off message he made his biggest mistake just as she delivered her best performance. by glenn thrush 10/20/16 12:49 am edt las vegas <u+2014> there were two candidates on the debate stage wednesday night <u+2014> and both were intent on demolishing donald trump<u+2019>s campaign for the presidency. oh, it started off well enough. trump, presented with one final chance to arrest his free-falling candidacy, began with a credible impersonation of a standard-issue gop candidate, leveling effective charges against hillary clinton<u+2019>s failures as a senator and secretary of state. his mien was presidential, his aim steady, his voice a buttery baritone. story continued below then, about a half-hour in, gravity <u+2014> or lack thereof <u+2014> pulled him back to trump and, in a moment likely to be remembered beyond 2016, the gop candidate refused to abide by the most basic rule of constitutional democracy, abiding by the result of an election. truly historic moments are rare in politics. but this was a thunderbolt that might have spelled the end for trump<u+2019>s dynamic, disorganized and self-destructive campaign and the elevation of the first female major-party nominee, whose precision and preparedness has often been overshadowed by her flashier opponent. here are five takeaways from a historic, and possibly decisive, final debate of 2016. 1. donald trump made the biggest mistake of his life. like most gaffes, this one wasn<u+2019>t actually a mistake but an honest statement of suicidal sentiment. trump has been telling overflow crowds he believes the election is <u+201c>rigged,<u+201d> even though he<u+2019>s the most unpopular candidate in modern memory and recent studies show that the actual rate of voter fraud is about as common as a lightning strike. trump was undone by a simple question, one that wouldn<u+2019>t have been a speed-bump for a nominally prepped candidate. instead, he crashed and burned <u+2014> a fatal one-car crash by a driver parking in his own garage. asked moderator chris wallace: would he support the results of the election, as every other presidential candidate has done since time immemorial? 2016 by eli stokols <u+201c>i will look at it at the time,<u+201d> trump said, to audible gasps in the debate hall at the university of nevada, las vegas. <u+201c>i will keep you in suspense.<u+201d> why does this matter? cnn<u+2019>s quickie post-debate poll gave clinton a solid but decisive edge <u+2014> 52 percent to 39 percent <u+2014> not good for a guy who needed a big win, but not fatal, either. the problem is one of narrative: every single sentient being in the press watching the debate, and not currently on the payroll of the trump organization, knew instantly that his refusal to accept the results of the election (foreshadowed by a similar feint during the primaries) was the moment of the debate, and quite possibly the most important moment of the campaign. here<u+2019>s the lead the associated press wrote: <u+201c>threatening a fundamental pillar of american democracy, donald trump refused to say wednesday night that he will accept the results of next month's election if he loses to hillary clinton. the democratic nominee declared trump's resistance <u+2018>horrifying.<u+2019><u+201d> ben ginsberg, the puckish powerhouse d.c. lawyer who engineered george w. bush<u+2019>s florida victory in the 2000 recount, put it this way. <u+201c>he had his best debate, by far. but it doesn<u+2019>t matter.<u+201d> 2. hillary clinton delivered the best debate performance of her career. at her worst, clinton can be a mechanical canned-line robot in debates (remember <u+201c>trumped-up, trickle-down<u+201d> in the first debate?). but her recent rise in the polls has loosened her up, aides say, despite a week of lukewarm debate prep that one aide told me was <u+201c>a source of concern<u+201d> the night before the debate. they needn<u+2019>t have worried. clinton <u+2014> wearing a third variation of what my politico colleague annie karni calls her <u+201c>closer outfit,<u+201d> an arctic white pantsuit clinton wore during her closing speech at the democratic convention and for her june 7 brooklyn acceptance address after clinching the nomination <u+2014> was confident, relaxed and deadly well-prepared. 