When last night’s Presidential debate started, I was a bit concerned about Kamala Harris’ performance. She came across as much more unsteady and nervous than a veteran prosecutor-turned-politician should be, while Donald Trump looked and sounded fearless and steady. (Steady by his own very low standards, at least.) That she didn’t come within a thousand miles of actually answering the first question asked didn’t help matters.
I feared a rerun of the June debate that torpedoed Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, and this time the Democrats would be left with no time to change course.
That feeling did not last. Not only did Harris become much more comfortable and confident as the debate went on - she was much better speaking off-the-cuff instead of trying to remember her scripted lines - but she set a trap for Donald Trump into which he didn’t fall so much as he enthusiastically leaped:
If the look on Trump’s face when Harris said his crowds leave early out of “exhaustion and boredom” hasn’t already become a meme as prevalent as the Professor Doofenschmirtz “If I had a nickel…” one, we have failed miserably as a society.
In isolation, Harris’ performance was far from perfect. She ran away from many of the questions and stretched the truth a few times. Just like a regular politician, in other words.
The thing is, all Harris had to do last night was bait Trump into making a complete fool of himself and make herself look like a regular politician by contrast.
Did she pull it off? You tell me:
Same energy:
As a veteran of many court hearings and trials (sometimes as a lawyer, har har) I’ve seen the look on Harris’ face many times during cross-examinations, when the lawyer knows she has the witness on the ropes.
At one point Harris even did the thing where the questioner puts her hand on her chin, almost like she’s saying “hmmm…isn’t that interesting?”
Harris wanted to draw the contrast between a prosecutor and a convicted felon, and she pulled it off. Ultimately, she didn’t win the debate so much as she didn’t get out of Trump’s way as he put a lot of hard work into losing it.
We were barely a half hour into the debate before MAGA world started whining about the refs, and…I kind of agree with them, at least a little. The moderators did step in to fact-check Trump a few times, but never did so to Harris.
But I think Tim Alberta put that in perspective:
Trump gets fact-checked more because he lies more.
Plus, the moderators actually allowed Trump to go over his allotted time and interrupt much more often than his opponent. You can’t say Trump wasn’t allowed to get a word in.
Then again, maybe that was how they “rigged” the debate for Kamala Harris. I think we’ve all figured out that the more people see and hear Trump speaking, the more they’re repelled by him. Harris even told people to go to his rallies to watch the madness up close.
And maybe her deep-cover DNC secret agents at ABC News had orders to give Trump every opportunity to sink himself with his own words. If so, mission accomplished.
Also, Trump can’t handle David Muir but sure, he’s going to get Putin and Zelensky in a room and force them to work something out. Uh-huh.
The early polls say Harris decisively won, but will that make much of a difference when it comes to the actual voting?
Not as much as it should, I’m afraid. If you’ve already decided to vote for Trump after everything he’s said and done since 2015, nothing you witnessed last night will make you change your mind. If anything, the MAGA base might be fired up by Trump bringing up viral bullshit about Haitians eating pets and also having ABC News as a new object of two minutes’ hate.
If you’re an undecided voter, or maybe someone who was sort of “parking” his vote with Trump but remained open to possibly switching, this debate might have convinced you that Trump definitely isn’t the guy.
Whether that translates to actual votes for Harris, we’ll see. Biden’s debate disaster in June moved the polls much less than people expected, because nearly everyone is firmly entrenched as to whom they’ll support. Or, perhaps more accurately, whom they definitely won’t support under any circumstances.
Harris at least left the door open last night for people to at least consider joining her team. Trump slammed it shut. Hopefully, that’s enough to make a difference in seven weeks’ time.