Let's start with the obvious: Monday night's debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was hyped beyond all reasonable proportions. For days, cable networks were counting down to the debate like it was the Super Bowl or, who knows, maybe a catastrophic missile launch. Speculation soared as to whom each candidate might invite to see the debate in person, and what the tone and temperament of the candidates would be.

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We have finally rendered politics as just so much entertainment.

And yet, like nearly everyone else in the country, we were glued to our screens for the whole spectacle. And why not? This has been an extraordinary political season, and both Clinton and Trump are extraordinary stories unto themselves.

But a debate was never by itself going to erase impressions formed over many months, or in Clinton's case, years. What, for instance, could Trump have said that would have eased concerns about his ugly treatment of women, his racially inflammatory statements, his policy proscriptions whose only consistencies are that they are impulsive, often impracticable, and always susceptible to retractions the next time he's asked about them.

As it turned out, the candidates in this debate did not upend those long-formed impressions. Clinton held her own. Trump stumbled, tripping himself up on his penchant for exaggeration and bald misstatements. His inch-thick grasp of policy showed through clearly, even as he also managed to keep his tendency to insult and mock to a minimum.

Trump's refusal to turn over his tax returns was painful to watch. What is he hiding? His boast that he opened a club in Palm Beach that did not discriminate was a new definition of low expectations. And his refusal to own up to his years-long support of the racist birther campaign against President Obama was pathetic.

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Clinton was was right to defend NATO. She was right to be skeptical that large tax cuts for the wealthy would, by themselves, rewrite the economic prospects of the middle class. She was smart to insist "law and order" alone won't make our cities safer or heal the racial wounds that still fester.

One of her best retorts came near the end of the debate. Trump was asked about his previous comments that Clinton, the first woman to win a major-party presidential nomination, didn't have a presidential "look." He dodged his own quote and said he meant she lacked sufficient stamina.

"As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease fire... Or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina" she shot back.

Will the debate change many minds? Who knows? Trump still promises chaos and upheaval. Clinton still promises predictable and pragmatic solutions. Most voters already know which camp they prefer.