[quote=@Jotunn Draugr] Really? Looks like almost every poll says that he won. Personally, I thought it was a wash. They both came out looking horrible. He had her in the beginning on trade, and she was stuttering over herself trying to think of a comeback, but then the moderator started outright arguing with Trump closer to the end, and he had to completely go on the defensive. Hillary really just through out accusations faster than Trump could dispute them, but he seemed actually more solid on specific policies. What's your take? [/quote] Online polls were regularly declaring, like, 90% for Bernie back in the spring. Of course, the Media isn't exactly a better judge, but they seem to know that, and most media personalities I have seen have been tossing in grains of salt with their reports. You know, always talking about how bizarre this election is and how they ultimately can't figure out what is going on, before they go on with their opinion. I think the real indicator will be how the professional polls look, and we got at least a week if not two before those come out in large enough numbers to tell a story. My own opinion, I expected him to do well, but I don't think he did well at all. I was surprised by it actually. He is good on the offensive but petulant and weak in the defensive, so I assumed he'd take the offensive. But instead he played his weakest hand and came off like he was way out of his league. Hillary came off as robotic (The way she awkwardly felt her way up to that "I call it trumped up Reaganomics" line was like watching a blind man having sex for the first time). She always has seemed robotic. This is especially true when she is answering a moderator question. Clinton's debating style always comes off to me like a college freshman who practiced a few choice lines in a mirror and sort of ad-libbed the rest, because it always feels like she is setting herself up to deliver the line she had practiced. It's awkward and unimpressive. She did better when rebutting Trump's ideas, especially that one time where she did that aside to America's allies, I felt that made him look like a little boy getting apologized for by his mother. But Trump comes off exactly like a cartoon villain in an old saturday morning cartoon. He starts off cocky, then slowly looses his cool, spouts generically evil lines, and starts falling apart near the end. It sorta felt like Batman should jump up any minute, kick him into the lava, say some corny line, and then credits role. He also has this thing for petulance. Like, let your supporters bitch about the media, don't do it yourself. A presidential candidate whining about the media... i mean, here you have a bunch of spineless milquetoast upper-middle class reporters and you're going to say they are being mean? How the fuck you gonna lead the free world if those people are enough of a challenge for you to call time-out? A billionaire whining about how the election is too hard... that doesn't inspire anything but disgust in me, guy. Man the fuck up. The biggest danger for Trump in these debates I think will be himself. Clinton is not charismatic enough to do him in, he has to do it himself. He said Trumpy things in August and had bad polls. He toned it down in September and had really good polls. But if that is how he is going to act in a debate, he really is in danger of saying Trumpy things again, and he can't afford to do that in October. This is the home stretch. What happens in this next month will actually stay with the voters. He did really well with the TPP line, actually managed to choke her up, so whatever he did there he'll have to learn how to hold if he is going to win this thing. But if he plays it, like, basically the rest of that debate, he's going to have to hope for outside forces to get him the swing votes. Pray for an economic collapse (again), or something like that. Meanwhile, I can say that the debate only really reinforced my resolve to vote third party this year. The next president is going to be some sort of disaster or another, so fuck it.