Who Prepped the President?
The president needed from his prep team an understanding of the psychological aspects of running as an incumbent; and what “winning†really means—not scoring debating points but gaining votes.
By Thaddeus G. McCotter
October 2, 2020
As many others have noted, a president is prone to underperform in his first reelection debate. In recent memory, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama had lackluster first reelection debates, though both bounced back and earned a second term.
Can President Trump?
While many theories abound, a key reason for a president’s less-than-stellar first debate performance is usually his preparation team’s poor overall strategy—often overemphasis on technical policy and failure to anticipate the opponent’s moves. (Refer to the quadrennial stories of who on the prep team is playing the opponent, as if pretending to be someone else is a career plus. Oh, wait, we’re talking about the swamp . . .)
Unfortunately, all of these typical prep team failures were apparent in President Trump’s first debate performance.
As the president himself recently noted, the presidency is a momentous and consuming job, which leaves the incumbent little time to prepare for a debate. This is offset, however, by the reality the president is daily (and nightly) dealing with the salient issues which will be front and center in the debate. In this, and in the president’s unique ability as the incumbent to help shape these issues going into the debate, it is hard for the job itself not to serve as a president’s debate prep.
To bog a president down in technical details is cumbersome and counterproductive, because it risks the president appealing only to a handful of policy wonks, and muting or losing his overarching inspirational message for the American people.
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https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/02/who-prepped-the-president/
