Lessons of the debate

MUCH analysis of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton focused on Mr Trump’s boorishness. Mrs Clinton accused him of having called a beauty queen “Miss Piggy”. Mr Trump explained the next day that the lady in question had “gained a massive amount of weight”. No one in the audience, which included 85m Americans and many others around the world, was reminded of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.The evening did underline, however, vast differences of substance between the two candidates. On policy, Mrs Clinton is solidly within the mainstream of the Democratic Party and not much different from her predecessor. Mr Trump represents something completely new for the Republican Party, as a comparison of his performance on September 26th with the arguments made by Mitt Romney in the debates four years ago makes clear.