It’s gonna be fascinating. Trump’s current success can be nearly directly attributed to his success in debates - a hyuuge part of the reason he’s the Republican candidate is because he could shame and diminish the other candidates.
But, Hillary’s not the same beast that the field of weak-sauce gremlins that the Republican nominee field was. Sparring with her is a whole new ballgame.
On the other hand, if I was to make a guess on who has the better stage presence, my guess is Trump. He loves it when attention is directed his way, and Hillary’s never been great at the “inspire and inflame the masses” stuff that he does in his sleep. If he reads the crowd and manages to get a few cheers, he’ll be remarkably strong.
On the other other hand, the crowd at this debate isn’t going to be like the toxic crowd at Republican debates. They’re not necessarily predisposed to accept a blustery huckster.
The most frightening thing for democracy in 2016 is that I could honestly imagine this debate going, like, four different ways. Hillary could wipe the floor with him. Or, she could stumble badly and fail in the face of his hateful hurricane (maybe trying to play his insult-game, something that he is more than capable of deflecting). Or, she could give skilled ripostes that he ignores leading to both bases seeing the same debate in dramatically different ways. Or, she could fail to weather the storm and he could make a boob of himself and both parties are disappointed. Or some combination.
One thing is probably for sure: Trump will say something quotable and insane, Hillary will kind of disappoint regardless of how well she does, and everyone will get a little sadder at the state of current political discourse in this country.
Remember when an offhand comment about “binders full of women” was the most ridiculous and out-of-touch thing we’d be likely to hear for the entire debate?
One thing I’ll give Clinton is that I don’t think she’s the sort to fail in the face of a hateful nonsense. I think she’s going to spend quite a bit of time giving him a bored/disapproving stare.
I think largely it is going to be a both parties claim they won but the Republicans have to caveat their claim of winning by saying they don’t agree with what Trump said.
The article mentions that Clinton’s team isn’t going over facts and figures but looking what will set Trump off. That they have been going through all the Republican debates & interviews and have been profiling & psychoanalyzing Trump to see what gets under his skin.
Also at the same time the Clinton team has been practicing with Hillary trying to make sure she doesn’t become rattled by any attacks that might come from Trump, from obvious stuff to any low blows (like say Lewinsky).
The Clinton team wants another moment like when Trump attacked Megyn Kelly saying “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever”. That might not have hurt him among his core of Republican supporters but it’s now a different more broad audience that will be turned off by sexists remarks like that or anything else that might make him see unpresidential.
However, my hope is that in a more august, “serious” two-person debate, he won’t be able to get away with silly one-liners and bullying. He doesn’t have the eight other candidates to play off each other, and he doesn’t have the media still thinking this whole thing is fun and games.
Only to rational viewers. But Trump is likely to respond, “I’ll know that when I need to know it. What does knowing some guy’s name have to do with creating jobs for working people?” That response would set the Trumpsters to hooting and firing off their guns.
Also there will be much more time for each candidate to answer questions or even (gasp) follow-up questions. It will be harder to ignore Trump’s blatant ignorance on most topics if a moderator actually asks him to explain himself.
Trump is said to be a germophobe, so if I were Hillary Clinton I’d go to shake his hand.
If he shakes it, I’d whisper “I’ve not washed my hand”.
If he doesn’t shake, he’d simply come across as rude.
Saying he’s not going to prep is … get this … posturing. He’s playing it like he’s so good he can crush Clinton with half his brain tied behind his back.
