Watched the last third of the debate live and the entire debate this morning

[Raven123]

Posted most of this in a reply to another OP, but will offer it here.

Maybe I was expecting something different based on the panic attacks I witnessed among the media, the supposed surrogate McCaskill, and some here. The MSNBC panel immediately after was stunningly disappointing and lost a lot of credibility for me.

Was Joe quick, slick and hitting bullseyes all night? No. What he did do was answer the questions, and respond to TFG’s nonsensical statements with SPECIFIC examples of his record in office and how he plans to address existing concerns. TfG responded to questions with meandering musings that culminated in accusations, grievances and demonizing. I had no idea where he was going with his responses much of the time. Frankly, neither did the moderators who repeated a number of questions. Sounds like a guy who has no answer and succeeded in baffling many with bullsh@t.

Unlike some, I am glad the moderators repeated the questions to TFG. Those who do got lost or distracted by TFG’s non-responses learned TFG has no answer, couldn’t remember the question or didn’t care about their concerns.

I do have one question. Did the Biden-Harris campaign have their own real time fact checker? They have elecronic media. Irrelevant to the debate itself, but home viewers with access to the campaign feed could get early debunking. Maybe that was not allowed.

[MiHale]

1. Thank you for your analysis...

Bunches of bald people running around today…hair fires do that to ya. I think most are settling in to what actually went on. A cheap, petty liar who only want to enrich himself…against an older seasoned politician and diplomat that only has the country’s welfare as his motivation.

[brush]

2. Thanks for this. I agree. It wasn't as bad as the immediate ove reactions of some would have us think.

I'm sitll ridin' with Biden.

[oldsoftie]

3. To each their own, but you're being very generous.

The only positive about that debate was that trump spewed lies the entire time & if people watching paid attention they'll see all of them.
We need the Friday Biden. What we got was what "undecideds" have been worried about; can he go all the way to Jan 2029? Thats a long way off

[Raven123]

5. I disagree

No, we didn’t see SOTU Joe. But I saw a candidate who watched his opponent BS his way through a question with a muddled nonsensical response and while offering a ready answer to that same question. The specificity of many of his answers versus TFG’s litany of “best, worst, all, none, most, least” with no actual answers seems unlikely to sway undecideds.

Maybe the undecideds won’t vote, and that would be horrible. But I really don’t think they will go for TFG based on this debate.

[fishwax]

4. I, too, turned in midway, and didn't think it was as bad as many were saying

Later on, when I saw clips of the Medicare answer and the end of the abortion answer where he turned to immigration, i understood the response a little bit better, because people were probably going into the debate really anxious/nervous/excited and so those early stumbles kind of became a framework through which they viewed everything that came after. But I came in about halfway, when everybody was already freaking out, and he seemed fine to me (other than the voice not being quite as strong as it has sometimes been, and a bad look/camera angle whenever he would turn to look at trump with his mouth slightly open).