At the first presidential debate for the 2016 election, Republican candidate, Donald Trump did something that was unprecedented for his personality. He treated his fellow candidate with respect.
Gone were the little Marco’s, Lying Ted’s and Crazy Bernie Sanders, as he asked Clinton if he could refer to her with a more professional, title. “Now, in all fairness to Secretary Clinton — yes, is that OK? Good. I want you to be very happy. It’s very important to me.”
Supporters of both candidates were surprised, but Trump’s startling change of pace didn’t last the whole night, and by the last half an hour, pre-debate similarities shined. In an analysis video, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman even said this rebound gave the effect of “Clinton being able to help herself.”
For example, some of Trump’s already used talking-points were seen rather immediately, but with more consistency. He elaborated more on his heightened claims of Mexico stealing jobs and even tried to create agreements with Hillary Clinton, eschewing his normally vindictive perspective. “As far as child care is concerned, and so many other things, I think Hilary and I agree on that.”
Quotes like this marked substantial differences from his Republican only debate performances, including exclaiming that Ted Cruz’s support of the of a global relations deal was one of the worst career moves he’s made. “I mean, it’s a staple in my speeches that that may he worst single deal I’ve ever seen negotiated”
As boisterous as Trump can be, one subtle change was in his structure. He frequently headed arguments of more recent events, instead of using past flummoxes to chastise competitors. Trump also didn’t rule the whole debate with his presence. Highlights were early on, as he was able to calm down his atypical personality and use more in-depth examples in order to attack Clinton. He said,“She’s been doing this for 30 years. Why hasn’t she made agreements better?”
Other tactics stayed. Trump might have been able to scrape past lies and offenses a couple months ago, but he was unwilling to reinvent numerous flaws when being observed by a larger audience. The most notable was his insistence on personal attacks and lies, which escalated as the debate went on. This change of pace was likely downright surprising to the candidate, since Trump was only significantly challenged on one out of the eight Republican debates he participated in (by Fox News host Megyn Kelly). This may have been one of the reasons for his later flip flopping of opinions about the moderator.
“I thought Lester Holt gave me very unfair questions at the end, but I’m not complaining about that.”
The event has also impacted Trump far more than he could have expected. Hillary Clinton beat Trump that night in search volume, which has only occurred twice in the past year. Polling aggregators such as 538 have also boosted Clinton’s chances by an average of 20%, showing how Trump can’t immediately escape the consequences a bad statement or a sexist flub, like he was able to in the primaries.
“Some of it’s said — somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her”
