A little explanation of this first time forum of the major party's candidates is in order, I think. The forum took place on the deck of the Aircraft Carrier the Intrepid. The carrier is now a museum on the Hudson River, which is an important symbol to veterans, because that ship served in several theaters of war, survived several kamikaze attacks and a torpedo during World War II. Which makes this an appropriate setting for the Commander-in-Chief forum, one with an audience composed of veterans from various branches, walks of life, and political leanings.
Clinton was decided to be the first candidate to take the stage, and fielded her typical answers on all the issues which were brought up. She qualified the most important presidential trait as steadiness in a situation, qualifying it in her next statement as judgement. That was a controversial statement, given her admitted fault in the decision to run an email server and the deletion of some 30,000 emails. Her biggest statement within the forum was that she asked to be judged on the totality of her record, not only on a few mistakes. Clinton did touch on a very important piece in defeating Isis in my opinion, which is counter radicalization and support of Muslim communities around the world. The idea is that by not marginalizing a segment of people, they are not placed into situations which foster unrest and radicalization. She also supports a structure of communication in order to share information regarding possible terrorists both up and down the information chain. Her stage presence was defensive and I think that she took this forum much more seriously than Trump, but I also think that she used this as a play to gain an edge on Trump's rather offhand sentiment.
Trump's stage presence was his usual casual self, with a slightly more controlled series of responses. His solutions to issues in Iraq, with the generals, and his opinions on Putin were all pretty similar to what he has said before. The biggest argument that happened, despite the fact the candidates were both instructed to leave one another alone, was Trump's position on the War on Terror. On September 11th of 2002 he had an interview with Howard Stern in which he had a slightly pro-war response, but there is no source which backs up Clinton's allegations of Trump being a war hawk as she was.
He still earnestly believes he has a better awareness of how to properly end Isis and all involvement in the region, and his leading explanation is to, "Take the oil," which he explained was the only way to create a more stable situation in the area we are vacating. He sees his unpredictability to be a beneficial quality in a commander in chief, he wants to allow undocumented men and women to be given a path to citizenship if they are or have served in the military and he continually gives Putin praises for being an effective leader. Nothing much new or exciting here.
Neither candidate shone to me, but Trump brings to the table a viable argument that politics is very sedentary at the moment, and that he brings the ability to enact major changes. That is what wins him the election at the moment, and Clinton still only has the edge with voters who think Trump's brand of change is too volatile.
