Who?
What’re you talking about, Clinton can totally deliver good jokes without sounding forced! Oh, wait.
I definitely think you’re right and she should avoid anything of the sort. I’d personally like to just see her really push on calling out Trump’s bullshit. Like how he claimed that she started the birther thing, or how he refuses to release his tax returns like he claimed he was going to. Just bring it up, and point out why it’s wrong (cite Politifact, or a well-known newspaper, or something, and leave it at that).
I like iiandyiiii’s example of citing what he said about blacks and then reminding him that slavery and Jim Crow happened, for example, though without the ceding time bit.
"Mr. Trump, you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to deligitimize the Presidency of Barack Obama.’
"I respect President Obama. In fact he ran one of favorite ads against you in 2008 that went, “Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected. Now she’s making false attacks on Barack Obama. She championed NAFTA — even though it has cost South Carolina thousands of jobs. And worst of all, it was Hillary Clinton who voted for George Bush’s war in Iraq.”
I did, in fact. I guess I’m old.
Of all the things Donald Trump should be ashamed of, “delegitimizing the Presidency of Barack Obama” isn’t even in the top thousand. If anything he’s partly responsible for making Obama look like Abraham Lincoln by comparison.
Some people seem to be reading the OP as, “What lame straight lines can Clinton offer Trump, and what typically bloviating things will he say in response?” Weird reading.
The idea that Trump would ever–EVER–offer to withdraw his candidacy is too far in the realm of fantasy for me.
I think Hillary needs to avoid zingers.
Marco Rubio had two terrible debate performances, one in which he became Marcobot, and the other in which he followed Trump into the sewer and tried to match penis joke wits with the big Cheetoh. All Donald did was roll up the wet towel and pop Little Marco in the ass with it like the big frat boy bully he is.
But he also probably had the best debate performance against Donald in one of the debates (forgot which one at the moment). It was a good display of controlled aggression and relentless pressure – and on the issues. Clinton needs to be relentless and just take the discussion into the deep end of the pool and force Donald to swim.
At the end of the day, though, what voters really want and need to see from Clinton is a little passion. They need to see that she is a real person with a real commitment to the issue. I’ve been against her using race as an issue on the campaign trail because it’s usually a canned speech or some lifeless statement from the campaign which just creates more noise. But the debates are exactly the time to confront Donald Trump on birtherism, on racial profiling, on the alt-right. Tell viewers to Google Steve Bannon domestic violence, Roger Ailes sexual harassment, Trump discrimination lawsuit. Let him have it at the debates and show some principle.
If she does that in a way that is focused and somewhat measured, she will not win over Trump’s brigade of bigots, but she will convince more fair-minded people that maybe voting for Trump is just too big a risk to take with this country’s future. And more importantly, it would show that maybe this lady really does have a heart and soul after all. People know Hillary has smarts – they want to see convictions and authenticity on display. I hope her campaign gets that part.
You see ladies and gentlemen. THIS is how POLITICIANS answer questions. They don’t. She doesn’t want to answer the question because it will become obvious that she puts her own interests ahead of the nation’s. Her long years of “public service” are really long years of self service. She and her family has become extraordinarily wealthy as a result of their “public service” You can’t trust her to look out for you, you can only trust her to stick her finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing and act in her own best interest.
This is all fantasy. Hillary will not win the debate on zingers. She is all steak with no sizzle and Donald is all sizzle with no steak. In the end it all depends on what you can convince people they really want.
“Donald, whether they vote for you, or vote for me, or anybody else, they are going to elect a politician.”
Trump will be rude and insulting, probably in his passive/aggressive mode–he likes to give himself plausible deniability with his ‘many people say’ and ‘I’ve heard’ and ‘if you want to know the truth’ and similar weasel constructions. ‘Hey, I wasn’t being rude–it’s just what I’ve heard other people saying!’
But before he gets into being rude and insulting, he will almost certainly make a show of fake concern for her well-being:
If she sputters or displays any indignation over this, she loses. If she seems taken aback or surprised at all by his feigned solicitude, she loses. If she makes it clear that she resents his use of the tactic–his pretending to be the Healthy one, looking after the Unhealthy one–she loses.
(I hope she and/or her people have thought of this, because I would be willing to bet money that Trump will use it.)
Shhh! I know that & You know that.
For the sake of America, lets just let him Blather and Rinse. I fully trust HRC will take it from there. 
Here’s the zinger…
“Politico studied your public statements last week and found that you spoke a falsehood about every three minutes and fifteen seconds on average. You are impressively ahead of that pace tonight.”
You’re aware that Trump is older than Clinton, right?
Finally, someone on SDMB came up with a good one for Hillary. I was about to write a few for her just to make it fair.
On the other hand, I’m not sure Hillary wants to debate honesty.
Why wouldn’t she?
Politico gave Clinton the same treatment. She relays falsehoods at about one quarter Trump’s rate. One of her false statements was due to her assumption that Trump’s claim of his net worth was accurate.
Not zingers exactly, but two lists:
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A list of all the little guys that Trump has cheated out of their money just because he could. (OK, not all of them; there are time limits here.) From Trump University to all the tradesmen and small contractors and USA Freedom girls, to the guy who got cheated out of the $1M hole-in-one at the Trump charity golf event.
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A list of all the things Trump says he’ll accomplish without having ever explained how. “How’s that magic wand of yours working, Mr. Trump? And why haven’t you offered to put it in the service of this country before now?”
If he says anything at all about her looks, she should come back with “At least I didn’t have to get a mail-order mate from Yugoslavia.”
:dubious:
If she’s going to flame out like that she might as well go into full trash mode.
“Bud, I’m sleeping with an American President, you’re sleeping with one of Putin’s honey traps.”
nm