Barry Soper: Presidential crawl cranks up a notch with latest debate

Donald Trump's presidential team should be known as trumpence, because that's about all it's worth.

The Don has three favourite words that roll off his tongue like the fake tan rolls off his moist neck, disaster, deplorable and dumb. They depict the heights his debating skills rise to.

The fascinating aspect of the American presidential crawl, is it's not a race because it seems as though it's been going on forever, it's that if it was anyone other than Trump running for the job we'd now all be talking about whether Hillary Clinton is fit for office.

He's so bad that she's largely ignored, which is a great pity.

When Trump tried to pin her down on the tens of thousands of emails she wiped and then "acid washed", whatever he means by that, he was overruled by one of the two moderators which saw him complaining that it was one against three.

He threatened Clinton that if he was elected he'd have her prosecuted for the email scandal which led her to quip that just as well he wasn't in charge of the country's legal system.

If he was, he told her as quick as a flash, she'd be in jail which was the heaviest haymaker he got to deliver in the 90-minute debate.

They'd already scowled about the most talked about video distributed during the campaign so far, Trump being vulgar about women, and about how, due to his fame, he could get away with virtually anything.

With what must have been one of the understatements of the campaign so far, Trump said he was "embarrassed" by its release and put it down to male "locker room" talk, suggesting there are much more important things to talk about which he never really got around to doing.

It was just words folks, just words, the patronising presidential hopeful assured the audience before declaring that at least they weren't the actions of former President Bill Clinton, who he said had the worst record of abusing women than anyone who'd ever held office.

History is clearly not one of Trump's strong points but he did have a point about locker room talk.

Over the years there have been plenty of politicians who've said boorish and vulgar things about women in my hearing but they were shrewd enough not to have a hot mic attached to their lapel.

Let's face it, if you were opposing Trump in a debate it'd be a misnomer, because he doesn't debate.

Words roll off his tongue and out of his puckered lips like a rapidly moving conveyer belt.

The only difference is, the cogs that run a belt have to be connected, unlike Trump's brain.

Barry Soper is the Political Editor for Newstalk ZB