(The right does even when they lose)

She did a fabulous job.

Jesus....

Came out looking like the sane person?

time! There's no way anyone can hit him with everything possible because everything out of his mouth is insane.

I just would have like her to be a little more aggressive. I think she let Trump bully her a little bit. I wish she would have fought back a little more.

I did think that was her plan. I thought she was trying to give him enough rope to hang himself. However, I also thought that strategy could backfire. However, if reports, this morning, are true it did not backfire. CBS This Morning seemed to say that Trumps own team, minus Trump, accepted last night as a defeat. Major Garrett said the Trump campaign acknowledged that Clinton scored more points than they expected her to score. In addition, Rudy Guliani is claiming Trump will perform better in the second debate. That seems to be an admission of defeat in the first debate.

and that is my opinion.

But focus groups suggested that it wouldn't play well in the upper midwest.

"Trump Hearts" - the new delicacy for the 2017 Iowa State Fair!

Everyone has an opinion.

and done it in a respectful way

he on the other hand was as disrespectful as he could be to both Hillary and Lester

there's more than one debate. she was smart to hold some of her strong cards for the next two debates.

But she had to settle for a figurative one instead

nt

It's true that it wasn't the perfect debate for her but she performed extremely well. Going into, there were analysts saying she couldn't afford to sink to Trump's level and sling mud back at him, and she successfully avoided that without being passive.

Then there were analysts who insisted that even though Hillary is the far superior candidate in terms of her depth of knowledge on a broad range of issues, she had to be careful not to come off as smarmy by standing on the stage and lecturing Donald on how the world really works. She managed to avoid that pitfall as well.

All in all, Clinton acquitted herself with aplomb. Criticizing her is akin to telling someone who scored 90% that she really should have earned that final 10%. The bar is set awfully high, the standard is exacting.

And perfect, after all, is the standard set for Hillary Clinton.

Interesting how you lead off a post that is seemingly full of praise with critiquing her as not having a "perfect" debate.

You must be the type who expects "true" Hillary supporters to fall at her feet every time she says or does anything. My point was the same as yours, that perfect is the standard set for Hillary. She didn't achieve it last night, but it's an unfair standard and what she did accomplish was more than satisfactory.

her not being perfect. Nobody is perfect, we can all stipulate to that. I don't think it's necessary to say so each time we want to give someone a nice review.

You just repeated here that she didn't achieve perfection, so you must have something in mind that she did or didn't do that would have made her achieve it. I'm just curious. What is it?

Who said she could have done better, the basis of this thread that he created. That was what I was getting at, she would have to be perfect to please some people.

As for any criticism I have to offer, NPR did a fantastic job of fact checking the debate and, not surprisingly, Pinocchio Trump misled the public far more often than Hillary, but she was incorrect in a few of her statements. I would expect her not to repeat those things again in the next two debates.


http://www.npr.org/2016/09/26/495115346/fact-check-first-presidential-debate

She hit just the right tone and seemed fairly relaxed doing it. She avoided the strident note she sometimes gets (yes, I am a female) and wasn't so aggressive as to scare off those afraid of women. She did let him go on, but he did more damage to himself than she would have been able to do by arguing.

The only thing she did that I don't think she should repeat is she should not bring up Bill. That just set Trump off on a rant about whatever she said Bill did. He manages to get off enough irrelevancies, she doesn't need to be reminding him of more.

It is Donald who "could have" done a lot better, by preparing, not being an asshole - oh well, maybe he couldn't.

Your post could have been better too.

If she attacked him on all his stupidities it would have been still going on today.

Quit being such a defeatist.

She threw the hook out there and he took the bait, she reeled it in.

Don't get in an argument with the Clintons.

Their assessment was glowing. The white supremacist connections will be discussed later in another debate if there is one, as will her deplorables comments. She answered the question. Trump did not answer the question - he tried to deflect. Oh, the guy that is the debate coach for the collegiate team that has been to the last nine collegiate debate finals gave her an A and Trump an F.

And reduced Donald to smoldering ash.

and some people came on the fansite and whined about "performance."

There's a lot of campaigning to do, yet. Hillary Clinton showed us something that nobody has ever seen in human history, what a female President of the United States looks like.

Enjoy it and keep working.

You can argue of course that she should have been more aggressive and interrupted while arguing the minutiae, but that would have been framed as her being "out of control". In fact, I believe Trump called her that hoping she would lose her cool so they'd have video to go with those words. She never once did.

In the past I have been critical of Hillary, but I was very impressed with how well she set the tone of the debate - she was in control not Trump.

This morning, Trump is blaming the MICROPHONE for his poor performance. The outcome couldn't have been better.

She successfully managed to not create any negative backlash whatsoever for herself due to her astute answers, appealing demeanor, and overall appearance- only praise from the media.

Heck, even the Weather Channel today was debunking Trump and finding her telling the truth and him dishonestly backpedaling about having called Global Warming a Chinese conspiracy

Let him keep talking about himself, defending himself, babbling like a fool and showing undecided voters what The Donald is really all about, without being able to successfully deflect or take the focus away from his own negatives.

She knew what she was doing.

But it's a pretty fine line Clinton had to tread, between letting Trump just run wild and calling him on every single whopper. It's impossible to tell where that line is prospectively, though. "Clinton shouldn't let him get away with Whopper X, but if she hits him on Lie Y she'll look too picky." In retrospect, she did a pretty good job balancing the two.

I thought early on she was on her heels about NAFTA and CAFTA, but that may have been a function of gauging Trump's belligerence. Would Trump stay on the attack, or would he score his points and move on? He stayed on the attack - which was predictable - and when that became apparent, Clinton met him pretty well, keeping the exchanges well within her comfort zone.