfortunately, very little was revealed tonight to help any voter legitimately torn between Clinton and Trump. As stated earlier, Clinton was the same poised politician she has been throughout the campaign and Trump’s latest revelations, while disgusting, fit his public profile. If you’re one of those who can’t still decide between the secretive Democrat and the brash Republican, it might be best to do some digging of your own.