Trump and Clinton both showed their true selves in the debate. That's why Clinton won.

Just as we saw Clinton the dutiful student, in Trump we saw a man with a very fragile ego

Clinton vs. Trump
(Image credit: Pool/Getty Images)

Presidential debates are, like pretty much the entire campaign, an artificial situation demanding performance skills that don't necessarily have anything to do with governing. And yet, in the right circumstances they can reveal the candidates for who they really are. That's certainly what happened Monday night.

Now I'm a liberal, and like everyone else I watched the debate through the filter of my own biases. But even if you didn't think Hillary Clinton pummeled Donald Trump into a mushy orange husk, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that both candidates showed true versions of themselves. It just happened that in this particular forum, Clinton's true self has some advantages over Trump's true self. That's in spite of the fact that there are some contexts in which he's a superior performer to her. A debate just isn't one of them.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.