by Rick Wilson
Media training, speech training, debate training, and authentic presence are all vital. For the love of God, hire the best speechwriters money can buy—it’s infinitely worth it—but training is what makes a great television presence. Beto O’Rourke, who is seemingly nine feet tall and consists of one gesticulation after another—almost has it, but somehow he comes across as one Decemberists lyric reference short of parody. The nominee needs to practice, mindful that Trump’s natural instinct for the camera and his showmanship have been developed over decades. He is a creature of television. Even those with longtime exposure to the camera need to keep tuning up, and keep practicing. It’s a skill like any other.
Being able to post up against Trump visually is central to success. With his height, his absurd hair, his gigantic booty and belly, Trump stamps around the stage like an ogre. You, on the other hand, should look fit, perfectly dressed, and polished as hell. That’s what the audience wants and needs.
BIG TV MOMENTS MATTER
Campaigns usually come down to big television moments. (And no, kids, I’m not a Luddite; when I say “television” I’m agnostic on what kind of screen you watch it on.) The camera catches the hangdog Nixon versus the poised Kennedy. Ronald Reagan, prepped and sly, promises not to take advantage of his opponent’s youth and inexperience. Mike Dukakis blows a question on whether he’d want someone who raped his wife to face the death penalty. Bill Clinton, feeling the audience’s pain, connects with millions.
The Democratic nominee needs to connect with TV audiences on big nights like primary wins, clinching the nomination, and at the convention by framing the race as a choice between flawed good and perfect evil—otherwise, they’ll leave Trump to define the next episode of the reality show on his terms. The big moments matter; after all, about 65 percent of the electorate doesn’t even start paying attention until the last thirty days of the campaign. When they’re watching, the nominee has to deliver.
DEBATES
The most important forum for delivering the big moments is debates. Trump will work his hardest to intimidate, embarrass, and demean the Democratic candidate both before and during the debate. Hey, no pressure, but the whole election will come down to those moments. Let the bully win, and the campaign is over in an instant. Punch the bully, hard in the nose, and it’s a whole new ballgame.
Trump’s skill in the 2016 GOP debates was simple: They were politicians; he was a performer. They were driven by policy; he was driven by celebrity. They came with jokes written by speechwriters; he came to mercilessly destroy them.
RULES FOR DEBATING TRUMP
Trump will distort, mangle, and mischaracterize any real policy the Democrat brings to the debate floor. So don’t bring policy. If Trump is playing to the camera, and you’re playing to the New York Times opinion page and Woke Twitter, hang it up.
Physicality is an unappreciated element in presidential debates. The debate stage isn’t merely an ideological arena. It’s also an arena where Americans judge if you look the part and play it well. Anyone who fails in their physical presentation fails the test.
Trump, ever mindful of the staging and television picture that mediate politics for audiences, knows where every camera will be. He knows how to use his size as a visual marker. He quite deliberately stalked around the stage in his debates with Hillary Clinton, hovering behind her, mugging and japing in his apelike way. The Democratic candidate on that stage with Trump needs to be ready for his power moves.
We’ve seen a few examples of candidates trying to physically intimidate an opponent in the past. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore and Texas governor George W. Bush appeared in their October 17 presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis. As host Jim Lehrer asked Bush a question, Gore had three inches on W, and tried for a visual power play. He rose from his stool and took four strides toward the governor as Bush was in mid-answer.
The trick flopped. Instead of pulling back, Bush cocked his head, waited for a beat, nodded, and dismissed ManBearPig with a curt nod. I was standing offstage watching the moment, and it was perfect debate-fu, leaving Gore looking awkward and dorky. It was how you play the game when someone else is looming over you onstage, and Trump, with his massive throw weight, lifts, and four inches of hair fluff, comes across as a large presence on the stage. The Democratic candidate needs to be more ready than Hillary was in the 2016 debates.
If he gets too close, touch him. A hand rested on his arm should do it.
Interruptions and asides from Trump will be constant, as they were during the 2016 debates, and since he’s less in control of his faculties now, the Democrat needs to be ready to keep talking and not let Trump’s jibes take her off-agenda.
TWO ENTER, ONE LEAVES
In 2016 Trump left Republican candidates gasping on the mat after their battles with him. They had an inability to rapidly punch against him, fought him on the wrong grounds, and never showed righteous anger.
Jeb Bush, the most accomplished Florida governor in decades, raised a shitload of money and lost to Trump before the fight even got going. When Jeb would poke at Trump, Trump never blinked; he punched back and kept punching. Jeb would run through one zinger and be left with Trump talking. And talking. And talking.
Marco Rubio, once considered one of the most gifted rhetorical stars in the GOP, made one of the few power moves against Trump in the 2016 race when he punched Trump hard in the mouth with a cutting set of jokes about Trump’s nanoscale raccoon-paw hands. Marco’s consulting team panicked even though he had finally entered the actual arena where the campaign was being waged: a reality-TV show battle of disses and insults. They freaked out, imagining that the American people were crying out for dignity, stature, and probity when what they clearly rewarded was the knife-fighting, dick-joke politics of Trump. We’re a country that loves hair-pulling reality TV.
