THE PRESIDENTIAL #DEBATES2020 WRAP-UP - COMMPRO

The Presidential #Debates2020
Wrap-Up

(Author’s Note: This is the12th in a series of political
articles for CommPro.biz that I’ll be writing leading up to
Election Day. FYI –My first job with a PR firm was at a
political one, where I worked on local, state and presidential
elections).

Arthur Solomon

Instead of giving my analysis of each debate in separate
columns, I decided to write one- wrap-up column, in which I
would analyze each of the three presidential debates, and the
single vice – presidential one. Because of the president’s
Covid-19 illness, the second debate was canceled when
President Trump and former Vice President Biden differed on
the format of it, Trump wanting to stick to the original
debate format and Biden agreeing to a virtual debate because
of the president’s Covid condition.

A major problem with the way the debates are structured was

evident early in the first debate, in my opinion. It was the
debate organizer’s position that it is not the job of the
moderator to immediately correct lies, because there will be
plenty of time after the debate to do that. The problem with
that scenario is that once a lie goes unchecked many viewers
will believe it to be truthful. Even if the opposition
candidate points out that it’s a lie, many viewers will still
believe the one they support. Also, many viewers will not
stick around for the after debate analysis, and many who do,
believe that what Trump and Biden supporters say is nothing
but untruthful spin.

Debate # 1 on September 29:
In my opinion, the most important subject of Debate # 1 was
how the president’s remarks about not assuring the nation of a
peaceful transfer of power would be handled by moderator Chris
Wallace, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe
Biden. Other important issues were:

     Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, and other health
     issues, and
     The Supreme Court vacancy, and
     The president’s portrayal of Biden as a feeble old man
     with a mental problem.

Immediately after the debate, some TV pundits said it was a
disgrace, mainly because of Trump’s behavior. Nevertheless,
questions were asked and questions were either answered or
not. So there has to be a winner.

Now for my analysis:

Trump handed Biden two pleasant surprises prior to the debate
by 1) nominating for the Supreme Court a jurist who has spoken
ill (pun intended) about the Affordable Care Act and Roe
v.Wade, which polls have shown the majority of voters want to
keep, when he could have waited until after the election to

nominate her. And 2) for many weeks portraying Biden as a
dithering old man in mental decline. (In tennis vernacular,
these were unforced errors by Trump.)

How did Trump, Biden and Wallace perform?

Going into the debate Biden only had to maintain his polling
leads. Trump had a much more difficult route. He had to change
the opinions of voters who have said they will vote for Biden.
The president failed to do that. Polling revealed that there
was a significant Biden bump after the debate. Biden not only
deflected personal attacks by Trump, but demonstrated that he
can go toe-to-toe with Trump, had the ability to trade insults
and was not afraid to call the president a liar.

Trump:

Unlike many past debates, where the president is the favorite
going into a debate, Trump has been trailing Biden in national
and most state polls for many weeks. All of his attacks on
Biden have thus far not moved the needle in his direction.

Prior to the debate, Trump said that Biden was in mental
decline and shortly prior to the debate said that the former
veep had to resort to injections to give him the energy to
make a speech. Trump’s attacks on Biden’s mental agility have
been his major strategy for many months. But, thus far, they
have failed. Also failing was his defense of how he’s handling
the coronavirus and the New York Times release of his tax
returns that showed him paying little taxes and as an
incompetent businessman. He had to convince the public that
the negative stories are Fake News.

How did he do?

Trump’s strategy was obvious from the start: Try to provoke
Biden into making mistakes and losing his cool. He failed in
doing that. Trump also played his Fake News card and accused
moderator Chris Wallace of being against him. Throughout the

debate he acted like a bully, made personal attacks against
Biden’s children and told lies. As he did in his almost daily
sessions with White House reporters prior to becoming ill,
Trump ducked specific questions about subjects he didn’t like.
It was a mirror performance of his 2015 primary debates,
during which he insulted his GOP rivals and his debates with
Hillary Clinton in 2016, during which he lied and attempted to
intimidate her. On September 29, 2020, those tactics were old
hat and did not work. Perhaps the most succinct summary of the
debate was one sentence in a Wall Street Journal editorial on
September 30: The president interrupted the former vice-
president so frequently that he wouldn’t let Biden talk long
enough to make a mistake. A close runner-up was the New York
Times, which said that Trump’s performance was a verbal copy
of his twitter comments.

