Was That A Debate?

Ninety minutes is a long time for a sexagenarian and a septuagenarian to stand in one place without a potty break. But they both did Monday night at the first 2016 Presidential Debate. Hillary Clinton, 68 years old, and Donald Trump, at 70 the oldest person ever to run for President of the United States, looked at times as if they couldn’t wait to run off stage, yet there they were fielding questions from each other and the moderator for a full hour and a half.

Hillary won. Hands down. On every question.

And the one topic where Donald Trump could have scored major points – taxes and jobs — he left hanging in a fog of hubris. The lead-in was predictable: Hillary wants “the rich to pay their fair share.” The businessman/developer from New York just had to reply, “The rich already pay their fare share, in fact, the top one percent of taxpayers pay 48% of all the taxes in America.” And then, he should have said, “My tax plan will reduce taxes for ALL Americans, not just the rich, and that will spur the economy like it did under John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.” And then he should have said, “And, that, Secretary Clinton, will induce businesses, large and small, to expand and create millions of new jobs in every industry including so-called ‘green’ industries.” But he didn’t.

Instead, we got more puffing about his great properties and his big deals.

All he had to do was study a briefing book for an hour or two. Learn just a few facts and figures. We heard repeated incomplete sentences and unfinished answers that consumed great chunks of time and convinced no one that he is qualified to lead the world’s greatest nation.

Hillary, meanwhile, managed to deliver clear and concise answers while fending off coughing/fainting/tremor attacks.  She didn’t even have to drag out the fishwife voice.

Advice to Donald Trump: Listen to a few people who know how these things work. Take a mulligan on Debate Number One. Get down to Mar-a-Lago, book a room, forget you’re a zillionaire, stay off the golf course. Do a little debate prep.