In the blood sport of American presidential campaigns it doesn’t get more gladiatorial than the three one-on-one debates that take place in the final sprint before the vote. It is our version of a medieval joust. Given that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been at each other’s throats from afar for months, and that Monday night (Tuesday at 5am UAE time) they will be sitting or standing in spitting if not grabbing distance from one another, the host broadcaster NBC is predicting TV dynamite.
In the corridors of broadcasting power salivating executives are forecasting Superbowl-sized audiences of 100 million or more for the first 90-minute duel (without ad breaks) in a presidential election that has turned out to be a ratings gift.
Both candidates are understandably nervous about the debate and while some of their staff have been briefing that they matter far less than we, the broadcasters, believe that’s nonsense. They always matter and sometimes they are decisive. Just ask Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and George H. Bush — all losers in the on-air joust, whose poor debate performance set the stage for defeat at the polls.
These debates matter but not always in a way that we expect them to. In 1960 Nixon was more coherent in his answers than John F. Kennedy, who spoke staccato in his strangulated Boston accent. Those who listened on the wireless were convinced Nixon had won.
Unlucky, then, for Nixon that television had entered the arena and this became the first presidential debate to be broadcast simultaneously on the box. What the TV audience saw was a Nixon who had turned lime-grey-green thanks to a bad cold and sleeplessness. His febrile nervousness was betrayed by a pencil moustache of sweat. He looked like a feeble patient next to a glamorous, tanned, fragrant JFK. Kennedy had the visual edge and the rest became history.
In half a century of TV debates, it has become clear that superior knowledge does not necessarily spell victory. Carter was much better briefed than Ronald Reagan, but the oily ex-actor rebuffed Carter’s grasp of facts, names and policy details with a camp “here you go again!” The brush-off floored Carter, who was already suffering from plummeting popularity. America was ready to ditch him, but they weren’t quite ready to hand Reagan the reigns. The debate changed all that a week before the election.
In 1992, it was George H.W. Bush who made the mistake of repeatedly looking at his watch during a debate against Bill Clinton. He appeared bored and disengaged during a question on unemployment, confirming the impression that he was too aloof to feel America’s pain. He won the first Iraq war, but lost his second election.
Given the debates’ potential for delivering unexpected, unscripted and unforgiving morsels, the one between Trump and Clinton promises to be an “eat all you can” buffet of material. Hillary has the knowledge — she not only knows the middle names of the foreign ministers of Kenya or Swaziland, but has probably had them and their children over for a sleepover. She could fill the entire 90-minute slot with policy proposals on health care and environmental standards. But will eyes glaze over?
Incumbency a curse
It is frequently said that the debates are an opportunity for the American public to imagine the candidates sitting in the Oval Office. Hillary has been has been asking them to do so ever since she left the White House in 2000. From what I have witnessed so far, her problem is that America can imagine her all too well in the presidential swivel chair, treating the place like she belongs. In an era in which incumbency has become a curse, Clinton will need to convince viewers that insider knowledge does not amount to corruption and that she hasn’t been measuring the White House for curtains since the day she left.
It is, frankly, hard to imagine her saying anything fresh that will allow America to see her in a new light. Whenever she tries the regular mum, grandma routine it looks artificial. She could just embrace the truth and channel her inner viper: “It’s a tough world... I know where the bodies are buried. Here’s the shovel to prove it.”
Trump has the opposite problem. Almost 60 per cent think he is “un-presidential”. They cannot imagine him sitting in the Oval Office and running the world’s most powerful nation. He will have to prove that he can muster the temperament to rule, won’t be trigger happy with nukes and refrain from saying stuff at state banquets that will embarrass America. The US takes decorum seriously, and the presidency is elected monarchy. Trump’s biggest challenge will be anger management. Hillary’s biggest opportunity will be his anger mis-management.
I once asked Trump whether he wasn’t too thin-skinned to be president. He growled at me and said I was “stupid”. Judging from his vituperative and vindictive performance in the Republican debates so far, he is very bad at not taking the bait.
Mental stamina is also not his forte — in previous debates he has flagged after the first 20 minutes. Clinton once faced down the Senate foreign affairs select committee in a solo grilling that lasted two days.
GOP candidate’s biggest asset
But her opponent’s biggest asset is that he is expected to lose. He is a bombastic billionaire who has thrived on being underestimated as a politician. We don’t know how the debates will be decisive, we just know that they will be.
In 2004 I saw 30 voters watch George W. Bush vs John Kerry in Arizona. Kerry, a veteran senator who loved the well-modulated sound of his voice, wiped the floor with Bush, who fumbled and flustered his way through almost every answer despite having been in the White House for four years.
“Who won the debate?” we asked. Twenty-two hands went up for Kerry.
“Who will you vote for?” the same number of hands went up for Bush.
He had lost the debate, but ended up winning back the presidency, because too many Americans distrusted a smooth-talking senator who sounded too clever. Hillary be warned.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2016
Matt Frei is fronting Trump v Clinton Live: US Presidential Debate on Channel 4, on Tuesday at 1.45am and is Channel 4 News Europe editor and presenter.
