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Commentary on the third 2016 presidential debate
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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This page was current as of the 2016 election.
The columns below were authored by guest columnists and members of Ballotpedia's senior writing staff. The opinions and views belong to the authors.
To the end, Trump does it his way
October 20, 2016
By Karlyn Bowman
Karlyn Bowman, a widely respected analyst of public opinion, is a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
In the first Republican presidential primary debate on August 6, 2015, a Fox News moderator asked the 10 Republican candidates on the stage in Columbus, Ohio to raise their hands if they would refuse to pledge right then and there to support the eventual nominee of the GOP: Only Donald Trump raised his hand, and eruptions ensued among the other contenders.
Last night, the Fox News correspondent moderating the final 2016 general election presidential debate asked Trump if he would accept the result on November 8, to which he responded, “I will look at it at the time.”
Is what we saw last night vintage Trump? Is it the showman who likes to keep the audience in suspense? Is it someone who refuses to be pinned down? In the GOP primary debate, his comments roiled the ranks of the GOP contenders for weeks until he signed a loyalty pledge promulgated by the Republican National Committee. At a later point, several other candidates including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz said they shouldn’t have answered the question as it wasn’t appropriate, and they backed away from pledging to support the nominee. Bush has steadfastly refused to endorse Trump, while Cruz, after famously wavering on supporting Trump in his speech to the GOP convention in Cleveland, has come around.
Whether that first answer to the first debate question of the 2016 presidential election season in Columbus contributed to Trump’s eventual victory is a matter of conjecture. But last night’s response, and the attempts by his supporters in Las Vegas post-debate interviews to walk it back, didn’t help him. It’s the debate moment everyone is discussing. Yet Trump stuck to the comment.
We’ve seen it all before in this candidate who has carved his own path during this campaign (cue Frank Sinatra). But it looks more and more like that path is a very difficult one, in large measure because of the candidate’s self-inflicted wounds. The debate was serious and substantive, and we heard deep disagreement on issues from abortion to foreign policy. Clinton was well rehearsed and smooth. Trump was better prepared, and he got in a few zingers. I don’t think it moved the needle very much. Moderator Wallace was almost always in command, and he did a superb job. He had the best performance of the evening.
Being half prepped is little better than coming in completely cold
October 20, 2016
By David Kusnet
David Kusnet was chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton from 1992 through 1994. He is a principal and the senior writer at the Podesta Group, a government relations and public relations firm in Washington, D.C.
Donald Trump showed up unprepared for his first debate with Hillary Clinton, with predictable results.
Last night, he was partially prepared for their third and final debate, and the outcome demonstrated that being half-prepped can be little better than coming in completely cold.
Having finally submitted himself to rehearsals that included New Jersey Governor Chris Christie playing the part of Hillary Clinton—a scenario likely to launch several segments on Saturday Night Live—Trump was ready to debate most major issues. For the first 30 minutes or so, speaking in a modulated voice, Trump mostly held his own in exchanges about the Supreme Court, abortion, immigration and trade.
But that’s not what most voters, nor the traditional and social media, will remember from last night’s debate. Instead, the three takeaways will be Trump’s refusal to say that he will accept the outcome of the election and his throw-away remarks about “bad hombres” and the “nasty woman.” And Trump muddled his message at the worst possible moment, the third debate, when the candidates have already made their first impressions.
For anyone preparing for a high-profile adversarial event, there are two lessons: First, if you blurt out something outrageous, no one will remember anything else you say. Public speakers need to remember that you leave the audience thinking about the most shocking thing you say, not the lengthiest or most factually supported segment of your remarks. So make sure to ratchet-up your most important points and tone down or leave out anything else.
Second, preparation means being ready to respond to likely questions and counterpunches, not just memorizing your own talking points.
Trump should have been prepared for a question about whether he would respect the election results. If he wanted to offer a more nuanced response than an unconditional “yes,” he could have said that he would accept the outcome under ordinary circumstances, but not if there were close and contested results as in 2000.
As for his two other bloopers, both were unforced errors.
Trump talked about “bad hombres” while discussing the issue at the core of his campaign: immigration. His stream of consciousness last night: “...we have some bad, bad people in this country that have to go out. We’re going to that have to go out. We’re going to get them out; we’re going to secure the border. And once the border is secured, at a later date, we’ll make a determination as to the rest. But we have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get them out.”
Similarly, his interjection that Clinton is “such a nasty woman” came in response to a predictable point by his opponent that he would try to “get out of” the higher taxes that she would impose on wealthy Americans.
In short, Trump performed credibly for the first third of the debate but not at three pivotal—and predictable—moments. He has a pithy phrase for such a performer: “a choke artist.” His opponent knows how to prevent this: preparation.
See also
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential debate at the University of Nevada (October 19, 2016)
- Clinton prevails in final presidential debate
