Debate

During my three years at J. A. Craig High School, I was on the debate team.

Yeah, I see you're impressed.

The kids on the debate team got the best seats in the cafeteria, We had so many dates lined up on the weekends, we had to use a day planner (1979 - 1981, pre-internet).

There was the weekend our team actually pushed the State's football team off the front page after an amazing come from behind win with a killer affirmative argument in the last speech.

There was talk of meeting our school van with a fire truck, but we said no, that would be overdoing it.

In any case, our debate was nothing like what we witnessed on TV last night.

We listened to our opponent and looked through our files so we could back up our counter- argument with facts.

In political history, there are the Lincoln - Douglas and Kennedy - Nixon debates.  It seems safe to say Clinton - Trump is unlikely to reach those heights.

Debate Observations
Thirty minutes into the debate and it's difficult to get a sense for how any undecided voters can reach a conclusion.

Trump backers are likely excited and enthusiastic for the performance of their candidate.

Clinton followers are probably thrilled with their candidate.

It will be interesting to see how it comes out in the wash, but I'm guessing the back and forth on Trump's business practices and the times his company refused to pay vendors for work could damage him.

Lester Holt had been criticized for the Commander in Chief non-debate debate held a couple weeks ago, and he's trying to hold his ground and get answers to his questions.  Both candidates have speaking points and messages to get out.  It's like ships passing in the night.

The ways to handle the issue differ, but I was glad to hear the most reasonable discussion from the candidates on the sad and dangerous situations in many American cities.

The time spent on who said what when about the President's citizenship... we'll never get those 10 minutes back.

Broad and sweeping statements are the easiest to make.  Believe me, they are.

Television is known as a cool medium, Trump runs hot.  Clinton is trying very hard to run cool, speaking in a measured phrases.  A huge contrast.

Many of these topics are incredibly important, unfortunately Americans are not getting to hear a serious discussion on many of these.

Judging the winner and loser of the debate will be done by pundits and talking heads.  Yet the most important decider is each of us.

November 8 is closer than we think.