Clinton won the debate

She glowed; he glowered. She knew a lot; he didn’t

Watching Monday night’s presidential debate was a little like sitting in the Pumpkin Patch on Halloween Eve without believing in the Great Pumpkin.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both obscenely rich; we aren’t. Both are driven to be president. With the possible exception of Ms. Clinton, both want the job for the power and glory, not to do anything for us or the country. The Commission on Presidential Debates, carefully presented as neutral, managed nonetheless to exclude from the debates presidential candidates Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party.

I am thoroughly familiar with the usually disruptive, unhelpful role of third parties in American elections, but nonetheless regret that voices of those two parties’ candidates were absent. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein might have upped the sometimes glossy meaninglessness of the dialogue between the former television show host and the tightly scripted professional politician, neither of whom seems to inspire much confidence in American voters.

That said, Ms. Clinton won. She was well informed and glowed. He glowered, portrayed the United States as on the ropes and presented no clear view of what he might do about it, except bring to the country the very questionable success he has brought to his various business ventures.

Mr. Trump’s continued reliance on his alleged success in business as showing his potential for managing the country, and his America-first flag-waving nationalism, jars shockingly with his continued refusal to release his income tax records, for decades a universal practice among presidential candidates. Apart from providing Ms. Clinton with a hole in his defensive political line big enough to drive a truck through, his concealment of routinely disclosed financial records causes the rest of us to wonder just what he is hiding. Maybe he didn’t pay any taxes? Maybe he has big investments in the Russian arms industry? Maybe Chinese banks finance some of his enterprises?

It is impossible not to compare Ms. Clinton’s broad knowledge of foreign affairs, based on her four years as secretary of state, with Mr. Trump’s tasteless jabs at China and Mexico. She clearly gets the fact that Americans are fed up with trade pacts that risk exporting American jobs, even though it was her husband, as president, who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mr. Trump should not imagine that whomever is the next president won’t have to play ball with China. We owe the Chinese an estimated $2 trillion. Their banks are judged now to be so over-leveraged as to be teetering on the edge of provoking another global recession of the magnitude of the 2008 downturn that America set off.

Mr. Trump’s poking at Mexico is just stupid, anchored in his daft approach to immigration. If the knives had really been out on Monday night, Ms. Clinton should have asked him how many immigrants his hotels employ. Would he like to pick the strawberries or artichokes in California himself?

I know Ms. Clinton was trying to avoid the savage-shrew image that probably scares away male voters, particularly cheating ones, but she could have annihilated Mr. Trump with more references to his ignorant approach to foreign relations — NATO, China, Mexico and Russia, as examples.

It was remarkable that Mr. Trump didn’t use the discussion of his clandestine tax records to take a swing at Ms. Clinton on the varied foreign and domestic contributions to the Clinton Foundation, including while she was secretary of state. In the eyes of voters, the foundation, probably more than her email fun and games, is probably a richer vein to mine among her weaknesses.

At the same time, her quasi-apology regarding her emails was, again, unconvincing, drawn from the general Clinton strategy of don’t admit faults, lie if you think you can get away with it, and it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is. You’d think they would learn.

Lester Holt of NBC as moderator was a zero. Ms. Clinton babbled on. Mr. Trump walked right over him. It was good, however, that Mr. Holt played no significant role, which might have distracted from the main event: the candidates themselves.

There were subjects that weren’t seriously examined, such as economic inequality and climate change. Nor did the necessity of international trade get a real look. Or the necessity of a president sharing the Washington sandbox with Congress. This leaves more grist for the mills of future debates.

I return to my hypothesis that Ms. Clinton won. Americans don’t like to be told, even if there is some truth to it, that our country is tanking, or that electing as president the person who offers this analysis is the only way to avoid worse. Mr. Trump claims that virtually all our companies are leaving, that America has become a Third-World country. “Morning in America” and the “shining city upon a hill” might have been dopey slogans, but they play better than Mr. Trump’s “end of the world unless you elect me” stuff.

I don’t think the first debate will shift many votes. Nonetheless, it was useful to have a look at the two candidates, even though “Monday Night Football” might have been a more satisfying antidote to Sunday’s slaughter of the Steelers.

Americans don’t like to be told, even if there is some truth to it, that our country is tanking ...

Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1976).