[The Lizard of Oz]

Here is my view of what will matter most in the debate tomorrow night.

There is a prevalent idea among Trumpers here and elsewhere that Trump is going to "crush", "rip apart" and generally "destroy" the Hag during the debate, and that this is what we have to look forward to. By the time it's over, she'll be practically curled into a fetal position and whimpering in some corner (if not outright collapsed to the floor like a sack of Parkinson's-addled potatoes), and Trump will be grinning like a well-fed cat and savoring his now inevitable victory.

This idea is, in my opinion, extremely dumb and completely divorced from reality. The reality is this:

Hillary will be well-coached, well-prepared, and well-versed in both relevant facts and figures, and canned/pre-packaged retorts, rhetorical moves, and arguments. Above all, she will come ready with pre-crafted zingers that she will be ready to deploy for various occasions. These zingers will be actually good, as far as that nonsense goes -- they will be memorable and calculated to provoke Trump and leave a mark. They will have been thoroughly poll-tested, and she will know when to use them to maximum effect. If the debate devolves to an exchange of zingers, Trump will lose it -- badly -- and more than likely, lose whatever shot he has at winning the election.

However, there is a way for Trump to preemptively de-zinger the debate and make the most important part of her prep and memorization work utterly useless. Here is how you do it. In his opening statement for the debate, Trump should say the following:

Quote:

I know I have been guilty of this in the past, but I hope these debates will not be about trading ******zingers******

(he should use emphatic scare quotes with his fingers, and speak very solemnly when he delivers this DEADLY word)

Quote:

Now, our country has serious problems; but, with the right leadership, perhaps even greater opportunities, and Secretary Clinton and I owe the voters a serious discussion of our ideas to help all Americans. This election is a serious matter, not entertainment -- so I will refrain from *******zingers******* and I hope Secretary Clinton agrees with me. We may not have as much fun, but an honest discussion of the issues facing us is more important than anything else, and it's what the voting public deserves. Thank you.

This is what Trump needs to do to: get out in front of the planned zinger mudbath, and disarm the Hag -- strip her of all her prepared and pre-canned material which, if she gets to deploy it, will be the only thing the media and ads will focus on for days following the debate.

Doing this has the additional advantage of making Trump appear serious, earnest, and, in a word, presidential -- which is what he needs to be to sell undecided voters, especially women, on his candidacy. Hillary and her team are preparing for Trump to be "unpredictable" -- but in de-zingering the debate from the outset, he would be unpredictable in a different way than they can imagine. It would be a win/win/win.

Aside from that, what Trump needs to do is:

-- be kind and polite to Clinton;
-- even when criticizing her harshly, do it in a mellow manner and with the occasional smile to crown that mellowness;
-- never scowl and NEVER YELL;
-- and never, ever, get dragged into the zinger mud.

If he does all this -- keeps his cool, remembers to smile, and makes the entirely unexpected and stunning move of de-zingering the debate from the outset, he's got a real shot of doing well enough with women and making the sale that wins the election. Otherwise, he is likely to die the death of a dozen well-placed zingers and lose. I hope he makes the right decision.

[Phoenix]

That's my guess what he's going to do. Speaking with that very calm "fatherly" tone he uses in some of his policy speeches.

Well either way, good luck to him, and all of us. If the hag wins we really are in for darker days still.

[komatiite]

Yeah good point about the speech tone Phoenix. In fact I think those speeches on the TelePrompTer served him really well as debate prep. Those well-crafted Bannon/Miller speeches were loaded with good one-liner policy details, so a brief pause and a little side remark to reinforce the point definitely would hammer the detail in his memory. When he would re-emphasize something and go off script during his policy speeches and even rallies, that probably was deliberate for that memory-trigger purpose, IMO...

[MiscBrah]

Lizard, what should Trump do if Hillary starts having a coughing fit?

[The Lizard of Oz]

(09-25-2016 05:13 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:  

Lizard, what should Trump do if Hillary starts having a coughing fit?

He should do nothing, of course. Simply wait it out and never mention it and never make any facial expressions.

Let the viewers draw their own conclusions. Trump's role is to be a serious, earnest but mellow gentleman throughout.

