If anyone had any doubts about the importance of televised debates in the US elections, Joe Biden took it upon himself to dispel them on June 27 in the duel in Atlanta against Donald Trump. The president came out of that fight knocked out, more by his own mistakes than by the blows of his rival. The political and television spectacle of two candidates confronting their ideas and personalities returns this Tuesday with 90 minutes of prime time that can decide who is the next president of the United States. The Philadelphia debate will be a duel between a prosecutor, Kamala Harris, and a convicted criminal, Trump, with millions of voters as a popular jury. However, it is above all the Democratic candidate who is being judged.
Americans know Trump very well, for better and for worse. He has been a permanent presence in American politics since he came down the golden escalator of Trump Tower in New York almost a decade ago to announce his candidacy for president. He has won and lost elections. He has occupied the White House and with Tuesday’s debate he will have had seven presidential debates, more than anyone in the history of the United States. Harris, on the other hand, is a novice in these matters.
“The Sept. 10 debate will be another reset for the 2024 campaign. There is little chance it will change voters’ opinions of Trump. Instead, the big question is whether it will influence how voters perceive Harris,” tweeted Amy Walter, director of the influential Cook Political Report, a few days ago. “The fact that the debate is taking place at a time when many voters do not have a strong opinion/idea of Harris makes this a uniquely consequential fall showdown,” he added.
The Democratic candidate knows how much is at stake. She had her first preparatory sessions a few weeks ago at Howard University in Washington, where she studied, and has been almost locked away for several days, methodically training for the debate in Pittsburgh, the second largest city in Pennsylvania. The director of the team preparing Harris is Karen Dunn, a prestigious lawyer who has been advising the Democratic candidates for president and vice president in the debates since 2008.
At the Omni William Penn Hotel, Harris rehearses on a fake stage with music stands and a sparringPhilippe Reines, who already played the role of Trump to prepare Hillary Clinton in 2016. For added realism, he even re-enacts his gestures, dressed in a long red tie and even a blond wig. “Most viewers have no idea how meticulous the preparations for a debate at this level can be: no risks are taken,” Alan Schroeder pointed out a few days ago, one of the foremost experts on presidential debates.
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Dunn already coached Harris for the 2020 vice presidential debate against Mike Pence. From that duel, what remains in the retina was the way she cut off her predecessor: “I’m speaking.” It will be difficult for her to repeat it this time. After a scuffle on the matter and against the wishes of the Democrat, the microphone of anyone who does not have the right to speak will be turned off. That was a demand of Biden’s team in the previous debate, but it ended up favoring Trump, who seemed more restrained and moderate.
The rest of the rules are the same for the debate organized by ABC News. It will be held without an audience. There will be no opening statements, but instead the moderators will go straight to the questions, which have not been announced. They will have two minutes to answer, followed by one minute of reply and one minute of counter-reply. Graphics and other objects will not be allowed, nor will pre-prepared notes. Candidates will be given paper, a pen and a bottle of water. There will be two commercial breaks during which candidates will not be able to interact with their advisers. Trump will have the last word by drawing lots.
Harris has the challenge of presenting a presidential image. She must maintain the difficult balance of being both a candidate for continuity — as vice president — and for change. She must defend Biden’s legacy, but not be tied to it. She needs to generate confidence and appear responsible, show experience and preparation, but combine it with the joy, fresh air and optimism that has filled her campaign with enthusiasm. Age (59 years old compared to Trump’s 77) is now on her side to sell a message of the future, relying on her campaign slogan: we are not going back. She will probably put more emphasis on presenting Trump as a self-centered egoist than as a danger to democracy. Another challenge will be to refute her rival’s falsehoods, something that Biden was unable to do.
For his part, the former president prides himself on not preparing for the debates, although he does so. His sessions are taking place at his golf club in Bedminster (New Jersey), although this Saturday he found time to give a rally in Mosinee (Wisconsin), one of the decisive states. With the experience he has accumulated, he prefers more informal preparatory sessions, in which his advisers ask him difficult questions, even on sensitive issues, such as his criminal cases or his position on abortion. He will not campaign on Sunday or Monday, in order to continue preparing.
The former president has resorted to personal attacks against Harris during the campaign, against the advice of his advisers. His aim is to present her as a dangerous radical, question her record as a prosecutor and hold her responsible for the weaknesses of Biden’s administration. Trump paints an apocalyptic picture of the United States and sells an idyllic image of his presidency. Of course, he will have to try to hide his misogynistic and racist imprint, which has repeatedly surfaced in his actions in recent weeks.
During Harris’ recent interview on CNN, Alan Schroeder commented: “The Trump campaign will be scrutinizing this interview for clues they can use in their debate preparation. His poise should scare them. On the debate stage, his calmness and restraint will contrast with Trump’s dramatic excess.”
In an interview this week on Fox News with host Sean Hannity, Trump hinted that he would hold back. “When I had Biden, you and I had the same discussion. And I let him talk. I’m going to let her talk,” he said when asked how he would face Harris. In that same interview, he again lashed out at the Democrat: “Look, this is a woman who is dangerous. I don’t think she’s too smart.” The former president defended his way of preparing for debates. “You can go all strategic, but you have to feel your way as the debate goes on,” he argued, finishing with a quote from boxer Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Trump has enlisted the help of Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully snuck Harris out of the water in the 2019 Democratic primary debates and is now a Republican convert. “Really, it’s just sharing the experience that I have with her on that debate stage and, frankly, helping to point out some of the ways that Kamala Harris has already shown that she’s trying to move away from her record, move away from her positions, and how that contradicts the positions and statements that she’s making now that she’s the Democratic nominee,” Gabbard explained this week in an interview on CNN. Trump’s current adviser warned: “I think Kamala Harris has a lot of experience. She should not be underestimated.”
The former president has also resorted to another of his usual tactics, saying that the debate is rigged against him, something he uses to lower expectations and point the finger at someone to blame if things go wrong. “I’m going to be entering very hostile territory shortly in a debate with ABC,” he said Friday in New York. “I think they are the worst of all. They are the most unpleasant. They are as bad as you can get, worse than NBC, which is saying a lot,” he added. The debate will be moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis, popular faces of the network. “That script is familiar and tired,” David Axelrod, who was Barack Obama’s chief strategist, told him this week. “Trump cannot resist the lure of being part of what will undoubtedly be one of the most watched television shows of the year,” said Schroeder.
Inflation, taxes, immigration, abortion, crime and foreign policy will pit the candidates against each other, but it will be character, the role each adopts and the portrait they manage to paint of their opponent that will weigh most heavily in the debate, along with any rabbit pulled out of a hat that will remain in the audience’s minds. Whoever best finds the tone to attract moderate voters will have a lot to gain. With the exception of the State of the Union debates when Trump was president — which Senator Harris attended among the hundreds of attendees — it will be the first time that the two will be in the same room. It is likely that they will not even greet each other, as happened with Trump and Biden in Atlanta.
The debate is being held at the National Constitution Center, a museum dedicated to the Constitution in the birthplace of American democracy, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, a place visited by millions of citizens each year. Trump and Harris will be just 500 meters from Independence Hall, where the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, with its resounding opening: We the people (We, the people).
The people have a date with the polls on November 5th and the polls are very close in the decisive states, including Pennsylvania, where the debate is being held and where the candidates are campaigning tirelessly. No rally is as crucial as Tuesday’s debate, which could be the only one – at the moment, there are no other scheduled ones. A knockout victory like the one on June 27th is unusual. The debate will probably be decided on points. And the one who generates confidence in the undecided voters of the key states will have more points to win the presidency.
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