Newsmax
Stumbles Aside, Trump Scores
Tuesday, September 27, 2016 07:38 AM
By: John Gizzi
Donald Trump excited conservative leaders with his domination of the debate, though the Republican candidate missed many opportunities to dig deep on Hillary Clinton, and seemed defensive at times.
This was in sharp contrast to most of the national media who judged Hillary Clinton the winner of the presidential debate Monday night.
Conservatives whom I spoke to shortly after the debate said Trump had a good night.
“Trump was in control and dominated the moderator, his opponent, and the debate,” said Richard Viguerie, one of the pioneers of the modern conservative movement. “For those voters who want to change our country's leadership, Trump helped them feel that he was an acceptable alternative.”
He went as far as to liken Trump to Ronald Reagan, concluding that “Trump did tonight did what Reagan did in 1980 for those undecided voters — he showed he was an acceptable alternative.”
Trump made the point Hillary wants to raise taxes and that he will reduce taxes. "Trump did stress the runway burden of regulations and debt,” Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told me.
But Norquist was also slightly critical of the Republican nominee: “I think Trump missed a great opportunity to point out that Hillary has called for many taxes on average voters: on soda pop, wages, the seven middle-class tax hikes in Obamacare and on guns."
Norquist also pointed out that “Hillary has already broken her promise to tax ‘only’ the rich . . . but this was not pointed out tonight.”
Howard Kaloogian, chairman of the Tea Party Express said he felt “the best point early on was when Hillary was forced to admit she liked the idea of the TPP trade agreement but didn’t like what was negotiated; and Trump did the press’s job by following through by asking, ‘Is that Obama’s fault?’ since he negotiated it.”
Kaloogian also flat that Clinton lost and Trump gained on the issues of taxes and law and order.
“Hillary depended upon last century’s talking points such as ‘trickle down doesn’t work.’ he said. “Since the GOP establishment doesn’t defend Reaganomics, the left gets to assume inane statements like that make a superior policy position.”
On race, Kaloogian noted that “all of Hillary’s solutions for crime were to ‘fix’ the police instead of reigning in the criminals. Hillary said gun violence kills more black men than the next nine causes combined. [Moderator] Lester Holt missed the follow-up question: Wouldn’t that include shootings by police?
“Trump knocked it out of the park simply by saying, ‘law and order’ was the right response.”
The Tea Party Express leader felt that Trump “scored by referencing that Democratic politicians talk to the black community during campaigns but then do nothing. I think that plays well with everyone since its obviously true.”
Kaloogian did cite stumbles by Trump, including “how he was defensive about his tax returns. Hillary attacked by saying we have to guess who he owes favors too since we can’t see his tax returns. He missed his best response. Trump should have referenced all the favors she owes to the secret donors to the Clinton Foundation.”
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