It’s been four days now since the presidential debate, giving us all plenty of time to digest what happened on the stage at Hofstra University.
Most immediately, it can be said definitively that Secretary Hillary Clinton won the debate. Every reliable measure of victory, from focus group testing to randomized polling, says she won by a wide margin. Her reasons for victory should be clear to anyone who watched the debate– she was calm, cool, and collected. Her opponent Donald Trump displayed none of those traits. He was hostile, inarticulate, and unprepared to put it generously.
How much does the debate really matter, though? Even if voters who are inclined to vote Republican found a lot to like in Clinton’s performance, will it be enough to swing support to her candidacy? Will independents plant themselves firmly in Camp Clinton?
That remains to be seen. But even if the debate doesn’t change any minds, it should. What we saw up there were two fundamentally different people. Clinton and Trump disagree on just about everything, from policy to rhetorical style to their basic ability to process logic.
What I found to be the most important difference, however, was the sheer gap in preparedness between the candidates. Clinton came prepared for the debate. She practiced, she did research, she honed in on Trump’s weaknesses, and she translated all of that into a powerful performance. Trump, on the other hand, appeared to improvise as he went along. He hit all the key words that will appeal to his base— weak, strong, China, Mexico, great – but clearly displayed how out of his depth he is on literally any issue facing America today.
That difference in preparedness is most important because their preparedness for the debate parallels their preparedness for the presidency. Clinton would go into every situation with the knowledge and serenity needed in the Oval Office. On the other hand, I imagine Trump would be inclined to impose sanctions on a country if he perceived any slights from another head of state. That kind of recklessness is not only a threat to the United States, but to the very stability of the world.
We have a responsibility to elect the best woman for the job, whether you’re in deep-blue California, deep-red Texas, or the purplish-hued Georgia. We need a woman who is prepared to be president on day one, and Monday night’s debate showed us who that woman is.
Tharon Johnson is an Atlanta-based Democratic Party strategist