Biden:

The former vice president’s main objective was to continue to
convince voters that he is mentally fit to be president and
that Trump is unfit. But he also had the opportunity to gain
undecided voters by showing that he could factually counter
Trump’s misrepresentations and lies; that Trump is a charlatan
and tax evader; that Trump has divided the country and has
endangered it by antagonizing U.S. foreign allies; that Trump
has continually disregarded the Constitution and has displayed
totalitarian instincts; that re-electing the president would
cause millions of Americans to lose their health care and Roe
v. Wade protection and that the president’s mishandling of the
coronavirus has thus far resulted in more than 200,000 deaths,
and climbing.

How did he do?

He did just fine. Despite not being able to complete a
sentence before being interrupted by the president, Biden was
able to make his points and did not get rattled by Trump’s
insults, as the president had hoped. Importantly, when Biden

was making his points, he spoke directly to the viewing
audience by asking them, “How does this personally affect
you”? A very effective strategy.

Wallace:

He had to demonstrate that he can control the candidates; make
sure that they didn’t talk around his questions; that his
questions were not lollypops and that he showed no favoritism.

How did he do?

As best he tried, he was unable to control Trump from not
following the debate rules. Several times, Wallace had to
admonish Trump for not letting Biden complete a sentence and
for trashing the debate rules that were agreed to. However, by
permitting Trump to lie without correcting him, he acted more
like a football or basketball referee “who lets the players
play,” despite rules being broken, in this case permitting
outright misinformation and lies to go unchecked. I found this
disappointing from television’s premier interviewer. For doing
this, I give him a C-plus.

The Winner:

On both substance and decency Biden was the clear winner. Any
but the most rabid Trump supporters have to admit that the
president acted like a bully, made personal attacks against
Biden, lied and degraded the office of the president. But what
matters more than what any pundit says is what the viewers of
the debate said: Biden’s campaign raised more than $21.5
million on September 30, the single best fundraising day for
the campaign so far. The viewers obviously agreed with me that
Biden was the clear winner.

Debate # 2 on October 15
Canceled because it was switched to a virtual debate by
organizers because of coronavirus concerns and the president

rejecting the change in format, even though it was his being
infected with Covid-19 that was the cause of the revision.

Debate # 3 on October 22
In my opinion, because of the increasing Covid-19 cases
throughout the U.S. there were many side issues, but only one
main dish:

     Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, and other health
     issues.
     A side issue: Would Biden make an egregious mistake.

Now for my analysis:

Going into the debate Biden only had to maintain his polling
leads. Trump had a much more difficult route. He had to change
the opinions of voters who have said they will vote for Biden.
The president failed to do that in their first debate. Polling
revealed that there was a significant Biden bump after their
first debate, with the former vice-president’s national
polling lead increasing to 14 points, according to an NBC and
Wall Street Journal poll. Biden leads the president, 53% to
39%, among registered voters in the poll, which was conducted
in the two days following the debate. Biden held an eight
point lead in a poll prior to the debate. Going into the
October 22 debate, 538 said,     according to national polls,
Biden leads Trump by an average of 9.9 percentage points. This
was Trump’s last opportunity to go toe-to-toe with Biden
before a massive TV audience before Election Day. But instead
of attempting to put Biden on the defensive in the days
leading up to the debate, Trump played his “woe is me, no one
treats me fairly” routine, first attacking Dr. Faucci, then
Leslie Stahl, who interviewed him for 60 Minutes, and Kristen
Welker, the debate moderator, for several days prior to the
debate.

How did Trump, Biden and Welker perform?