What was Marco’s mistake? He pulled back. He looked at the audience and blushed, ashamed that he was fighting for his own political life. Once he broke, Trump had him, forever.
Trump broke Ted Cruz mentally from the jump. Even when Ted finally got angry, he came across as impotent for not having brought the pain sooner. It was a manhood test, and Cruz failed.
What rule did we learn from this?
When you start hitting Trump, never, ever let up. Never blink, never blush, never pull back. Trump’s ego is delicate, his skin is thin. His boasting about his good looks, stamina, physical and sexual prowess, and intellect are of course laughable in the extreme. His sensitivity to having these called out remains a great psychological weapon in the 2020 battle…if the opposing candidate is strong enough to keep punching.
Your spouse will hate it. Your consultants will hate it. Your do-gooder friends will hate it. But in the words of my beloved and now-departed grandmother, “If you cut the hog, you better finish the job.”
No one in 2016 understood that once you cut the hog, you’re committed.
Trump fights dirty. There are no rules. There are no boundaries. You cannot make him feel regret, or shame, or embarrassment.
The only rhetorical tactic that will work on Trump is to hammer his ego and his personal narrative. Call him weak. Call him poor. Call him a failure. Call him fat. Call him impotent. Say he overpays for sex. Pity him for having to lie to make himself feel better. When he rolls into one of his attacks on you, take a beat and tell him he looks tired. Ask if he wants to rest or take a break. Point out that he’s sweating like an unrepentant sinner in church.
You already hate this. I get that. Hillary Clinton won on points in the debates of 2016. Trump was a boob during each of the GOP outings. It doesn’t matter. The voters were scoring these debates on the Trump Reality Show scale, not some polite speech-and-debate-club scale.
Most of the candidates for president on the Democratic side aren’t exactly rough-and-tumble barroom scrappers. I get that too. But whoever e
nds up as the nominee, you’d best get really tough, really fast when it comes to debating a man with no conscience and no sense of shame.
Fox News Election 2020 Special Alerts
JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO: Tonight, I’m deeply honored to have a once-in-a-lifetime special guest in the studio with me. I’m joined tonight by Ri Chun-hee. You know her as North Korea’s Pink Lady, the Songbird of Pyongyang.
RI (via translator): Thank you, Comrade. I bring fraternal greetings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the one True Korea, the rising sun, the scourge of the imperialist running dog Western degenerates.
PIRRO: For me, you represent what a real journalist looks like.
RI: I believe our audience shares my respect for the brotherly love between your Great Leader and our Great Leader.
PIRRO: Ri, you’re so right. Both men are strong…
RI: Masculine…
PIRRO: …Powerful
RI: Athletic…
PIRRO: Does Chairman Kim have the same powerful musk President Trump exudes?
RI (giggles)
PIRRO (husky): Desired by all women, envied by all men…
RI: I have but one regret.
PIRRO: I think it’s the same one I have…
RI: Yes. Sadly, we are both past the age where we could bear these men many sons, and populate the earth with a race of giants.
PIRRO: Ri, you are welcome here anytime.
RI: May I please take all the food from what you call the “Green Room”?
ASKING THE WRONG POLLING QUESTIONS
Democrats in 2020 will poll a hundred questions and probe a thousand models, variables, and regression analyses when it comes to determining their pathway against Trump. Yet there’s a high likelihood they’ll miss the most important set of questions to determine Trump’s actual strengths and weaknesses in the field.
Polling contains a known artifact called the “socially desirable response.” SDR, in the words of a noted pollster friend with almost forty years in the field, is what leads people “to lie their fucking asses off.”
If you ask a polling question like this, “Are you a racist who thinks people with other skin colors are genetically inferior to whites?” you’re going to get an affirmative response somewhere around 1 percent. Sadly (and, obviously, in the era of “both sides”), the true percentage who would answer yes if it weren’t for SDR is much, much higher.
SDR also works on positive questions: “Do you recycle?” “Do you donate to charity?” “Do you volunteer?” All yield positive responses in the 75 percent range, when the truth falls sadly short on all of those.
In 2020, SDR and its corollary “shy Tory” effect loom large. “Shy Tory” voters were afraid to say they were voting for Margaret Thatcher as prime minister, but vote for her they did. The Labour Party spent years trying to identify and woo them back.
Donald Trump is the ultimate socially undesirable candidate, particularly among soft- and leaning-Republican voters, male independents, and educated women.
There was an iceberg out there in 2016 that Hillary Clinton’s pollsters didn’t spot, and on Election Night the Democratic campaign ran into that iceberg when shy Trump voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan put Trump over the top in the Electoral College vote. Shy Trump voters weren’t secret Trump fanatics. They were shaky Trump voters who rationalized his candidacy, wincing as he talked of John McCain, pussy grabbing, and a host of other pathologies. They told themselves that judges and tax cuts would be worth it, that the behavior was just an act. They now rationalize his presidency the same way, telling themselves the corruption, criminality, and self-dealing are “just Trump being Trump.”
