What the Candidates SHOULDN'T Have Done

This is an interesting situation; I am writing this on Tuesday afternoon in advance of the Republican candidates' debate tonight, that will already have happened when this is posted on Wednesday.

Now that's a trap and a half; I''m not predicting anything specific, so it isn't as though the facts of the evening will somehow prove me wrong in a prediction I make, but we'll already know if anyone took the advice that they won't have received until after the fact.  Got it?

I would have tweeted this to a few of the candidates if I thought for a moment that they listened to or read this site.  They should, of course, given the provocative nature of the opinions here, but as they didn't, I thought I'd save this piece for the morning after.  There's got to be a morning after, s we all know.

So here's the thing.  The media want the debate to be Tyson-Klitschko, or maybe Louis-Schmeling or Frazier-Foreman.  They want that fight to be between pretty much anyone on stage, as long as one of the combatants is The Donald, Mr. Trump himself. That kind of fight pretty much satisfies all the media's goals, which are three: self-aggrandizement, selling stories regardless of fact content, and defeating conservatives.  A big dust-up between Trump and anyone else there checks all their boxes.

I've no doubt that the questions will be specially crafted to promote their agenda, as opposed to that of the candidates (getting a message out) or, say, the American people (learning about the candidates, staying safe from overseas threats, keeping a reasonable percentage of what we make).  Which means that you can expect lots of "Mr. Trump said XYZ.  How do you differ with that?"

That brings me to my debate-prep-too-late-to-use.  If I'm, say, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, who have shown themselves strong enough to rise some in the polls recently, the last thing I want is to have my presidential appearance threatened by a dust-up I didn't ask for.  I do want to appear in command of the issues, smart, well-prepared and speaking intelligently.

And here is the thing that should be drilled into their mindset before going on stage:

Not one person in the whole USA is going to vote next November based on how well I argued with Donald Trump.

Understand the point?  The people on that stage have immensely more in common with each other than they do with Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democrat nominee if she is not then in prison.  Distinguishing oneself from Donald Trump is a fool's errand.  The candidates should look at the debate as a bully pulpit on which to make their individual case for them as president, not against each other but against the failures of the Obama administration which Hillary Clinton would simply extend.

So if, again, I'm Ted Cruz and I get a question like "Donald Trump says that we should apply a religious test for immigration and ban Muslims from coming here.  Do you agree with him?", I would answer like this:

"First, he did not say he would ban Muslims from coming here per se, forever; he said their immigration should be suspended until -- and I'll paraphrase -- DHS gets its act together and can reassure the USA that ISIS members won't slip through.  Whatever words he used, he is right in that when we apply a more stringent ban on looking at Facebook posts from ISIS members trying to sneak into the USA, than the IRS has on our own citizens, and 14 people are dead as a result, there's a problem.

"Second, we should understand by now that he often makes comments to stimulate discussion, to air a concern rather than expecting a specific solution, and the fact that his polling goes up when he does says that the American people take him more seriously than they do this administration or the media -- as they should.

"Finally, next November the voters are going to be far more concerned with the difference between whichever of us is the nominee, and Hillary Clinton, if she is not already in prison.  So I'm going to tell you that Mr. Trump is concerned about the same thing that everyone on this stage -- and in the audience -- is concerned about: the threat to our communities by Islamic terrorism.  We on this stage may differ in the ultimate solution, but at least all nine of us are willing to call it that.

"Next question?"

Gee, I hope that will have happened last night.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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