On the all-blue stage with lines from the Constitution imprinted on the background, the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was an exercise in evasions, subtle and not-so-subtle insults, and name-calling.
There were two moments when the presidential candidates made telling statements during Tuesday's debate in Philadelphia.
Although the microphones were turned off to prevent interruptions, at one point Harris raised her voice while it was Trump's turn to speak.
"Wait a minute please, I'm talking now," Trump said, adding, "Does that sound familiar"?
That was a throwback to Harris cutting off former Vice President Mike Pence at their 2020 debate when he interrupted her, and that remark was widely promoted as a sign of her strength.
For her almost four years as President Joe Biden’s vice president, Trump taunted her saying of policies he claimed she would follow, "She is Joe Biden."
Harris retorted, "I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump."
It was both an evasion and a declaration of her break from Biden, whose inflationary economic policies and the Afghan debacle are turning into an electoral burden for her.
When the two adversaries took the stage, Harris walked up to Trump, extending her hand. "Let's have a good debate”, she told him, and Trump replied, "Good to see you. Have fun."
But insults were galore, sometimes sounding like a schoolyard brawl.
Harris prefaced the debate with a warning to be prepared to listen to lies.
Trump called her a Marxist, adding that her father, Donald Harris the Stanford economist, was a Marxist, too.
He also accused her of copying his policies as she tried to move to the centre and said that he would send her a "MAGA" hat, the red headgear worn by the supporters of his "Make America Great Again" platform.
"World leaders are laughing at you," Harris said.
Trump shot back that Russia's President Vladimir Putin, like others, had sensed the weakness of her administration and invaded Ukraine.
That's why, he said, "Putin endorses her; I think he means it," referring to what is considered a joke by the Russians.
Taunted by Harris for the criminal case he has been convicted in, the others, including on national security, pending, he blamed it on the “weaponisation” of the justice system by Democrats and pointed to the refusal to prosecute President Joe Biden on the national secrets charge he had faced, describing him as a "pathetic old man".
One of the moderators, ABC News anchor David Muir, asked Trump about his comments asserting that Harris had always claimed to be Indian but only recently began identifying as Black. (She had grown up with a primarily African American identity and only in recent years publicly emphasised her Indian identity.)
Trump did not explain why he had said that, but replied, "I couldn't care less. Whatever she wants to be is OK with me."
Harris said, "I think it's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president, who has consistently, throughout his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people."
"We don't want a leader, who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other," she added.
The size of rallies has been a sore point for Trump, and Harris playing on it said, "I invite you to attend his rallies". There, she said, they can hear about Hannibal Lecter, a fictional serial killing cannibal, and cancer-causing windmills.
People leave the rallies bored, she said.
Trump retorted, "People don't go to her rallies", adding that rent-a-crowd filled them.
The debate was held in the hallowed ground of US democracy, the Independence Hall built in 1753 in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was made and the Constitution was drafted.
Fittingly, the questions turned to threats to democracy from Trump, an issue frequently raised by Harris.
Trump denied that he had instigated the mob that overran the Capitol on January 6, 2020, while Congress was about to ratify the election of President Joe Biden.
He said that democracy was instead threatened by the influx of illegal immigrants invading the country.
And Harris' nomination to take up the party nomination was the subversion of democracy because the 14 million votes Biden received in the primaries were nullified after he was "pushed out", Trump said.
Speaking of the assassination attempt, he said, "I took a bullet to the head because of them" referring to the taunts that he was a threat to democracy.
An odd issue not surprisingly thrown into the fray by Trump was his claim that Illegal Haitian migrants were eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio.
His running mate JD Vance first spoke about it, but later admitted they were rumours.
Muir, called him out on that saying that local officials had denied the reports.
Trump kept a serious, sometimes stoic, demeanour staring ahead, while Harris turned towards him while he spoke and often made facial gestures ridiculing him and laughing.
Harris put in several days of preparation with staged practised debates, while Trump continued his campaigning, save for some policy discussions with his team, and the difference showed on the stage.
Trump spoke in his usual style, while Harris put on a passionate performance some of her responses appearing practiced.
The debate rules banned bringing in notes to the podium, but Harris made studious notes as Trump spoke, preparing her responses, while Trump spoke off the cuff.
Cornered on a tough question the former president repeatedly talked instead about the vice president’s past stands calling for banning private health insurance, fracking method of gas drilling and the flood of illegal immigration.
And, Harris turned to her plans for tax breaks for start-ups and promotion of small businesses, her middle-class background, and Trump's role in having the Supreme Court overturn the national abortion legalisation, making it a state issue.
On that issue, which the Democrats play as a major issue that could determine the election because it would rouse women voters, both were evasive.
Harris refused to respond to Trump's question if she would put restrictions on abortions in the seventh, eighth, or nine months, only saying that mentioning the ninth month was an insult to women. (Some states like New Jersey and Minnesota have no restriction on how far along it could be done.)
Trump maintained that he was against a national ban leaving it to the states, but when pressed on whether he would veto a bill passed by Congress banning abortion, he refused to give a straight answer.
Harris avoided answering why the policies she advocated were not enacted during the three-plus years of the administration she was part of, and why they waited six months before the election to tighten border controls.
Trump would not give a straight answer on how he would carry out his threat to deport all illegal immigrants.
(Arul Louis can be contacted at [email protected] and followed at @arulouis)
