Presidential Debate: Abortion, the Economy and….eating your pet’s!
Supporters of both Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump were VERY nervous going into last night’s first (and only?) debate between the candidates vying for the keys to the White House in November.
For Harris, this was the most important night of her political life. Facing an electorate that largely remained unaware of her strengths and weaknesses, this held the potential to make or break her entire career.
On the other hand, Trump, has appeared increasingly desperate. After dominating the campaign through most of the year against Joe Biden, he is losing control of the race to a much younger opponent who he just can’t get the measure of.
The stakes were high and only one campaign would burst out of the National Constitutional Centre in Philadelphia with momentum for the last 56 days.
So…. who won?!
Well, it depends on who you ask.
Trump called it ‘the best debate I’ve ever had’ and cited unnamed polls saying that 85%, 90% and 70% of polled Americans agreed with him [no such polls have been released or cited by the Trump campaign].
Most pundits and certainly the progressively drunker and drunker crowd at the downtown Manhattan bar where Kangaroo Politics watched the action scored it a victory for Kamala Harris.
Despite some early wobbles around the economy in her first answer, the VP settled into her groove and showed why her debating skills, honed as a prosecutor, were cited by her supporters as a key credential heading into the revamped race.
She methodically chipped away at Trump’s well-known vulnerabilities - from his obsession with rally crowd sizes and penchant for political alliances with dictators to vulnerabilities on key policy positions from abortion to climate change.
But the moments of the night could mostly be categorized under Tim Walz’s favorite moniker of ‘Weird’.
They included:
Trump latching onto and then doubling down on the debunked story out of Ohio that residents were ‘eating their pets’ given the dire state of the economy.
Harris goading Trump directly about his position on abortion only for Trump to accuse Harris of supporting Abortion ‘after the babies have been born’ prompting a fact check from the moderator that it was in fact, not legal anywhere in the United States for babies to be executed after birth.
Trump randomly alleging that ‘they are doing transgender surgeries on aliens in prison’…cue…viral memes across the internet.
Of course, most of what was said last night, even the weird shit about eating your pets, is unlikely to change the minds of rusted on voters.
It is about the narrow band of undecided’s, particularly in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Early estimates suggest more than 65 million Americans tuned in which is about 15 million more than watched the debate that struck the final blow for Joe Biden’s candidacy back in June.
The Harris campaign will be hoping that at least a few of them (and their pets) are based in the swing states and agree with the pundits that she was the clear winner…