Hunting Ground Response Ben Baker-Katz and Miles Lynn

We think that the best way to raise awareness for sexual assault on campus is to have victims speak about it more openly. We understand that talking about an ordeal like that must be incredibly hard for anyone, but it is the best way to get the message out. Listening to some of these stories, and watching the Lady Gaga video, has made us empathize with victims. If that were to be done on a much larger scale, more people would both be aware of how terrible this situation is, and be willing to help prevent attacks in the future.

The organization known as End Rape on Campus (EROC) was founded in the summer of 2013 by students, survivors, and professors, but the two main founders were Annie E. Clark, and Sofie Karasek. Both college students at the time, they brought together a whole lot of people to form the EROC. The EROC organization describes its mission as “trying to end all campus sexual violence through direct support for survivors and their communities; prevention through education; and policy reform at the campus, local, state, and federal levels.” The EROC organization receives funding through direct donations to the foundation. Their website has a list of ways you can contribute/donate. This organization is portrayed by the media as very active, and very helpful. A lot of the articles that are posted on the EROC website have said that the EROC is a great resource and aid for survivors of these sexual assaults. The articles also say that the EROC is very active in the fight to end sexual assault on college campuses.

Debate Response - Ethan Mitzen

Hillary Clinton:

• Areas of Strength:
• Clinton’s physical composure under the onslaught of lies, slander, and constant interruption was an area of incredible strength. In the first 25 minutes of the debate, Hillary was interrupted 26 times by Donald Trump and 15 times by Lester Holt (according to Vox) but maintained her composure throughout the debate. In the same amount of time, Trump interrupted, was clearly physically ill (maybe he has pneumonia), and became clearly exhausted and incoherent while Hillary maintained her composure and stayed on message and together. Hillary displayed incredible stamina in this debate
• Clinton’s ability to stay on message was an area of great strength. Throughout the debate, Clinton stayed on message and kept to her points very well while Trump fell apart into an incoherent lump of racist hair gel and misogynistic sweat. This also shows how prepared she was for this debate, which is in stark contrast to Trump bragging about not preparing (and attacking Clinton for being prepared)
• Areas of Weakness:
• Clinton’s main weakness was her inability (or unwillingness) to “dumb down” her policy bits. This does demonstrate that she is qualified and whatnot, and thus should not be viewed as a weakness, but most people don’t view this as a policy-oriented election cycle. Most people see this as a personality based election so when Clinton goes on and on about policy (which personally I love) it turns most people off of what she is saying
• Clinton lacks other weaknesses, her debate performance was in fact exemplary, and a lot of the things that would be perceived as weaknesses (her allowing herself to be interrupted so often, her lack of interrupting Trump, etc etc) are examples of the double standard that exists for Hillary Clinton because she’s a female candidate. If she objected to being interrupted so often or if she interrupted Trump (especially as often or nearly as often as he interrupted her) then it would be interpreted as her being b*tchy or bossy or some other misogynistic mantra, whereas for a male candidate (case in point: Trump) it would be seen as a strength to interrupt and a weakness to be interrupted. Hillary Clinton’s ability to remain calm and “stay in her lane” will be seen as a weakness but is in fact a great strength

Donald Trump:

• Areas of Strength:
• Donald Trump’s main point of strength (there are not many) was his knowledge of his own base and his own potential base. He knows that when he interrupts Hillary Clinton stating objective facts by simply saying “lies” and “you can check that”, his supporters (and the people he may possibly appeal to) will not “check that”. His supporters don’t care what Politifact says, they don’t care that Trump actually supported the Iraq war and even if they did they’ll take his word for it.
• Donald Trump lacks other points of real strength, his debate performance was extremely poor, but he did a great job of taking up a lot of time. He interrupted Hillary Clinton a great multitude of times, he talked beyond his allotted time in nearly every (if not every) instance (whereas Hillary Clinton kept pretty close to her time caps) and pushed the limits of the debate rules to the very edge. Trump was able to speak for a very long time. He did not fill this time with a lot of actual substance, but he did fill it.
• Areas of Weakness:
• Oh boy. Donald Trump’s debate performance was full of weaknesses and the most difficult part of this assignment is narrowing it down to the two biggest ones. His main weakness was his lack of stamina. After the first half hour or so, Trump became visibly exhausted, bored, and physically ill. He noticeably sniffled throughout the entire debate, he made crass facial gestures, and he became totally incoherent around halfway in. Trump was unable to maintain his posture or positions throughout and acted with the mannerisms of a child, not an adult running for the highest office in the country
• Donald Trump’s other main weakness was his inability to articulate his points and his general unpreparedness. Trump quickly delved into an incoherent mess and lost the grasp of his positions. He started to talk about almost literal nonsense when the topic moved to nuclear weapons. He began to talk about Japan as if they were an antagonist to the United States instead of a close ally. He talked about the Iran deal as if it was multiple deals. Most of the things he said made absolutely no sense and he attacked Hillary Clinton for being prepared.