Trump:

Trump acted much calmer than he did in the first debate, when
his performance was that of an individual in need of many
tranquillizers. So instead of him appearing as an obnoxious,
bullying liar, what we saw was a calmer fabulist, according to
fact checkers. “From a lying perspective, Trump is even worse
tonight than in the first debate, an absolute avalanche of
lying,” said CNN’s fact checker Daniel Dale. Throughout the
debate Trump acted as if he was running against Bernie Sanders
and other Democrats instead of Joe Biden. On the most
important issue of the debate – Covid-19 and health care, the
president kept insisting that the country must open up, said
that we are rounding the corner and faulted China and the
Democratic governors for not being able to control the spread
of the coronavirus. The CNN fact checker said that Trump, in
this debate, and in the past, keeps attributing to Dr. Faucci
statements that the doctor never made. Trump also could not
give specifics of his health plan, except to say that it would
be better than the Affordable Care Act, which he wants to
terminate. The president also continually attacked the entire
Biden family with criminal doings, even thought there is no
evidence backing up his charges (except what commentators on
Fox News says is evidence). On October 23, a story in the Wall
Street Journal refuted the charges against Biden. When accused
by Biden of trying to hide his involvement in foreign
countries by not releasing his tax forms, Trump reverted to
his four years old answer – I can’t because I’m under audit
and am being treated very unfairly by the IRS. He also made
the most ridiculous statement of the debate by saying, “I’m
the least racist person in the room,” ludicrous considering
that Kristen Welker, the debate moderator, is a Black woman.
Importantly, the president couldn’t provide ant details of
what he would do if re-elected.

How did he do?

At times during the debate the president spoke as if he was

using Morse code, referring to the “AOC plus 3,” and the
Hunter Biden laptop, that only devotees of conspiracy theories
on Fox news would understand. The president did much better
than during his first debate, but not much better, as a CNN
instant poll of viewers and a panel of undecided North
Carolina voters revealed. The panel of undecided voters, who
said that that their decision who to vote for is still up in
the air, voted Biden the winner with nine votes; two voted
that the debate was a draw. No one thought Trump won the
debate. The instant poll favored Biden 53 percent to 39
percent for Trump.

Biden:

Despite making one major error by saying that he favored
limiting new oil contracts (fracking), when he meant to say on
federal lands, and phasing out oil, (an error because the
statement will be taken out of context and used against the
former vice president in states like Pennsylvania, which is a
key battleground state, and other oil producing states), Biden
held his own by detailing how his health plan would reduce
costs and specified how his other initiatives would result in
the creation of news jobs.

How did he do?

Overall, he did just fine. Biden again not only deflected
personal attacks by Trump, but demonstrated that he can go
toe-to-toe with Trump. Biden was able to make his points and
did not get rattled by Trump’s claims of criminality.
Importantly, when Biden was making his points, he spoke
directly to the viewing audience by asking them, “How does
this personally affect you”? A very effective strategy.

Kristen Welker:

She had to demonstrate that she can control the candidates;
make sure that they didn’t talk around her questions; that the
questions were not lollypops and that she showed no

favoritism.

How did she do?

Ms. Welker did just fine and kept the debate moving much more
smoothly than Chris Wallace did in the first debate. Of course
the circumstances weren’t the same and that must be taken into
consideration. Wallace had no mute button, as Welker did. That
made both candidates more controllable. Ms. Welker also did
what neither Wallace, in the first debate, or Ms. Page, in the
vice presidential debate did – she asked follow-up questions
instead of just moving on.

The Winner:

While not winning the debate by as big a margin in their first
one, I thought Biden again was the winner by a large enough
margin to, maybe, even increases his lead over Trump, by a
point or so. Even though Trump was much better in this debate
I don’t think he did anything to change the trajectory of the
campaign. He needed a first round knockout and didn’t get it.
Trump’s behavior might have changed since the first debate,
but not his inability to give a vision if elected to a second
term or to tell the truth. However, the winners of debates are
not sworn in as president on inauguration day. With the
margins in pivotal swing stages still close the turnout on
November 3 can be decisive, but I’d be willing to bet a fin or
sawbuck on Biden.

