Life as commander in chief is “in a kind of protected bubble,” says Alan Schroeder, a historian of the presidential debate. “That’s 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 a personal confrontation with a hungry opponent has led presidents for decades to lose or perform poorly in that initial confrontation, casting doubt on their chances of a second term.
It’s a trend President Joe Biden will focus on stopping next week when he and former President Donald Trump meet in Atlanta for a debate on CNN, while Trump will try to take down Biden like so many challengers before him.
In interviews, a half-dozen former campaign staffers and debate experts described why so many incumbents tended to stumble in the first debates — and how they think Biden can avoid those pitfalls. As preparations for the debate intensify, a Biden campaign official cast doubt on the idea that the historical trend would apply to Biden, who has often been confrontational about Trump and forcibly denounced him.
The official said the campaign could not imagine a world where Biden expected deference from Trump on the 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 confrontation by advisers and saying Trump does “numerous difficult interviews every week and does long standing rally speeches.” ”
‘Uncomfortable’, ‘perplexed’, ’embarrassed’
President Jimmy Carter was widely considered to have failed in his first – and only – debate against Ronald Reagan in 1980.
“Are you better than you were four years ago?” Reagan challenged voters on what became a damaging issue for Carter’s campaign.
The incumbents’ historically difficult debate performances stem from the fact that they experienced deference in the Oval Office, experts said.
“When the president takes office, and 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 wrote a book on the history of the presidency. debates.
An incumbent on the debate stage might require “a kind of transition almost 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 with Popkin as Reagan, Carter “was so uncomfortable” and “embarrassed,” Popkin said.
Popkin described the tense rehearsal in his book, “The Candidate,” writing that Carter was “perplexed” and that he suggested they stop after just 11 minutes of practice.
“The president seemed lonely and vulnerable as he listened to Reagan’s criticism in front of his wife, his closest friends, and his inner circle,” Popkin wrote.
Four years later, Reagan was the incumbent facing criticism, with The New York Times reporting that his advisers discovered he was at theIt is indefensive.
Schroeder said, “Even Bill Clinton, who was a really good debater, his first debate against Bob Dole in 1996 as a sitting president was not his finest hour, not by a long shot.”
Former campaign officials emphasized the need for incumbents to draw contrasts with their opponents rather than just defending their records.
“Typically, incumbents, in some ways, have the hardest job because they’re defending the record,” 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 to 1, according to a Bank research Center survey.
In a pollquestion asking voters to use one word to describe the candidates’ performance, the top negative word for Bush was “defensive.”
“For most incumbents, what they want is for the election to be a choice, not a referendum,” Fagen said.
President Barack Obama faced a similar reckoning during the lead-up to the 2012 debate.
“If it’s a referendum on the incumbent, the incumbent usually loses,” Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina told Obama. “If it’s a choice between the two candidates, you will win.”
Messina said he instructed Obama “not to chase rabbits,” that is, not to fall into holes in self-defense. He said Obama became defensive during several questions in his first 2012 debate against Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
About two-thirds of voters thought Romney bested Obama in the first debate, according to CNN It is Bank researches.
Despite Obama’s preparation, he “was rusty,” Schroeder said. “He seemed a little uncomfortable with all the 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 definitely didn’t do that after the first debate.”
Messina remembers seeing a video of himself in the rotation room after the second debate with a “glow over me.”
“I look like a 10-year-old boy who just got free beer for the first time because he was so happy, because he had driven the choice narrative over and over,” Messina said.
The Biden campaign also appears to be delving deeper into the pick narrative in anticipation of Biden’s debate prep, noting that he has “become increasingly blunt in recent remarks about Trump and plans to bring this issue into the debate, while also still projects himself as the wise and constant 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 commercials that contrast Biden and Trump’s characters.
The bets
Next month’s debate occupies a unique place in history, not least because of its unprecedented start date. It will be the first time that two candidates who have occupied the Oval Office will face each other. And it’s unclear to what extent the debates alone change voting preferences in November.
“Ultimately, it has been very difficult for anyone to demonstrate that performance in the presidential debates changed voter preferences,” said Lynn Vavreck, a professor of American politics and public policy at UCLA.
Fagen said voters before November “are already very entrenched.” She said this debate “is probably more important than the most recent elections, just because of the dynamics of the race,” pointing to each candidate’s challenges and the fact that they both held the presidency.
Biden and Trump are neck and neck, according to polls. There is also a large, ideologically diverse group of voters who dislike both candidates – but who may still choose one of them in the fall.
The proximity of the race means that a debate does not need to displace a large part of the electorate to have a notable impact.
“When you get into situations where you say a few votes are crucial, anything can be crucial,” Vavreck said.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
