The red woman, orange man show

30 September 2016, 10:30 | Updated: 4 October 2016, 10:30

After the debate, Donald Trump announced that he won and the moderator lost and the person who put the microphone on him lost, and the mainstream media lost and Chris Rea's favourite -The Woman In Red - lost big time.

She lost tremendously bigly...huge, or as he would say: yoooge.

Down here on earth, Hillary won the debate by 62% to 27% according to a CNN poll.

That means 11% of the people thought that neither candidate won, or they were watching the background scenery and weren't paying attention, or they were so dazzled by Hillary's bright red stormtrooper outfit that they couldn't see where to write their opinion.

Other polls went the other way, the internet polls were for Trump, the professional polls favoured Clinton but a most interesting one said that for 80%, the debate had not changed their minds one way or the other.

When they came on stage, the first question of the evening was: what colour is Donald Trump today?

He normally makes you reach for the remote to fiddle with the settings.

He makes you think your TV is on the fritz because he usually looks orange, like a fruit basket.

For the debate, though, someone had toned his face down to a peach powder blush

He still looked like someone had shaved the back of a ginger cat but it was an improvement.

Hilary on the other hand was all dressed up in Republican red and looked animatronic, like one of those robots that welcome you to the kiddies' rides at Disneyworld.

Meanwhile, Donald was sniffing and sniffing and taking sips of water and afterwards blamed the microphone, saying that he wasn't sniffing, there was something wrong with his mike.

Howard Dean, the former Governor of Vermont, ex-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and once a doctor, tweeted during the debate that Donald Trump has a cocaine problem and that is why he was sniffing.

He said it would also explain his erratic behaviour. Dean went on MSNBC the next day and far from rowing back from his accusation, he repeated it. Oddly, no-one from Trump's camp complained about it at all. No denials, no outrage, nothing.

As for what they said - well, Trump said that he will stop American jobs going oversees, but this is a man who has a lot of product lines, all with his name on naturally. Few are made in the USA.

He has Donald Trump shirts made in Korea, Donald Trump suits made in Indonesia,  Donald Trump eye glasses made in China, Donald Trump furniture made in Germany, Donald Trump mirrors made in China, Donald Trump picture frames made in India, and Donald Trump vodka made in the Netherlands, not to mention all the things he gets made in Mexico, the country he berates the most

Hilary didn't mention any of that at all.

When it got to tax, Trump said he wants to reduce corporation tax by over half to 15% and  said he earned $694m last year and appeared to boast that he paid no tax on that, because he is "smart".

You would think that would hurt his support among everyone not in the the top 1%.

That he said that as though it was a positive attribute shows how completely disconnected from most people's thinking he is.

Among his billionaire friends, you would assume that they would joke about such things and congratulate themselves on their ability to avoid taxes but you would not think it would go down too well with the rest of the population, who have to pay their taxes to make up the shortfall caused by those that do not.

Oddly, Hilary didn't make much of that either.

Maybe she was concentrating too hard on keeping her eyes from swivelling in opposite directions.

She also didn't call him out on his claim that he got a "small" loan from his father to start his business - it was $14m by his own admission and others have estimated it as anything up to $300m from his father's estate.

Even if it was $14m as Donald said - to describe that as a small loan is not very relatable to the people he is asking to support him.

He also dismissed the accusation that he doesn't pay the ordinary hard working types he gets to do jobs for him.

There are literally thousands of people that have complained that they did work for him and then he refused to pay them.

When Hilary claimed that during the property slump and the financial crash that Trump said he hoped the property market would tank because he could buy property on the cheap - profiting from the misery of others - he just said that is good business.

He is a man who doesn't pay his bills, who doesn't pay taxes, who profits from the misfortune of others, has taken American jobs and shipped them overseas and wants tax cuts for himself and the rich.

You would think all that would be knock out blows for his chances of getting into the Whitehouse.

Yet it didn't look to me that Hilary really won the night, partly because Trump was much more aggressive than her, dominated the speaking and when the spotlight fell away from him, simply shouted louder to drown her and the moderator out.

He also has this mesmerising way with waving his hands about, which as you've seen on television is the current default way of keeping attention and emphasising a point.

Look at any old documentary from the 1970s, say, and the first thing you notice, apart from the absence of background music, is that the person speaking to camera has their arms by their sides. Attention spans were longer then.

These days, everyone from news reporters to wild life presenters have been told to wave their arms about like they are directing traffic, because it keeps the attention of people who can't concentrate.

Trump appeared to be a bully and aggressive and quick to anger and to some people they like that - they want a strong man, like President Putin.

Put your faith in the tough guy and he will sort things out for you.

For the rest of us, it is a bit alarming that a big shouty man-baby, so easily riled and unconcerned about others could become the next President of the United States of America

It would be like making the school bully the headmaster - what could possibly go wrong?    

The national polls are still neck and neck, it is all to play for, and on October 9th it will be seconds out, round two.

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