Debate - Ben Ellman

Clinton:

• Strength:
• Political Experience, qualifications
• Calm demeanor

• Weakness:
• Email Scandal
• Lifetime Politician, i.e. labeled as power hungry, dishonest

Trump:

• Strength:
• Successful business man
• Coming from outside the system, which many people see as corrupt

• Weakness:
• Emotional, inarticulate speaker
• Numerous scandals that have occurred throughout his campaign, including attacking Gold star family, etc.

Clinton’s performance was very good in the debate. I think that she used her experience very well. She seemed very knowledgeable about foreign policy, much more so than Trump did. She was also able to negate her weaknesses and try and address them very briefly when confronted by them. Trump mentioned her email scandal, and she very bluntly gave a short answer. She was able to effectively navigate the questions in order to bring the ball into her court. Then, she would spin it into an attack on Trump. Clinton used her ability as a politician to spin the questions that may have been aimed to hurt her into positive things that helped her. However, the majority of attacks on her by Trump were about her scandal, as well as her track record as a politician.

Trump, however, was not nearly as successful or skillful in maneuvering around questions or spinning them to look favorable for himself and negative for Clinton. This is evident in his poor handling of many questions and attacks by Clinton. Often, Trump would go in circles, repeating the same talking points without effectively backing them. He also routinely gave incomplete answers that were irrelevant to the question, not to mention constant rambling and mumbling, making him look foolish. This is most likely the result of his lack of experience. He is not used to political, high-stress debates, while Clinton is. Trump did use his business record as a strength, though. He was able to flaunt his success as a real estate mogul in many questions, which many people use as a reason to support him. Trump was not nearly as successful as Clinton at using his strengths, or navigating the debate questions.

I believe that Hillary won the debate, since she better spun many questions, and focused much more on her policies and strengthening her side. Trump, on the other hand, spent a lot of time talking about issues that he “knows so much about”, rather than how to his solutions to fix them.