Race for US President - The first debate

Yesterday saw the most watched Presidential debate in US history with approximately 100 million US voters tuning in to see two political prize fighters -Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton slug it out. Race has become a dominant feature of the contest with Clinton accusing Trump of a perpetuaing a racist lie in regards to the vailidity of President Obama's birth certificate. Nevertheless, Trump hit back calling Clinton 'corrupt'.

One respondent in a national poll survey summarised what many see as the  choice: “It’s like asking me to choose between a heart attack and a stroke.”

They described Clinton as a “liar”, “corrupt”, “secretive” and “self-centered”. They labeled Trump “scary”, “fake”, an “egomaniac” and a “shape-shifter”. Such is gutter level and division between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

That said based on last night's debate there's little doubt that Clinton is the only competent contender for the White House. Her superiority on detail, seriousness and temperament illustrated towards the end of the debate:

Trump said:

She doesn’t have the look and she doesn’t have the stamina."

He added:

I’ve been all over the place. You decided to stay home.”

But after rattling off her record of visiting 112 countries in four years as secretary of state, Clinton shot back:

"When Donald Trump spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.”

Words matter when you run for president, and they really do matter when you are president,”

She added:

I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes I did. You know what else I did? I prepared to be president,”

The poll of polls by RealClearPolitics showed Clinton with a drastically reduced lead of 2.1% before the debate. Meanwhile, after the debate 62% of those surveyed by CNN thought that Hillary won the debate, against 27% for Trump, the remainder were undecided.

Whoever the winner and loser of the debate, it does not guarantee that this will be the way that people vote come November 8th. Many see Trump as the unvarnished anti-politician and Clinton as the Washington insider; perceptions that each will want to promote and dispel in equal measure.

There seems little doubt that the animosity and tension from the first debate between the candidates will continue, that the outcome is still uncertain. What is certain though is that America a deeply divided nation, and its unlikely to improve whoever wins.

OBV Staff writer