[SamuelBRoberts]

Sure, but if she falls over, should he pick her up?

[wi30]

I'm not so sure that Hilldog can speak on the fly. Her pre-planned "zingers" won't land as effectively as they would on paper. She's obviously not going to die on stage like a lot of people think, but she's going to be tripping over a lot of words.

We all know LOZ should be working on the campaign, maybe Don Jr. will interview him for a consulting position.

But I think Trump will do just fine. I'm sure he's prepped and ready to go.

He's essentially playing the "don't fuck up game" at this point.

[Foolsgo1d]

So what you're saying is the undecided voters should be seeing Trump with kid gloves and Clinton as inept, ill of health and no ammo?

If undecided voters are the ones who will swing this election then Trump has already lost but I believe we are at a point where these undecided voters are not that important.

Clinton is good at Rhetoric, Trump is good at humiliating and shouting down opponents. Trump will always be seen as a bully and if that is what a undecided voter see's then no matter what he does on stage, they will not vote for him.

In all honesty Clinton will be ok, she will not faint and she will be very good at fighting on the spot because she is very good at her self-centred and arrogant rhetoric.

She is not Jeb Bush or el Rato. She has no filter.

[Phoenix]

^ It's not the best tactic now though given the circumstances. Hillary is just such a toxic individual with so many black marks on her record, the crime and corruption, the psychopathy and physical sickness. All Trump needs to do is calmly keep bringing attention to all this like a judge handing down a sentence. He's not an upstart anymore, he's the leader, so trying to act domineering would be counterproductive.

[Sherman]

I wonder if Hillary is capable of pulling off a zinger. Look at what happened to Rubio when he tried to out Zinger Trump. It just didn't work because it doesn't fit his personality. I can't remember anything that Hillary used against Bernie. She is a policy wonk and doesn't have much expressive abilities. Reagan devistated his opponents with simple one liners like "There you go again". Simple but effective if delivered right.

[SamuelBRoberts]

Hillary can't zing. Watch her in the Between 2 Ferns video. She can't tell a joke with a team of expensive writers and a friendly host.

Hillary's plan is going to be to berate Trump and say mean things about him.

[Jaydublin]

I think he will set her off and she will struggle with anger or a coughing fit.

If we look back at her debates with Obama she used to show her witch side regularly which she recently displayed in that video that leaked. I think this side of her hurt her most in 2008. Obama was able to get under her skin in a big way. Bernie did not bring out her true witch because he was too busy being a big pussy and trying to keep things clean.

Trump will get it out of her.

[HighSpeed_LowDrag]

TLOZ, I respect your contributions to the Trump thread but here I believe you are completely wrong.

A debate based on the minutiae of policy - which is what your debate strategy would entail - would be one in which Clinton would sweep the floor with Trump. She is first and foremost a policy-wonk candidate. No matter the amount of debate prep Trump has done, there is no way he can match her in this regard. Trump is and always has been a big-picture candidate. What you are suggesting would create a dynamic where Clinton's greatest strengths are matched against Trump's greatest weaknesses.

I cannot think of a setup more likely to cost Trump the election.

In contrast, Clinton does worse in articulating big-picture ideas and when she is placed on the defensive. The entirety of the Clinton campaign's narrative essentially revolves around the fact that she is a) a woman and b) not Donald Trump. That's it. Trump, on the other hand, can better articulate the big-picture narrative that voters will more readily understand and identify with as opposed to policy wonkery.

What Trump needs to do tomorrow is two-fold: a) work to keep the debate focused on big-picture narrative, and b) keep Clinton on the defensive. If he can do that through all three debates, he will win.

I'll respond directly to the salient paragraph of your post:

Quote:

Hillary will be well-coached, well-prepared, and well-versed in both relevant facts and figures, and canned/pre-packaged retorts, rhetorical moves, and arguments.

No argument here. Clinton is nothing if not a policy wonk.

Quote:

Above all, she will come ready with pre-crafted zingers that she will be ready to deploy for various occasions. These zingers will be actually good, as far as that nonsense goes -- they will be memorable and calculated to provoke Trump and leave a mark. They will have been thoroughly poll-tested, and she will know when to use them to maximum effect.

