After the September 27, 2016 first Presidential Debate Hillary was judged the winner - by most learned political analysts, at least. Her superior policy knowledge (gained as First Lady, Senator for New York and Secretary of State) and cooler debating style gave an edge over the less prepared Trump. http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/forget-professional-pundits-donald-trump-excelled-in-the-first-debate-20160927-grpavq

But Trump argued from the position of an outsider who is not part of the smug political establishment. He appealed to middle and working class voters sick of losing jobs to rigged economies like China.

He argued America’s allies should pay more for their defence. Fortunately this is the direction Australia is going.

At this stage do you think Hillary or Trump will win?

Pete

I watched a little of "THE DEBATE", & was so bored I switched it off.

I have a sneaking suspicion that, like the Brexit result, the pundits & the compliant media are in for a rude shock.

I can't see him making a great president, but he couldn't possibly be any worse than Obama has been, & Hillary would be. In fact he could not possibly be as bad as Turnbull is, & Rudd/Gillard/Rudd were.

If Hillary is elected we had better start developing our own nuclear armed cruise missile defence system, & damn quickly. I doubt the USA as we know it could survive another term of this Obama style government. We could very easily find ourselves on our own, & very vulnerable down here in our isolated corner of the planet.

Without such a nuclear deterrent, it would only be a question of which Asian language would we have to learn to understand our orders, from our new masters.

Yes I think a surprise turnout for Trump, under the voluntary US voting system, may surprise people.

Trump needs to do more homework to show he can master Presidential briefs on matters he's unfamiliar with. Against that gut instinct seemed to work for Reagan and for Dubya a strong Vice President holding his hand also worked. Maybe Trump as well. Trump's tough unpredictable style is admired by US (near) enemies, like Putin.

Dear Hasbeen,

«If Hillary is elected we had better start developing our own nuclear armed cruise missile defence system, & damn quickly.»

Yes and ditto for Trump.

It's long overdue and then, once we had our own nuclear (and biological) deterrent, we wouldn't need to have this discussion here about the irrelevant internal affairs of "some USA, where is it anyway?".

There's a few topics being discussed in the independent media regarding the first debate.

1. Lester Holt's impartiality during the debate
2. NBC was a $5mln financial backer of the Clinton Foundation
3. Debate questions were delivered to the Clinton campaign a week in advance allowing her to prepare her answers.

Hi Hasbeen and Yuyutsu

Re "If Hillary is elected we had better start developing our own nuclear armed cruise missile defence system, & damn quickly."

I say No to submarine launched cruise missiles but Yes to small ballistic missiles launched by good ol Aussie conventional http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Barracuda-class_submarine#Shortfin_Barracuda_conventional_variant Baby Boomers.

As all Peaceniks realise Cruise missiles suffer from slow average subsonic speed making them:

- easier to shoot down, with anti-missile missiles, and

- their time to target makes them too slow for a First Strike.

Small nuclear Ballistic Missiles, like an extended range Sea Lance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUM-125_Sea_Lance would do nicely. At just over 6m long it could fit (in the torpedo tube or vertically) in our future subs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Barracuda-class_submarine#Shortfin_Barracuda_conventional_variant.

Pete

Pete, I agree we need shore based nuclear defence, but I still like cruise as an invasion defence. I don't of course have any objection to a bunch of small ballistic missiles, but I doubt we could ever get both, too expensive.

No fleet, or group of fleets could invade without air supremacy, reasonably achievable with our few numbers of aircraft, but a couple of dozen nuclear cruise missiles that could be launched when any fleet was within 50 nautical miles or so would make any invasion too risky for anyone to attempt.

I would rather see our patrol boats armed with missiles than subs. Even small things like the ship to ship version of the exocet would be more likely to be delivered if from a patrol boat, than from any sub of ours.

Personally I won't be voting for either of them.

Is this the really best that they can come up with over there?

When it comes down to it - here's one summary of the honesty of the debate -

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/20-lies-donald-trump-told-first-presidential-debate

Those watching the TV Debate included Taliban secretly viewing from Afghanistan, if NBC is to be believed. The livelihood (including revenue gained) of the Taliban's efficient insurgency will depend on who wins the Election.

27 September 2016 NBC News reveals:

TALIBAN WATCHES CLINTON, TRUMP DEBATE FROM SECRET AFGHANISTAN LOCATION

“...Taliban leaders tuned into Monday night's [US eastern time] debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump from a secret location in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militant group told NBC News.

"We were very interested in watching," said Zabihullah Mujahid. The spokesman added that "Trump ... [says] anything that comes to his tongue" and branded the Republican candidate as "non-serious."

He said the militant group's leadership had hoped that Afghanistan would feature more prominently in the discussion. "There nothing of interest to us in the debate as both of them said little about Afghanistan and their future plans for the country," he said…”

More see http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-presidential-debates/taliban-watches-clinton-trump-debate-secret-afghanistan-location-n655276

I'm almost about ready to move from Trump supporter (or more precisely Hillary opposer) to 'none of the above' after Mike Pence's comments yesterday on Assad.
Trump needs to clearly state his foreign policy positions.

One problem I now foresee is that if Trump is not for removing Assad and wins in November they might kill him, allowing Pence to become President and thus continue their warmongering foreign policy.