The political pundits and campaign operatives will dissect last night’s presidential debate. We will read and hear about the one-liners–Putin’s puppet, bad hombres, very sleazy campaign, etc.– and about Donald Trump not expressly saying he would accept the results of the election.
However, the lasting impression for me was how great our democracy is. We held three debates for the top office in this land at three universities. The effort was non-partisan. The students, faculty and administration of the University of Nevada Las Vegas were excited to host the event. Many wore t-shirts with “The Road to the White House goes through UNLV” on their chests.
Over 5,000 journalists attended the event from over dozens of nations and international news networks. It was exciting to see Kareem Abdul-Jabber, Mark Cuban, and other well-known people, as well as talk to Chuck Todd, Chris Matthews, Rick Wilson and the team from C-Span.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace did a solid job as the moderator, asking tough, direct questions of both Hillary Clinton and Trump and effectively following up when they tried to dodge the questions. I’m not sure if it came across in the telecast, but Wallace injected humor at times without taking away from the seriousness of the moment.
My full report on the debate will be in our Oct. 27 issue.