Word: preps
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...that John McCain has committed to turning up, he and Barack Obama will take the stage tonight with their rhetoric and demeanor set to a specific temperature. "Do you want a hot debate or a cold debate?" asks Stuart Stevens, a Republican media consultant, author and screenwriter who helped prep George W. Bush for his encounters with Al Gore in 2000. "You have to decide...
Though it sounds secretive and glamorous, debate prep is magnificently unpleasant for everybody involved. The candidates have gripped and grinned their way through a savage jungle of fund raisers, powerful local idiots, soggy state-fair corn dogs and rabid, preening reporters just to get to the debates, a dangerous pinnacle where one slipup could cost the election. The campaign staffs are equally exhausted and by now more than a little frustrated with the candidate they have come to both love and hate. Put them all in a room together in what are often poorly planned prep sessions, and you have...
...Good debate prep is designed to build up, not tear down, the candidate's confidence. The first trick is to practice with a stand-in who has memorized the opposing candidate's likely answers. This is far easier than it sounds. One of the best-kept secrets of politics is that there are only about 20 "typical" questions. Odds are that one's esteemed opponent has publicly answered every imaginable policy question by the time the debate finally occurs. It is vital that your candidate not hear your opponent's answers for the first time onstage, since that will often...
...debate prep is given over to mastering another basic rule: never make the rookie's mistake of actually trying to answer the question you are asked. Candidates are told instead to quickly "pivot" into their central campaign message whenever possible...
...Finally, the savvy viewer should remember that any moment that looks too perfect to be true probably isn't. I once worked on a campaign in which we made a big show of opening our secret debate-prep session to reporters. The highlight was the part when the candidate dramatically rejected the lame, scripted debate answers we staffers had offered up, vowing instead to just tell it like...