The presidential debates gave the world a chance to watch Donald Trump bluff about his mistreatment of women and lie about mocking a person with disabilities. Nearly as theatrical was the sight of Hillary Clinton spinning convoluted explanations of why people shouldn't fret about her use of a private email server while secretary of state.
These and other familiar election-season spectacles may have revealed something about the candidates' character but shed little light on how they'd approach governing. Missed substantive opportunities in all three presidential debates included. . . .
Taxes: Obligatory clichés aside, Trump's tax proposals weren't debated seriously. They dwarf anything that Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush proposed and overwhelmingly would benefit the rich.
How, given recent history, can Trump explain how this would produce magical growth? As Bloomberg View columnist Matthew Winkler has written, more manufacturing jobs were created in the last 40 years under Democratic presidents than under Republican ones. Does exacerbating income inequality matter? Trump probably doesn't know or care enough about the specifics of his proposals to defend them. But it would have been instructive for future policy discussions to hear him try.
Entitlements: Even liberal economists tend to acknowledge that the growth of Medicare and Social Security has to be restrained. Trump had nothing to say about how he'd do that. Clinton's website announces her promise to "defend" entitlements "by asking the wealthy to contribute more," a thin formula that was never challenged during the debates. If pressed, she might have had to at least outline, as President Barack Obama has, the contours of what compromises she'd fashion and accept to keep benefits flowing. She wasn't.
Russia and NATO: Trump continued during the debates to say conciliatory things about Vladimir Putin and said U.S. allies should pay more for collective military expenses as a condition of his support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He wasn't asked whether he understands that the U.S. is already bound by the NATO treaty's Article 5, which says an attack against one member is an attack on all. That means he didn't have to outline what his response would be if Russia behaved aggressively toward its neighbors Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are all NATO members.
Asia: Clinton says that as secretary of state under Obama, she led a "pivot to Asia" in U.S. foreign policy. Yet she came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact aimed at containing Chinese influence and which she once championed. Excerpts of her speeches released by WikiLeaks indicate that her change in thinking owed much to political calculation.
It's OK if the debates didn't have much political impact. What's disappointing that they didn't lay any groundwork for what happens after Jan. 20, when the next president takes office.
Editorial on 10/22/2016