Hillary Clinton was the CLEAR winner of this debate. She was articulate, strong, and poised. Her policy positions were well put together while Donald Trump’s policy positions were gibberish. She delivered a flawless debate performance while Donald Trump failed to deliver anything of substance and had the mannerisms of a small child.

Mollie Hartenstein Debate Response

After watching and reflecting on the debate tonight I came to two realizations;

1) The voters are already isolated and this event won’t cause a major shift in the polls and 2) in many ways we are drastically unprepared for the future of our country. Putting these aside, I personally believe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the debate tonight. I think her body language and presence was very commanding and authoritative in an endearing and empowering way that really made people want to believe and vote for her. Her intelligent control over her facial and bodily expression contributed to a genuine and personable connection between Clinton and the populous. This feeling was furthered by Clinton’s clear portrayal of her policies, and the explanation she gave regarding the topics at hand. Each question was given an on-topic and pointed answer that emphasized her platforms, in contrary to Trump’s ignorance of the topic and unwillingness to dig deep into his policies and plans. On the other hand, Hillary often came off as being too worried and questioning, specifically with her rhetoric toward Trump at the beginning of the debate. She continued to attempt to ask the audience questions  to gain offense rather than stating her advantages over Trump. In line with this, I felt that Clinton actually let her opponent get away with too much. Even though she continued to point out his falsehoods and flaws in logic, she didn’t push him enough on the topics he was clearly uncomfortable with. I think there were issues she could’ve brought up to make him look worse. Looking to the other side of the spectrum I saw Trump as more flustered, uncomfortable, rowdy, and inexperienced at the debate. In terms of content, nothing Trump did gained him anymore voters than he already has. Nothing I saw tonight, I think, would shift undecided voters his way. This problem with his performance is emphasized by the feeling that he didn’t really do anything; nothing new was introduced, nothing was explained, and no new attacks were made. Everything I heard Trump say tonight was just repetition of the rest of his campaign. However, I do believe that Trump showed a more resigned and controlled side of himself tonight, in his ability to not steep to levels of bragging about his manhood on national TV. And I think, unlike Hillary, Trump knew when to push Hillary, he knew how to try and make her look bad. The question of whether she actually did look bad is, once again, up for debate. All in all, I think this was a strong debate and good showing for Hillary Clinton.

Miles Lynn Debate Reaction

Trump

2 Areas of Strength

-Being on offense, he seems to always want to attack. Right from the start Trump was on the attack, pressing Hillary with questions and quick rebuttals to what she had to say. Trump was making remark after remark on Hillary, as well as interrupting her speaking. Whether that was acceptable or not, I feel that showed that Trump was ready to fight.

-Associated Hillary with failures of status quo, attached current failures to Hillary. A lot of people in our Country right now believe that we need to be going in a different direction. Trump realizing this took advantage, and made a some arguments saying Hillary is just going to be another Obama, what he’s doing isn’t working, and we need to move on. The American people are looking for a change, not the status quo that Trump described Hillary as.

2 Areas of Weakness

-Doesn't demonstrate any willingness to acknowledge he’s spoken loosely and sometimes falsely. Trump throughout the debate was faced with past actions that have been true, and that he has denied, without any acknowledgement of being wrong. He doesn't want to admit when he is in the wrong so he tries to cover it up, saying he never said that, or he doesn't know what your talking about. It does not make him look that great, especially if the things he denies he has said are true.

-Obama Birtherism situation response. This part of the debate was so bad for Trump, that it was embarrassing. Supporting racist claims that President Obama is a Muslim, when most knew he was born a U.S. citizen in Hawaii. Along with saying how he got Obama to produce his birth certificate, and Hillary couldn't. You could really start to tell that Trump wasn’t too prepared for this debate.

Hillary

2 Areas of Strength

-Able to provide policy specifics when attacked by Trump. Trump was on the attack tonight, but Hillary came prepared, her prep showed, and for almost every attack Trump had Hillary was able to point to one of her Policies as support for her. She seemed to handle any question from Trump by pointing to one of her policies that would make Trumps argument invalid.

-Stayed even keeled and posed and never lost her cool. I thought this had a down and upside, but the upside was she looked much more composed than Trump. While Trump was interrupting and was getting excited Hillary kept her cool. She talked level headedly the whole night, and to me looked way more presidential.  