I see nothing in the way of evidence over the past few months that would suggest her 'zingers' against Trump would be any more effective that the innumerable ones he is undoubtedly preparing to fling at her. Nor, for that matter, would anything that we know about Clinton's personality suggest that would be her preferred debate dynamic, as opposed to keeping the debate focused on policy minutiae.

Campaigns that are perceived as being behind, as we are (even if only by the narrowest of margins) do not win by playing defensively. They win by going on the attack.

TLOZ, my reading of your posting history on the Trump thread suggests that you believe that the path to a Trump victory is by winning over a large enough slice of the demographics that are tilted towards Clinton to push him over the top. I submit that this is an incorrect way of looking at the situation we face - namely, that this presidential campaign has the two most unpopular presidential candidates in living memory facing off against each other.

This election, first and foremost, will be decided by turnout amongst the respective party bases. The path to a Trump victory is not by winning over members of the Clinton base, but by driving up voter turnout amongst Republican-leaning demographics to an all-time high whilst simultaneously depressing the turnout amongst Democrat-leaning demographics. This is best done by putting Clinton continuously on the defensive. Already, it is well known that her campaign is fearful of the prospect of lower voter turnout amongst white progressives and African-Americans.

I realize it is ugly to suggest that our path to victory is in part by discouraging others to exercise their democratic right to vote, but the very fate of the American Republic is at stake in this election. Nothing else matters at this point.

This campaign - and the debates in particular - will be the political equivalent of a close-range knife fight. Whoever gets the last hit in will win.

[weambulance]

Hillary can't even control herself when her supporters ask unexpected questions in friendly ways. I'm not too concerned about her being some kind of smooth zinger machine. Maybe she'll be drugged up in some way that tones down her anger response, though.

[The Lizard of Oz]

HSLD, a few points:

I'm not suggesting turning the debate into a back and forth about "policy minutiae". First, this never happens anyway -- the time allotted for answers is too short for that. Second, all Trump needs to do is say that he just wants to talk about the issues. In reality, he will talk in broad strokes and make his very general rhetorical points; if she wants to drown the viewers in details and facts that no one will remember, that's fine. It wouldn't be a bad way for the debate to go.

Trump's goal in the debate, and in the election in general, is simple: convince voters that he is a plausible president, and not too much of a risk. That's it. If he does that he's got a fighting chance; otherwise, he's a goner. Letting the debate devolve into an exchange of zingers does nothing to achieve this goal; even in the unlikely case that Trump "wins" this exchange, voters will think of him as a "brawler", not as serious or presidential. In addition, women will resent his personal attacks on Hillary. And more likely is that she is better coached and better prepared with her zingers (because she has a much more professional prep team and will have spent a lot more time on prep) and so he both loses the exchange and doesn't achieve his most important goal.

As far as the election hinging on base turnout vs. undecideds: first, if it's a base turnout election, Hillary wins. The Dems have a much better ground game and GOTV machine, and college educated white women will come out for her in unimaginable numbers. Trump's voting base is white males with no college education, and these are generally unreliable voters -- many of them are not even registered, and there is NO evidence in the data that the Trump campaign has been successful in registering them in massive numbers. This base is, in any case, not enough to win by itself.

Trump's chance of winning lies in normalizing his candidacy and converting some undecided voters who would vote for a "generic Republican", but are hesitant about voting for him -- because they think he's risky/erratic/unprepared/"racist" etc. These are mainly Republican-leaning white women in swing states, who voted for Romney but are now undecided or leaning Hillary. If Trump can get enough of them to give him a second look, he's got a real shot because he is already outperforming Romney among whites with no college education -- and these voters, to the extent that they will show up, are already in the bag for Trump and will not switch their preference. Any effect of his performance from here on in on their turnout is negligible -- the only thing that will affect that turnout is a registration effort and GOTV/ground game.

In short, what Trump needs from now on is to appear mellow, dignified, plausibly presidential, and do nothing to alienate women (like the ridiculous Gennifer Flowers gaffe). De-zingering the debate serves all these goals and should be a no-brainer.

[Suits]

Trump should neg her by treating her like a young, ignorant child, not a serious candidate. AMOGing her will just give her more credibility. Simply being on stage is enough of a DHV for him.