The Vice Presidential Debate on
October 7
There’s an old political bromide, parroted by many cable news
pundits, that no one votes for the vice president. It was
altered this year when the pundits said because of the ages of
Trump and Biden it will matter. Given the fact that the
president is supposedly recovering from Covid-19, the pundits

say the debate for the veep position is more important than
ever. (I disagree about the Covid factor. The president has
assured us that it’s nothing to be afraid of and that he is
cured. And he always tells the truth. Right?) Actually, I
never agreed that when people vote for the president they
don’t take the vice-presidential candidate into consideration.
Would voters opposed to Roe v. Wade vote for a GOP
presidential candidate who chooses a pro-choice veep.I don’t
think so. Or would a very liberal Democrat vote for a
Democratic candidate whose views were extremely right of
center. I don’t think so. Also, many analysts think that John
McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for vice president backfired on
him. And in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dumped
his vice-president Henry Wallace for Harry Truman because
party leaders believed Wallace would hurt FDR’s re-election
effort because Wallace was too liberal.

This brings us to the vice-presidential debate between Vice
President Mike Pence, a darling of the right of center
evangelical GOP crowd, and Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, a
favorite of the liberal wing of the party. Pence went into the
debate with a huge problem: defending the record of President
Trump and his leading of the coronavirus task force. Harris
had to convince voters that she and Biden put the welfare of
Americans ahead of any political considerations, playing off
Biden’s Gettysburg address on October 6. According to Nielsen,
this debate was the second most watched TV vice-presidential
one ever, with an estimated 57.9 million viewers tuning in(Now
the top three most-watched vice-presidential debates have
featured female candidates.)

How did they do?

The debate actually began a day earlier than it was scheduled,
when on October 6, Pence’s communications director Katie
Miller told the Washington Examiner that if Harris “wants to
use a fortress around herself, have at it.” This was the first
blunder of the debate. All it did was bring attention to

laissez-faire attitude that many in the Trump camp have
expressed during the pandemic. Eventually, Pence also agreed
to have a plexiglass barrier. The biggest news of the day also
occurred before the debate began, when on Wednesday morning
Pence said that if Trump wasn’t feeling well the next
presidential debate, on October 15, should be postponed. (My
translation: The president is or was sicker than he or his
medical team lets on.) While both candidates were civil in
their demeanor, the debate had many Trumpian moments as Vice
President Pence continually refused to stop talking and
continued in his filibuster mode when moderator Susan Page of
USA Today said his time was up and had to ask him to play by
the agreed rules. Pence continually interrupted Harris and
told numerous lies, misrepresenting what Harris had just said
about taxes, health care, climate change and the economy. (It
was similar to what Trump does, denying what was said even
though it’s on tape.) Most ludicrous was his defense of the
Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Most alarming was that he refused to commit to a peaceful
transfer of power if Biden wins the election. Pence also
resorted to scare tactics like calling the Democratic agenda
radical. In what might have been a planned strategy, the
morning after the debate Trump said Harris is a communist.
Pence used what obviously was a planned line, saying to
Harris, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, you’re not
entitled to your own facts,” a phrase used by the former U.S.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) several decades ago,
ironic because Washington Post fact checkers have said
President Trump has lied more than 20,000 times. Throughout
the debate, Pence acted like a polite low key Trump. Harris
was skillful in being able to transition from the moderator’s
question to her talking points. Following Biden’s debate
tactic, she talked directly to people by asking them
questions. Like Pence’s “fact” comment, Harris also was
waiting for a chance to use a prepared retort and twice said,
“I will not sit here and be lectured by the Vice President,”
obviously targeted at women voters.

Page:

How did she do?

She had to demonstrate that she can control the candidates,
make sure that they didn’t talk around her questions; that
questions were not lollypops and that she showed no
favoritism. I gave her a passing grade on this portion of my
scorecard. It’s an impossible task to control political
debaters. But her final grade was a gentlewoman’s D. Here’s
why: She bungled the most important question of the night:
Would Pence commit to a peaceful transfer of power if Biden
wins. When the vice-president refused to commit to a peaceful
transfer, instead of following up with at least one question,
Page kept to her prepared script and asked a question by an
8th grade student. A disgraceful display of journalism.
(Giving Ms. Page a D for fumbling her question regarding the
most fundamental aspect of our democracy is generous on my
part. If I didn’t mark on a curve and include the TV pundits,
I would have given her an F.)

