Traditionally, debates are mostly boring affairs, where we’re lucky to get a highlight or two. But, we know what we’re getting, going in. A couple of boxers who jab a little bit, and largely stick to the script, while answering questions the best they can.
Even though candidates aren’t afforded an opening statement anymore, they use their allotted time for their first answer to put the debate into the context they want. In 2012, for example, the first question went to President Obama. It was, how would he create jobs.
Yesterday, I posted something about Donald Trump’s likely debate strategy – lie, lie, and lie again, knowing that it would fall to Hillary Clinton to correct him, now that moderators have decided against challenging lies.
Forcing Clinton to do the job means she will have nearly no time to talk about what she believes, what she wants to do, or to launch attacks on Trump.
“I do not believe it is my job to be a truth squad. It’s up to the other person to catch them on that.” – Chris Wallace, FOX News, on how he will moderate the debates.
Thanks, Chris Wallace. You just gave Donald Trump his roadmap to winning the debates.
OK, that’s unfair to Chris, a little bit. The other moderators surely won’t spend all of their time fact checking, either.
Donald Trump 9.0 was launched last night (or is it 10.0? 9.5? I lost track).
For a brief moment in time, fueled by a teleprompter filled with messaging from new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and campaign CEO, Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon, Trump had a narrative that finally worked.
To use a phrase of Trump’s, I hated to just give him credit for something, “believe me.”
Now, if he regresses to his usual self, he’ll say something horrible and the campaign will be caught up in a whirlwind of controversy. But what if he doesn’t? This new campaign message can work, quite effectively. So, what should Hillary do?
He had a golden opportunity to write a campaign-changing piece, and he whiffed. His piece focused on Brexit as a warning to Democrats to take seriously the negative economic impact of the global economy. Essentially, it was the same campaign speech he gave 1,000 times, recycled, using Brexit as the hook. It was largely ignored — not because he doesn’t have a point — but because he offered up nothing new.
Here is the op-ed he should have written. Here is the op-ed that would have made an impact on the debate. It would have given him new relevancy, and stature, as he continues to try to reform the Democratic Party.
When I worked for Howard Dean, in the 2004 election, he used to like to quote Harry Truman in his stump speech:
“If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.”
The point, when Howard Dean said it, was that far too many Democrats were trying to be like President Bush, in 2003, when the President’s popularity was soaring, but Dean was offering a real alternative. Yet, it could just as easily apply to the many Democrats, especially in the South, who became nearly indistinguishable from Republicans, not just on issue, but in tone.
Lo and behold, the slow burn of so called Blue Dogs completed in 2014, and voters voted for genuine Republicans, across the board.
Finally, it seems like Democrats are finally taking the right lesson away from these losses. In the past, they always seemed to answer defeat by moving more to the right, assuming the country wanted conservatism. But, in the past few days, it is becoming apparent that, finally, Democrats realize they need to offer a real choice – a progressive choice.
