Trump vs. Clinton round 1

I must confess to something. I had never watched a full presidential debate live before last night’s round one between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I did get a chance to watch a Democratic nominee debate once but couldn’t sit through it.

I must also confess that I have never seen either Trump or Clinton in action on the campaign trail, apart from a few excerpts on CNN, our primary source for American news here in Pakistan.

{mosads}This proved to be a blessing. I ended up watching the debate with a fresh and unbiased perspective hoping to highlight a few unique elements in the conversation. Excited at the prospect of watching the candidates going head to head, I woke at 5.30am to see it live.

Trump has created quite the furor in Pakistan where some of his more flagrant remarks about immigrants and Muslims in particular have caused an outrage. Newspapers generally jump at the opportunity of printing such controversial material because frankly speaking, it sells more papers. Thus, his infamy and his position as the Republican candidate have made him a person of interest in Pakistan.

Clinton is of course, the adept politician whose skills at foreign diplomacy are undeniable but like Trump, she also has a few skeletons in her closet. The failures of President Obama’s tenure are seen as her failures and generally, people don’t expect new initiatives to be rolled out once she is elected. Therefore, the perception that she will only forward ‘old tricks’, is always there.

I must admit that I was genuinely impressed by Trump despite his negative image in Pakistan. For one his body language was very direct. He was all business, cold and cutthroat.

I did not see him smile throughout the debate as if he was there to make a killing and he was confident that he would. Despite his ‘bull dog’ expression, he was more friendlier towards Clinton than she was towards him.

When he shook her hand at the beginning and at the end of the debate, he extended his left arm to cover her right elbow, a sign of trust and reassurance. He even extended his left hand to Clinton’s back when they shook hands after the debate before they walked forward towards the audience

Clinton however did not make any such gesture of the sort, which could be interpreted as her cold political attitude or her disdain for Trump whom the political fraternity looks upon as an outsider.

At the sound of the bell, Trump landed the first punches. He was quoting numerous facts and named States where the job market was dwindling in response to Clinton’s generalizations of the economy. This should be expected from a businessman of Trump’s stature.

She was found wanting as he quoted case after case of companies leaving the US and moving their manufacturing to other countries such as Mexico and China. He also took a strong stance on taxation and the devaluation of currency, which he said was being used against the economic interests of America by its trading partners. Clinton kept repeating that Obama’s regime had created millions of jobs and that Trump wanted tax cuts for himself and for rich executives. She even chided him about his tax returns asking him to release them to the public to which he retorted that once she makes her 33,000 deleted emails public, he will follow suit.

After Trump’s triumph in the “achieving prosperity” section, Clinton came back strongly in the second topic for the night, “America’s direction.”

With race and color being debated, she showed her experience through a barrage of attacks on Trump’s record of discrediting and racially profiling the black community. Trump did his best to jump in and say “not true” while Clinton spoke but she knew she had him and ran with it.

Clinton smartly referred to the ‘Birther’ case, which brought Trump’s stand on race and color into sharp focus. Trump could only conjure up a few distorted facts to save face. The debate got pretty heated at this point after a few sparks had flown when Trump and Clinton debated his tax returns and her deleted emails. For a moment, he lost his cool and she had him in the palm of her hand. Dramatically, this was the point where she smiled the widest reminiscent of Jack Nicholson’s Joker.

She carried her psychological triumph in the final topic of the night “securing America”, when she taunted Trump further saying that “a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.” Trump had regained some of his composure by this time and drilled in the failures of the Obama administration to curb ISIS and terrorism in general. He also called into question the fruitfulness of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) when America was paying ‘“73 percent” of the organization’s bills.

A peculiar thing to note however, was when the moderator Lester Holt asked both candidates how they would curb homegrown terrorism in reference to the recent terrorist incidents in America; they both came up wanting, resorting to mudslinging instead. By the end of the night, Trump had covered up some ground, which he had lost in the middle through his bravado.

Who won? I for one cannot call it. They both had their moments and they both showed their true colors at one point or another — Clinton, the shrewd and seasoned politician and Trump, the cutthroat businessman with a never say die attitude.

Trump will need to do some homework if he wants to stand clear of Clinton, which also includes politically educating his family whom he had to gesture a couple of times to join him on stage after the debate. The Clintons were already all over the stage and the audience by that time, being the veteran politicians that they are.

I can’t wait for round 2. Hope they both brush up on their facts way before October 9th.

Shar is a political blogger in Pakistan and a former Assistant Editor at Oxford University Press.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.