2 Areas of Weakness

-Flipside she seemed aloof, above it all. When Trump was going on these long sort of rants, Hillary just sat back and let it happen, not knowing whether to jump in or just sit back. She chose sit back most of the time, and it made her seem like she was just letting him talk, thinking what Trump was saying would hurt him. But what would have been better is if she jumped in and said something.

-Trade issue/policie lost exchange, Trump able to bring up NAFTA, TPP for and against it. Trump early on went to Trade policy and issues, an area where Trump has an advantage because of what he has done for most of his life. When Trump brought up NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement) I feel like Hillary didn’t do a great job of defending it, along with when the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership).

In the end, I feel Hillary was the winner of this first debate. Although Her trade policy wasn’t great and she seemed a little aloof, she came out with specific policies and way of getting things done. Compared to Trump, who is a lot of talk and not a lot of action. Also Hillary kept her cool/composure, while Trump was Trump, saying he went on little rants and was always interrupting. Although Trump had a few good moments in the debate, I think the obvious winner is Hillary Clinton.

Natalie Lovinger Debate Reaction

Trump negatives:
1. He interrupted Clinton many times rudely saying "wrong" without letting her speak.
2. His ideas were unresearched and most of what he said was untrue or impossible.

Trump Positives:
1. He was charismatic and was able to control the crowd.
2. He used his emotional views to cover the fact that he was unprepared.

Clinton Negatives:
1. She did not take Trump seriously and often laughed at him.
2. While her attacks on Trump were well researched, she talked about his negatives almost as much as her positives.

Clinton Positives:
1. Everything she said was well researched, well prepared, and well executed. She was on top of the game.
2. She was able to make her case against Trump and for herself as why she should be president over him

Thomas Neumann Debate response

Donald's Strengths
1. talks about good ideas on how he is gonna bring jobs back to america, and make it so big corporations bring their factory's back to america to help boost our economy and make more jobs and talks about dangers of letting these company's go to other country's.
2. Trump tries to distance himself from Hilary and other politicians to be this was good because many people find politcians untrustworthy so this was a good move for Donald.

Donald's Weakness'
1. When asked for a specific answer he avoids it and instead responds with attacks on Hillary that most of the time are completly irrelevant to the topic
2. When he is talking becomes completley off topic and goes off on his own, and when Lester Holt tries to ask him a new question he talks over him and avoids it.

Hillary's Strengths
1. She is doing a good job of responding to or ignoring Donald Trumps attacks and ideas and she is effectivly telling how many of his plans wont work or will be failures based on evidence from past situations.
2. Hillary did a good job of using things that Donald Trump said tonight and in the past too make him look bad, show that he lied(example: things about race and Obama's citizenship).

Hillary's Weakness'
1. She has been obviously sarcastic, disrespectful, and laughing toward Donald, although he may deserve it some times this is not how she wants to be looked at. Donald is looked at as the immature one and she should want to keep it this way and this was not helping that.
2. She is still not quite trusted by people yet, the email scandal is still a nagging thing and has been brought up questioning her trustworthyness and she doesnt really have a good response to it

Ben Baker-Katz Debate Response

Strengths: One of Trump's strengths is that he is not a lifelong politician. Many voters do not trust

politicians at the moment, and Trump is saying that he is not like her, that he is his own person and says exactly what he means. This leads me to his next strength, his ability to say whatever he thinks. Trump is able to take positions on issues that other politicians would just avoid. He probably has an opinion on every issue you can imagine, and he is able to say them all because, again, he is not a lifelong politician.

Hillary's strengths are almost the exact opposite. One of her strengths is that she has been a politician, or at least involved in politics for most of her life, so she is very experienced and knows what she's doing. She has been the First Lady, a senator, and Secretary of State, so she is qualified and has lots of experience she can use as president. Another one of her strengths is that she is tenacious. She has always fought for what she believes in, and she uses this to show that she would fight for her policy ideas as president.

Weaknesses: Trump has two weaknesses that stand out to me. The first one is that he is very unpredictable. He has often said crazy things that didn't expect even him to say. The problem with that is that people like to have at least an idea of how their president will act, and they don't have that with Trump. Another weakness he has is that he has sometimes shown that he has a weak understanding of the issues. He has repeatedly said things that are simply false, and often throws out insane policy ideas that have no chance of actually working.

Hillary's main weakness is her trustworthiness. She has been attacked from every opponent about her email scandal and how she received classified emails on a private server. People are not sure that they can trust her because she has shown that she has a tendency to hide certain facts from the public. Another one of her weaknesses is her inability to campaign very well. She has plenty of ideas, but has been unable to get her crowds as excited as Trump has made his. She has even admitted that she is a bad campaigner.

Overall, I think Hillary won the debate because she seemed much better prepared than Trump, and she was able to respond to the questions more completely and more civilized than Trump did.