I’m afraid of the debates. I fear what will happen with all 3 is like what happened during the first Obama/Romney debate. I’ve mentioned this before, but going in that debate, I was confident Obama would destroy anything Romney would say, show how bad all his positions were, and make a clear case for himself. Instead, Romney lied through his teeth, said he was fine with all of these great programs that Obama was also for, praised them in fact, and completely caught Obama off-guard.
Trump will pull something similar. He’s got enough doublespeak to plausibly say “I didn’t believe that, I believed this”. I predict that will be hard to counter because due to 25 years of GOP slander, most people will already believe Clinton changes her mind, so she’ll be on the defensive while he’ll just say he supports whatever is popular. And like how he defended Pence on Iraq, if Clinton did catch him on something, he’ll shrug his shoulders and say it doesn’t matter anymore
That was as much on Obama as anyone. He pissed around and blew off debate prep and had a general “Eh, I got this” attitude. Fortunately, he was adequately humbled by the results, got serious for the remaining debates and did much, much better.
In all seriousness, you’re halfway there. Gottfried can’t do it, but the DNC should hire a professional actor who’s good at impersonation to study Trump and his mannerisms and psychology. You would need someone fairly big - Trump is quite tall. Someone like Bradley Cooper, Tom Hiddleston, or Jeff Daniels - all three are quite tall and able to act like Trump. Make them up to look like Trump (Daniels would be easily transformed in such a manner) and ask them to really put some effort into being Trump. Might cost you a few bucks, but it’s worth more than a boring TV ad.
Romney-Obama 1 demonstrated the total pointlessness of going into these things thinking you’re going to win on facts. You absolutely are not, which Trump is totally aware of; he appeals purely to emotion and has no plan to even try to win the debate on facts. Clinton preparing to debate facts would be like showing up for a basketball game with a tannis racquet. Trump is going to
Attack her relentlessly,
Keep repeating things and claim they are true even if they are false, and
Refuse to be limited by the rules of the debate, or common decorum at all.
Clinton need to be prepared to deflect attacks and bounce it back to Trump. Her goal has to be to try to make him lose his temper. There is no argument to be won in the sense of defeating him with logic and facts. That doesn’t matter and one can argue it never has. What matters is looking more Presidential.
I think it important to note that Trump is NOT the underdog going into the debates. Trump is quite clearly the favourite. He is expect at babbling and making an emotional connection to sell things; furthermore, the expectations for him are abysmal. The perceptional of “how Presidential” the candidate looks will be based on incoming expectation. Clinton, who has been a high profile politician for a long time, has always acted like a President. She has little to gain in terms of improving her own image. Trump, who has looked like a bully and a jerk for longer than I can remember, will look more Presidential if he simply shows up in a nice suit, repeats his talking points over and over, and DOESN’T lose his temper or say something to insult America or Americans. If all they do is trade barbs and repeat talking points, Trump wins the debate. Clinton must score a knockout blow in the form of making Trump lose his shit.
I assure you everything I’m saying is the case; I would bet money and lay ten to one odds on it. If the debate is relatively painless the talk in the mushy middle will be about Trump being surprisingly poised and Presidential. That would be a huge win for him. Clinton will lose the debates, in the sense of their effect on the polls, unless she gets him to blow up.
Obviously, it is preferably she make him blow up in Debate 3.
I put it on the moderators to ask questions that require a wealth of knowledge to know what you’re talking about. World leaders names, countries, foreign affairs, policies, doctrines, treaties, political world history, law, etc.
Throw in something like that nuclear triad question you’d get an intelligent answer from Hillary and a deer in the headlights from Trump.
On the one hand, he’s clueless about all policy issues and Clinton is pretty knowledgeable. Through the Republican debates, he’s overcome that by an enormous amount of obnoxious bluster. The problem is that doing that to a female candidate doesn’t play nearly as well as it doing it to a male candidate does.
The only thing he has going for him is low expectations. If can come off as semi-coherent and get in some good lines without saying anything too offensive, he can sort-of get by. But it’s a fine line to tread, and he hasn’t shown any sort of discipline to this point.
