Political Service Announcement #5: How Presidential Debates Work

Democrats play chess, Donald Trump eats the pieces.

Later this week, the eyes of the world will be focused on two men in an Atlanta, Georgia television studio. Campaign 2024 will officially launch over 90 minutes as two men illustrate their vision for America and the free world. Donald Trump’s picture will represent only something Salvador Dali could have imagined. Joe Biden’s will be more in the Norman Rockwell vein.

Come with me friends, and I present you the 8,444th curtain-raising column you’ll read this week.

Pre-Gaming

Joe Biden goaded Donald Trump into this debate. We should make a lot of noise about the fact that the president has already won the first round. The time, place, and surroundings of the debate favor Biden. No interruptions (muted mics) and no rowdy crowds, just two men at podiums with moderators in front them. They’re not even allowed to have staff come in and visit during the breaks.

Knowing that Trump is too hot-headed and impulsive to resist an open challenge, the Biden camp has the opportunity to change the fundamentals of the race, in early summer. This is an enormous opportunity. The good news? President Joe Biden has been a man who has met his moments: With Covid, the invasion of Ukraine, bi-partisan legislative wins, and the “big speeches” Republicans and the media believed he wasn’t ready for. He has, time and again, showed up.

I don’t expect Thursday to be different.

Mechanics

There is nothing, nothing that takes a presidential campaign offline like a debate. The White House, every division within campaign, the Democratic National Committee, is engaged in this and only this. The senior staff is with the nominee. The comms people are planning their response operation. The political shop is ensuring they have surrogates and supporters to extol the virtues of the candidate’s performance. The finance people must keep nervous-nelly donors calm.

Once Trump agreed to the debate, there have been countless meetings in the White House, in Wilmington, and at Mar-A-Lago about how to prepare for, survive, and prosecute the aftermath of one 90 minute period.

In a normal world, the candidates would be sequestered with their most pointy-headed aides; the nerds from the Policy Department who aren’t often allowed out during daylight hours. This year, though, it will be tests of temperament that occupy the two contenders.

After the prep is over, it’s time to provide your candidate with they need personally. Do they like to be alone before debates? Do they need an event with rabid supporters to burn off nervous energy? Whatever the principal needs to get into the right headspace is considered and provided.

Then, in a holding room somewhere in the bowels of the CNN building, the senior staff will shake hands with their man and experience the longest hour and a half of their existence, living and dying by every syllable.

Work the Refs

This morning I read somewhere a journalist said, “If you’re working the refs, you’re already losing.”

Pardon my French: Bullshit.

If you don’t think Trump campaign honcho Chris LaCivita has been working the phones for the last two weeks, planning dinners and preparing to share his vaunted wine collection with favored members of the Fourth Estate, I have a bridge to sell you.

Getting your time in front of the reporters that help shape the race is important, and a campaign can’t afford not to offer the press a preview of the planning process, the grandees involved, and maybe a zinger or two, just for the process stories.

For the Biden campaign, it is 100% essential to remind moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, and their bosses at CNN, that they have a responsibility to call out and repudiate whatever egregious and inflammatory lies Trump comes up with. It’s not your job as a moderator to ensure you ask as many questions as you can.

As Charlie Sykes wrote, “Nota bene: This week’s debate won’t be a Lincoln-Douglas debate; or even a Kennedy-Nixon. It will be more like watching 90 minutes of a howler monkey flinging its shit around the room.”

It’s not the moderators’ responsibility to restrain Trump from his worst impulses.

Aside: If ‘working the refs’ doesn’t matter, why have there historically been spaces called “The Spin Room” expressly designed for the purpose?!?

Know Your Enemy

Years ago, during a meeting of well-meaning, earnest non-MAGA Republicans I tried to explain why it was hard to understand Trump. “Democrats play chess. Trump eats the pieces.”

We’re nine years (nine freaking years!) into the Trump-era of American politics. He has no more secrets. He’s not better than he was. He’s as psychologically addled as we’ve ever seen him (and that’s saying something.) He will throw out non-sequiturs, offensive remarks about family members, and pure fiction.

Trump’s power is his ability to bulldoze those before him. Like the moderators, Biden must see Christine coming and step aside. Trump is in a hurry. He must attack as much as he can. He will yell into a muted mic for the purposes of confusing everyone on stage, the camera operators, and the control room. DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT CNN. If Trump’s mic is off, DO NOT pan to him as he bangs his tiny fists on the podium.

Set Your Terms

During the 1991 Gulf War, General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs responded to a question about the coalition strategy to defeat the Iraqi Army thusly:

“First, we’re gonna cut it off, then we’re gonna kill it.”

Simple, direct, to the point. Leave the discussion of tactics to the lower echelons. President Biden knows what he needs to do on Thursday night, he’s more experienced (by decades) than anyone around him. He should listen to their advice, and keep his own counsel. To date, Biden is the only person who has faced Trump one-on-one and come out victorious.

Speed Kills

MAGA’s spin cycle has already begun. Between now and the end of Thursday’s debate, they will throw all nature of things at the wall, taking advantage of anything that sticks. We, the pro-democracy movement, must be as fast and as relentless in our own messaging, both pro-active and reactive. Any vacuum we leave, MAGA will fill. We need both narrow-gauge messaging and broad-based, high-volume information pushed into the information space.

Speed kills.

Close

By the time we all go to bed on Thursday night, we’ll know where Campaign 2024 stands. For sure, it will be the opening salvo of the General Election campaign, weeks before either major party convention takes place. All Americans know these two men. There is no mystery, no ‘gotcha’ moments. Donald Trump will bounce around the studio, doing all he can to distract from the issues at hand. All Joe Biden needs to do is look in the camera and say, “Really? You want four more years of this asshole?”

News and Notes:

A must-read profile of a true pro-democracy hero, Estonia’s Kaja Kallas via The Times.

A good reminder that America is pretty great from General Wesley Clark via Washington Monthly.

See you Friday for the recap!