I don’t think Hillary should mention ANY of the recent scandals, tapes, Grope Gate, or anything like that. Let the audience members bring it up. Let Cooper bring it up. She should stay on message about her presidency and let everyone else roll around in the mud. Trump doesn’t need help from ANYONE to thoroughly dirty himself. I don’t want to see one speck of mud on her. She doesn’t need that to make her case.
If by some chance, Trump should directly address her on the subject of Bill’s past indiscretions, she should simply say, “That question has nothing to do with my candidacy for President,” and then REFUSE TO SAY ANOTHER WORD ON THE SUBJECT. She should let him blather and bluster and dig himself into a hole and just stand there and stare at him.
I agree ThelmaLou but I do think her surrogates need to point out that Mrs. Clinton takes vows and oaths seriously, as evidenced by her not leaving her husband during those trying times.
Mr. Trump has broken his oaths to his wives at least twice and to people who do business with him countless times; his word means nothing.
I agree that her defenders can say this kind of stuff, but she should not get her (normal-sized) hands dirty with any of it. She shouldn’t dignify or give credibility to Trump by engaging him on any personally demeaning topics- demeaning to him or her/Bill. If she defends herself it makes it look like she thinks she needs to defend herself and she can’t show this- it would come across as self-doubt. She needs to display the extreme contrast between someone who is President material and someone who is decidedly not.
Trump could give himself a fighting chance of turning around the election if he:
offers a full and heartfelt apology
refrains from bringing up any Bill scandals
doubles down on economic populism, poses as the champion of the American worker and attacks Hillary as a phony who will say one thing to bankers and another to voters.
Of course this probably won’t happen. He is constitutionally incapable of 1, too undisciplined for 2 and lacks the debating chops to properly execute 3.
Still it’s possible that the debate won’t be the complete disaster that many people expect. If he successfully delivers some populist riffs and isn’t a huge jerk on the other stuff, he could at least stop the bleeding. Realistically, he almost certainly can’t win now. The issue is whether he will lose by 4 or collapse and lose by 8.
I’m really kind of rooting for horrific, terrible, painful-to-watch loss at this point. The man encapsulates everything wrong with American society in one annoying body.
If I’m Hillary Clinton, I let Trump make the first foray into accusations about her husband’s “rape”.
That’s when she brings up the fact that Donald Trump is now actively defending litigation of child rape.
Once Donald Trump and child rape get into the feeds of trending topics on Google, Twitter, and Facebook, it - is - over.
If that happens then it’s over not just for Donald Trump, but quite possibly for the Republican party. Chaffetz, McCain, Ryan, et al know that this is not the end of it. There’s gotta be more – it’s DefCon 5 and they’re running for the nuke shelter. If I’m a republican, I’d be getting on my knees and praying that the down-ballot effect is miraculously not that bad and then I’d be immediately switching to independent party affiliation. The republican party could well be dead soon.
And she absolutely should not make any jokes about it. It might be amusing for her to bring out a packet of tic-tacs but it would lighten an issue that she should want to keep firmly in the “no laughing matter” zone.
Except that she can’t utter the word “rape” onstage. Her people can bring it up, if only to say that she declined to. It will still get into the feeds.
Of course we are talking about supposedly undecideds making up the audience for this shitstorm, which means they are zombies by definition, but the greatest thing is the history of debates would be if, when Trump launches his nuke, some of them get up and walk out.
I just haven’t figured out quite what and when is going to provoke Trump to unleash the nuke - something from audience (oh god that would be great), moderator, or some relatively mild provocation from Clinton that doesn’t directly reference the tape.
In any case, what I expect to happen is Trump does it, the ground opens up beneath him, and Clinton walks over and drops a neutron bomb into the hole. They’ve had months to get ready and two whole days to war game this.
Hillary enters tonight with a good lead according to 538’s Polls-only forecast,
Hillary Clinton; 81.5%
Donald Trump; 18.4%
It’s too soon for those to reflect any change due to Trump’s groping comments. Hillary just has to show up, be energetic, address the audience respectfully and smile. Trump’s under an extreme amount of pressure and we’ll see how well he handles that pressure tonight. I’m betting he cracks and implodes.
I watched part of the first debate. I tuned in at the beginning but it started getting so painful I switched channels for a while. Came back, same thing.
I wonder how much of the debate tonight I’ll be able to take. I’d like to see the Donald make a fool of himself, but it kind of hurts. This is a guy who wants to be POTUS, and so far her’s acted like an ape(sorry, apes). And people, some of them, will still vote for him!
Do what I did. Put the debate on with the captioning, but the sound off. Then follow it here in real time on the SDMB. Besides being very entertaining, it means you don’t have to go through the experience alone. It’s the difference between hiding in your bathroom during a tornado or riding it out in a public shelter with other terrified people.
During the first debate, I had a tooth abscess and couldn’t drink due to antibiotic. Tooth pulled last week. All clear.
A point brought upon Face the Nation, is that this particular scandal breaking now, with this type of format and having a man and woman on the stage is going to make it all the much worse for Trump.
A suggested question from one of the panelists for Donald “How would you feel if someone did did that to your wife or daughter.”
That question will certainly get asked and how will he answer it? My bet in trying to turn it onto Bill. We’ll see.
*…History too suggests that while a second-debate bounce is possible for Trump, it isn’t likely.
Second debates usually don’t move the needle much…*
I read this as Trump is entering the last month of this race with very few options left to capture the momentum and little chance of swinging those who have already decided to vote.
The first debate was far more important. He didn’t have to win it outright; he just had to avoid looking like a complete schmuck or like he was an amateur. He probably avoided the former but definitely not the latter. Even without the scandals, he would be in serious need of a flawless performance tonight, and flawless would mean looking more presidential and more human. I don’t think, however, that that’s how he’s approaching tonight’s event. I think he’s probably clueless about the format and he’s expecting to land some blows about Bill Clinton’s past. He’ll make noise but he’ll look like a reality tv show contestant in a serious town hall forum if he goes that route. Might make some noise on twitter but that’s it. The debate format of the first event was a much better opportunity to hurt Hillary – he missed his chance. I think he could be entertaining and might have some highlights but unless Hillary gets forced into saying something just off-the-charts idiotic, I don’t see how he wins even if he wins.
