Acrimonious debate

THE US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was largely about who did better. Did Harris outperform Trump? Yes, she did, but Trump was still better than what a jittery Joe Biden was against him in their June debate. And, of course, Harris was far, far better than Biden. She did rub it in: ‘It is important to remind the former President. You’re not running against Joe Biden. You are running against me.’ The televised matchup began with a handshake, but the slender hope of cordiality evaporated quickly. Both pulled no punches as they rained insults and barbs on each other.

The twin challenges for Harris were to erase the memory of Biden’s debate fiasco, which had forced him to abandon his presidency, and present herself as the best choice for American voters. She succeeded to a greater extent in doing the first than the second. Harris is gaining ground, according to online prediction market PredictIt, but this is still a race too close to call.

The candidates targeted one another over the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but neither offered any specific roadmap to bring both conflicts to an end. They also locked horns over abortion restrictions, again not so convincingly. The fact that debate moderators had to repeatedly inject fact-checks showed that both nominees had no qualms about telling a lie here, a lie there. Trump’s trump card was his question: Why has Harris, as Biden’s deputy, not done in the past three-and-a-half years what she is promising now? This valid point caught her on a sticky wicket. Nevertheless, she managed to provoke Trump into making the preposterous claim that Haitian immigrants were eating dogs and cats of Ohio residents. This fight is only going to become more fierce and bitter from here on.