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By Britt Nelson
By most accounts vice-presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence came across to voters better than Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine in their first and only nationally televised debate Tuesday. Coming up on Sunday evening in St. Louis will be the second debate between presidential candidates Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Kaine came across as arrogant, rude and downright mean as he interrupted Pence dozens and dozens of times with little or no moderator intervention. Pence maintained his cool and answered the questions. He appeared more professional and rarely interrupted Kaine, who pounded Pence over Trump not releasing his past tax forms. Pence fired back that most voters don’t care about Trump’s taxes, what they care about is the condition of the country. And so it went with neither Pence nor Kaine scoring anything near a knockout punch.
But on Sunday all bets are off. Trump needs to come on strong and for 90 minutes stay focused and pummel Clinton on her many, many past scandals, email lies, the FBI and immunity from prosecution deals, her treatment of the women who became involved sexually with her husband while he was governor and then president, her vote on the Iraq war and her silly claim of coming under sniper fire in a foreign land, etc, etc.
Clinton, meanwhile, needs to work on her past successes with baiting Trump and derailing him about his taxes, his worldwide business dealings, his social media tweets and his past wives. There is a big difference between Trump’s negatives compared to Clinton’s.
In their first debate Trump made a few mistakes. He was baited by Clinton and he responded defensively and he interrupted Clinton inappropriately. The moderator, Lester Holt with NBC News, interjected himself into the conversation at times when he should not have and he appeared bias toward Clinton. Trump got too defensive of Clinton’s verbal attacks plus he was fighting the moderator, too. But it was Trump’s first appearance on the world’s biggest political stage — not Clinton’s — she’s been there before.
As of Thursday, Clinton maintains a lead of 3.2 percentage points over Trump in a 4-way matchup with Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, according to Real Clear Politics poll averaging.
The third and final debate will be Oct. 19 in Las Vegas. Then what?
The Clinton campaign will go into hyper-mode organizing and motivating their fellow Democrats and anyone else to show up on Nov. 8 to vote for Clinton and all the other Democrats running for federal, state and local offices.
The Trump campaign needs to do exactly the same things with Republicans and attract new voters. Both campaigns will be spending record amounts in negative advertising that frankly the public gets tired of seeing repeated over and over for weeks on end.
After Oct. 19 — but before Nov. 8 — Trump needs to do something unprecedented, bold and undeniable — beyond the debates, bigger than the debates and out of reach from media bias. Trump needs to address the nation, the world and voters at home and abroad in a surprise ambush that gets everyone’s attention from Russia’s Putin to North Korea to Mexico and Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.
The Trump campaign needs to purchase an unprecedented 1-hour time slot at 8 pm during prime-time on mainstream media NBC, CBS and ABC pre-empting regular programming with a simulcast on national TV to highlight Trump’s plans for ‘making America great again’ and safe, getting America back to work and improving inner cities. This would be a paid advertisement similar to an ‘infomercial,’ but all Trump. The TV networks would have no say, no censorship or moderator bias.
Trump needs to make his case against Clinton. The debates won’t do it. Clinton is too protected. It could be the single biggest media buy of all time, but so what? Make the major networks an offer they cannot refuse. It’s all about money at this point and public opinion.
No distractions, no debate baiting, no Clinton barking at Trump, no microphone problems, no biased moderator taking alleged hand signals from Clinton….none of it.
All the voters would get one pure hour of Trump giving his policy statements on illegal immigration, the wall, tax reductions, health care, gay rights, the 2nd Amendment, rebuilding the military and support for local law enforcement. Show off his endorsements from military Congressional Medal of Honor winners, former President Bush staffers and cabinet members, various law enforcement agencies and police unions from coast to coast.
Detail Clinton’s massive list of lies, controversies and investigations from the past 30 plus years. Detail the FBI’s and the U.S. Department of Justice’s protection of Clinton from criminal prosecution and five members of her staff receiving immunity from prosecution deals.
Let it all hang out. Imagine live from the interior of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, or at the Iwo Jima Memorial statue or the Vietnam Wall or the World War II Memorial – or all of them in a montage of Donald Trump’s vision for America. Mr. Trump, go bold or go home.
About the Author
Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.
Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.
