Where all will be won or lost
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’m hard ass and I know where the bodies are buried. Here’s the shovel to prove it.” Trump has the opposite problem. Almost 60 per cent of Americans think he is “unpresidential”. 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, tame his inner bastard, 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. While Clinton once faced down the Senate foreign affairs select committee in a solo grilling that lasted two days.
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.