I don’t think you ever get a deer in the headlights look from Trump, on any issue. He is not that type. And he’s actually pretty quick on his feet in that way.
Now, what he says may be totally idiotic and/or have little to no connection to what he was asked. But he will say it with the utmost confidence.
The thing is that this will actually play well with much of the audience, most of whom also know little to nothing on complex matters. But where it will kill him is when the media commentators, who are very knowledgeable, rip him apart afterwards.
Can anyone explain to me exactly what the point of a political debate is? Trump has been running his mouth non-stop for months (and nobody appears to be listening). And we’ve been listening to Hillary’s ideas since at least 1992. What new information could they possibly have to convey at this point? Is there anyone who is really just torn between this whole thing and is waiting for the debate to make up their mind?
Not even Il Douche deserves that, that man’s speaking voice sounds like a duck being buggered. Also, Tribble fur has powerful Teflon-like qualities, they simply won’t “stick”. That’s the trouble.
Everybody appears to be listening to Trump because they either love him or hate him. Otherwise I agree it’s a stupid exercise. These things can barely be called debates, they’re some kind of bizarre joint interview. Those other things can barely be called candidates either.
Eh, well, it seems to me that debates can put more pressure on candidates to stay on a topic more than just an interview. It also feels like a more likely setting for them to be asked the hard questions. The response is also a big part of it. Plus, it’s a means of comparing candidates in the same setting, rather in their own vacuums, prearranged and dolled up by their campaigns.
One advantage Trump has is that he’ll be able to mercilessly attack Hillary’s voting record, something Hillary won’t be able to do in return. This is especially significant considering that Hillary likes to attack an opponent’s voting record, often disingenuously, during debates.
Trump seemed to do worse in the debates as the number of other people in them shrunk (which I suspect is why he ducked the last one). And he never actually debated one-on-one with someone.
Hillary, on the other hand, between the two Presidential primaries and her Senate race has done about a jillion of theses things, in every conceivable configuration.
So while I’m not sure these things mean much as far as the final outcome of the race, I suspect Hillary will “win” them.
This is the problem. Hillary can be calm, rational, and professional all day long and it would make no difference. Trump could scream and rant and insult her on national television, and he would still “win” because that’s what people want to see. The kind of people Trump attracts don’t know the difference between vitriol and strength. They WANT him to scream and rage because, in their minds, that is what “winning” looks like
I don’t think he’ll do them. One on one with a moderator he won’t be able to do his standard routine and he doesn’t have the discipline to actually prepare. As said he’s never done a one on one debate so far.
He’ll make some impossible condition to spin it to his favour, and then use that as an excuse to not show up. Remember he also backed out of debating Sanders one on one, which would have got a lot of media coverage.
The debates are not in a vacuum; they exist against the backdrop of current events. If there is more unrest in the Middle East, Trump will hammer away at her relentlessly. He will interrupt her as she responds. He will shout her down. In ordinary times, that sort of behavior might be frowned upon as the acts of a bully. But when a significant portion of the population believes that the world and the country are headed into the toilet, they might be in a more forgiving mood if they feel that Trump connects with their concerns more than Hillary does.
And that’s the potential danger for Hillary: Trump may come across as the guy who wears the emotions of the public more than she does. For all of the talk about how much more qualified she is than Trump, it may simply not matter. People may actually accept that there’s more jobs growth under Obama, but they don’t feel secure or optimistic. They’re outraged at all government, the White House and Congress and even the judiciary for squandering what once seemed like endless resources and opportunities. Clinton is not speaking to that right now. Trump is – even if he’s lying.
Trump is starting to control his aggression somewhat and Manafort has done an impressive job of reigning him in just in the nick of time. He has combined his natural aggression with a greater awareness of what the boundaries are, and Trump seems to know his audience better. He still knows fuck all about actual policies, though, and that will be the next challenge between now and the debates. Hillary could end up making him look beyond stupid. If Trump can sound reasonably intelligent on the core issues and speak in generalities while avoiding specifics, then he’ll avoid serious damage. There’s time to improve in these areas and Trump seems to be a quick study.
