I'm Speaking

 

Everybody is expecting Donald Trump to win he big debate this evening. I think this is dangerous for Trump. Expectations for him ae too high. Harris will have to be really awful to be seen to have lost.

To begin with, this debate will naturally automatically be compared with the last one, against Biden. So if Harris can avoid actually drooling on stage, she will look good by comparison.

Harris has a reputation as a bad debater, because of her epic failure against Tulsi Gabbard in 2019. This low expectation is automatically to her advantage: success in these debates is usually about exceeding expectations. And the low expectations may be unwarranted. Harris did well enough in a VP debate against Mike Pence in 2020; there is no reason to think ger skills have declined since then. And she is a lawyer and experienced prosecutor: the skills needed for that are debating skills. 

Trump has a reputation for being deadly in debate. But he can’t use his best weapons against Harris: the sharp put-downs. Because Harris is a woman, and a minority woman at that, she gets special privilege. You can’t punch a woman hard, or you look like a bully. This is the reason I thought the Democrats should have gone with Tulsi Gabbard in 2020: Trump is weakest against a woman. Granted, he was able to debate Hillary Clinton effectively; but nobody really believes Hillary Clinton is a woman.

So I expect Harris to at least hold her own.

Trump’s hope must be that she chokes under the pressure. There are signs she has trouble handling pressure. But they can dope her up, can’t they?