Gailya Paliga: Clinton stood up to Trump

I’d say that the second debate was full of surprises, contrary to the Oct. 11 editorial “2nd debate, no surprises.” How low Donald Trump will go is ever a surprise.

Women will be the reason that Hillary Clinton wins. And how shockingly bad Trump is.

Have we ever seen anyone behave so badly, repeatedly shockingly badly, on national TV and off? Stalking Hillary Clinton on stage during the debate, threatening to jail her if he becomes president, encouraging supporters to beat people up in rally audiences, attacking a judge on a Trump University lawsuit case because of his heritage. The list goes on and on.

But his stalking of Clinton onstage really affected a lot of women personally, women from all parties. Let’s not ignore the tape released recently.

As the editorial said, the “Trumptanic” was 59 at the time that was recorded, decades too long of a stretch to chock it up to anything to do with boys (as in that old, tired, boys-will-be-boys excuse). Not that boys-will-be-boys should ever excuse terrible behavior.

By comparison, Clinton did a great job, and also convincingly ignored the large lurking figure of Trump. I continue to be impressed by her.

This story was originally published October 18, 2016 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Gailya Paliga: Clinton stood up to Trump."