For debate, 2 rivals also differ on prep
Clinton crams, Trump meets aides as Monday looms
WASHINGTON — Ask Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump how they are preparing for the debate Monday that could upend the presidential race, and they might change the subject.
Their aides are handing them briefing books detailing where the cameras will be placed and what the price of milk is.
They’re studying each other’s hand gestures and talking points on endless streams of video.
They’re acting out scenarios designed to replicate the conditions onstage at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
The campaigns are cagey about preparations as they aim to lower expectations, refusing to say who they’re using as stand-ins to roleplay the other candidate, if anyone.
But the nominees are leaving little to chance leading up to what is often the most dramatic — and least predictable— moment in a presidential election.
“It’s like preseason and regular season in football,” said Chip Englander, a GOP consultant who advised Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and then Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the primary. “You can simulate, but there’s nothing like the real thing.”
Even the participants are loath to predict how this 90-minute spectacle projected to break viewership records will play out.
“I do not know which Donald Trump will show up,” Clinton said during a fundraiser a fewweeks ago.
The bomb-thrower? The restrained statesman? The conspiracy theorist? Even Trump isn’t sure.
“If she treats me with respect, I’ll treat her with respect,” Trump told Fox News. “You’re going to have to feel it out when you’re out there.”
Every one of his personas was present at the primary debates. Clinton has been feverishly watching the footage, studying Trump’s mannerisms and reactions as rivals tried to bait, belittle — and even befriend him.
A general-election debate is a different arena.
The nominees will tangle on the same stage for the first time. The kind of missteps during primary debates from which contenders quickly recover can prove devastating, even disqualifying.
Both Clinton and Trump, candidates who are deeply disliked by the electorate, are confronting what may be a final opportunity to redefine themselves.
Clinton needs to overcome questions of trustworthiness. Trump needs to overcome questions of instability.
“A real boring debate is a huge win for him,” said Barry Bennett, a former senior campaign adviser to Trump who ran Ben Carson’s campaign during last fall’s primary debates.
Veterans of the process say the best moments, the ones that could potentially alter voters’ perception of the candidates, require preparation. But it’s a delicate balance: Look like you’re trying too hard to stage a moment, and it comes off as phony.
Both the schedules the candidates have kept in recent days and their past habits suggest Clinton is spending more time in debate cram sessions than Trump.
But aides have told reporters that Trump has spent recent weekends prepping at his country club in Bedminster, N.J. His close circle of advisers includes Roger Ailes, who recently resigned his post at Fox News amid sexual harassment allegations and previously had a long career advising GOP presidential candidates.
“The key to these things isn’t so much being able to answer the question, but being able to answer in 30 seconds, which is not human nature,” Bennett said. “Roger’s got a lifetime of doing that.”
Trump says he worries overdoing it on prep could cost him the spontaneity that has served him well. Clinton is expected to have multiple dress rehearsals.
It is unclear whether Trump will have any.
One person who worked with Clinton for years said the most crucial prep work was not necessarily related to substance and policy, where Clinton has less to prove, but tone, appearance and sense of humor.
Republicans who have faced Trump offer advice. “Donald ... does not want to be seen as uninformed or unintelligent or diminished in any way,” said GOP operative Rick Tyler. “You have to kind of mock him, but you can’t diminish yourself while doing it.”
Other potential traps also lurk. Like the price of milk. Candidates who may not have bought a gallon of it in years better know what it costs.
Chris Lehane, who helped Al Gore prep for his debate against George W. Bush, recalled how predebate briefing books he helped compile for Gore and Bill Clinton had a page full of such factoids.
“You have to be ready for these gotcha questions designed to make you look out of touch,” he said.