Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
A good way to tell if someone is analyzing things in a detached and rational way, or projecting their preference onto other measures, is to ask them to acknowledge the relative strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. What would you say that Trump's weaknesses are, in the debate? What would you say that Hillary's strengths are?
I'll do the reverse in good faith. Trump's strengths are that he's an accomplished showman; that he can read a crowd very well and knows when to stay on course and when to go off course to maximize the energy level; that he's tapping in to a very real vein of anger using time-tested techniques to harness the anger; that he has virtually no record on major policy issues and so can't be pinned down (see the failure of attacks against his shifting position on Iraq to work--this is also an advantage Obama had against Clinton in 2008); and that he does not seem constrained by any of the conventional limits on decorum because winning is more important to him than playing by the rules.
Hillary's weaknesses are less obvious in a debate setting than a campaign settings. She is very meat and potatoes, she doesn't have a soaring inspirational inflection or tone or cadence, she has a pretty flat affect. In a debate, these matter a little less because of the format, but she rarely has excited and engaged rallies the way very charismatic candidates do. She has weaknesses in her record, in that it's easy to imagine a time-limited event distracting her into having to deal with Clinton Foundation, emails, Benghazi, "deplorables", or worse, personal baggage from her marriage. My sense is that debate prep would have focused on this. She also fights the broad perception that an angry woman comes off as shrill while an angry man comes off as passionate; so it is easy to imagine that if she's backed into a corner the wrong way that she comes off poorly.
I don't expect a floor-cleaning in the debates. I expect Trump to calm down a little bit from his stump approach. I expect the reviews to be "Trump was still Trump, but he's maybe showing some signs of growth" and "Hillary showed again that she's a serious thinker, but is that enough to convince people to vote for her" or "Hillary demonstrated why Trump is such a risk, but did she do enough to build a case for herself?" I see the worst case scenario for Trump to be an unexpected verbal slip, or a fact-check moment. I see the worst case for Hillary being pinned into one of her pain points and not being able to get back to issues.
The format of the debates is such that typically you want about 3-5 points on each question. An ideal answer does this: 1) What is my philosophical approach? 2) What is a concrete policy I have? 3) What is a fact or statistic I know? 4) What is a story I have? 5) Who are the people who agree with me?. Some answers are shorter, some longer. Mostly if it's a question on your weak points, you're not going to change anyone's mind, so the focus is mostly on mitigating damage and making sure that's not the moment people are talking about. Debates aren't really the period of time where the ownage and grand visions come out. They are pretty procedural, boring, and just about not screwing up.
Historically, Hillary has been a much better debater than a speech-giver (Obama was the reverse). I'd argue Trump has been a better speech-giver than a debater, although he held his own fairly well in most of the Republican debates. Of course, he never got to have the 1-on-1 experience, so there's some question as to whether he's equipped for that.
