2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumFor those of you who think Hillary's best path is to be Hillary, let me remind you what the media
has been saying the past several days regarding Monday's debate.
Hillary gets NO points if she comes out of the gate and can beautifully summarize a well articulated policy in detail on any topic in 3 minutes or less. It's to be expected that she has such policies and she can full explain each.
Trump gets points for showing up in a suit and tie, and doesn't lose his temper. The media does not expect Trump to discuss policy in details. In fact Roget Ailes whose been coaching Trump, is expecting to be prepping Trump to talk in generalities ONLY, not specifics. Just like he coached Reagan. Reagan lost the debate when he talked specifics. He won when he talked in generalities. Expect the same from Trump. Trump can score points by not talking specifics and keeping his temperament in check. Hillary can't.
The media has been saying the bar is low for Trump, high for Hillary. They also said the winner will not be decided the night of the Debate (unless someone does something dramatic) but will be decided based on what people are talking about in the days following. Therefore, the candidates need something memorable to occur to earn points. Trump is working with Ailes on creating such memorable moments.
Hillary is safely predictable. Occasionally, in her prepared remarks, she's witty. Sometimes downright funny. I'm not so sure that she is capable of offering something more than her predicable wonky self during a debate. Don't get me wrong. Against any other candidate, in a normal campaign, predictable and wonky responses about fully paid for policy positions would have been just fine. But we are now in the era of reality TV and while you may not be looking for someone to hit a double or a home run, the public expects it. The public expects to be entertained, and Trump has been in the entertainment business for 10 years. Also, don't expect the moderator to be a fact checker, and Hillary will quickly become annoying if she's constantly raising her hand saying , "Mr. Holt, Donald's not telling the truth." Besides if she gets so bogged down with correcting Trumps untruths, when will she have time to talk about the things she wants to talk about?
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)This isn't just about winning a debate. It is about putting out there an idea of what you would be like as President.
Screw the media. You give them way too much credence.
Clinton is a remarkably flawed candidate. Whenever she runs for something, too many people just go bonkers and lose all perspective. But when she sits down and just does whatever job she's given, she becomes fairly popular. This happened as senator; this happened as secretary of state, and then right up to the moment she announced her 2nd run for president, she maintained pretty good popularity rates. Then she rolled out her 2016 campaign and--whammo--she was back up over 50% in the negative impressions index.
I can't explain this. Everybody feels like they know Clinton. But they don't. After 3 decades of being bashed and lied on, she's a very very guarded person. So Hillary being Hillary may come as a shock to some. This is not a good time to shock people. This is a good time to look like she's ready to the do the job and her opponent isn't.
Farmgirl1961
(1,493 posts)There are extremely high expectations for Hillary and NO expectations for Trump. Therefore, I believe it will be much easier for Trump to score a "win" (not in my eyes mind you) than Hillary.
All these people keep saying -- the poll numbers will change after the debate...after the debate this and that. I'm not so sure. I do not mean to be a debbie downer, merely a realist and I know that the deck is stacked against Hillary.
I'm not saying she can't pull off a "win" (whatever the heck that means); she could use Michelle Obama's playbook. Granted Michelle Obama hasn't been debating Donald Trump, but she sure has some amazing and memorable lines.
She can't be fake nor phony; she can be personable and gracious and direct and talk directly to the American people and try to make connections.
sweetapogee
(1,168 posts)saying for so long that tRump is going to do poorly in the debates that all he really has to do is not make any mistakes. We have been on the other hand telling anyone who will listen that Hillary is a highly skilled debater and has the issues well in hand. So a break even for our side would be a grand slam under normal conditions. We really have ourselves to blame for the low expectations for rump, sorry if that offends.
liberal N proud
(60,302 posts)And the are grading on a curve.
Light63
(233 posts)pnwmom
(108,925 posts)And if Trump starts acting like a bully, that will not make him look Presidential at all.
politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)calling her names, accusing her and the Clinton Foundation of being pay-to-play, her being crooked Hillary, saying she ought to be in jail, and talk about their being 30,000 missing emails. Trump could bring up any of these items which I'm sure she doesn't want to get bogged down with, and no one would consider these to be bullying, and she'd spend the next 15 minutes trying to answer them to no ones satisfaction. They were perfectly acceptable when the media kept bringing them up, and no one called the media bullies. This is why I've thought from the beginning that she has to go into this debate putting him on the defense from the beginning, and not playing it safe. She does not win if it's a tie.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)and basically doing a replay of the GOP convention, he will lose.
And she has already put him on the defense. She did that when she gave the front row seat to Cuban. She's already gotten under Trump's skin. And his response was Gennifer -- which is laughable.
Jayd4sho
(45 posts)The big difference is Hillary has sound rebuttals for those accusations. For example, the Clinton Foundation. She can simply name all the countless articles and statistics that prove no wrong doings- then she can say what the foundation actually does. She then can pivot and say according to ______ you have been caught bribing the attorney general of Florida and using charity funds to buy a 6 ft picture of yourself.
Most things said against her are suppositions, conspiracy theories, inferences, and things open to many interpretations. Most of the things said against Trump are facts, usually in a video, coming from his own mouth, and supported by various resources. The alt-right and general republicans just read breitbart and watch fox and come to the conlusion that it's true, but independents and undecideds do not fall for simplistic name callings and heresay. They want facts and evidence, which Hillary is good at providing.
gopiscrap
(23,674 posts)grossproffit
(5,591 posts)That would be my question.
Jayd4sho
(45 posts)In the last two weeks leading up to election day, Hillary's team should release an ad on the swing states of that video where Trump said "Hillary will make a great president." It not only shows what he believed before he ran, but it will turn off some republicans who will see it is a contradiction of what Trump has been saying.[link:
|vadermike
(1,415 posts)then we might have already lost.. caue if she is perecived to be the loser of Monday's debate in any way... Trump will likely be President.. i hate to say it,.... i hope i am wrong... But look at the polls... the public is begging Trump to give them a reason to vote for him.. if he pulls a Reagan Monday.. BYE BYE USA..... Thats what i am starting to sense... maybe my feeling is wrong.. but i have a bad feeling in my stomach about this debate and the way the media is going... Dems will cease to exist as a natioanl partty.. the GOP facist party will be in control and our destiny will be down a dark path that we may never recover from... all because America loves reality shows.. how fucking sick .... I hope my basis is way off
Bucky
(53,795 posts)If you're feeling gloomy, may I recommend volunteering for a local Democrat this week? Do something is remarkably medicinal. Worrying about the outcome beforehand will only lead to more worrying.