CLAIM: Trump’s old debate tricks won’t work on Clinton.
He entered each debate with a game plan and flawlessly executed it. By the time the debates began, for instance, Trump was at the top of national and battleground Republican polls. So he was able to consistently tout his polling strength while needling opponents such as Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. Trump never missed an opportunity to remind the audience he was the only candidate self-funding his campaign. He claimed vast wealth and said it ensured he was not beholden to special interests. He attacked other candidates on stage for accepting his personal donations, which he said were accompanied by leverage and return favors. And he railed against the corrupting influence of super PACs, including the one supporting Bush that raised more than $100 million.
Trump also would constantly tussle with debate moderators in order to curry favor from the audience. This started in Cleveland when Fox News’ Megyn Kelly confronted him with insulting remarks he had made about women, extended to the CNBC debate in Boulder, and culminated in Houston with his dressing-down of Salem Radio’s Hugh Hewitt, who had pressed him on his failure to release tax returns. Finally, Trump was a debate chameleon who receded from the spotlight at crucial moments for extended periods of time. He never participated in a debate with fewer than four candidates, and he never spoke longer than 30 minutes.
These tactics that worked so well for him in the primaries will be difficult to replicate in his trio of upcoming debates against Clinton.
I think Aaron Kall might be conflating Trump’s points from the primary debates with Trump’s style. The issues changed from forum to forum, question to question, but his style remained essentially Trump throughout — dialed down for more serious issues, dialed back up whenever he could, but always Trump. And voters respond to Trump’s take-no-guff style at least as much as they do to whatever the topic-of-the-moment might have been during the dozen or so GOP debates.
Trump also had the benefit of honing his skills and his style against 16 hungry GOP competitors. Hillary Clinton had only Bernie Sanders (who pulled his best punches) to square off against, plus a couple of other contenders so milquetoast that I can’t remember their names at this early hour without consulting Google first.
The last time Clinton had to square off against someone with so much style, it was eight years ago and his name was Barack Obama. And Clinton doesn’t seem to have the strength or health she enjoyed back then.
In either case, we’ll find out tonight, and of course I’ll be drunkblogging the debate at the PJMedia home page.