There is immense pressure on Donald Trump to use his third and final debate with Hillary Clinton to catapult himself back into contention, according to LifeZette’s Debate Squad of leading conservatives, debate experts, political scientists, and GOP consultants.
Trump, most of the squad agrees, has allowed himself to get mired in a constant melee over attacks on his personal character. The GOP nominee hasn’t regained control of the narrative of the campaign or been able to effectively communicate the choices faced by voters on the issues that really matter in November.
“In his final debate with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump must make his closing argument to voters and press for the change in direction Americans clearly want.”
Trump may have brought himself back from the brink of disaster in the last debate with a respectable showing, but the experts agree he needs an outsized performance Wednesday to change the momentum of the contest that’s been sliding toward Clinton.
Here is what LifeZette’s Debate Squad said to watch for in Wednesday night’s final Trump-Clinton encounter:
Dr. Ben Voth
Debate three in Las Vegas will be the first time Fox News will field a moderator for a presidential debate. The moderator could be important, since Chris Wallace promised not to fact check the debaters. Wallace did have an aggressive interview against Mike Pence after his debate that may take the edge off perceptions that he will go easy on Donald Trump. The topic areas have been announced but it is unlikely that Wallace has intentionally shared the questions with the Clinton campaign. Considerable evidence has surfaced recently that in a primary debate and a town hall with Matt Lauer, Clinton received questions in advance.
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As is often the case with final debates, the person in the lead typically tries to sit on that reality and refrain from aggressive moves. This means Hillary Clinton will likely continue to take a relatively passive style into the debate and look for Trump’s aggressive remarks to be scored as sexism or imprudence. Trump will do well to take advantage of a relatively unfiltered opportunity to speak to somewhere between 30 million and 60 million voters without distortion. He should probably make salient the five most important accusations of the Clinton campaign stemming from the WikiLeaks email releases and the O’Keefe videos.
Both sides will need to motivate the base and begin shifting away from a preoccupation with changing minds and instead assure that their partisans show up for the task of voting. Trump may try to field a softer tone in order to break down the gender gap between himself and Hillary. That is a tough route since he also needs to be aggressive to upset a widely perceived lead in the polls for Hillary Clinton roughly three weeks before Election Day.
Dr. Ben Voth is director of debate and an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.
Heather Richardson Higgins
This last debate is Trump’s opportunity to salvage his standing with needed independents and women. Trump must be strong and humble and always throw in a few funny zingers.
He must say that he is not perfect, has made mistakes in his life for which he is sorry, and he must ask for the chance to work for us, because this is the last opportunity to take our country back. He must say he knows how to win and that it’s time all Americans, but especially those who have struggled and been left behind, get the chance for success they deserve.
He has a proven track record of setting goals, often against great odds, and achieving them; she has 30 years as a politician with little to show for it except her own piggy bank.
So expect this debate to have three themes: Liar, Corrupt, and Disrespect.
Liar: Per WikiLeaks, Crooked Hillary in her own words is even more a liar than painted. Whether global trade policy, the destruction of the Catholic Church in America, open borders, or her private and public positions — Trump should hammer her on each.
When a smiling Hillary invokes fact checkers, Trump will say: We don’t need them, we have WikiLeaks.
Corrupt: FBI, IRS, DNC, Media collusion, State Department access, bribes packaged as speaking fees, foundation contributions, and a foundation that claims transparency now shown as having dubious charity — and she did all this without being president.
Disrespect: Trump will say he will put American women first, unlike Hillary who has and will put global powers, powerful unions, and special interests ahead of American women.
Trump will show that he respects women by telling them the truth about the status of our country and by supporting policies that will help all women like more high paying jobs, good affordable health care (expect a lot about Obamacare), safe neighborhoods, child care, safety against terrorism, and outstanding education.
Heather Richardson Higgins is president and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice.
Jenny Beth Martin
In his final debate with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump must make his closing argument to voters and press for the change in direction Americans clearly want. According to the latest RealClearPolitics average, Americans want a change in the direction of the country by a nearly 36-point spread! More than 64 percent of Americans think we are on the wrong track and want a course correction.
Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye for more than 20 years. She was elected to the Senate in 2000 after eight years in the White House as first lady. Most recently, she served as President Obama’s secretary of state for his first term, during which time she flouted State Department protocol and rules by exclusively using a non-secure personal Blackberry for all of her official communications, and she routinely engaged in improper behavior that leaves the perception she was selling access to the State Department in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.
