White House rivals face final TV reckoning
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 brushoff 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 HW 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 healthcare and environmental standards. But will eyes glaze over?
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.