When Donald Trump debated Joe Biden in June in their one and only debate of this year’s presidential contest, the outcome was monumental. Biden’s very diminished state shone through clearly, leading to him being forced out of the race by people in his own party.
It is important to understand that Biden’s withdrawal did not follow alone from Trump winning the debate. Just about everyone expected that Trump would win the debate. The key additional issue was whether Biden would perform at a level that would indicate to voters that Biden is mentally and physically capable of completing the responsibilities that would come with being president of the United States for four additional years.
Biden spent ample time resting and preparing for the debate that was, as agreed to by Trump, before questioners sympathetic to Biden and conducted according to the rules the Biden campaign chose. Still, Biden failed to meet the very minimal display of competence that could have kept him in the race.
When Trump debates the Democratic Party take-two candidate Kamala Harris on Tuesday, Trump will again be expected to win. Quick intellect and coherent speech are not Harris’s forte. She is like the Washington Generals taking on the Harlem Globetrotters. She is destined to lose, but, if she can passably dribble, pass, and shoot to keep the performance interesting, she will have met her minimal performance requirement.
The pundits favoring Harris will analyze such results with this sort of commentary: “It was a foregone conclusion that Kamala Harris would not be able to match the showmanship and argumentative skills that Donald Trump has developed and employed in a long career in business, entertainment, and politics. But, that is not really important. The qualities that make a good president are not the same ones that ensure a win in a one hour televised debate. Harris, though not matching Trump in pizazz, did display in the debate her understanding of the issues, commitment to the American people, and determination to move forward as president with her policy agenda.”
This spin will be persuasive for many individuals inclined to consider voting for Harris. Indeed, the spin is largely true. The winner of a debate will tend to be the person who debates best, not the person who argues for the correct position. That is something that years back I saw demonstrated regularly in high school debate tournaments. To advance in a tournament, debaters won successive rounds where they argued sometimes in favor of and sometimes against the assigned resolution. The determinative factor was usually the relative skill of the debaters at impressing judges, not for which position each debater argued. It really was may the best debater — not the best position on the matter up for debate — win.
To temper Trump’s benefit from winning the upcoming debate, Harris just needs to perform at a middling level well above the low bar applicable to Biden a couple months back and well below the high bar for Hillary Clinton when Clinton debated Trump in the 2016 presidential race.
Should Harris do the nearly unimaginable and outshine Trump in the debate, a post-debate bounce in support for Harris should be expected. But, I doubt any of Harris’s advisors are trying to teach her to shoot, pass, and dribble like the Harlem Globetrotters. She doesn’t have that potential in her, and everyone knows it. Her best strategy is to try to cautiously soldier through in hopes of making the debate as inconsequential as possible.
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