The race between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is so close it’s easy to forget that, whatever side you’re on, these are not formidable candidates, to put it mildly.
At what might be their only debate tonight, we’ll get a glimpse of how unformidable they are.
Given the verbal blunders we’re likely to see, I can imagine that meme creators will have a field day picking out the most cringe moments to post on social media.
Let’s start with the serial loose cannon, Donald Trump. The Trumpster is highly overrated as a communicator. His blunders tend to overshadow any sharp moments. The man has no filter, so his bluster can easily get the best of him. That may work with diehard fans at a rally, but in a stiff studio setting facing the nation, it can easily lead to boneheaded miscues your rivals will use against you.
Trump tends to be sharper at the beginning of debates, as he showed in his July face-off with President Joe Biden. But any discipline he displays at the outset, as Noah Rothman writes in NRO, “soon dissolves into the fog of his own muddled thinking. Within a sentence or two, Trump retreats into the shorthand decipherable only to the MAGA faithful.”
Harris, for her part, is not immune to a fog of her own muddled thinking, but in her case, it’s more like flighty verbal adventures.
“When speaking extemporaneously,” Rothman notes, “[Harris] sets off in the directionless pursuit of a thought worthy of expression. The vice president so often sounds like a flighty, new-age, self-help guru because she has embarked on a journey of discovery, the ultimate destination being a cogent statement somewhere over the horizon.”
He notes her infamous response at the Democratic debate in 2019: “So part of how I believe we’re going to win this election is, it is going to be because we are focused on the future, we are focused on the challenges that are presented today and not trying to bring back yesterday to solve tomorrow.”
She was responding to the question: “How would you pay for that?”
Like I said, not formidable.
Debate handlers from both sides know all this, so I’m sure they’ve been sweating in preparations to try to minimize those blunderous bells that are impossible to unring.
What about policies, you ask? Of course they matter. Both candidates will spin and reframe and dissemble and exaggerate to convince us—and mostly undecided voters– that their policies are better and that any idea from their opponent will hurt the country.
But in a tense television format, when soundbites and appearances rule, it is not the policies but the optics that matter most.
Who looks more in command? Who looks more confident and poised? Who looks more credible? Who looks like they’ll make the better president?
One of the foibles of our modern debates is that you can do well for long stretches but one or two epic blunders that go viral can ruin your night. Of course that also works the other way: one sharp comeback can steal the show.
So yes, watching tonight’s debate is sure to be a nerve-wracking experience, especially for those who believe the future of our country is at stake.
Each side will tune in hoping for a great performance from their candidate, but knowing that, at any time, a cringe-inducing moment will only be a question away.
Enjoy the show.
