He won Monday night.

I know it runs counter to conventional wisdom — that's so rare for me! — but I award Monday night's first 2016 presidential debate to Donald Trump.

This isn't to say that I disagree with what the mainstream men and women of the pundit class said they witnessed. Like them, I watched a well-prepared Hillary Clinton outmaneuver a political amateur who showed up to class after a night of partying following a year of refusing to crack open a book. Trump rambled, repeated himself, interrupted and bullied. He conflated NATO and the EU. He even unleashed a fat joke.