Columns, Opinion

JOHNSTON: The one-liner winner

After the last, dare I say “presidential,” debate, it’s a wonder why people tuned in Sunday night to see The Donald square off against HRC once again.

With the Giants playing the Packers on Sunday night, it was a tough call as to which broadcast would be more entertaining. Should I watch Eli Manning make a fool of himself or watch the two candidates who will appear on my November ballot for the presidential throne make a fool of themselves?

Alas, the debate turned out to be well worth the hour and a half.

With a video of Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, making truly awful comments, which he referred to as “locker room talk,” released just two days before the debate, some figured it would be the final straw for his campaign’s success.

No one knew when, but everyone was waiting to see when Trump was going to have to deal with his vomit-inducing remarks.

And boy did it look like he was hit by a train in the first 15 or so minutes at the debate. He walked on stage as if he had just found out the video was released.

To make matters worse, he appeared to be battling an untimely cold, taking frequent sniffling breaks.

Anderson Cooper seemingly took advantage of the sorry scene as he dropped perhaps the biggest question of the night regarding the video.

At first, Mr. Trump looked about as bad as fourth-quarter Eli Manning, fielding the question by talking about ISIS and bad negotiations by Washington. It was abysmal.

Fortunately for him, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton used the question as an opportunity to bash the character of her rival, doing so with a psychopathic grin and her standard scripted rhetoric.

Trump, no rookie to arguments, rebounded the ball and slammed it right back in Hillary’s face, going on a 15-minute offensive attack, destroying her on her handling of Benghazi, her husband’s mistreatment of women and, finally, “emailgate.”

He ended his siege by repeatedly saying, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” It was intense.   

They both should be ashamed of themselves. That was clear. And that’s what Donald Trump wanted.

He leveled the playing field, in typical Trump fashion, despite Hillary’s attempt to get people to go to her biased fact-checker on her website. She looked uncomfortable. He looked like he just entered the zone.

It became obvious that the town hall setting, which let Trump casually strut around, was well suited for his nature. His body gestures, although pompous, were confident and casual. His one liners were even better.

Hillary, on the other hand, sat on her stool with her fake smile, which turned into an even less genuine laugh whenever Trump slammed her with accusations.

With the most pressing topic out of the way, the following hour was more of the same. It featured name calling, fact-checking and interruptions. Luckily, Anderson Cooper did a decent job of remaining unbiased and letting the candidates finish their thoughts.

His counterpart, Martha Raddatz, might as well been wearing a Hillary pin as she emotionally stopped Trump on numerous occasions. Trump argued at one point that he was in a 3-on-1 debate. He may not have been wrong.

The audience came in with well-prepared questions of their own which facilitated a good debate of policies rather than hatred.

Hillary won the fact arsenal contest, whereas Trump took his time thinking of ways to remind voters that she was lying and sugarcoating problems that need to be discussed more bluntly.

It worked well for him. Despite many on the left demanding facts and policy checks, the debate would ultimately be won by whomever appeared less wrinkled under pressure.

Hillary, although calm, came off as robotic. Certainly most of her supporters will stick with her, seeing as she looked like her standard self.

Trump looked like a human, but not like a presidential figure.

Simply put, if an intelligent, well-groomed conservative candidate was in the debate, Hillary would have been destroyed.

The Republicans, however, did not come equipped with such a leader.

However, that’s not to say Donald didn’t win. Coming in as a supreme underdog after the video, Trump looked strong, clever and resilient. He proved never to cower in a disgusting situation and many voters will appreciate that. His one liners proved as effective as ever.

Indeed, the polls may stay stagnate. The far right say Trump won while the far left say Hillary destroyed the debate.

In reality, Trump had a slight edge, but with the recent video still headlining news, we may see Hillary’s polls go up. She’s still the favorite to win.

We have about a month left and both candidates exemplify resiliency and stamina.

Sadly, both are awful people.

More Articles

Comments are closed.