The Winner:
While neither of the candidates rivaled the debating skills of
Winston Churchill, (or Cicero, I’ve been told), in my opinion
the night belonged to Ms. Harris. Pence had to defend the
indefensible, beginning with the fact that more than 200,000
American had died from the coronavirus to the current economic
slowdown, which only GOP defenders deny.

Conclusions:
The big question that was not discussed by any of the
moderators was, “Did the candidate’s performances during the
debates matter to the voters.” The answer is maybe, maybe not,
because a Wall Street Journal survey of 1000 voters published
on September 20 revealed that more than 70% said the debates
won’t matter much, including 44% who said they will not matter

at all.

Did We Learn
Anything New
From     the
Debates?

Regarding the policy differences between the candidates, we
learned nothing that an interested voter didn’t already know.
However, many people who don’t follow politics on a daily
basis, and even those who do, learned that Vice President
Pence is the most nationally-elected dangerous politician in
America, even more so than President Trump. That’s because of
his nearly four-year-long act, everyone knows that Trump is
not to be believed or trusted. Pence, on the other hand, lies
as frequently as Trump, and smears his opponents with the same
gusto as the president. But he does it in a gentle,
understated, calming manner, free of bluster, with a smile on
his face. He is the con artist of politics. But instead of
money, the future of U.S. democracy is at stake. (I didn’t
come to that conclusion because of the debate. During the
impeachment hearings, I told my wife that if Pence becomes
president, because of the way he presents himself, he’s liable
to get far right wing policies enacted that will take years
for Democrats and moderates to undo.) Pence reminds me of why
I stopped ordering cake many years ago in a diner: Looks
delicious, tastes awful.)

My Opinion?
The debates matter more to the political pundits than to
voters. To use baseball terminology it’s “inside baseball,”
meaning that what is important to insiders has little
relevancy to the general public. And it shouldn’t. After four
years of any president, voters should have enough opinions to
make up their own minds. And just as important, what
candidates say during debates often has no relevancy to how
they will govern, similar to platforms of political parties,
except during a debate it’s spoken words, not written ones.

But A Caveat:
Occasionally, a debate can influence an election. Such was the
case in the first 1960 televised debate between Sen. John F.
Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon was seen on
the small screen perspiring and with a five o’clock shadow;
Kennedy young and dynamic. The comparison between the two
vaulted JFK from trailing Nixon to the presidency. During a
1976 presidential debate against Georgia Governor Jimmy
Carter, President Ford said, “There is no Soviet domination of
Eastern Europe.” When given an opportunity to clarify the
remark by moderator Max Frankel of the New York Times, Ford
refused, insisting that Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia are
free from Soviet interference. Ford’s comment haunted him
throughout the remainder of the campaign, with many analysts
saying it helped Carter win the presidency. And in a 1992 town
hall debate between President George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton,
and Ross Perot, Bush’s action of checking his watch during the
debate illustrated his frustration of having to explain his
actions and his distain for having to debate, unlike Clinton,
who, perhaps, is the best candidate since FDR to convince
voters that he cares for them by speaking directly to them.

Final Thought (from                 a   self-anointed
stable genius):
Other less intelligent pundits thought that Biden hurt himself
by getting into the trash basin with Trump during their first
debate. I disagree. Here’s why: In order to prove Trump wrong
about his months long smear, saying that Biden was on the edge
of senility and was unfit for the job, the only way Biden
could counter Trump’s lies was to demonstrate in front of a
national audience that he is still quick-witted and can throw
his own zingers back at the president. The debate gave Biden
that opportunity and he used it to his advantage.

                         About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a
                         former journalist, was a senior
                         VP/senior counselor at Burson-
                         Marsteller, and was responsible for
                         restructuring, managing and playing
                         key roles in some of the most
                         significant        national      and
                         international sports and non-sports
programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser
to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent
contributor to public relations publications, consults on
public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize
nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr
(at) juno.com and artsolomon4pr (at) optimum.net.