Boy, Was I Wrong about the Debates

Sometimes I go back to read things I wrote in a few of the past nearly-600 pieces on this site.  It is amazingly instructive; since I force myself, out of a sense of discipline, to write a piece every day, the library of essays becomes a reflection of the -- what, "mini-zeitgeist"? -- the thinking on that day about the issue of the day, at least when the piece was political.

In this case, I went back to something I wrote last September, right before the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

I was trying to define what would constitute candidate Trump as having "done well", since as a complete novice in campaigning barely a year before, it was hard to decide what would qualify as a good debate performance.  He had done a fair number of them in the primary campaign, but this was going to be the first one-on-one, where everything was to be about Trump vs. Clinton.

My thesis was that Trump needed to look calm, presidential and under control.  He needed to make it clear that he would surround himself with advisors and a Cabinet full of recognized experts, people who might not come from politics but from the "real world".  that he would listen to them, accept their guidance and make his decisions -- much like Ronald Reagan did.

Now that the election is over, Donald Trump is now President Trump (still getting used to that) and some, although not enough, of the Cabinet is now in place, I can look back at the piece -- and the debates -- and realize how wrong I was.

I would apologize, but it isn't that I'm sorry.  I wrote what I thought at the time, which is what I truly thought Trump would have to do in order to capitalize on the debates.

Wrong?  Oh, you know it.  Certainly, as far as Trump was concerned.  I was dead right about Hillary, whom I said would be rehearsed, full of planned zinger lines and completely plastic.  And she was all of that and less.

I thought that success for Trump in the debates would be dependent on composure, that he needed for the voting public to see the man in such a way, to look like a president.  However, he was anything but; he was combative, not substantively different from his performance in the primaries, and I think it would be pretty hard to say that he did a good job.

Maybe I was more wrong about what would have constituted a successful performance for him.  After all, he won the election but, truth to tell, he did not have a single debate where you could look back and say he was compelling and clearly "won."  Sure, his advisers and inner circle of spokesmen said he did, but I didn't believe them.

More interesting, it was instructive to look at Hillary Clinton and her performance.  Against a backdrop of her usual over-scripted set of talking points, I noticed an expression on her face that I can recall to this day.

I can only describe it as her feeling mid-debate that she had already won, that the voting public couldn't possibly miss the fact that Trump was such a terrible debater and they'd all vote for her now.  He would repeat one of his typical slogans or statements lacking obvious insight.  "Yes", she thought, a smile on her face, "I only have to answer the questions and show my command of the issues and that I know exactly where Yemen is.  I can't possibly lose to this guy.  And I will win."

You saw it, too.  I was thinking "How is this performance going to win for Trump?  He isn't going to attract anyone who wasn't already going to vote for him.  Maybe his supporters, the ones stuffing 20,000 people into 18,000-seat arenas twice a day, maybe that performance was what they would see as authentic and the kind of non-politician they wanted after, well, the swamp had governed the past eight years."  I really was thinking something like that.

Apparently I wasn't convinced, since I sat there on Election Night expecting the worst.  I had set a standard for his success during the debates, and he had not complied with my standard.  Then the states started falling, one by one ... Ohio, then Florida and North Carolina ... then Wisconsin came out of the blue (literally!), and suddenly there was no route left for Hillary to win.

I thought back the next morning, after the concession speeches and all, about the debates and how I thought that Trump could not possibly win with that performance.  Like everyone else, I was so far wrong it was just silly.

In four years he will have to do the whole debate cycle all over again, and I'm thinking that I will not have learned a blessed thing.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton.