Jun.25

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It's Debate Week! (Part II)

We predicted yesterday that there would be a bunch of debate news each day this week, and thus far we have not been proven wrong. Here's a rundown of the latest:

• Consequential?: In yesterday's debate item, we wrote: "The stars have aligned in such a way that this week's presidential debate could be the most impactful in recent memory. Maybe the most impactful ever."
  
  In response to that, we had a comment/question from reader B.C. in Walpole, ME:

  I just can't imagine why you say that. I don't see that any presidential debate has been terribly important (a couple a little bit) and I can't see why this one would be. Biden will try to be serious, adult, and presidential. Trump will be exactly what we know he is and attempt to cause chaos and disrupt the proceedings, violating the rules at every turn so that he can claim he wasn't treated fairly.
  
  It might help some of us if you make the case for your assertion. I'd be interested to understand your perspective, and I think others would too.

  Very well. Just to start, it can be difficult to tease out the effects of presidential debates from other campaign activity. So, it is difficult to say, for example, how much the second Obama/Romney debate shaped that election. However, there are clear-cut cases where the debates did matter, and did help or hurt a candidate. Gerald Ford certainly hurt himself with "There is no Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe." Ronald Reagan certainly helped himself with "If you are better off than you were 4 years ago, vote for my opponent. If not, vote for me." George H.W. Bush certainly hurt himself when he looked at his watch.
  
  This will be the 36th presidential debate in American history. But only a few have taken place in elections as close as this one appears to be. There are the four Kennedy-Nixon debates, the three Bush-Gore debates and the three Clinton-Trump debates, the two Biden-Trump debates and that's about it. So, this debate is really only in serious competition with about a dozen of the 36 in terms of potential impact.
  
  Meanwhile, as much as is possible, this debate is set up to be "event" television. As the NBA and NHL finals are over, there are no major sporting events remaining this week—just regular-season baseball and women's basketball. The broadcast seasons of the networks are over, and they are into reruns/summer filler season. There are no other presidential debates that just happened, or that will happen soon; if people want to get a look at the candidates going head-to-head, it's now, or wait 3 months. Plus, most major networks are going to be airing the debates, so a lot of the alternative programming won't be available. The two Biden-Trump debates in 2020 attracted 73.1 million viewers and 62.9 million viewers respectively. If you just take the midpoint, then this one would be expected to attract something like 68 million viewers. But if you consider the various factors we list here, not to mention that the population has grown, the audience could well surpass 80 million, as the first Clinton-Trump debate did. And whether it's 60 milion, or 70 million, or 80+ million, that's a lot of people, and many of them do not pay close attention to politics.
  
  For those people who do not pay close attention, there are going to be various questions they are aware of, but maybe only vaguely so. Is Joe Biden senile? Is Donald Trump senile? Is Biden screwing up on the border? What's this about Trump being a felon? Is Biden responsible for Israel? What would Trump do in a second term? The debate may provide answers to one or more of those questions that become fixed in voters' minds.
  
  There's also a second cadre worth noting: the double-haters. Many of them are not low-information voters; they are perfectly well-informed voters who just don't care for either candidate. They are looking for something that will help them make their decision. And since people trust what they see with their own eyes more than anything else, the debate could tip some meaningful number of those folks.
  
  And finally, the unprecedented gap in time between this debate and the next one means that anything that DOES become fixed in voters' minds is going to linger, and marinate, and is going to be hard to excise. If Biden performs capably, that could be the final death blow to "he's too old and feeble." If Trump goes on a weird tangent (see below), that could hang the "senile" tag on him, instead. If Biden commits a verbal gaffe when talking about Black voters (which he's done before, several times), or if Trump pulls a brand new policy idea out of his rear end and puts it out there without having thought it through, that could haunt them. And since a lot of the people who will be watching on Thursday do not follow, or do not closely follow, the channels through which the candidates regularly communicate (cable news, social media, rallies, etc.) it will be tough to change the narrative if one forms during the debate.
  
  
• This Is Your Brain...: Donald Trump is once again beating the "Joe Biden is drugged up" drum. Yesterday, the former president posted this on his makes-no-money-but-still-worth-billions social media platform: "DRUG TEST FOR CROOKED JOE BIDEN??? I WOULD, ALSO, IMMEDIATELY AGREE TO ONE!!!" The irony is that the only one of the pair who is actually at risk of being drug tested right now is Trump, by virtue of being a convicted felon in New York State. If a probation officer showed up before the debates and said, "Mr. Trump, time for your random drug test," it's hard to know what would be louder: the howls from Republicans or the laughter from Democrats.
  
  
• Moderators: Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt appeared on CNN yesterday with anchor Kasie Hunt. Leavitt had a very clear agenda, and that agenda was to make the (unsupported) claim that debate moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper are in the bag for Biden. Hunt warned Leavitt that slurring the moderators (bashing Bash, as it were) was not appropriate, and was not what Leavitt was invited on air to discuss. Leavitt kept it up, was warned again, kept going again, was warned a third time, kept going, and was finally cut off, with the rest of her segment canceled.
  
  Later, Steve Bannon, who is in the midst of his last few days of freedom before going to Uncle Sam's "summer camp," also interviewed Leavitt. The podcast host/felon decreed this showed that CNN is "so biased that they show absolutely no respect to the president's national press secretary." He also said this was more than enough excuse for Trump to cancel his debate appearance.
  
  
• Conspiratorial Thinking: For the last week, and surely continuing through the debate and beyond, there is also a conspiracy theory circulating that Biden has been given the debate questions in advance by... someone.
  
  Surely this stems, at least in part, from something that really happened in 2016, when Hillary Clinton got the heads up about ONE debate question from then-CNN employee Donna Brazile. However, that was one question one time 8 years ago, and the mole was a person who was a Democratic operative first and foremost (which is why she was hired at CNN) and a CNN employee second. She was also not a journalist. Barring some actual evidence, there is no reason to claim or to suspect that Biden got the questions beforehand. Indeed, if the presumption is that CNN commentators have access to the questions (which they don't), then it's just as likely that Scott Jennings would have given them to Trump. Probably more likely, actually.
  
  In any case, one cannot help but notice that there are all manner of pre-debate efforts by Republicans to discount Biden's performance. Here's the current inventory: (1) Well, Biden is really good at this because he's been doing this for half a century; (2) Biden is going to be high on stimulants; (3) the debate moderators are in the bag for Biden; (4) Biden got the questions in advance. Meanwhile, there are also folks, like Bannon, who are trying to find excuses for Trump to skip the debate entirely. Doesn't all of this strongly suggest that Team Trump thinks their boy is going to lose bigly?
  
  
• Midnight Rambler: Team Biden also has their pre-debate tale to tell, but it's not conspiratorial. It's "Trump has lost his marbles, and you're going to see proof of that on Thursday." As we noted yesterday, the Biden-Harris campaign's Dark Brandon account posted a Tweet about Trump's odd shark/electric boat monologue. The follow-up from Dark Brandon also has to do with water, as chance would have it. This excerpt is from Trump's Philadelphia rally over the weekend:

  No water in your faucets. You ever try buying a new home and you turn on. You want to wash your hair or you wanna wash your hands. You turn on the water and it goes drip, drip the soap. You can't get it off your hand. So you keep it running for about 10 times longer. You trying, the worst is your hair. I have this beautiful luxuriant hair and I put stuff on. I put it in lather. I like lots of lather because I like it to come out extremely dry because it seems to be slightly thicker that way. And I lather up and then you turn on this crazy shower and the thing drip, drip and you say I'm gonna be here for 45 minutes. What? There's so much water. You don't know what to do with it. You know, it's called rain. It rains a lot in certain places. But, now their idea, you know, did you see the other day? They just, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they close it, washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don't want you to have any water. They want no water.

  This actually works pretty well if you read it with the cadence and voice of William Shatner. Otherwise, not so much. And just to keep things interesting, the Biden-Harris campaign posted the original clip, but they also posted a clip of the Fox "News" feed, where the channel cut away from the monologue about halfway through. There's no way to be certain why they cut away, but it certainly LOOKS like some director said: "He's embarrassing himself here; bail out!"
  
  If Trump can keep himself focused on Thursday, then his propensity to ramble won't matter too much. But if he drifts off, and starts sounding like an avant garde performance artist, well, the audience is being primed to pick up on it.
  
  
• VP: Joe Biden's running mate will be at the debate, obviously. And Trump says that he expects that his running mate will be there, too. This is just Trump channeling his inner P.T. Barnum (which, by the way, is an anagram for 'Ban Trump'). Nonetheless, if two of the three men on the supposed "finalists" list are shown on camera, and the third does not appear to be present, then expect much commentary on that point.
  
  
• Bingo: We made a slight error in yesterday's post, when we asked readers for suggestions for Bingo squares. We actually need the suggestions by tonight (Tuesday) at 11:59 p.m PT. If you have 'em, please send 'em to comments@electoral-vote.com.
  
  
• Where to Watch: We are finally satisfied that we have clarity on the broadcast situation. CNN agreed to make its broadcast feed available to any network, with the proviso that they have to retain the CNN logo in the corner. ABC, NBC, C-SPAN and Fox "News" have already agreed to the terms, so the debate will be broadcast on those four networks, as well as on all CNN properties. In addition, many local stations will carry the broadcast, and so too will many PBS stations. PBS is also going to stream the debate on their website and on YouTube; the YouTube link is here. CNN has posted its YouTube stream link; it is found here. And yesterday, of course, we gave the link to the C-SPAN stream.

That's the latest; surely there will be more tomorrow. (Z)