Life as commander-in-chief is “in a kind of protected bubble,” says presidential debate historian Alan Schroeder. “It’s been four years of people saying ‘Mr. President,’” said one Democratic strategist.
Then comes the first debate of a re-election campaign — when the shock of face-to-face confrontation with a hungry opponent has for decades led presidents to lose or perform poorly in that first confrontation, casting doubt on their chances for a second term.
It’s a trend president Joe Biden will focus on cutting spending next week as he and the former president Donald Trump meet in Atlanta for their debate on CNN, while Trump will try to hit back at Biden like so many challengers before him.
In interviews, a half-dozen former campaign officials and debate experts outlined why so many establishment parties tend to stumble in early debates — and how they think Biden can avoid those pitfalls. As preparations for the debate intensified, a Biden campaign official cast doubt on the idea that the historical trend would apply to Biden, who has often had confrontations over Trump and strongly denounced him.
The official said the campaign could not imagine a world in which Biden expected respect from Trump on a debate stage.
In a statement, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said Trump would be ready for the debate, criticizing Biden’s preparations as being “programmed” for the showdown by advisers and saying Trump “does countless difficult interviews every week and standing and giving long speeches. ”
‘Uncomfortable’, ‘bewildered’, ’embarrassed’
President Jimmy Carter it was widely believed that he had played his first – and only – debate against it Ronald Reagan in 1980.
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan challenged voters on what became an issue damaging to Carter’s campaign.
Incumbents’ historically shaky first debate performances stem from having experienced respect in the Oval Office, experts say.
“Once the president is in office, especially after four years in office, they are in a kind of protected bubble where they don’t hear a lot of conflicting information,” said Schroeder, who has written a book on the history of presidential elections. debates.
An incumbent on the debate stage may require “some kind of transition that almost goes back to being a normal citizen,” he said.
Samuel Popkin, who played Reagan during Carter’s debate preparations, said, “Every president thinks, ‘I know how to run a presidential campaign because I won one a few years ago.’”
Popkin studied Reagan’s comments and wrote a memo on how to deflate his stories. But when it came to rehearsing a debate in which Popkin played Reagan, Carter felt “so uncomfortable” and “embarrassed,” Popkin said.
Popkin described the tense rehearsal in his book “The Candidate,” writing that Carter was “stunned” and that he suggested quitting after just eleven minutes of practice.
“The president looked lonely and vulnerable as he heard Reagan’s criticism in front of his wife, his closest friends and his inner circle,” Popkin wrote.
Four years later, Reagan was the sitting president to face criticism, with The New York Times reporting that his advisers discovered he was on the defensive.
Schroeder said, “Even Bill Clinton, who was a very good debater, his first debate against Bob Dole in 1996 as a sitting president was definitely not his finest moment.”
Former campaign officials emphasized the need for established parties to contrast with their challengers, rather than just defend their record.
“Typically, incumbents have the tougher job in some ways because they are defending the record of sitting presidents,” said Sara Fagen, who worked on President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
Voters thought Democratic candidate John Kerry won the first debate against Bush by about 2-1, according to a Pew Research Center poll.
In a survey question asking voters to use one word to describe the candidates’ performance, the top negative word for Bush was “defensive.”
“For most incumbent parties, you want the elections to be a choice, and not a referendum,” said Fagen.
President Barack Obama was confronted with a similar reckoning during his debate preparation in 2012.
“If it’s a referendum on the incumbent, the incumbent usually loses,” Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina told Obama. “If it’s a choice between the two candidates, you win.”
Messina said he instructed Obama to “not chase rabbits,” meaning not to resort to self-defense. He said Obama was on the defensive during several questions in his first debate in 2012 against Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
According to polls from CNN and Pew, about two-thirds of voters believed Romney outperformed Obama in the first debate.
Despite Obama’s preparation, he was “rusty,” Schroeder said. “He just seemed a little uncomfortable with the whole exercise.”
After the first debate, Messina said Obama was “much more focused.”
“The president canceled one of the last debate sessions before the first debate,” Messina said. “He certainly didn’t do that after the first debate.”
Messina recalled seeing a video of himself in the spin room with a “glow around me” after the second debate.
“I look like a 10-year-old boy who got free beer for the first time because I was so happy, because he had driven the choice story over and over again,” Messina said.
The Biden campaign also appears to be delving into the choice narrative, previewing Biden’s debate preparation by noting that he has become “increasingly sharp in recent comments about Trump and plans to carry that theme into the debate , while still projecting himself as the wise and steady leader in contrast to Trump’s chaos and division.”
Just a week before the first debate, the Biden campaign announced a $50 million advertising campaign, some of which will go toward TV spots contrasting the characters of Biden and Trump.
Commitment
Next month’s debate has a unique place in history, not just because of its unprecedented early date. It will be the first time that two candidates who have held the Oval Office will face each other. And it’s unclear how many debates will change voting preferences in November alone.
“Ultimately, it has been very difficult for anyone to demonstrate that performances in presidential debates have changed voters’ preferences,” said Lynn Vavreck, a professor of American politics and public policy at UCLA.
Fagen said voters are “already so entrenched” before November. She said this debate is “probably more important than more recent elections just because of the dynamics of the race,” pointing to the challenges of each candidate and the fact that both have held the presidency.
According to polls, Biden and Trump are neck and neck. There is also a large and ideologically diverse group of voters who dislike both candidates — but could still choose one of them in the fall.
Because the race is so close, a debate doesn’t have to move a large portion of the electorate to have a notable impact.
“When you get into situations where you’re talking about those few votes that are critical, anything can be critical,” Vavreck said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
