Trump’s debate strategy: Let Clinton talkRove is quoted on this subject, but no Trump insider is, so I don't know how much to believe this. It might just be an effort on the part of the Trump team (or just Fox) to get out one more story saying Hillary Clinton is an annoying nag.
... Fox News has learned that the view inside Trump Tower is that the real estate mogul stands to gain by standing back and letting Hillary Clinton talk. And talk.
... the GOP nominee is being advised to let Clinton speak as much as possible on the debate stage, with the thinking being that she could lose viewers the more she does.
“I think both candidates face huge challenges. Both of them are not well liked by the American people. She's an accomplished debater. But she has a style that is oftentimes grating on people,” said Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush.
Or maybe the Trump people really believe this could work. If so, this might be a solution to a problem from Trump that's been pointed out by James Fallows, among others:
In a head-to-head debate, participants know they will get enough airtime. The question becomes how they use it. Example of the difference: In several of the GOP debates, Trump went into a kind of hibernation when the talk became too specific or policy-bound, letting John Kasich or Marco Rubio have the microphone. It didn’t matter, because he’d have a chance to come back with a one-liner -- “We’re gonna win so much.” In debates like the ones this fall, it will be harder to answer some questions and ignore others.Trump could just disappear from sight for long stretches in the primary debates because there were many debaters -- and you can't blame him, because he knows how to insult people and he knows how to sloganeer, but he doesn't know jack about policy, except maybe when he has access to a Teleprompter. That's not a deficiency he's doing anything to correct, as The New York Times reported this week:
He has paid only cursory attention to briefing materials....But according to the Times, Clinton is already planning not to talk too much:
He believes debates are not won or lost on policy minutiae since most viewers will not remember them in an hour. His advisers see it as a waste of time to try to fill his head with facts and figures.
Mrs. Clinton grasps that answers need to be trimmed down to two minutes (and rebuttals should be even tighter) and will keep working to tighten her answers in coming days. [She r]esponds well to timers and stopwatches but also has an instinctual sense of time running out.I hope she sticks to that approach. As I've said before, the two people who've most effectively gotten up Trump's nose -- President Obama with the birth certificate release and jabs at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and David Letterman with his sneak attack on Trump as an outsourcer, threw Trump off stride without raising their voices or getting visibly angry. Let Trump be the one who seems to lose patience.
I hope all this means that the Trump people are letting the widespread right-wing contempt for Hillary Clinton influence their debate prep. I'm assuming that the opposite is true for Clinton: She may not like Trump, but I bet she respects his ability to win and hold an audience. I think she knows he has a creepy sort of charisma and an alley fighter's low cunning.
It wouldn't surprise me if Trump and most of his advisers can't even see Clinton's strengths, and can't imagine anyone ever responding well to her. They might be prepping for a debate against someone they assume alienates everyone all the time. In fact, the real Clinton is far more impressive than the press-mediated version of her. I hope the Trumpers aren't ready for that because they have no respect for her. And I hope she's ready to take him down precisely because she has respect for what he's pulled off in the past year.
An optimistic thought! With elegant irony in it (conservatives getting hoist on their petard). Here's hoping.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Trump Campaign is going on the less Trump says, the less likely he is to come off looking like he has no knowledge of the subject Questions.
ReplyDeleteGod, I hope you're right. It feels like they've got the wind at their backs right now and they need a righteous slap down.
ReplyDeleteTrump has a tendency to get over-confident when his poll numbers look good. His recent success in the polls might make him ripe for some real Trump moments.
IMO, if the Benghazi hearing Hillary shows up, he better be wearing a steel-belted jock strap. I do hope we don't get too much schoolmarm Clinton. And, please have a clear and concise email statement/answer ready. Surely that's not too much to ask.
Another thought: I read that HRC is through trying to reach out to republicans -- an effort I very much approved of but can be taken too far -- that may mean that she will be fairly unconstrained in the debate. Also, it seems, the "deplorables" comment didn't backfire as badly as some feared so she may feel unconstrained by that. This could be a wild debate.
ReplyDeleteI hope she has a strategy to bring back whatever she's lost to third parties, though I don't have a clue what it would be -- I think Trump scaremongering is only going to take her so far. Apparently, a significant number of lefties/greens/etc. think Trump will be stopped by Congress which is absurd and laughable, but they are not going to be scared off of voting for a spoiler.
And, please have a clear and concise email statement/answer ready. Surely that's not too much to ask.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Times story:
She has delivered multiple answers explaining her use of a private email server as secretary of state; she is practicing one clear, crisp answer for the debate.
Trump cede the podium? His ego will never allow it.
ReplyDeleteNo way trump doesn't make at least one gaffe probably more
ReplyDeletebut they are not going to be scared off of voting for a spoiler.
ReplyDeleteyea, cuz most of them are either not smart enough or don't give a shit about an important supreme court pick. What does it matter to them if a woman can get a safe abortion or if the Voting Rights Act can be restored or whether we can find a way to get rid of Citizen's United....I could go on.
Or whether I can stay married or even have sex without worry of being guilty of a felony.
ReplyDeleteThese people (lefties thinking of voting Stein) are morons. If Congress votes to eliminate the National Park Service or the EPA Trump will sign it no questions asked. And then where will the Green cause be?