A Home Run for Hillary

There was only one first debate, but there were four results:

• Clinton took first base in the pre-debate.  With expectations of poor health built up by Trump and his allies, all Hillary had to do was stand and breathe for ninety minutes, which she did.  She rounded first base simply by not appearing ill.  
• Clinton rounded second base by winning the actual debate.  She attacked.  Then she attacked more.  She correctly calculated Trump's responses.   She spoke slowly and used-up the clock. She controlled the field.   
• Trump let her round third by losing the debate.  His losing is not the same as her winning. They are separate things.  He went into defensive mode and used up all his time responding rather than attacking.  This was a yuuge error.  All he had to say after every attack was, "That's nonsense.  What is real is..." and then go on attack about Hillary's scandals, of which there are too many to recount.  
• Finally, Hillary rounded home plate by winning the post-debate.  There is enough material from the debate and its aftermath for Hillary to fill her next twenty ad buys.  

Can Trump recover?  I'm not so sure.  Remember, when Romney cleaned Obama's clock in the first debate of 2012 it was not a bad "first impression".  Obama had already been president for four years. For many undecided voters, this was their first impression of Donald Trump.  You only get one shot at a first impression.

Pundits often talk about moments in these debates.  For me, the moment that best captured the extent of Hillary's victory was when Trump chided her for staying home for the last number of days, presumably to attack her health.  She responded that she had used the time preparing for the debate, and that she was also preparing to be president, wink, wink, nod, nod.  Trump was speechless.

I hope I'm wrong about the impact of this because I really don't relish the thought that a person as corrupt as Hillary Clinton, who has been part of such nasty business as lying to the families of dead heroes after Benghazi, who attacked women abused and raped by her husband, who sold U.S. foreign policy to the highest bidder, who then took the money for her personal gain, who destroyed public records under subpoena,  who got people killed by using an unsecured illegal server, and who jailed a filmmaker to cover for her incompetence, could waltz back into the same White House she and her impeached husband disgraced so thoroughly for eight years.  But that may be the reality.