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She is the perfect embodiment of the Washington Establishment and we do not have to guess what she will do — because she will do what the Establishment always does (and what she has done for decades): take more of your hard-earned money and spend it to enlarge government, enrich her cronies, and take more power over your daily life. Donald Trump will bring something different — a fresh perspective from a businessman who has never been a professional politician.
At the end of the day, people are either satisfied with their government and the status quo, or they are not. Donald Trump needs to relentlessly make the case that Hillary Clinton will deliver more of the same, while he will bring sweeping change. He’ll have more than 64 percent of Americans on his side if he can make that case.
Jenny Beth Martin is chairman of Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, the super PAC associated with the largest national Tea Party group in the country.
Grover Norquist
Trump has a choice.
He can speak to his “base,” voters who intend to vote for him, or he can speak to those who are not yet willing to vote for him.
How he answers that question will determine whether or not he wins the election.
Talking to his base is a waste of time. If you do everything right the minority of voters now committed to Trump will vote for Trump and he loses.
Talking directly to undecided but persuadable voters can win the election.
Hillary wants to raise their taxes, spend the nation further into debt, and supports the Obama/Clinton war on those who work in the energy industry.
Hillary has looked at 8 years of slow (2%) growth, half of the Reagan growth rate of 4% and plans to continue all the policies that made us poorer.
Trump has proposed a tax reduction plan that would create millions of jobs. He is committed to reducing job killing regulations.
Trump supports education reform, charter schools, homeschooling and parental choice. Hillary is limited to continuing the status quo in education. The teachers unions demand more of the same.
Calm. Full sentences. Complete thoughts. Remember you are running against Hillary Clinton: not Paul Ryan. Don’t take the bait and chase after insults from Hillary or “moderators.” Do not expect fair from the media. Do not expect honesty from Clinton. Talk to America.
Make it count.
Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Robert G. Kaufman
In his autobiography, Mark Twain quotes the humorist Edgar Wilson who said of Wagner’s music, it “is better than it sounds.” That adage goes as well for Donald Trump, who is a terrible but still less bad alternative than Hillary Clinton — even for Reagan conservatives legitimately appalled by Trump’s boorishness, vanity, and flirtation with feckless isolationism, which is the antithesis of Reagan’s robust internationalism. A Clinton presidency would amount to a veritable third term of an Obama administration, transforming the United States into some flaccid version of a European social democracy — with the state growing relentlessly, the economy stagnating perpetually, American power shrinking precipitously, and our enemies in vital regions emboldened dangerously.
Granted, Trump speaks dangerous nonsense when he dismisses the value of allies such as Japan and South Korea, or expresses admiration for Putin — an implacable adversary playing a weak hand in trying to recreate some version of an authoritarian empire across Eastern and Central Europe. Nor is there any legitimate excuse for his revolting comments about women or imputation of collective guilt to his benighted groups rather than judging each individual by the content of their character in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
As the Rolling Stones observed sagely, however, you cannot always get what you want. Donald Trump is indeed very crooked timber who nevertheless would at least rebuild the American military; thus we would not start from ground zero when events abroad demonstrate to the next president inevitably and rudely that the United States must act as the world’s default power or else magnify gathering dangers and chaos. Conversely, Hillary Clinton would preside over America’s military and economic decline, slashing defense spending and lowering the barriers everywhere to continuing Obama’s assault on American power. Donald Trump would stimulate economic growth, cutting taxes and regulation. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, would stifle growth and innovation, raising taxes and feasting voraciously on Obama’s entitlement state that we can neither economically nor morally sustain.
Though not certain — nothing is with Trump — he may well appoint judges in the late Antonin Scalia’s mold who interpret the Constitution as those who ratified its provisions understood it. Clinton by contrast would ensure the Supreme Court would ratify her statist agenda treating the Constitution as a “living document” as progressives understand the meaning of ‘progress’ — culminating in a Nanny State.