(09-25-2016 05:13 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:  

Lizard, what should Trump do if Hillary starts having a coughing fit?

Performing CPR would be a nice touch.

[philosophical_recovery]

(09-25-2016 07:15 PM)Suits Wrote:  

Trump should neg her by treating her like a young, ignorant child, not a serious candidate. AMOGing her will just give her more credibility. Simply being on stage is enough of a DHV for him.

(09-25-2016 05:13 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:  

Lizard, what should Trump do if Hillary starts having a coughing fit?

Performing CPR would be a nice touch.

[CynicalContrarian]

(09-25-2016 05:13 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:  

Lizard, what should Trump do if Hillary starts having a coughing fit?

A simple - "Is there a doctor in the house?"

Slightly comedic, yet easily played off as 'concern' for Hillary.
Said in a low tone, yet with a slight smirk.

[Rush87]

Newt Gringrich has been on the record [Along with many others] in stating that policy doesn't win debates. He has said that the best way to predict the winner of a presidential debate is to watch it on mute. A regularly cited example is the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debate. Pundits felt Nixon won on radio whereas Kennedy won on television.

Trump absolutely has to be calm and presidential, but entertainment will still win this debate. Not policy. He doesn't need to, and won't devolve into a zinger contest to do so. Essentially a slight step up from dull, trying to step towards big picture policy instead of policy wonking, and it'll be a clear cut win...

[Thersites]

(09-25-2016 08:07 PM)Rush87 Wrote:  

Trump absolutely has to be calm and presidential, but entertainment will still win this debate.

That the master plan for Trump. He been toning down boisterous self from the Republican Primaries to something more presidential as we saw with trip to Mexico.The best way to win in the debate is have Hilliary expect the rabble rousing Trump and get President Trump. Let Hillary lose by her own hand.

[greekgod]

Kellyanne Conway said on fox last night "I'm sure Hillary has her preplanned zingers ready but this isn't about that, prepackaged won't work"

100% confirmed forum lurk.

LOZ, enjoy your new job come January.

[Chowder Head]

(09-26-2016 10:31 AM)greekgod Wrote:  

Kellyanne Conway said on fox last night "I'm sure Hillary has her preplanned zingers ready but this isn't about that, prepackaged won't work"

100% confirmed forum lurk.

LOZ, enjoy your new job come January.

Or maybe she's TLOZ???

[MiscBrah]

(09-26-2016 11:18 AM)Chowder Head Wrote:  

(09-26-2016 10:31 AM)greekgod Wrote:  

Kellyanne Conway said on fox last night "I'm sure Hillary has her preplanned zingers ready but this isn't about that, prepackaged won't work"

100% confirmed forum lurk.

LOZ, enjoy your new job come January.

Or maybe she's TLOZ???

(09-25-2016 11:34 AM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

Heroic attempt at damage control by Kellyanne, who needs a statue built in her honor when this campaign is over.

[younggun]

It's not about the zingers, it's the tone. Some of the most effective, memorable Trump debate moments were zingers but the key was his delivery. For sure, if he goes "Where are your emails Hillary?" unprompted, it's going to look like he's compensating for a lack of policy knowledge.

But the "oh you're a tough guy Jeb" and "maybe she should be running" lines, in reference to Jeb's mom, were demoralizing. Trump has to show his sense of humor because it's what endears him to so many, and what will endear him to undecided voters (usually the more unintelligent). He's not winning anyone over on policy because he'll never match Clinton.
She's too well rehearsed, but this can be a negative if he sounds human and she sounds robotic as expected.

[AneroidOcean]

Gotta say, I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but not only will Trump not say anything resembling that (there's no reason for him to be apologetic not to mention it's not his style), if he were to say something like that it would be absolutely the wrong move.

He'd nearly be better off bringing up Bobby Knight to trigger TLOZ.

Trump will be classic Trump from all the talk show interviews, news reporter interviews (like from ground zero), etc... in order to be his powerfully calm, presidential side, instead of his boisterous side.

Calling out "zingers" would be incredibly tone-deaf, that's like Hillary crafting a debate pre-emptive move.