The Trump campaign will message to them—largely via digital advertising—in ways that portray Trump as a regular Republican who is getting things done. They might even wink and nod that Trump is “rough around the edges” or “not a politician” but that he’s the only one who could accomplish what those voters want.
There will be a secret polling battle, a midnight set of skirmishes to identify and target those voters. Democrats should hit them in that same invisible digital realm with a greatest hits of Trump’s outrages. As much as outright Trump voters are largely intractable, shy Trump voters are in play. But if you ignore them in favor of stoking the progressive base, they’re likely to drift back to Trump.
For shy Trump women voters, messages about his history of sexual assault, dalliances with porn stars, and pussy grabbing need another workout. Reminding them that their daughters will grow up in a world defined and shaped by Donald Trump’s values is a powerful message. These women voters were part of the swing away from the GOP in 2018, but their importance for 2020—particularly in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, Tampa, Orlando, Charlotte, and Atlanta—can’t be emphasized strongly enough.
Shy Trump voters have a corollary: the shy Dem voters. Democrats must ask themselves the right questions to examine these voters closely. The shy Warren or Biden or Harris or Buttigieg voters, driven from the GOP by Trump and Trumpism, aren’t wearing pink pussy-hats and demanding Medicare for All. They’re looking for an American who’s more normal than the extremes of Trump, but they’re not ready to greet Comrade Bernie when he steps off his sealed train from the Finland Station.
These shy Democrats fled the GOP because of Trump’s affect and actions, not because of ideology. They ran because they’re disgusted by rampant cruelty and Twitter dick-wagging. It’s a game of margins, where a few tens of thousands of votes in a few key counties in a few key states decide the election.
As for Never Trump Republicans, Democrats seem as lost as the GOP as to what to do with us. Often, we’re seen as dangerous saboteurs, particularly when we tell Democrats—as I’m doing in this book—how to beat the machine we helped build and run. Democrats often fear that asking for the political support of Never Trump Republicans will infect their party with some strain of dangerous moderation. Some Democrats don’t want us and are more concerned with relitigating old battles than in winning in 2020.
The Never Trump demo members are, by and large, educated, suburban, more affluent, and more politically engaged. They’re accustomed to voting. The outspoken few of us hear from other Republicans who live in terror of being exposed for having left—or never boarded—the Trump train. The right nominee who focuses his or her message as a referendum on Trump can and must win them.
These shy Democrats and Never Trump Republicans aren’t going to be easy to poll and identify in some cases, but given the importance of suburban votes in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, maybe—just this once—the Democrats should try to find a way to bring them into the fold of the 2020 coalition.
Fox News Election 2020 Special Alerts
SHEP SMITH: Good afternoon. It’s one month before Election Day, and the president has had a hell of a day. At a campaign stop in Orlando, Florida, President Trump brought a young woman from the audience onstage and…well, there’s a term you don’t hear much on cable news, but he dry-humped her onstage.
With us is Kevin Lackey, the 31st White House communications director.
Mr. Lackey, thank you for being with us. Today at a campaign rally, the President of the United States grabbed a female audience member and…
LACKEY: Shep, this is just more of the liberal fake news your communist network is famous for. The president did no such thing.
SMITH: Mr. Lackey, I’m going to stop you right there. There is live video, from this and other networks…
LACKEY: So you admit the conspiracy.
SMITH: …and we’re going to roll the tape.
(Trump, wild-eyed and gesticulating onstage, pulls a young woman out of the crowd. She’s blonde, gorgeous, and thin. Her MAGA shirt is clinging to her, and Trump leers. After a long whisper in her ear, he paw
s at her. With an arm wrapped around her waist, he drags her to the podium.)
TRUMP: “You’re done, Melania. I have found my next wife.”
(The President of the United States simulates a sex act with the woman.)
LACKEY: That’s fake, Shep. That video is obviously fake. That’s not him.
SHEP: No, Kevin, it’s him.
LACKEY: Fake News. Fake, fake, fakety fake.
SHEP: Mr. Lackey, my producers are telling me you’re taking my job now and I’m to leave the building. (Tearing off his IFB): This is Shep Smith, signing off. Fuck this noise. You can’t fire me. I quit.
MAGICAL THINKING
I have never met a group of people more inclined to magical thinking than Democratic operatives and politicians. If I had one skill in politics apart from my ability to recite huge blocks of Elizabethan poetry and rap lyrics, it’s that I tried to never fall in love with a speech, an ad, or a message or tactic for too long. I always did my best to follow the numbers, not just the art.
Magical thinking in campaigns is deadly. It’s dumb. It’s all too common. The coming election is a time to focus on the real world, and it’s not a pretty picture. Donald Trump takes advantage of human weakness like few other people in the world. He’s predatory, amoral, and a dark, shitty monster of a person. This chapter is meant to help you identify and face your weaknesses, and to cauterize your soul sufficiently so he doesn’t wreck your campaign.