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Yet Trump continues self-destructively to make the worst case for himself. Instead of focusing on what a Clinton presidency would mean for America; instead of focusing on his alternative policies for making American great again — he has played right into Clinton’s hands. She has successfully baited him into endless and counterproductive exchanges over the serial accusations about his behavior toward women — her only plausible strategy for avoiding a serious debate on her dreadful record domestically and internationally. Instead of making a clear, cogent case why a Clinton presidency marinating in corruption would weaken America and leave the next generation of Americans with a bleaker future than this one, Trump trades in conspiracy theories accusing his opponents of rigging the election, with the Falstaff-like Newt Gingrich playing his wormwood bringing out the worst in Trump’s nature.
The final debate offers Trump one last, best plausible hope of reversing his barrage of self-inflicted wounds and unforced errors that now make Clinton the favorite to win an election she should surely lose on the merits. A favorable outcome for Trump will require him, however, to stop doing what he is doing now. Ignore taunts about his female accusers. Let Clinton’s rampant corruption speak for itself. Express humility and gratitude about what America has afforded him. Make a sustained, compelling case why a Clinton presidency would imperil the American dream and metastasize the growing dangers abroad.
Trump should take a page out of Ronald Reagan’s playbook. Begin and end the debate by asking the voters whether the United States is better off than it was eight years ago. Take the log out of his eye before blaming his predicament on conspiracies to rig the outcome of the election. Explain how and why a Trump presidency will restore American prosperity, power, and prestige.
Trump must sound better than he has sounded to make the most of this debate. Otherwise, he will squander rather than salvage this election.
Robert G. Kaufman is a professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and author of “Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America.”
Ron Bonjean
Trump has to knock it out of the park during this debate or else he has little chance of grabbing a national audience of that magnitude again. He has to focus on the problems Americans are facing and the failures of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton to address them. He also has the opportunity to go on the offense against Clinton regarding the latest round of WikiLeaks emails that show her positions to be duplicitous. If Trump focuses on the election being rigged, attacks Speaker Paul Ryan, and continues to dominate the conversation on whether his actions were inappropriate to women, he will set a permanent course over the next three weeks to lose. This is Trump’s last chance to redirect his campaign to a closing chapter that focuses on the issues and that they believe he has the capacity to help them.
Ron Bonjean is a partner of the public affairs firm Rokk Solutions. He remains the first person to serve as the lead spokesman in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He has served as a strategist for the Republican National Committee in numerous senior communications roles for high-ranking officials.
Eddie Zipperer
For Trump, this is the most important night of the campaign. It very well may be the night that decides the election. He’s down in most polls, but he has upward momentum. He must make the debate about issues.
The zeitgeist has changed. Americans are sick and tired of the nastiness of this election. Trump needs to be the bigger person. Hillary Clinton can’t be the bigger person. It’s impossible. Because if she doesn’t attack Trump, she loses.
Trump’s temperament is the only issue she ever wins on — she has to operate is if nothing else were important. Because it is the only issue she wins on. Economy, trade, ISIS, jobs, border — she loses. He must refuse to deviate from the issues Americans care about.
He needs to talk about his love of country. He needs to show humility. He needs to make sure Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan voters know who will bring back their jobs. And he needs to pound his newest “drain the swamp” policies, which voters are very excited about.
Eddie Zipperer is assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College and a regular LifeZette contributor.
Brian Darling
This debate is Donald Trump’s last chance to speak unfiltered to tens of millions of voters. He needs to make the debate about Hillary’s abysmal record and lack of honesty to the American people.
Trump needs to hammer Clinton about recent email disclosures, and the new Project Veritas video that exposes Clinton to some serious ethical — and potentially legal — problems.
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Leaked emails indicate that Hillary would like Obamacare to collapse to lead America into a wholly government-centered single-payer system. Americans are angry that they are paying more for less and the promise of “affordable care” was a lie. Hillary’s solution would encourage even more government inefficiency and substandard health care.
Clinton Foundation corruption needs to be front and center. Uncovered emails indicate that Clinton Foundation donors were given massive State Department contracts after a 2011 earthquake and the Foundation may have been a pay-to-play enterprise.
Exposing Hillary’s lack of honesty has to be part of Trump’s debate strategy. Leaked emails indicate that Hillary takes one position in public and one in private, throwing her whole agenda into question.
The pathway to a debate victory is to focus on the failure of the Obama/Clinton record and Clinton’s many ethical problems.
Brian Darling is a former senior communications director and counsel for Sen. Rand Paul. Follow him on Twitter @BrianHDarling.
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