2016 by matthew nussbaum she methodically sliced into trump<u+2019>s initial composure as if she was removing the wrapping paper from a christmas gift: she began with a stiletto swipe at his relationship with russian strongman vladimir putin, dismissing trump as a kremlin puppet. that pulled him off the attack and onto defense, as clinton had done so effectively in the first debate. but her most powerful moment <u+2014> possibly her best sequence of a verbose word-slaw 2016 campaign <u+2014> came as trump struggled to parry wallace<u+2019>s inevitable questioning of his alleged history of groping and sexual harassment. <u+201c>chris, she got these people to step forward,<u+201d> trump said, accusing clinton of concocting a dozen stories of his misbehavior over three decades. <u+201c>if it wasn't, they get their 10 minutes of fame, but they were all totally <u+2014> it was all fiction. it was lies and it was fiction.<u+201d> this was one of those rare moments in clinton<u+2019>s career where her passion matched her preparation. <u+201c>donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,<u+201d> clinton said, in a lower pitch than she usually uses to pursue her case. <u+201c>he goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and i don't think there is a woman anywhere that doesn't know what that feels like. so we now know what donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. that's who donald is. i think it's really up to all of us to demonstrate who we are and who our country is and to stand up and be very clear about what we expect from our next president, how we want to bring our country together, where we don't want to have the kind of pitting of people one against the other, where instead we celebrate our diversity, we lift people up, and we make our country even greater.<u+201d> later, he validated everything she said by casually calling her a <u+201c>nasty woman.<u+201d> 3. chris wallace should do this for a living. the second debate, in a town hall format in st. louis earlier this month, was a borderline national disgrace, thanks to trump<u+2019>s strategy of parading three bill clinton accusers into the debate hall, suggesting hillary clinton was the devil and declaring that she has <u+201c>hatred in her heart.<u+201d> wallace<u+2019>s perch as the host of "fox news sunday" seemed to lion-tame trump <u+2014> whose constituency depends on the right-tilting network for news and opinion. wallace asserted control early <u+2014> shutting down both candidates when they tried to talk over one another, and shushing the audience when it reacted too audibly. but wallace<u+2019>s greatest asset was his easy mastery of the issues, which seemed on a par with both candidates, allowing him to keep the discourse (more or less) focused on policy, as opposed to personality. 4. hillary got off the hook. before the debate, clinton rated as an 85 percent shoo-in, according to most of the big poll aggregation sites, and a better opponent would have made wednesday night a referendum on her fitness to rule. trump <u+2014> whose thoughts tumble into each other like sleepy toddlers on the milk-and-cookies line <u+2014> was simply incapable of sustaining a coherent attack on a multitude of clinton vulnerabilities. each day, with eerie regularity, wikileaks dumps internal campaign emails disclosing all kinds of potentially damaging detail. a critical moment in the debate came when wallace pointedly asked clinton about one of the most controversial things she said in one of her closed-door wall street speeches. <u+201c>in a speech you gave to a brazilian bank for which you were paid $225,000, we've learned from wikileaks, that you said this: <u+2018>my dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.<u+2019><u+201d> by maggie severns clinton dodged, saying (somewhat dubiously) that she had been referring only to transborder energy development <u+2014> and quickly attacked wikileaks and trump for being in cahoots with russian intelligence. trump, rightly, cried foul: <u+201c>that was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders. ok? how did we get on to putin?<u+201d> but then he descended into a bog of defensiveness, babbling about his nonrelationship with the demi-despot (<u+201c>i don't know putin. he said nice things about me. if we got along well, that would be good<u+201d>) and decided to get into a fight with u.s. intelligence officials who have pointed to the kremlin<u+2019>s involvement in the hacks ("she has no idea whether it is russia, china or anybody else<u+201d> who did it). and that was it for discussing clinton<u+2019>s ambiguous and questionable <u+201c>open borders<u+201d> comment. 5. self-delusion is not a strategy. after the debate, trump tweeted the results of two friendly and unscientific online polls <u+2014> one from the drudge report, the other from the washington times <u+2014> showing that he had won the debate decisively. by bill scher by joshua zeitz by thomas wright by jack shafer
five takeaways from the final debate of 2016 - politico
eli stokols matthew nussbaum maggie severns jack shafer