Who won the second presidential debate of the 2016 campaign? The answer to that question is the same for every political debate: the winner is the one who doesn’t lose.
Three very smart journalists at the L.A. Times — Washington Bureau Chief David Lauter and political columnists Doyle McManus and Cathleen Decker — have been tasked with scoring each of the debates as they happen. They are seasoned, dispassionate observers of the political world who can think and write in the midst of clamor and tumult. On Sunday night, they rendered a unanimous judgment that Hillary Clinton won the debate.
Immediately, in the online comments section, they were attacked by Donald Trump’s partisans, who accused them of liberal bias, if not total blindness. They saw their man as dominant from start to finish. Those folks were then answered by online advocates for Clinton who said they were crazy. For them, Clinton’s calmness and command of facts made her the winner. Either side could end up being right, in the same way that flipping a coin produces a winner every time.
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la-1491523602-y7ephyarj1-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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la-1491368625-0bgh58ihw8-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Trump inspires millions to take to the streets -- to oppose him. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Cartoon caption contest winner at the DENT conference in Sun Valley, Idaho: Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corporation. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Old radicals and big media descend on Selma (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Horsey imagined the creation of the Ann Coulter phenomenon in this cartoon from 2007. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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This David Horsey drawing is a reconfiguration of a cartoon he first published in 2006. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can team up together and open an all-white rodeo. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin has brought back the bear. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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David Horsey / Los Angeles Times (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
We all know that people are highly inclined to see their own candidate as masterful, witty, a paragon of truth and particularly good looking, while they see the opposing candidate as a lying sack of ugliness. Perception is everything. What Lauter, McManus and Decker strive to do is suppress their personal biases and score a debate on things like effectiveness of presentation, factuality of arguments, image projection and expectations met or missed. They try to impose a rational measure on a contest while taking into account the fact that most of us are reacting to the debate with emotion and preconceived notions of how we want it to come out. They are like referees at a game in which the score is not revealed until days after the competition is over. Meanwhile, they have to suffer the vilification of a screaming crowd.
I am inclined to think my colleagues called this one right, but we do not know that quite yet. As I said, the winner will be the one who doesn’t lose. In a few days, polls will tell us how voters responded to what they saw Sunday night. If Trump gains ground, he will have won. If Clinton gains ground or simply holds her lead, she wins. It’s that simple.
Ultimately, all the loyalty, enthusiasm and flung epithets of partisans does not matter, nor does the sober analysis of journalists. Only the numbers can tell us who really won.
David.Horsey@latimes.com
Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter
