Some Things We Learned

Takeaways from the debate that could have taken away the little hope we had left for this election

After last night’s debate we’re all left with a lot to sort through. The gut feelings from watching a candidate we love, a candidate we despise, or, as is more common than ever before in an election, both candidates with whom we are disgusted.

Fact-checkers are busy reporting the details that were missed, exaggerated, or fabricated. News agencies are reporting with their preferred segments’ biases in mind. Comedy shows are busy poking holes in everything that happened.

And Lester is getting over his moderation hangover, wondering why he ever signed up for the job.

With all of the information swirling around, I’ve come up with a short, distilled list of things we can learn from last night:

• Duh. Don’t ever agree to moderate a Presidential debate. It’s an impossible task and half the country will hate you because of their candidate’s piss poor performance.
• Practice for Success. Preparation yields high dividends. All the more so when your competition forgets that it’s the case.
• Overly Prepared Beats Overcompensating. Don’t think you’ll nail a job interview based off of the charm you insist you have. Even less so when your primary selling point is that you don’t have any of your competitor’s experience or qualifications.
• Negative is negative. If the majority of your value proposition is framed in negatives, don’t be surprised if you’re viewed in a negative light. There’s a reason people rallied behind the message of hope Obama brought with his campaign in 2008: as the only species which understands and plans for the future we absolutely need it.
• Don’t Spray and Pray. If you have a zinger, make sure it’s aimed with precision. Be a sniper, not a trigger happy cowboy. Remember, bullets have the potential to ricochet and hit you.
• Open Your Eyes. If there is a weakness in the armor (e.g. Benghazi, emails, Clinton Foundation, etc.), then make sure to attack it swiftly and decidedly. Don’t let things slide and then complain about it the next day on Twitter, passing the blame on to someone else for the job you didn’t do.
• Winning via Disarmament. If you can’t beat’m, join’m. And do so with alacrity and a chuckle. This is disarming for your opponent and creates favor with onlookers and stakeholders.
• Grow Up and Write it Down. Interrupting someone is rude. Doing so incessantly is simply immature. Show poise and patience, desirable traits in the general population of adults and especially those in leadership. If something must be corrected or addressed then take some notes.
• Show and Tell. Speaking clearly requires one to think clearly. Conversely, a lack of spoken clarity is indicative of one’s thought patterns. No one can be expected to know your true genius if it can’t even keep itself in-tact between your brain and your mouth. Use your words to show me you’re terrific, not just to tell me it’s the case.

I’m already looking forward to our next round of debate. Hopefully, in that event, we’ll have two people seriously show up who are vying for the honor of leading us for the next few years, rather than simply one while the other wants to show up before claiming the victory via retweets.

Nevertheless, we’ll soon be stuck with one of these candidates so we may as well start finding silver linings and lessons.

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